WP-Snippets has gone through a few changes as of late. Among them is a responsive design, a button to mark snippets as favorites, better ways of filtering snippets, and a few other enhancements. WP-Snippets is one of those really cool ideas that I talked about during the early days of WordPress Weekly and I’m stoked to see someone out there actually turn the idea into a reality.
Collection Of WordPress Constants
Developers are going to want to add this page to their list of resources. Dominik Schilling has written a guest post for WPEngineer.com that covers a wide range of constants that can be used with WordPress. I’ve used and seen many of those constants defined within the WP Config file. It’s pretty cool to see such a wide range of constants available to change the behaviour of WordPress all in one place. ∞
Checklist Of Things To Do Before Switching Themes
Great checklist created by WPBeginner of things to do before switching to a different theme. Out of everything they presented, number three hit home for me. After using a new theme for a few months, I decided to look at my Google Analytics and discovered that no stats were being saved from the date I switched my theme to the present. I obviously forgot to add the tracking code to the new theme. OOPS. ∞
Interview With Oliver – Creator Of WPSeek.com
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.
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.
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!
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/
100 Things To Know About WordPress
100 Things You Need to Know About WordPress. JTPratt and Anthony Montalbano combine to provide 100 things all users need to know about WordPress. The list is broken down into 10 parts ranging from web hosting to WordPress resources. A good read for anyone relatively new to using the software. ∞
Using Chrome And WordPress To Publish Saved Bookmarks
Here is a cool little extension for Google Chrome that uses the WordPress API to publish saved bookmarks as posts instead of using the Del.icio.us service. It requires WordPress 3.0 and only takes about a minute to setup. Another nice touch is that it uses the Link post format if your theme supports it. ∞
WPCo.de New Site Dedicated To WordPress
WP Code | Just another WordPress site. New site dedicated to WordPress launched by Andrew. He says the site will bring you news and tutorials as he learns the ins and outs of the software. Have to say, I’m a fan of the domain name. Consider adding WPCo.de to your feed reader. ∞
WPCandy Is Back In Business
Ryan Imel, the same guy who brought you CommentBits.com has announced that he is the new owner of WPCandy.com. WPCandy used to be a definitive resource amongst the WordPress community long before the Tavern was around. In fact, I was a big fan of the website so it’s good to see it brought back from the grave. As part of the announcement, WPCandy now sports a new design with a number of cosmetic updates. Over all, the site has been able to retain its clean and polished look.
While WordPress is a strong niche within the technology industry, we believe it isn’t being done proper service by technology journalism. If you’ve ever been frustrated by a major tech blog misspelling Automattic or mixing up WordPress.com with WordPress.org (or not recognizing the difference at all) then you know what we’re talking about.
But this site isn’t just about blogging, or even blogging well. We have big plans. Fun plans. Big, fun plans.
Vision is far from everything — very far — but it’s also inspiring. And with this vision, I’m inspired
Ryan then goes on to discuss the impact being part of the GooRoo network has for the site. GooRoo is a new business Ryan started near the end of 2009. In essence, GooRoo is slated to become a great content network. Stay tuned to WPCandy.com to see updates on the version four launch, giveaways and what’s going on in the future for the site. Congrats and welcome back WPCandy.
New WordPress Resource – Patches Welcome
Peter Westwood, one of the core developers for WordPress announced on his personal blog that he has created a new resource specifically for those looking for information on how to contribute to WordPress. The new site is called Patches Welcome and will provide tutorials, a question and answer list, contributor interviews and more. The idea struck Peter as he was coming home from WordCamp UK. So far, the site features an introduction and a story of Peter’s first patch to WordPress.
While I think the idea for a site like this is great, a part of me feels that this is yet another island that’s been created within the WordPress development community that people will need to be pointed to. However, I’m not sure on where such a site and associated content would fit in. If the redesigned WordPress.org site has an area dedicated to resources such as a directory or some sort of map, it’s going to be pretty extensive with all the little islands extending from the project. I wonder though, perhaps it’s me who needs to organize all of the resources and not them?
WPDocs – Pretty WordPress Documentation
WPDocs was passed along on the hackers mailing list this morning. It was created by the folks over at The Dextrous Web which is a web development company that focuses on building websites for the public sector. The WordPress API along with files are located in a sidebar on the left with the explanation provided on the right. So far, the feedback from other developers has been great. Among some of the enhancements in the works is for the pages to be indexed by Google, linking to the WordPress trac’s code browser, and listing the uses of a function. You can never have enough resources like this so be sure to add it to your bookmarks.