The extensibility of WordPress is legendary. But buried deep beneath the surface is plugin API that is rarely used and lie mostly undiscovered. Get a primer on how these APIs might be used in plugins and take WordPress to even higher heights by Aaron Brazell, author of the book The WordPress Bible and owner of TechnoSailor.com.
In this holy edition of WordPress Weekly, I interviewed special guest Aaron Brazell of Technosailor.com to talk about his experience in the world of consulting, his work involving WordPress, and last but not least, his book called The WordPress Bible by Wiley Publishing. The WordPress Bible is a book for theme designers, plugin developers, core developers and WordPress users alike. It contains tutorials, references, screenshots and walk-thrus that will help you use the worlds most popular hosted blog platform to its best. This is definitely one of the go to references you want to have near your desk. I highly advise you to give this episode a listen as I think we covered quite a bit of ground.
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Earlier this morning, I pre ordered my copy (non-affiliate link) of the WordPress bible being written by Aaron Brazell also known as Technosailor. If anyone has been following Aaron on Twitter (@technosailor) you’ll know that he has been busy writing his hands off to finish the rest of the chapters in time for his deadline. Right now if you order the book, you get to save $17.00 or 34% of the regular price of $49.99. So in the end, you’ll pay $32.99 like I did. I have no idea when this special pre order price ends but I’ve already snapped up my copy. What about you?
Aaron Brazell who heads up Technosailor.com and who used to work for B5 Media announced on July 3rd that he has secured a book deal with Wiley Publishing to write a 700 page WordPress Bible. Aaron had been working on the deal since April but only recently received the go ahead to write the book.
Today, I approach The WordPress Bible with some fear and trepidation. Currently, the book is marked at around a cool 700 pages. And oh yes, it has to be done in October. Yikes!
What this effectively means is that for the next four months, I will be spending monumental amounts of time doing nothing but writing. I’m considering disappearing to the mountains once a month for 3-4 days just to write.
In conversation with Aaron regarding the book, when it is published it will have current information for WordPress 2.8 with editing for WordPress 2.9. The goal is to get the book done and when it is published to the public, it will be for whatever version is current at that time. Also, Aaron says that the book will contain the nuts and bolts of WordPress which generally stays the same from version to version meaning the book will be a valuable resource for some time to come.
WordPress For Dummies authored by Lisa Sabin-Wilson is also published by Wiley so I asked Aaron if The WordPress Bible will pick up where the Dummies book left off or if it’s for a different audience.
Different audience. Same publisher. The Dummies books are supposed to provide a 101 level overview of a topic, software product, etc. The Bible series is supposed to be exhaustive and for all levels of skill. The WordPress Bible, like others in the Bible series will be more in depth and provide tutorials for beginners and advance technical knowledge for advanced users. It will be a beneficial addition for any WordPress user whether a blogger, developer or themer and it should provide the info to just get started or to get into new areas of development.
I dunno about you but I hope I can snare a copy of The WordPress Bible, especially if I can get it with Aaron’s autograph! Will you be getting a copy once it’s released?
On a recent discussion thread within the WordPress Hackers Mailing list, Aaron Brazell of Technosailor.com suggested that the Media RSS or (mrss) plugin be integrated into the core of WordPress. Media RSS is built on top of the Media RSS Module framework developed by Yahoo!. Essentially the module supplements the < enclosure > element inside of RSS 2.0 feeds to allow for more robust media.
Aaron makes the case that it is one of the plugins he recommends most to his clients and others. With this plugin installed, if you published an image in your blog post, the Media RSS plugin would apply the proper enclosures/formatting so that the image would show up on the social networks you’re apart where you are utilizing your blogs RSS feed. Joost De Valk follows up the initial proposal by acknowledging that it’s also a standard install for 95% of his clients blogs.
I’m not sure about Media RSS. I mean, I sort of understand the basis behind it but I need a clearer explanation as to what it does. Doing a couple of Google searches looking for reviews on the plugin didn’t turn up much and as I tried to review the plugin myself, I didn’t know what to look for.
With that said, Andy Skelton chimed into the conversation and mentioned that Matt Mullenweg was interested in having this feature part of WordPress 2.8. Andy suggested that Aaron write a patch and that is what he is doing. Aaron doesn’t have core or commit access so if Matt doesn’t like the patch or the way it’s written it won’t make it in but based on all indications, the features provided by Media RSS seem poised to make it into the core of WordPress 2.8. If not this time, then next.
What are your thoughts on having the features provided by this plugin integrated into the core?
The extensibility of WordPress is legendary. But buried deep beneath the surface is plugin API that is rarely used and lie mostly undiscovered. Get a primer on how these APIs might be used in plugins and take WordPress to even higher heights by Aaron Brazell, author of the book The WordPress Bible and owner of TechnoSailor.com.
