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Your Daily Fix Of WordPress Functions

Your Daily Fix Of WordPress Functions

By Jeffro on March 8, 2012

How would you like to experience WordPress functions within your inbox on a daily basis? If so, consider signing up to the WordPress Daily Documentation site. Each day features a different function within WordPress sent to your inbox which contains examples, an explanation of what the function does, parameters, and the usual information you would find via other sources. Since signing up, I’ve received emails covering add_shortcode() and get_the_ID().

Daily WordPress functions

There are all sorts of ways to view information related to specific WordPress functions but this method may be especially useful to those who are starting to learn what functions are and which ones WordPress contains. But if you don’t feel like putting your email address on yet another subscription list, there is always the Codex.

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Avoid Hardcoding Your Copyright Information

Avoid Hardcoding Your Copyright Information

By Jeffro on December 30, 2011

How many of you still update your themes footer every year to change the copyright date? Thanks to a small snippet of code, you can add this to your footer.php file which will negate the need to manually change the copyright information every year. The code snippet is php the_time(‘Y’) An excellent primer for how to use this snippet within the footer.php file is explained via Lorelle VanFossen.

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Interview With Oliver – Creator Of WPSeek.com

Interview With Oliver – Creator Of WPSeek.com

By Jeffro on September 12, 2011

What was your inspiration for creating WPSeek?
The first idea of wpseek wasn’t actually to create a public search engine for WordPress developers. When I finished creating a little Firefox add-on called “WordPress Helper” [1] some years back, I was using wpseek as a kind of search result page for requests made with the “WordPress Helper” add-on. The idea was that users can highlight functions, template tags or whatever on any page they browse and a mouse click would bring them to a wpseek result page with all of the information that was related to the search term. Having dynamic result pages for various WordPress-related search queries was basically the birth of wpseek as it is now.

WPseek.com Frontpage

How many times have you found yourself using the site for reference?
Well, I find myself using it quite often along with the official Codex and core files while writing plugins. For easy use, I added wpseek to Firefox’ search engines on the upper right so I can look up any function without getting too distracted from writing the actual plugin. Personally I find it pretty handy, and so I hope it is for the majority of users. I think the most useful information for me is the compatibility info (when has a function been introduced and deprecated in WP core). That saved me quite some time I guess. Oh well, where’s the non-narcissistic smilie?

Behind the scenes, can you tell us a little bit about how the site works?
Basically it is a search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing. The only difference is that you cannot search porn. And it’s a bit more specific and niche business. Apart from that the usage is like with any other search engine: enter a search term (a function, template tag or hook) and the site gives you all the information it has that is related to your search term. This includes general information about the function, code snippets, version info, external links to the Codex, user discussions on the wp.org forums and user notes posted on wpseek.com. There are 8 crawlers doing their job for the site, running periodically from hourly to monthly. Some of them are collecting WP code data from local copies and repositories, others are posting on Twitter occasionally notifying my followers of new WP releases or new functions added to the wpseek database. Recently I wrote a blog post about some of the (publicly visible) bots running on wpseek for those who are interested: http://wpseek.com/blog/2011/twitter-and-the-wpseek-bot/105/

In terms of updating the site with functions, is it automatic or do you have to add everything regarding the function to the site yourself?
Everyone knows that coders (like I am) are lazy folks so everything wpseek does is automated. Means that the foundation of wpseek is – as stated above already – several crawlers and tasks that run periodically in order to catch information related to WordPress code. wpseek currently holds a database of about WP 5,000 functions and 1,500 hooks. It would be impossible for me to keep this data up-to-date on an hourly basis. I do review all the stuff, though. Just to keep track of bugs and inaccurate data.

Search Result Page For A Function On WPSeek

I noticed that WPSeek has an API. What can interested parties do with your API?
The API allows everyone to get all the data that’s stored on the wpseek databases and that can be found on the result pages. Which means function info, code snippets, similar functions etc. The goal was to be able to make wpseek available for any platform. You could set up an iPhone/iPad code lookup app or a web app to lookup function version compatibility including auto-complete. You could actually fork wpseek.com and make your own. Luckily seekwp.com is already taken. For anyone who’s interested, you can find the API (along with a jQuery plugin) here: http://wpseek.com/api/ Feel free to play and do whatever you like with it!

