Angelo Mandato who produces the PluginsPodcast, a weekly show dedicated to WordPress plugins recently pushed out episode 24 which featured an interview with Mitcho, the developer of my favorite related posts plugin YARPP (Yet Another Related Posts Plugin). Not only is the interview informative, but during the second half of the show, we find out about another plugin Mitcho is developing called HookPress. HookPress is a plugin that enables WordPress to use Web Hooks. While I did watch the video presentation, I’m still trying to figure out myself how useful this is but considering the fact that these web hooks can be written in any language I believe is a killer feature for developers. If I’m wrong, feel free to correct me.
Webhooks goes beyond the HookPress plugin though as evidenced by the Webhooks blog, Anil Dash and his idea of the Push Button Web, and slides created by Jeff Lindsay explaining the concept. The following is a video presentation of HookPress.
If you’re a developer, please tell me more information about this concept and how it can be useful to you. Also, Mitcho is looking for feedback on his plugin so if you end up using it, be sure to contact him.
Over on the IntensdeDebate blog, they have announced the release of version 2.4.2 of their WordPress plugin. The new release fixes the problem where other plugins, widgets, or JavaScripts were preventing the plugin from loading. While the update has just a few minor fixes, they encourage everyone to upgrade as not only does it load the comments slightly faster, but corrects a URL which will improve Facebook Connect functionality. If you are currently using this plugin, you should have already seen the upgrade notification in the admin area of WordPress.
GravityForms which takes form generation to the next level in WordPress has finally been launched to the public. I’ve been playing around with the plugin since I joined the beta test program in late June. Since then, the RocketGenius team has worked extensively to improve the plugin for the masses. For those that don’t know, GravityForms is like a WYSIWYG editor for creating forms. For an expansive look as to what this plugin is capable of, I suggest taking some time to watch my screencast review which is about 11 minutes long.
Without a shadow of a doubt, I can fully recommend this plugin to anyone who is looking for an intuitive, easy way to create and manage forms on their WordPress powered site. The plugin is also licensed under the GPL which makes it that much better. If you’re looking for even more information regarding this plugin, I highly recommend listening to episode 4 of the Press This podcast where Joost De Valk interviews Carl Hancock, lead developer of the GravityForms plugin.
I’ve never signed up or participated in anyone’s affiliate program before, but GravityForms has become the first. So with that said, the following link is my affiliate code which will drop back 20% of your purchase to me. If you do purchase the plugin through me, thank you for your continued support of WPTavern.com. By the way, not sure how much longer this coupon code will remain active but if you use GFORMS20 it will take off 20% of your order.
So I finally got around to doing a preview video of GravityForms, the much talked about form generation plugin aimed for release sometime this month. However, I learned that there is so much to this plugin that it doesn’t lend itself very well to the screencasting format. While my screencast is about 11-12 minutes long, it doesn’t even cover everything this plugin can do. While producing the screencast, I learned a thing or two about Camtasia such as adding transitions and how to edit the audio. I’m getting better but these things get tougher the longer they are. Also, I have no idea why but the video on Viddler for some reason can not be seeked. When you fast forward or rewind, it resets back to the beginning which is very annoying. I tried two different production methods in Camtasia but both produced the same results on Viddler. That is why I recommend you to download the source file which is in .MP4 format and view it in QuickTime or your favorite MP4 player.
*NOTE*
The video can now be seeked either through fast forward or rewinding without being reset to the beginning.
I really need to start doing more of these if I’m ever going to improve. This screencast features a review of the Advanced Exporter plugin for WordPress and WPMU by Ron Rennick. This plugin adds the type of functionality I’ve been expecting out of the WordPress exporter ever since I learned about the process. With it, you can easily export a single category of a blog to import into another. That is something many people have wanted an easy way to do for a long time. You can also use the restrictions to create multiple WXR files in case you can’t import a single large file. Also worthy of note as that this plugin was entered into the WeblogToolsCollection plugin competition for 2009. I know this thing is going to be a big hit whether Ron wins or not, I’ll make sure it does. Thanks for creating it Ron.
I recommend watching this video in FullScreen mode in order to make out the text and such. One of these days, I’ll figure out the magic presets for Viddler publishing.
