patronit.net

New Plugins

Synected

Synected enables shortened URL creation on your own blog. Synected lets you easily create and use short links based off your own domain. This releases you from dependence on a third party — a server error on tinyurl no longer prevents visitors from reaching your site. In addition, it strengthens your brand, keeping your domain name in view of your audience even on Twitter and other micro-communication platforms.

Hello World Generator

The Hello World Generator is a plugin which provides the blog author two new shortcodes. Each shortcode will display a random Hello World code snippet from a database of approximately 350 different snippets. Each snippet is in a different programming language.

WP SimpleMail

SimpleMail is a plugin that allows you to access an Email account from your dashboard.

OSM

OSM is a plugin that focuses on OpenStreetmap and geo data in your wordpress blog. Simply by using the shortcode [osm_map] within your text you can add several maps within your post/page.

Adsense Now!

Easy AdSenser provides a very easy way to insert Google AdSense code into your existing blog posts. It gives you a widget to display ads in your sidebar, and another to show a Google Search box. Easy AdSenser is perhaps the first plugin that gives you a complete solution for managing everything AdSense-related.

Omit Passworded Posts From Search

Prevent passworded posts from being included in site search results.

Admin Commenters Comment Count

Next to all appearances of each commenter’s name in the admin, shows a count of their total number of comments, linked to a listing of those comments.

Updated Plugins

Feed Reading Blogroll

The plugin improves your blogroll by displaying the freshness and the latest post-title of your bookmarks.

Theme Tweaker

Theme Tweaker lets you fine-tune the colors in your theme with no CSS/PHP editing. It displays the existing colors from your current theme, and gives you a color picker to replace them. It also lets you change them in bulk, like invert all colors, use grey scale, sepia etc.

GD Star Rating

GD Star Rating is post, page and comment rating plugin for WordPress. Plugin supports different image sets, rating moderation, vote rules, time restricted voting, templates, trend calculations, has a widgets build in and extensive shortcode support.

Stray Random Quotes

New features include multiuser capability (contributors to the blog can add their own series of quotes and manage them) and the ability to disable aspect settings for each quote widget, shortcode or template tag. Also included in this release is Dutch localization, and many fixes.

Store Locator

Store locator plugin for WordPress web developers & web site owners who need to show any set of locations on their website. Uses Google Maps.

Koumpounophobia

Koumpounophobia is powered by jQuery, and enhances the WordPress HTML Editor button bar in 5 ways.

• Leave a comment... (0)

I am a huge fan of simple plugins that add functionality to my website using WordPress.  Some are quite simple and as was discussed in the comments on the Admin Links Widget review I did last week, many can be done via hacks within your WordPress theme files.

Now, I have been known to edit my files in the past to get a bit of functionality on my site but I much prefer to use a plugin that does the insert for me and then is easily deactivated if necessary or translates over to other themes without having to edit another group of theme specific files.

That brings me to a follow on discussion I mentioned in my Download Monitor plugin review a few days ago. You  need something that will keep visitors coming back to your website. On this website it is the daily theme and plugin update entries that generate great interest to anyone with a WordPress based website.

So another great way to get people connected to your website is to provide a link to your Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed. Now most themes now include links to entries and comments RSS feeds and you will also see them identified in any web browser that is aware of RSS feeds on your website. A header entry for RSS feeds looks like this in the HTML of the page:

This will then cause your RSS icon in your web browser to “light up” to indicate a feed is available on the website:

When you click on that RSS icon you get a list of the available feeds on a website:

OK – so this brings me to the plugin I want to introduce you to – the Add Twitter RSS plugin by Paul McCarthy. As many of you will already know Twitter is a hugely popular social media site that connects you to others by sharing 140 character Tweets. Now this post is not about Twitter but about its ability to draw people to your website by providing links to posts on your websites and quick Tweets about your interests – this works especially well if your blog is based on those interests.

By using this plugin you will provide a link to your website visitors that goes to your Twitter RSS feed that they will be able to read in their favorite feed reader and then see all of your 140 character Tweets.  Those Tweets will then get them reconnected to your website through the use of links as I mentioned earlier.

So once you have installed and activated the plugin look in the Settings sidebar for the Twitter RSS Options menu item and click on it to open up the plugin settings page.

The Add Twitter RSS settings admin page.

This is the only settings page for the plugin and takes just a few minutes to fill out.

