Wordpress by Examples

Google Code Lab has come out something wonderful again, this time is Google AJAX search.
Place a search bar to your sidebar, user search result will be appear in your sidebar neatly without needed user to switch to other search result page. It is convenient for user who read the post halfway and wants to search for keywords and read it later.

Check out AJAX Search API Blog, tried out the google AJAX search yourself. In order to bring the search to your blog, you need to register for a API key from google, so register now.

Is it any widget ready wordpress plugin available for Google AJAX search?
Yes, thats the purpose of this blog post, Get the plugin from dancemeron.org.

I have read the long tail, understand that every single post of a blog have its potential of readers. In order to encourage your reader read more about you stuff, it is good to provide links to related post. As you have reduce the research cost of your readers, at the same time, you improve your web traffics. Why reduce the research cost of your readers? Your readers may searching for some information, with your related post link, he gets what he wants in one short instead of having to queries at search engine.

If you have using wasabi related post plugin, I am here to introduce you a variant of wasabi related post, its call aizatto’s related post.

What is so special about this plugin?

related_posts(5, 10, '< li >‘, ‘< /li >‘, , , false, false);

If you are using wasabi version, you need to do this manually, with aizatto’s version, It does for you automatically.

ALTER TABLE `wp_posts` ADD FULLTEXT `post_related` (
`post_name` , `post_content`
)

This is cool, as I have a lots or RSS readers. This is one of the reason why my web traffics increases.

Aizatto suggest me that I should change the css style instead of change the codes of the plugins. But why not? Its open source anyway, and the codes is not so difficult to read.

That is the best parts, It improves web traffics and consequestly improves adsense income.

Seeing is believing
I am here to shows you few examples of blog post that uses aizatto’s related post plugins.

Drag all the way down, you can see the related post links after the post, and continues with adsense links. With the fine tuning of your related post and adsense outlook, both of them looks really native to the post.

I recommend you to try it out, this is one of the great plugins I ever have.

Blog comments isn’t always the best way for a reader to contact you. This is because the nature of blog comments itself that available for public viewing. Readers sometimes like to contact you directly in private to ask questions or gives feedback about your blog.

There are two ways to do this,

1. Lists your email address and hope that it doesnt end up in the hand of spammers
2. Put a professional looking contact form

The choice is obviously no 2,

In order to do that, you need to download Wordpress Contact Form plugin and install it on your blog.

After that, create a Wordpress page titled “Feedback” or “Contact” and click “Insert Contact Form” in your wordpress editor.

Save it, and you’ll have a professionally looking Contact form on your blog, just like the contact form in Wordpress By Examples.

While there are not many people using PDA or smartphone to surf blogs, it is nice to have your blog can reach other internet users too, no matter how they access them.

Handheld device such as smartphone or PDA has a limited display screen and relatively slow internet access speed. They might be turned-off by the full styling and template of your Wordpress blog that isn’t suited for small-screen display.

Luckily somebody has created Wordpress PDA plugin, a relatively simple and small plugin can make your blog PDA friendly. Please read it from Makes your Wordpress Pocket PC PDA-friendly, for more information about the plugin.

One of the things that I like about Spam Karma 2 compared to Akismet, that SK2 is extensible so you can write new SK2 plugins in order to filter out new spams tailor made for your blog/language.

Here’s some of the additional plugins I write for Spam Karma that you might find useful to in addition to the default spam karma 2 plugins, the Fishy User Agents and Blacklisted IP Address Checker.

Installing these plugins is simple, you just need to uncompress the zip file and copy it into the sk2_plugins inside SK2 folder in your Wordpress plugins directory.

Then check the status of the plugins in Manage->Spam Karma 2->General Settings.

What’s new about these plugins ?

Fishy User-Agent -
A relatively weak plugin, but useful for filtering up dumb bots or browsers that has been infected with spam bots. It checks for known malicious user-agent, and spank it.

Blacklisted IP Address RBL
Checks IP address for open proxy using RBL services from sorbs.net. Blacklisted IP will receive huge spanking.

