Martin Crockett

Broken plugins, WP 2.1 style

It seems popular WordPress plugins, Ultimate Tag Warrior and WP-Cache have fallen foul of the recent update as described here, The new WordPress UTW gotcha.

WP-Cache

WordPress 2.1 Plugin Compatibility

WordPress 2.1 Plugin Compatibility list. Essential for all upgraders.

WordPress 2.1 “Ella” is Out

Wordpress 2.1 “Ella” is Out as of approx. 16 hours ago. It’s nice to know there are over 550 bug fixes and an updated Akismet plugin.

Next major release is due on the streets April 23rd.

Link via Threadwatch.

WP 2.0.7

No sooner do I publish a post about WordPress and how I’m rockin’ version 2.0.6 - do they go ahead and release a security update - and fix for Feedburner(!?).

Needless to say, my wp-admin/inline-uploading.php is effected.

We know it sucks to have a release only 10 days after our last one

No kidding.

…just as a reminder, the next major version of WordPress (2.1) is due out by the end of the month

Mofo.
Which is like 16 days away.

Maybe it’s something to do with the h4×0r (he says going to check his register_globals=on) which pwned several SEO websites recently.

Security fix for wp_unregister_GLOBALS() to work around the zend_hash_del_key_or_index bug in PHP 4 versions less than 4.4.3 and PHP 5 versions less than 5.1.4 with register_globals set to “On.”

Do not use PHP4. Do not set register_globals to “on”. Ever.

Customising WordPress: plugins, themes and more

WordPress (current - at time of writing - version 2.0.6) generally requires developer intervention before it’s ready for rolling out and using across websites.

Admin
inline-uploading.php is the only file from the out of the box install that I modify. This file handles the resizing of thumbnails but makes them 128 pixels wide or 96 pixels high. For my purposes, this is too small. I prefer 250 pixels for both.

To this end, I alter lines 91 and 93:
From $thumb = wp_create_thumbnail($file, 128);
To $thumb = wp_create_thumbnail($file, 250);
and:
From $thumb = wp_create_thumbnail($file, 96);
To $thumb = wp_create_thumbnail($file, 250);

The next step is a little simpler and involves no code tweaking.

WordPress is conveniently extensible through the usage of plugins for generally server-side functionality and themes for the UI. I keep two copies of WordPress, a local copy for offline development and an uploaded copy for copying across to my websites.

Plugins
Plugins are where WordPress really ‘earns it’s money’, so to speak. Alongside my standard WordPress build, I have the plugins I tend to rely on in the wp-content folder.

Adhesive doesn’t appear to be in active development at present. It allows easy marking of sticky posts in WordPress 2.0.x.

AdSense Beautifier is a plugin available to make your Google Adsense look better in order to increase your AdSense earnings. Images adjacent to ads can help increase their click through rate (CTR).

Adsense-Deluxe Version: 0.8 is the current release I’m using. I modified this to remove some features that weren’t necessary.

Here’s a list of other plugins I use. I will endeavour to add a little comment about them when I get around to it:

ajax-comments
ald-spa
authimage - the de facto captcha plugin
autometa - this should work but I’ve had complications
bunny-tags
crawlpage - supposedly search engine friendly tool
custom_admin_menu - not really had time to play with this
dd-sitemap-gen
holler
jeromes-keywords
sem-static-front - I have this lurking in my folder but never use it
sitemap - very good site mapping tool
sociable - mondo social media ‘add me’ buttons
the-excerpt-reloaded
ultimate-tag-warrior
wp-admin-tiger - slick-looking admin interface, I love it
wp-amazon - take a guess
wp-cache - very useful caching functionality
wp-contactform - basic contact form

Lightbox JS v2 is a simple, unobtrusive script used to to overlay images on the current page.

MoreMoney shows a custom message to users who come from a search engine (Google, Yahoo or MSN).

wp-top10

wp-video allows you to insert online videos in your post by providing the video URL between the <video> tags. It also allows the user download the video with a link below the video.

Themes
The WordPress Codex is the place to start looking for recommended themes.

Hemingway version 0.19, release March, 2006 - simple and elegant with a contemporary feel.

Blix appears to have been released in March, 2005 but without development since. Nonetheless, it’s a great design with some custom functions. I have modified this to fit better in a 1024 pixel wide layout.

MW

• Clean, simple and classic look.
• 2-column, fixed width, centered layout with left sidebar.
• Option to choose between 17 color schemes
• Some modules: last articles, related articles…
• Subscription options (Bloglines, Feedster, Google Reader…).
• Digg, Del.icio.us and Furl links after articles.
• Comments: automatically highlighted trackbacks and author comments. Integrated gravatars.
• Easy ad management through specific files to that effect. Ad units in the header, after the two first article blocks (Google AdSense compliant) and at the bottom. AdSense section targeting.

This concludes my succinct insight into my personal set-up for this highly popular blogging platform. I trust this will be of use.