plugin

Improving Will Norris’ Open Graph Plugin

Will Norris put together a nice WordPress plugin to place Open Graph metadata on the page. Today I patched it to address a few bugs I and others have found.

The patch switches functions that depended on globalizing $post to use $wp_query->queried_object and similar.

opengraph_default_url() is changed to try get_permalink() only when is_singlular() is true. Otherwise it uses the blog’s base URL. This isn’t perfect, but it’s better than having the front page and all tag/category/archive pages report their og:url as being the permalink for the first post on the page.

As suggested here, I changed the opengraph_default_description() to use the post’s excerpt if is_singular() and the post includes an excerpt.

I changed opengraph_default_image() to test if the theme supports post thumbnails before calling has_post_thumbnail() to avoid the Fatal error: Call to undefined function has_post_thumbnail() errors.

I submitted it as a bug report in the plugins Trac, but I don’t check there for tickets on my own plugins, so you might apply the patch yourself.

What is David McNicol’s URL Cache Plugin?

The description to David McNicol’s URL Cache Plugin raises more questions than it answers:

Given a URL, the url_cache() function will attempt to download the file it represents and return a URL pointing to this locally cached version.

Where did he plan to use it? Does he envision the cache as an archive, or for performance? Why hasn’t it been updated since 2005?

It caught my interest because I’ve long been interested in a solution to link rot in my blog. A real “perma-permalink” would be very useful.

Too Bad The Hanzo Archives WordPress Plugin Is Caput

The Hanzo Archives WordPress plugin is something I’d be very excited to use. Ironically, it’s disappeared from the web (though the blog post hasn’t):

We’ve released a WordPress Plugin which automatically archives anything you link to in your blog posts; it also adds a ‘perma-permalink’ for the archived version adjacent to each original link.

An Amazon Web Services case study put me on to Hanzo a while ago, and in May 2008 I actually spoke with Mark Middleton (the markm who posted the entry above). Mark revealed that community take-up on the plugin and other general purpose web archiving services was below expectations. The company has since refocused on legal matters (even their blog tag-line has changed to “web archiving for compliance and e-discovery”).

I wonder if, now that the number of people and companies that have been blogging for years has grown, there might be more of a market for such a service.

WordPress Action Ticketing API

This plugin is the next step after my proposal for a common invite API. Here’s how I described it when requesting hosting at the plugin directory: A common framework for registering tickets that will be acted upon later. Use it to manage challenge/response interactions to confirm email addresses, phone numbers, IM screen names, Twitter accounts, […] » about 500 words

Play FLV in QuickTime Player Using Perian

Perian: “The swiss-army knife of QuickTime components”

  • File formats: AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW
  • Video types: MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture

The LGPLlicensed QuickTime plugin installs easily on Mac OS X 10.5 and does what it promises. FLV videos (such as those you’d sneakily download from YouTube) open just like any other QuickTime vid, and you can easily export them to other types.

WordPress Event Calendaring Plugins

I actually use Event Calendar, which has been abandoned for some time. Looking at the alternatives listed in the Plugin Directory, Calendar, Events Calendar, and Gigs Calendar add full calendar management features to WordPress. While ICS Calendar, iCal Events, and Upcoming Events, simply offer the ability to display calendar data from elsewhere.

What I liked about the old Event Calendar plugin is how events were posts. Creating an event started with creating a new post. Searching and browsing events was the same as for posts. I haven’t yet tried any of the alternatives, but if none of them treat events as posts, I may find myself re-working the old plugin for better compatibility with current WordPress.

Do WordPress Pages Better With bSuite

WordPress‘ Pages feature makes the popular blogging platform a sophisticated CMS. bSuite adds a few features to make it even better. Write excerpts, tag, and categorize your pages WordPress excerpts are an underused but powerful feature that allow you to explain to your readers why they should read the page you wrote. Tagging and categorization […] » about 300 words

WordPress CAS Integration Plugin

CAS — Central Authentication Service — has no logo, but it’s still cool. Heterogeneous environments like mine offer hundreds of different online services or applications that each need to authenticate the user. Instead of throwing our passwords around like confetti, CAS allows those applications to identify their users based on session information managed by the […] » about 300 words

bSuite 4 beta 2

I announced the bSuite 4 public beta not long ago, now I’ve just posted a new version to SVN that addresses some of the bugs and fleshes out some of the features. I have yet to update the bSuite page, but here’s a preview of what’s new or changed:

  • Additional stats reports
  • WP2.5-style tag input tools on the Page edit screen*
  • WP2.5-style category selector on the Page edit screen*
  • WP2.5-style excerpt input on the Page edit screen*
  • For multi-author sites: ability to grant edit permissions by role for each page (with a configurable default)
  • An “include” shortcode that makes it easy to show content from one post or page on another.