Codex Links In WPSeek Search Results

Do you think WPSeek.com is a better reference to use for help rather than the Codex or do they work hand in hand with each other?
wpseek.com is definitely just one of the MANY WordPress resources out there! And I’m not just saying this because I don’t have another non-narcissistic smilie at hand. The great advantage of the official Codex is that it’s community-driven. wpseek is basically a one-man-show. I usually search the Codex for usage examples. They have a lot in there. More than that, the Codex is like a huge manual for WordPress users while wpseek is just a code search engine. So, yeah, they go hand in hand with each other, just like all WordPress resources out there. I wouldn’t mind a catchall-codex.wordpressp.org-to-wpseek.com redirect, though.

Any last thoughts you wanted to share?
Two things:
1. Good to see you back posting on WPTavern, Jeff!
2. Thanks Andreas Petermann for the regex-o-rama!

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/wordpress-helper/

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WordPress Is More Functional Over Time

WordPress Is More Functional Over Time

By Jeffro on August 16, 2010

Ozh of PlanetOzh.com has a great post filled with tidbits of information he has gathered from mining 54 different WordPress releases ranging from 0.7.1 to 3.0.1. Not surprisingly, WordPress continues to have more functions added to it as time moves along. As of 3.0.1, WordPress has 3,240 PHP functions defined. Based on the graph published by Ozh, it looks like 2.7.1 to 2.8 had one of the largest increases of defined functions.

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WPSeek – An Awesome Research Tool

WPSeek – An Awesome Research Tool

By Jeffro on April 10, 2009

wpseeklogo Ever wish you could search for WordPress functions, template tags, function sources, user notes, etc all from one place? That is exactly what WPSeek.com allows you to do as it acts as a very slick WordPress centric search engine.

WPSeek was originally used to be a gateway page for the WordPress Helper FireFox extension but the site has expanded into something much more. For example, take a look at what this search engine offers:

  • Results page
  • Neat Auto-suggest that maps its content from anywhere within the function name
  • Related Codex Documentation
  • Code Snippets
  • Top Google Search Results
  • User discussions
  • User Notes
  • AJAXified results page; no need to reload page on any operation

One of the cool things you should notice right away is the Auto suggest feature. Helpful for those who only remember the first or second bit of a function. For this review, I used wp_list_pages.

searchresults

The search results produce a link to the official page on the Codex related to the function, Code Snippets, top Google search results, and WordPress.org forum posts discussing the function and user notes. The Codex Documentation when searched provides a way to see related documentation for that function. The list of recent forum topics also provides a link to create a forum thread within the correct location on the forum to talk about the function. Last but not least, User Notes function like a commenting system on a blog. So far, I haven’t seen any spam so it looks like moderation has been keeping up.

All in all, WPSeek reeks of pure awesome. It provides most of what you need in a very tidy, neatly designed page without having to see all of that OTHER stuff that is typically on a CODEX page. Taking a peek at the coming soon link located at the top of the page, localization, RSS feeds for results page and the addition of conditional tags in search and auto-suggest are on the horizon for the search engine.

addwpseek

If you would like to access WPSeek.com without actually browsing the website, add the search engine to your browser. If you’re using FireFox, look for the search bar located somewhere above your Address bar. Click on the drop down arrow and select ADD WPSeek.com.

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Lookup Functions In A Flash

Lookup Functions In A Flash

By Jeffro on March 10, 2009

A new site making the rounds throughout the WordPress community called WPLookup.com makes finding information for specific WordPress functions a breeze. Simply type in the function you’re looking for into the search box which contains a huge font size for some reason and click the look it up button.
I tested the search engine using the wp_list_pages function and it took me right to the Codex page outlining all of the information I needed.

wplookup

For now, this is a quick and easy way to navigate through the Codex as it relates to WordPress functions. Even if the search functionality is improved on the Codex itself, because WPLookup supports OpenSearch, you can add the search engine directly to your browser meaning I’ll probably be using WPLookup versus the Codex for some time to come.

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