1. 1. Insert your Twitter ID and click the Find my Twitter ID.  The plugin will track down your Twitter numerical ID which is what this plugin needs to work properly.
   2. RSS Icon Text – this is how your RSS feed link will look like when a visitor clicks on the highlighted RSS feed icon in their web browser.
   3. Twitter ID – inserted when you click on Find My Twitter ID in step 1.
   4. Add a Link to Twitter Feed in Sidebar Meta Widget? This will put a link to your Twitter RSS feed in the meta widget that is available by default in your WordPress installation.

After completing all of these steps click Update Options and the plugin will be customized and working. The end results you will see are like this:

Twitter RSS Feed link in Meta Widget.

The links that are off your highlighted RSS icon in your web browser toolbar when using Add Twitter RSS plugin.

Bottom line about this plugin: Easily inserts the code you need to bring attention to your Twitter RSS feed and help your website visitors keep that connection alive to your website.

• Leave a comment... (0)

The 24-hour has-patch marathon has just officially begun! For the next 24 hours (until Friday, 4pm UTC), the core developers will be evaluating patches that have been tested and committing those that are good. When they run out of those, they’ll start testing patches that have been submitted but not tested. This takes longer, so help us keep the momentum going by testing patches today.

Grab yourself a copy of the nightly build to make sure you’re using the right version, then head over to Trac and start looking at the has-patch* tickets. Pick a ticket, download the diff, test it out on the browsers/platforms you have available, and write a comment about the results in the ticket’s comment thread. Move on to the next ticket. Do as many as you can over the next 24 hours.

And if you’ve got the mad skills to contribute bug fixes and code patches for enhancements and other tickets, now is also a great time to contribute a patch. Why wait? One of the complaints I hear in the IRC #wordpress-dev channel is that it can be frustrating to write patches because sometimes it takes a long time for them to be reviewed and committed. For those people (and everyone else), this is the perfect time to patch, because we’ll be looking at every has-patch ticket in Trac for 2.8 over the next 24 hours. If you have a patch that’s been submitted but it hasn’t been tested, consider doing a little PR for yourself. Hop in the dev channel, post on your blog, mention on Twitter that you need people to test your patch *today* so that it can move forward in the process. This will speed things along. You can also add the keyword needs-testing in addition to has-patch.

At the end of the 24-hour period, you don’t have to put your pencils down, but the core devs will be going to sleep and then returning to the regular dev cycle, so it’s worth it to contribute today. If you miss the deadline, it’s okay; you can contribute or test patches as usual, you just won’t get the more immediate gratification the marathon promises.

We’ll post the results of the marathon here on Monday, after everyone’s gotten some rest and we can go through the Trac logs to see how many people got involved. This is one reason it’s so important to leave a comment when testing patches…it’s how we’ll be counting the number of marathon testers. Top patch contributors and testers will be recognized in the results post, so if that sort of thing motivates you, let the link love lead the way.

Of note: we are now in feature freeze for 2.8!

* - For those who don’t know why I keep using the term has-patch… When someone submits a patch by uploading it to the Trac ticket, they add “has-patch” to the keywords field, so that the core devs will know there’s a patch attached. Not the most elegant system, true, and you’d think maybe Trac could just recognize that a certain file type had been uploaded, but there you have it.

• Leave a comment... (1)

Waiting patiently for a bug hunt to be announced before you get involved as a WordPress development contributor? Pshaw! Don’t be shy!

2.8 currently has about 500 active tickets that need to be resolved. The core devs are largely working on the bigger feature additions, such as the embedded theme browser/installer, the new widgets management, improving performance, etc. so a lot of tickets that are of lesser priority are still just sitting there. Aren’t they calling to you, just like puppies at the pound? “Adopt me! Please!”

Before we have a bug hunt and see the addition of dozens of new tickets, we need to clear out some of these old ones. Not being the kind of shelter that euthanizes its bugs after a certain amount of time (seriously, there’s one ticket that goes all the way back to version 1.5), we are hoping people will step up and bring home a bug today.

To keep things moving, we’re announcing a new kind of event, related to bug hunts, but with a different slant. We need a sprint to clear out these tickets. Thursday is the day (and Friday for those over the date line). Core devs will spend 24 hours going through all the tickets tagged with has-patch, and committing those that have been tested and work. So how can you get in on the Super-Awesome WordPress 24-Hour Has-Patch Marathon?

