Category Archives: PHP programming

My exploits in the land of PHP.

Eating an elephant

Posted on by

baby elephant in a bowlI have the coolest idea ever for a WordPress plugin. It serves a need that is currently somewhat served by only 2 other products. They’re established and well known in the industry, but neither actually integrates with WordPress, but rather you can insert some HTML and get an iFrame to the source site which then allows you to implement certain functions or features.

The problems with this that I see:

  • Difficult for non-tech people
  • Not brandable
  • Doesn’t look like your site
  • Your data is stored on their site
  • Requires another login to their site

Don’t get me wrong, these other 2 products are well respected and work, but on forums I often see people complaining about the appearance. One of the companies has done some really great variations on their widgets but even if they did 1000 of them, they may not fit the site you want to build. One native to WordPress either always will, or YOU the site owner will be able to make it match.

So, why is this an elephant? Because the project spans a wide range of features (I have 20 documents of features) it’s a massive project. The existing companies have built their products over a course of years, tweaking and fixing etc. I’m trying to at least catch up with them in a fairly short period of time. It’s like trying to eat an elephant. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

I’ve adapted a few strategies for this, including the above 20 documents, MindMaps, feature lists etc and I’m finding it overwhelming. But progress is being made. I’m learning a lot. I’ve taken/am taking the approach of building one feature/function at a time, depending on what’s required. I have my infrastructure defined, database wise, so that helps. Except I start researching something and discover something new. Like using custom post types, or 3 different ways to implement ajax, or how best to handle multiple user accounts and their custom data. So I have to re-think. Then WordPress brings out 3.0 and it’s got features I want to use, which would them make the plugin only available for 3.0+

One of the hardest things has been choosing a name for it. Once I get close to release, I’ll start shopping around for some smart people to get creative with a name. Which may mean changing my function names…

What I learned at WordCamp Fraser Valley

Posted on by

Yesterday, Nov 20, I spent the day in Surrey – a suburb of Vancouver with a bad reputation – attending WordCamp Fraser Valley for the 2nd time. This was there 3rd year doing this event, but I missed the first one it seems.

The event had about 40 people in attendance I think, and they ranged from youngish (20s) up to pretty mature (grey hair, no guessing on their ages) and ran the gamut of experience from “I want to get a blog” to folks who have been making a living with WordPress for a long time.

I met some great people and added most of them to Twitter. It was funny to see several people taking notes on paper amid a sea of laptops. Our host/facilitator/organizer was Gary, who has organized all 3 of the WordCamps so far. Gary did a great job, even coming up with a decent presentation on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) on the morning of WordCamp because one of the presenters had a family emergency.

I took nearly 7 pages of notes in OpenOffice (no paper for me) that I need to review. 4 of the presentations really taught me something.

  1. John Bollwitt‘s talk on how he implemented WordPress as an intranet solution for 4 local radio stations. John detailed how developing Floyd (their name for the intranet) really improved communication, community and documentation for the entire staff of 150+ people. Even the GM now has a personal, weekly blog he posts to. It became a way to share events and photos, as well as corporate documentation. He posted his presentation here: http://sixty4media.com/2010/11/20/using-wordpress-for-an-intranet/
  2. Danny Bradbury‘s talk on how to come up with ideas for blogging. It’s challenging, but as a professional journalist he needs to stay on top of current topics, track stories and sources and be ready with ideas. He presented a number of great sites he uses for research and tracking. His presentation is online here: http://prezi.com/evjtna9a9x6l/finding-your-bloggy-muse/
  3. Lynne Robson gave a great presentation on Child Themes for WordPress. Child themes were something I’d heard about, but never understood before. Now having seen Lynne’s presentation, I get why they’re so powerful. Short version – you can override styles and add functionality that aren’t in the parent theme. AND, if the parent theme is written properly, your functions can replace theirs, so you can improve on them. The upshot? If the owner updates the parent theme, you can safely upgrade without losing ANY of your customizations. Unless they change a style name.
  4. Leah Coss’s whirlwind and problem plagued session about Vlogging (video blogging) was amazing. The technical problems prevented us from seeing her PowerPoint, but she didn’t need it. At least for me, her points were clear and well made without the visuals. She did show us some good and bad examples on YouTube though. Yikes. I may yet start posting videos here.