Hopefully these plugins will help you keep those annoying spammers away from your blog

Download zip file at.
papit_sk2plugins.zip

A simple todo list plugin to share ideas/todos with blog members. All members work together to manage the todo list under “Manage” section in Wordpress administration interface.

A variant derived from AbstractDimension’s Todo List Plugin.

Screenshots

New!

Download

Download Our Todo List version 2.0

Howto Upgrade to version 2.0

1. Go to ‘Plugins’, deactivate Our Todo List.
2. In your server, replace the old ourtodolist.php file (or folder) with the new one.
3. Refresh ‘Plugins’, activate Our Todo List 2.0.
4. (For Wordpress 2 users) Go to ‘Options’ > ‘OurTodo’ to decide who can/cannot use the plugin.

Installing

Important: If you are using Abstract Dimension’s Todo List plugin, please read FAQs before installing.

1. Copy ourtodolist.php to your wp-content/plugins/
2. Activate the plugin
3. (Wordpress 1.5 users) Go to ‘Manage’ > ‘OurTodo’. Scroll to the bottom page to ‘Install’ and click the setup script.
4. (Wordpress 2 users) Go to ‘Options’ > ‘OurTodo’ to decide who can/cannot use the plugin.

Note: For Wordpress 2 users, step 3 should be done automatically. If not, try step 3.

Translating

The plugin comes with a POT file, otd.pot since version 1.5. Please let me know if you publish a translation. So that I can link to you:

• German - translated by kretzschmar.
• French (.mo file) - translated by Lise.
• 中文简体 - translated by Anthony.

Install a Translation

Place the locale (.mo) file under the same directory with ourtodolist.php.

To be more organized, you can place both ourtodolist.php and the .mo file under a subdirectory, e.g. wp-content/plugins/ourtodolist/ .

Bug Reports/Feedbacks

Submit your feedback through comments.

Usage

As requested by BGH Quiz, APIs are added since version 1.2:

1. To display all tasks (added in version 1.7)

   <?php ourtodolist_all(limit, show_priority, show_author); ?>

   • limit - (integer) number of items. 0 means all items. Default is 0.
   • show_priority - (boolean) show priority label. Default is false.
   • show_author - (boolean) show author’s display name. Default is false.

2. To display todo tasks only

   <?php ourtodolist(limit, show_priority, show_author); ?>

   • limit - (integer) number of items. 0 means all items. Default is 0.
   • show_priority - (boolean) show priority label. Default is false.
   • show_author - (boolean) show author’s display name. Default is false.

3. To display completed tasks only

   <?php ourtodolist_completed(limit, show_priority, show_author); ?>

   • limit - (integer) number of items. 0 means all items. Default is 0.
   • show_priority - (boolean) show priority label. Default is false.
   • show_author - (boolean) show author’s display name. Default is false.

4. Exist any task?

   <?php ourtodolist_exists(is_completed); ?>
   
   /* since version 1.7 */
   <?php ourtodolist_exists(status); ?>

   • is_completed - (boolean) If true, check for completed tasks; if false, check for todo tasks. Default is false.
   • status - (constant value):
     • OTD_ALL - does any tasks exist
     • OTD_TODO - does any todo tasks exist
     • OTD_COMPLETED - does any completed tasks exist

     Default is OTD_TODO.

   • Returns true if exists, otherwise returns false.

Example Code

PHP source code:

<h4>Our Todo Tasks</h4>
<?php if ( ourtodolist_exists() ) : ?>
<ol>
     <?php ourtodolist(); ?>
</ol>
<?php endif; ?>

<?php if ( ourtodolist_exists(OTD_COMPLETED) ) : ?>
<h4>Completed Tasks</h4>
<ul>
    <?php ourtodolist_completed(5, false, true); ?>
</ul>
<?php endif; ?>

Genereated HTML:

Example Code: Classnames & Styling

Since version 1.7, each list item will have a class name.
<li class="otd_completed">..</li> if it’s a completed task,
<li class="otd_todo">..</li> if it’s a todo task.