The poll this week deals with bbPress because that’s what this weeks episode of WordPress Weekly will be about (hopefully). I’m wondering whether or not you think bbPress will someday change from being dedicated software, to a feature packed WordPress plugin. I can see the day when the architecture of bbPress reaches the point that most of it’s functionality can be placed into a plugin which is administered through the WordPress backend. Perhaps such an extended integration would be able to replace the commenting system in WordPress with one powered by bbPress which I think would be pretty cool. Of course, I say this without knowing anything about the underlying infrastructure of the bbPress software. What do you think?
Do You Think bbPress Will Evolve Into A WordPress Plugin?
This post is part of an ongoing series called Ask Jeff. This is where I’ll take a question someone within the WPTavern or WordPress community gives me and provide my thoughts/answer to. The question is:
Longtime listener of your podcast here. I noticed the “Submit a Post” feature now on WP-Tavern, and I was wondering: Is this a plugin? Anything I could use on my own site?
Answer:
You can read all about the post submission feature on WPTavern here but as it stands, the plugin I use was custom built by Michael Torbert who is the author of the All In One SEO Pack. The plugin contains functions and code that is specific to this site so releasing it to the general public would not be a good idea. However, you are one of many looking for a plugin that accomplishes what this one does so I imagine that if there is enough demand, Michael might recode the one on this site so that it can be redistributed or he’ll place a new version on the plugin repository. Until then, the only thing I can suggest is taking a look at the TDO Mini Forms plugin which enables you to create forms.
Submit Your Question:
If you have a question regarding any aspect of WordPress you would like me to answer or at least, hear my take on, you can either contact me using the following contact form with your question or you can follow WPTavern on Twitter and send me an @reply with your question. If the WPTavern account is following you, simply send me a Direct Message with your question.
Since the launch of the Tavern, one of the ideas I had in mind for this place was to build up an audience but also, to share the stage with whomever wanted to share it with me. So far, I’ve accepted guest posts from a couple of individuals and I am grateful for those who have submitted any posts considering they are some of the most popular pieces of content on this site. While emailing the HTML is fine for getting your post to me, a better solution would be to provide access to my write panel without actually getting access to it.
Thanks to Michael Torbert who is the author of the All In One SEO Pack plugin, I now have a guest post submission form that when a post is accepted, shows up in my write panel as a draft. I also receive an email notification that contains certain fields from the form so I can tell via email if it’s a legitimate, or fake attempt. This post submission form was custom made for WPTavern but there is a small chance that Michael may make this a public plugin.
As it stands, the submission box is using something similar to the visual editor you would find in the WordPress write panel. At some point in the future, I believe we will try to replace this editor with something similar to the one found in the Comment Quicktags plugin. I know most of you are not keen on using the visual editor but if you so desire, just use your own write panel to write the post and when you’re finished, copy and paste it into my submission editor, check the right category and send it off. Unfortunately, you can’t upload images using this editor. For now, just send your images to me via email and make sure to place a bit of text within your post that matches with the image name so I know where to put it. Also, I’ll be adding the custom Guest Post Author box which I use on every guest post to place more emphasis on the author.
Right now, I’d love it if anyone with knowledge of WPMU, bbPress, or BuddyPress would step up to the plate and share a bit of their knowledge with the Tavern audience. Unlike most other WordPress centric sites which sometimes have a focused usergroup, the audience around the tavern is made up of theme authors, plugin authors and typical end users giving you a variety of options to explain a topic.
If you encounter any bugs or mishaps with the submission form, contact me via email or through the forum and we’ll get them sorted out.
Angelo Mandato who produces the PluginsPodcast, a weekly show dedicated to WordPress plugins recently pushed out episode 24 which featured an interview with Mitcho, the developer of my favorite related posts plugin YARPP (Yet Another Related Posts Plugin). Not only is the interview informative, but during the second half of the show, we find out about another plugin Mitcho is developing called HookPress. HookPress is a plugin that enables WordPress to use Web Hooks. While I did watch the video presentation, I’m still trying to figure out myself how useful this is but considering the fact that these web hooks can be written in any language I believe is a killer feature for developers. If I’m wrong, feel free to correct me. 
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IntenseDebate Plugin Version 2.4.2 Released
By Jeffro on August 27, 2009
Posted in Plugins | Tagged comments, intensedebate, plugin, service