Not to short change the other presenters, but these 4 really taught me something new. Tris Hussey, Kulpreet Singh and Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega all gave great talks, and inspired me in other ways, but I didn’t learn as much “new” information from them. Kulpreet’s talk has me wanting to look at eCommerce again. Something I both appreciate and hate him for doing. LOL.

Overall, it was a great day, full of interesting topics and interesting people. If you went, be sure to say hi. If you didn’t but are interested, be sure to check out other WordCamps, possibly in a city near you. I hope next year I don’t miss WordCamp Vancouver again.

Drafts Scheduler updated

Posted on by

Today I released version 1.3 of my WordPress plugin, Drafts Scheduler. I had initially numbered it 1.2 and added an Undo feature that was noted as missing by BlueFur in his review. Seemed like a good idea. I had noted that there was no undo feature in the notes and of course it caused people some issues.

So in v1.2, I added the ability to undo the most recent set of scheduled posts. If any of those posts were already published, the plugin doesn’t reset their status. It was simple. I’d started out making harder than it needed to be, but after ignoring it for a week, I found the solution.

In v1.3, I added 2 new features to Drafts Scheduler, both suggested by users who sent feedback.

  1. Check for the existence of drafts before showing the options.
  2. Schedule an exact number of posts per day in “Surprise Me” mode.

I also moved the menu option from the TOOLS area up into the POSTS area where it makes more sense.

Anyway, I hope these features work for everyone and I look forward to more feedback.

My new plugin – Drafts Scheduler

Posted on by

This started last year as a simple project. I needed a way to bulk-schedule a whole bunch of posts in WordPress over a period of time. WordPress doesn’t have an easy way to do this, so I started writing my own.

I got stuck, then busy and it got left behind. Well, the other day, I picked it up, dusted it off and decided to finish it.

It’s now available in the WordPress Extend repository – meaning it can be downloaded from WordPress.org or installed directly inside your WordPress install. You can download it here: http;//www.wordpress.org/extend/plugins/drafts-scheduler

It does just one thing – lets you scheduler ALL of your drafts in one go.

Options? Yeah, we got options.

  1. You can schedule the drafts sequentially or randomly at an arbitrary interval of your choosing (3h 9m for example) starting at a set date.
  2. You can schedule drafts ENTIRELY randomly. Sort of. You still pick the starting date, the maximum number of posts per day, and also the start and end times within the day to confine your posts. After that, all bets are off. So you could schedule your posts to post up to 5 times a day, and only between 9am and 5pm if you wanted. Or between 10pm and 11:47pm if that makes you happy.
  3. That’s it. There is no 3.

I’m anxious for feedback. This was a fairly simple plugin that I should have created FIRST before my other, more complicated projects, but didn’t. Anyway, enjoy and leave me your comments here or on my development site: http://www.installedforyou.com/wordpress/new-plugin-drafts-scheduler/393/

My WordPress Adventures

Posted on by
WordPress
Image via Wikipedia

For the non-techies out there, this website or blog runs on the WordPress platform. WordPress is a tool that makes blogging easier by simplifying a lot of the “tech” bits.

That said, I like my “tech” bits, so I dig a little deeper.

I run several (over 10) WordPress blogs, and even started looking at WordPress MU to build communities.

I also started developing plugins, or add-ons, to give it even more functionality. My first attempt was a good idea, poorly implemented, that I haven’t been back to revisit.

Recently, I’ve been working with a commercial or premium plugin with my friend Alex called Standout Comments and it’s nearly ready. We’ve designed it to be an all-in-one comment plugin with lots of great features for your average site owner, but also for Internet Marketers who want “everything”. It’s not perfect, but it’s “good enough” for a beta release.

Alex has lined up Vancouver blogger and big-man-on-campus, John Chow to help us (awesome) and given a couple of people a private beta copy. I’ve installed it on all of my main blogs (including this one) but am looking for more testers.

You can test Standout Comments in one of 2 ways.

  1. Leave comments here and/or tweet about posts using the Tweetback URL provided – this is the function I’ve tested least. Tweetbacks should be tracked and show up in comments automatically.
  2. Request a beta copy by leaving a comment below. I’ll take a look at your site and make a decision. Ideally you get a bunch of visitors and comments daily to put the plugin through it’s paces.

Beta testers will get free access to the software when it’s launched.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]