Addicott web which is a web design company has published a list of six must have plugins for WordPress. Among the list is Easy Contact, Thank Me Later and WP-UnitPNGFix. Do you use any of the plugins they suggested?
Addicott Web Suggests 6 More Plugins
WordPress Plugin Readme Generator
I saw this pass by on the WP Hackers Mailing list without much fanfare but I think it will help at least a few of you plugin developers out there. Sudar Muthu has created an online WordPress plugin readme file generator. The generator provides all of the necessary fields you need to fill out in order to have a properly put together readme file which is needed in order for the plugin to be accepted into the plugin repository.
Thanks to Sudar for creating and sharing this resource. Definitely one for the resources section of your bookmarks.
Know of any other Plugin readme generators? Let me know in the comments.
Vladimir’s Plugin Developer Tips
Vladimir Prelovac who has been seen all over this site recently has published a pretty cool guide of 10 tips for WordPress plugin developers on Mashable.com The tips range from how to get an idea for a plugin to, using the WordPress plugin directory. Vladimir wrote an entire book dedicated to developing WordPress plugins so I take it, he knows what he’s talking about.
WPWeekly Episode 47 – Interview With Vladimir Prelovac
While I really wanted to dive into plugin development with Vladimir Prelovac and talk about his WordPress plugin development book on the show, his Skype connection simply wouldn’t have anything to do with the show. Because the audio quality was so bad, I have edited the show to remove most of the interview so you won’t have to put up with the anger inducing Skype anomalies presented all throughout the first halfhour. So instead of an audio interview, I will most likely send Vladimir a list of questions via email and do things the old fashioned way. Also, David and I certainly had enough WordPress news to talk about which is what we did for the remainder of the show.
Ad Copy:
This episode of WordPress Weekly is sponsored by, WebDevStudios.com. WebDevStudios is a website development company specializing in WordPress support and development services. Contact them today for help with your WordPress powered website.
Stories Discussed:
phpBB Bridge Beta Testers Needed
Google Summer Of Code Projects
Interview With Andrew Ozz
Is WordPress 2.7.1 Really Being Hacked?
WordPress Tavern Listener Poll:
Each week from now on, I’ll be featuring a new listener poll question on WPTavern.com The poll is located in the sidebar on the right hand side of the site.
Last weeks poll question was: Do You Like The Direction WordPress Is Heading?
Out of a total of 31 votes, 23 of you said yes, 6 of you said you have no idea where it’s going and 2 of you voted no.
This Weeks Poll Question Is: Will you be purchasing a copy of WordPress Plugin Development: A Beginners Guide
Plugin Picks Of The Week:
Jeff – Insights -The insights plugin by Vladimir Prelovac enables you to quickly search for blog posts, edit them or insert links to them into the current post, insert flickr images, insert youtube videos, search and link to wikipedia, search google, search news, google blog search, and insert a google map all from within the comforts of your write panel.
David – SEO Smart Links – By Vladimir Prevolac allows you to instantly have links appear for pages, posts, and more without hard coding those links in place. It has made my life easy on more than a few projects, allowing users to quickly dive deeper into my blog.
WordPress Trivia Question:
No Trivia question this week but next week and the week after, I’ll have one WordCamp Chicago ticket to give away as a prize for being the first to answer the trivia question in the chatroom.
Announcements:
Interviewing Joost De Valk at 3PM EST on March 28th, 2009.
WPWeekly Meta:
Next Episode: Saturday March 28th, 2009 3P.M. EST
Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe
Length Of Episode: 53 Minutes
Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode47.mp3
Listen To Episode #47:
phpBB Bridge Beta Testers Needed
Community member Brad Williams has put the call out via the Tavern Forum that he looking for beta testers for his brand new WordPress plugin which is a phpBB bridge. The plugin will do as follows:
Once activated/configured the plugin will bridge together WordPress accounts with phpBB accounts. This allows your users to register on your WordPress site and automatically be registered/logged into the phpBB forum. If you have existing phpBB members, they can link their two accounts by logging into phpBB from within WordPress once.
The plugin has been tested to work on WordPress 2.7.x and phpBB 3.0.x.
I remember when I published WordPress Weekly episode 36 where I interviewed Douglas Bell regarding phpBB and discussed the differences between the software and how important it would be to have a bridge between the two projects. The comments lit up with interest regarding a working bridge between the two systems. It looks like Brad is well on his way accomplishing this feat.