Write a patch. There are dozens of tickets for discrete little pieces of correction (change … to actual ellipses in admin interface, change the ‘go back’ link to a ‘view page’ link, etc.), dozens that are browser-specific bugs, dozens that might be more challenging. Pick the one you want to work on, add a comment to the thread so other marathon contributors know someone is working on it, and get the patch submitted before the marathon ends. If you start coding now, your patch could be in by the weekend!

Test a patch. There are, as of right now, 177 tickets marked with has-patch. Patches can’t be committed until they’ve been thoroughly tested. If you’re already running the nightly build start testing out these patches in as many operating system/browser combinations as you have. Only have one? Hey, it’s probably more than has been tested already! If you’re not already running the nightly build, you can download it here to set up a test blog. Don’t forget to add what you found to the comment thread for each ticket. If it doesn’t work, be specific about what is not working so that others can jump in and fix it.

24 hours of patching, 24 hours of testing, 24 hours of committing. Don’t miss the excitement; get started now!

The Super-Awesome WordPress 24-Hour Has-Patch Marathon begins Thursday, April 16 at 8am Pacific time (that’s Thursday, 4pm UTC) and will end, as you might have guessed, 24 hours later. No reason to wait, though… start early and get patching/testing. The more patches that have been tested by Thursday morning, the more that will be committed during the marathon.

Go WordPress!

• Leave a comment... (1)

When you build a website – what is your goal?  Most of us want to get visitors and provide a product that our readers and visitors will enjoy.  One of the ways you can add some value to your website is to offer downloads.  These downloads an be pretty much anything you want them to be – the goal of course would be having something that people want.

So whatever that download is you certainly want to keep track of it and see how many people are finding value in your provided download.

I am currently using the Download Monitor plugin from Mike Jolley and it provides me everything I need to setup my websites downloads and keep track of them easily.

Once you have installed the plugin from the WordPress Plugin directory – head into your Admin panel and activate the plug in.

You will now find a menu option at the bottom of the left hand column that looks like this:

Click on the Downloads button and get the Downloads specific menu:

• Edit – Work on any downloads you have already setup
• Add New – This is where you would start setting up new downloads at
• Add Existing – To add a file that is already uploaded or remotely hosted
• Configuration – Main config page
• Log – Tracks downloads, dates, times, etc.

Edit Downloads Page

Add New – Use this page if you need to also upload your file.

Add Existing – this is the page you need to use to setup a download that is already hosted on yours or a remote server.

Main Configuration Menu

Download Categories – Create categories to help your visitors identify downloads they want to peruse.

Custom Output Format – Create and format your own output using shortcodes or use the default format.

Custom Download URL – Use either a URL with the filename or the download ID number.

General Options – Set your public and members only redirect pages here.

Recreate Download Database – Always back up your data when your working with databases, etc.

Main Admin Menu – Logs.  Shows when and where (IP address) your files were downloaded.

Bottom Line: This plugin is easily customized to your liking with tons of options or left at its defaults settings (the way I use it) and it gets the job done as advertised. For detailed instructions on customization I highly recommend you head over to Mike Jolley’s documentation web page for this plugin as he provides perfect instructions for putting this to work for you the way you want it.

Download Monitor Plugin Web Based Documentation

• Leave a comment... (0)

New Plugins

Theme Tweaker

Theme Tweaker displays the existing colors from your current theme, and gives you a color picker to replace them. It also lets you change them in bulk, like invert all colors, use grey scale etc.

LinkingPress

This plugin provides your WordPress blog with relevant, contextual, non-reciprocating links from other WordPress blogs.

WPML

Turn any WordPress or WordPressMU site into a full featured multilingual content management system. WPMU can do this without any hacks and without breaking anything.

DiggBar Remover

DiggBar Remover checks HTTP referrers and if user has DiggBar, serves JS code to redirect to the actual page. This makes it faster than using just the framebreaker JavaScript code that we all know.

Related Websites

After installing the plugin you will receive related posts from member sites that will be displayed posts at the end of your posts.

DiggBar Killer

DiggBar Killer adds a little snippet of JavaScript to your WordPress website to remove any frames or iframes, such as the Digg Bar, which are surrounding it.

Short Comment Filter

Comments that are too short often add little or nothing to a conversation. The focus of the “Short Comment Filter Plugin” is to automatically filter comments that are too short.