About the new shortcode, use it like this:

[inclu``de post_id=“1234” url=“a url to a post or page in your blog” field=“post_excerpt”]

One of post_id or url is required; field is optional and defaults to post_excerpt first, then to post_content if there is no excerpt.

*Why would you want to input tags, set categories, or add an excerpt to a Page? They help readers find and explore our content. What’s so wrong with that?

bsuite Bug Fixes (release b2v7)

Contentsbsuite FeaturesFixed/Changed/AddedInstallationUpgradingCommandsClear bsuite_speedcacheRebuild bsuite tag indexOptionsMinimum userlevel to view bsuite reportsOutput default CSSDefault pulse graph styleSuggest related entries in postTag input formatHighlight search words and offer search helpFilter incoming search terms using comment moderation and blacklist wordsIgnore hits from registered users at or above userlevelIgnore hits from these IP numbersTag SupportUsing bsuite FunctionsKnown BugsMoney GrubbingWork […] » about 800 words

bsuite Bug Fixes (release b2v6)

Contentsbsuite FeaturesFixed/Changed/AddedInstallationUpgradingCommandsOptionsTag SupportUsing bsuite FunctionsKnown BugsUpdate: bugfix release b2v7 available. It’s been a while since I released a new version of bsuite, my multi-purpose WordPress plugin. I’d been hoping to finish up a series of new features, but those have been delayed and this is mostly just a collection of bugfixes. This update is recommended […] » about 500 words

WordPress Plugin: Add To del.icio.us

I’m not running it here (only because I’m too lazy), but I was happy to find Arne Brachold’s Del.icio.us – Bookmark this! WordPress Plugin. It puts a sweet Bookmark on del.icio.us link whereever you call this function: <?php dbt_getLinkTag(“Bookmark on del.icio.us”); ?>

Arne also wrote the Google sitemap plugin I use (though it turns out I’m a few versions behind).

WordPress 2.0 & bsuite

Update: bugfix release b2v6 available.

WordPress 2.0 is out and available for download now. I don’t know how the development team did it — I mean with the holidays and all — but here it is. And now I have to admit that I haven’t even played with the betas, so I’ve got no clue how bsuite works with the big 2.0. For all I know it works just fine, or it drops all your tables and sends your browser history to your mother, so please take caution.

But WP2 has a lot of things I want too, so I’ll be checking things out and making any necessary changes to bsuite as soon as possible.

bsuite Bug Fixes (release b2v3)

ContentsFixedInstallationbsuite FeaturesI’ve fixed another bug in bsuite b2, my multi-purpose plugin. This update is recommended for all bsuite users. Fixed Previous versions would throw errors at the bottom of the page when the http referrer info included search words from a recognized search engine.  Installation Follow the directions for the bsuite b2 release. The download […] » about 300 words

bsuite Bug Fixes (release b2b)

ContentsFixesInstallationbsuite FeaturesI’ve fixed a couple bugs in bsuite b2, released last week. Fixes A bug with search word highlighting that caused it to litter the display in some cases.  A silly mistake of mine that cause a mysql error for some users. Installation Follow the directions for the bsuite b2 release. The download link there […] » about 300 words

bsuite Features: The Photo Spread

bsuite highlights the search words used to find blog posts in Google and other search engines, and uses those search terms to recommend other related posts at your WordPress site. — – — bsuite uses the tags of one post to recommend related posts in your WordPress blog. — – — bsuite includes an easy […] » about 100 words

bsuite WordPress Plugin (b2 release)

Contentsbsuite FeaturesChangesInstallationOptionsTag SupportUsing bsuite FunctionsKnown BugsThe first thing we all have to agree on is that bsuite is the replacement for bstat. The name change reflects that fact that the plugin is doing a lot more than simply track page loads. The most exciting new feature is a module I can’t help but call bsuggestive. […] » about 1000 words

bsuggestive and bsuite Tag Support

bsuite, the follow-up to bstat, now includes a module called “bsuggestive” that recommends related posts based on the current post’s tags or alternate posts based on your search words when you arrive from a recognized search engine. That is, bsuggestive does two neat things: First, visitors will see a section in each post with links […] » about 300 words

bsuite_innerindex WordPress Plugin

[[pageindex]] About “Blogging” typically connotes short-form writing that needs little internal structure, but that’s no reason to cramp your style. As people start to explore WordPress‘s Pages feature, it seems likely that we’ll need a way to structure content within posts or pages sooner or later. That’s why I’m working on bsuite_innerindex. It’s a WordPress […] » about 300 words