However, they are not styled by default. Feel free to style them in your current theme’s CSS file.

PHP source code:

<h4>Task List</h4>
<?php if ( ourtodolist_exists(OTD_ALL) ) : ?>
<ol>
    <?php ourtodolist_all(); ?>
</ol>
<?php endif; ?>

CSS sample code:

.otd_completed { text-decoration: line-through; }

Generated HTML:

FAQs

1. How does it different from Abstract Dimension’s Todo List plugin?

   Our Todo List plugin is built for information sharing within a team of people who trust each other.When a new todo is created, it is visible to all members who login into Wordpress Administration interface. Members are allowed to edit/delete any todo item.For each todo item, it only records who made the last change, not who first created the item.

2. I’m using Abstract Dimension’s Todo List, how to migrate to this plugin?

   By default, both plugins shares the same database table name. The intend is to make migration easy:

   1. Install Our Todo List, activate it
   2. Deactivate Abstract Dimension’s Todo List

3. Can I run both Abstract Dimension’s Todo List and Our Todo List separately in my blog?

   Yes, but you MUST change the database table name used by Our Todo List plugin, so that each plugin uses a different table to store data:

   1. Open ourtodolist.php with your favourite editor
   2. Search for the phrase: $otd_tablename = $table_prefix . 'todolist';
   3. Change the 'todolist' to another name (e.g. 'ourtodolist')
   4. Save the changes

Change Log

• version 2.0
  • Major code clean up.
  • Fixed the plugin to run on WP 1.5.
  • Added a Role-Capability feature! (WP 2.0 and above only)
  • Updated POT file
  • Replaced is_int() with a more appropriate input validation method.
  • Fixed several bugs discovered by Baruchel (a big thank).
• version 1.7
  • Added a new function ourtodolist_all() to display both todo and completed tasks in single list. (Kretzschmar, sorry for the delayed release!)
  • Changed the input parameter of ourtodolist_exists(). But don’t worry, it is backward-compatible, which means your existing codes will not break. If it does, please let me know.
• version 1.6
  • Top-level codes are wrapped into a function and hooked to ‘init’ action.
    It should fix Humuhumu’s problem.
• version 1.5
  • Fixed problems in locale support, a big thank to kretzschmar!
  • Included the plugin’s POT file.
• version 1.4
  • Added plugin localization support, by calling load_plugin_textdomain().
  • Plugin file is allowed to load when it’s inside an arbirtary subdirectory, e.g. wp-content/plugins/sub_dir/ourtodolist.php. (thanks to kretzschmar for pointing out the problems)
• version 1.3
  • Cleaned up all global variables by adding ‘otd_’ prefix.
• version 1.2
  • Added 3 new functions to display todo in blog, as requested by BGH Quiz.
• version 1.0
  • Released first version.

I like using Wordpress as my personal blogging platform mainly because it has loads of convenient features for a blogger like me.

You don’t have to worry about Wordpress not offering certain features that you like, because it is extensible via plugins modules. Below is my Top 5 favorite Wordpress plugins that I use on most of my blogs :

• Spam Karma 2 - useful for controlling comment spam. I prefer this compared to Akismet because It doesnt rely solely on external service for spam analysis, thus making my site more responsive.
• Google Sitemaps - Creates Google xml sitemap for googlebot easy indexing automatically each time you posts your blog. Tips: Don’t forget to turn off debug comment for this little beastie!
• Related Posts - Not so important for a new website, but it will become an asset once your blog has more than 100 posts. This plugin makes it easy for your visitors to find posts that are related to each other, spending more time on your blog appreciating your posts.
• Subscribe to Comments - Easy way for your blog readers to follow up about their comments and questions on your posts.
• Smart Update Pinger - Reduces your chance of accidently getting blacklisted when your blog sends xml-rpc pings rapidly to blog update service.

Hopefully you may find those plugins useful for your blogs too