Stealth Update

Adds the ability to update a post without updating the post_modified timestamp for the post.

Updated Plugins

Feed Pauser

It now allows users to disable individual posts from appearing in feeds.

Admin Drop Down Menu

Create drop down menus in your WordPress Admin area.

Plugin authors, submit your plugin to get featured in these releases.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Fancy

Bright colors, WP 2.7 compatible, 3 columns design, adsense ready.

Swiss Mono

Simple, black and white, two column theme with a widgetized sidebar, 125×125 sidebar advertisement support and theme options.

Funny Squares

2-column design with widget ready sidebar, pure CSS layout, no tables used

Deepest Blue

A 2 column magazine style WordPress theme featuring a featured content slider and integrated sidebar video, adsense and social bookmarking

• Leave a comment... (0)

New Plugins

WP Frame Breaker

Uses a short JavaScript to remove any containing frames around your WordPress site. The Digg toolbar now adds frames to sites, affecting site owners traffic stats and SEO. Using “WP Frame Breaker” will force your site out of the Digg containing frame.

Private Tags

The “Private Tags” WordPress plugin allows users to specify a list of tags or categories to keep hidden from the public - all posts within the specified tags/categories, and the tags/categories themselves, will not be visible to anyone but the original author.

Traffic Exchange

Install this plugin to your WordPress blog, enter your Traffic Exchange List username into the plugin settings page, and automatically when you write about the traffic exchanges listed it will make the names links to the Traffic Exchange List page with your referral link.

Blog Audit

Blog Audit is a WordPress plugin which helps you audit your blogging process. It does that by tracking 4 types of activities and match those activities with your blogging goals.

Admin Expert Mode

Hide all inline documentation in the admin pages for users who are familiar with the various features and input fields of the WordPress admin.

SpamTask

SpamTask is a new anti-spam plugin for WordPress, and catches all spam robots with 100 % certainty. It’s the most advanced spam filter for blogs in the world, and exactly what you need if you’re tired of spam comments getting through on your blog.

Allow Multiple Accounts

Allow multiple user accounts to be created from the same email address.

Blog Minder

This plugin will remind you if you have not posted something new on your blog recently enough based on a threshold you set on a per-user basis.

Hide Broken Shortcodes

Prevent broken shortcodes from appearing in posts and pages.

Updated Plugins

Simple PayPal Donate

Simple PayPal Donate is a WordPress plugin that provides a basic ability to display PayPal donation buttons on your blog.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Hello everyone.  My name is Rich Hay and I want to start off by thanking Mark for inviting me to write for Weblog Tools Collection.  I have been a long time reader of this site so it is both exciting and humbling to be given the opportunity to write about WordPress on here. I look forward to our interactions in the future.

I have been banging around the Internet since the early 90’s and put my first website online at GeoCities.com.  The technology has come along way since those days and I have now been maintaining and developing WindowsObserver.com in one form or another since 1995.

So as I was looking around for a subject to write about for my first blog post here I decided I would select what I consider to be a very simple but useful plugin – at least for my aesthetics.

By default when you install WordPress one of the sidebar widgets is the Meta Widget which provide links to do the following:

• Log In/Out
• Blog Dashboard
• RSS Feeds (both posts and comments)
• A link to WordPress.com

It looks like this when your logged in

Now everyone of those links are very useful and provide you a quick and easy way to get to the WordPress dashboard to work on your site  For me the only downfall is that this widget is present for everyone who arrives at your site.  I would prefer to not have that admin type menu visible to everyone.

That brings me to the Admin Links Widget created by Keith Murray.  This simple yet very useful widget replaces the default Meta Widget menu which can not be edited easily.  This plugin allows that Admin Links Menu in your sidebar to be configured with more options. The feature that I really like is that this menu is hidden from all of your website visitors except those with admin permissions on your site.

Here is what it looks like in your sidebar:

And here are the properties for the widget in your admin panel.  Just select the menu items you want to appear on your sidebar click Done and the Save and it will be ready to go.

As you can see you can add a few menu items that are not available in the default Meta Widget and I also know it does not have the RSS likes either.  Most templates will have those linked in the header somewhere and you can always add those links to your blog roll to have them available as well.

So there you go – simplicity at its best which is the beauty of WordPress and the community that develops all the great features we can add to our sites.  I look forward to looking into this terrific community in the future.

Until next time – stay safe out there!

• Leave a comment... (0)