Widget Context Updated
Kaspar’s has announced that he has released a new version of his cool Widget Context plugin which fixes the problem of widget settings not being saved the first time around. The plugin also has added a new feature which enables you to show or hide a widget if the blog post has more or less than a certain number of words. Kaspar’s has this to say regarding the new feature:
Please note the new feature that checks for a word count in a post works perfectly only on single post view (when the full article is displayed) and makes only an estimate when paginated archive or index page is being viewed. The reason for this is that your theme can alter the ‘typical’ number of words that archive pages should display, which is everything above the (more…)
Interesting Question Posed By Andrew
Andrew Rickmann over on his WP Fun WordPress centric site divvied up an interesting question today and that is, what would it take for you to use a plugin that replaced a core feature of WordPress?
My answer to this question is yes. An example I can think of off the top of my head is the new Widget Management system that is taking shape in WordPress 2.8. If this new management system provides a way for me to assign widgets to specific points on my WordPress powered site but the implementation contains a terrible user interface or works in such a way that I don’t agree with, I’m more than likely to stick with Kaspar’s Widget Context plugin.
Another example I can think of is my thoughts on how WordPress works with Post Revisions. No need to dig back into the archives to replay my thoughts on the Post Revision system in WordPress but I love the fact that I can use a plugin which reworks the default functionality into something I agree with.
So while Andrew’s initial thought is that many people would not use something because it contradicts the core, at least a few of us out there is willing to go against the grain.
Custom Widgets 2.0 Released
Tom Slayer who is the author of the Custom Widgets plugin that I wrote a review about on Performancing.com back in November 2008, sent me a note that he has released version 2.0 of the plugin. One of the things that worried me about the plugin is its interface for how you configured widgets. Thankfully, Tom has redesigned the interface from the ground up so it’s more intuitive.
On top of the new interface design, two new features found their way into version 2.0. Widget name display and more organized management.
Sleeker Custom Widget Interface
So how does Custom Widgets weigh in against Kaspar’s Widget Context plugin? Well, I’ll have to use Custom Widgets to let you know but I moved away from Custom Widgets at first because of their complicated interface. Since that has changed, I may find myself switching back to custom widgets. While I enjoy using Widget Context on this blog and enjoy Kaspar’s work, the plugin does have some weird configuration quirks in that, the configuration settings I give a widget never seem to take affect after the first try. You have to save the configuration twice. I also know that Kaspar’s is a busy bee and doesn’t have much free development time to devote to the plugin so at this point, it looks like Custom Widgets is more actively developed than Widget Context.
What I think will be interesting is seeing if any one of these two Widget management systems find there way into the core of WordPress 2.8 in some form or fashion. Or, if we’ll see something completely different.
New WordPress Book For Plugin Development
Vladimir Prelovac who I consider to be a WordPress Rockstar in his own right has is very own book called WordPress Plug-In Development. Beginner’s guide. Vladimir is not only a plugin developer but also a good theme developer as well if you take Blue Grace or Amazing Grace as examples.
Approach
This is a Packt Beginners Guide, which means it focuses on practical examples and has a fast-paced but friendly approach, with the opportunity to learn by experiment and play. Each chapter builds a practical plug-in from the ground up using step-by-step instructions. Individual sections show you how to code some functionality into your plug-in and follow up with a discussion of concepts.
Who this book is written for
This book is for programmers working with WordPress, who want to develop custom plug-ins and to hack the code base. You need to be familiar with the basics of WordPress and PHP programming and believe that code is poetry; this book will handle the rest.
Vladimir has worked on the book for the past year where version 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7 were released respectively. The book goes into detail regarding the underpinnings of the software, plugin security, development, hooks, and much more. It’s currently available in either Paperback form or online via PDF.
I’ve asked Vladimir if he would like to appear on a future episode of WordPress Weekly and he has agreed to do so despite the recording time being 2 AM at his location. What a trooper! As it stands, I have him scheduled to appear on WordPress Weekly on Friday, March 27th. We’ll be talking about his book, plugins, themes, and all sorts of WordPress Goodness.
If you’re new to development such as myself, I recommend giving WordPress For Dummies a read before this book. That way, you’ll gain knowledge of certain terminology used in development such as hooks, filters, actions, etc.
IntenseDebate Is Getting Plugged In
By Jeffro on March 6, 2009
IntenseDebate, the third party commenting service which Automattic acquired back on September 23rd, 2008 has announced that they will have their own plugin repository.
IntenseDebate has had some harsh criticism as of late for seemingly not obeying the wishes of quite a few users who have requested that IntenseDebate implement FaceBook Connect. At one point, ID told users that FaceBook Connect was not on the development list for implementation but rather, innovations were in the works and would be released soon. Little did we know that these innovations are the plugin API.
So far, IntenseDebate has four plugins to choose from. PollDaddy for creating polls, Seesmic for creating video based comments, YouTube integration and Smileys. Here is a bit more information regarding the plugins.
So now it looks like we won’t need to rely so much on the core developers of the service to add new features in. It will be interesting to see how far this plugin repository gets off the ground but I think its a great step in the right direction.
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