Class.FTShorten

The new component of the core plugin. It contains the functions required to request a Short URL from a service provider. I am separating this class into a separate development branch which will allow me to update independently of the core URL Shortener Plugin. As such it will get its own page as well.. For more information, take a look at the FTShorten Class information page. The Class will also be available for download there as well.

URL Shortener WordPress Plugin

Version 2.0 of the, incorporating the most number of changes a version bump has to date. Other than integrating the new class as mentioned above, it includes several bugfix as well. Check out the URL Shortener download page for more information.

Addon Module

Likewise, the addon module also received an update, introducing more URL Shortening services for testing and also a structural change similar to the core plugin. There has been a version labeling change as well, switching to a version tree independent of the core plugin. The latest addon module is now 0.2 instead of being labeled 2.0-Addon. Check out the Addon Module download page for more information as well.

Automattic has released an upgrade to it’s popular WordPress blogging platform.

Version 2.9, also known as “Carmen” includes quite a notable number of additions like oembed support, batch plugin updating, a simple image editor as well as a “Windows recycle bin”-like feature for posts.

Under-the-hood improvements are also abound in this upgrade, with over 500 tickets and bugs addressed (according to the blog post on WordPress.org by founder Matt Mullenweg). It is also great to see the official support for rel=”canonical” as well as an automatic database repair feature.

Testing it out, the current 2.9 upgrade has been as smooth as always. However, one small issue I have so far is that the embed support doesn’t work consistently, with some videos not being embed as expected. I’ll have to monitor first and verify if it’s indeed a recurrent issue.

With commentsmeta now available officially, I’ll most probably include avatar support for the Facebook Connect and Google connect feature on my site. Once it’s stable, it will be released as a plugin for public usage. Unlike other plugins, it doesn’t really create a user signup entry in the WordPress database which is ideal for blogs, minimizing the clutter of users in the backend.

At the same time, I’ve also made a small update to my URL Shortener Plugin, bumping it up to Version 1.7, to take into account the inclusion of WP.me shortlink generation in the stats plugin as well as the “Get Shortlink” button included in the WordPress Core.

EDIT: A short video summarizing some of the new features of WordPress 2.9:

What this entails

With version 1.6 of the stats plugin, the once exclusive WP.me shortlink feature will now be available to all users of the self-hosted WordPress. It is definitely a welcomed change as the close control of the WP.me shortening service means that it is less open to abuse.

Of course, now there would be a problem of robot blogs (blogs which auto generate content from other blogs) generating shortlinks as well.

However, one caveat is that the WP.me generation comes with the plugin and there is no way to deactivate it. These leave little option for users who doesn’t want to auto-generate or use the integrated shortlink feature.

Showing WP.me shortlink in themes

With that said, I’ve update my template to reflect the shortlink as well.. You can find a WP.me links on top of the 3rd Partly shortlink in the shortlink section below.

For those who want to display the WP.me shortlinks, add the following to the template :

<a href="<?php echo get_shortlink($post);?>"><?php echo get_shortlink($post); ?></a>

Remember it has to be placed within the WordPress post loop

Future of my URL Shortener Plugin

With this release, I wonder what will be the future of my URL Shortener plugin.

Probably I will now consider adding WP.me support to my URL Shortener plugin. This would thus allow users who don’t use WordPress.com Stats plugin to access the service as well.

Although the title of the post states that it is a tutorial, I haven’t really tested the following code extensively. It works on my test environment as well as a live blog which I tested it with.

Here’s the initial code:

function SaveTitleAsTag($post_ID) {
 $gpt = get_post($post_ID);
 $posttitle = $gpt->post_title;
 $posttitle = strtolower($posttitle);
 if(get_the_tags($post_ID)){
    foreach(get_the_tags($post_ID) as $tag) {
      $tag_name = $tag->name;
      $tag_name  = strtolower($tag_name);
      $posttitle = str_replace($tag_name, "", $posttitle);
    }
 }
 $splittotags = explode(" ", $posttitle);
 foreach ($splittotags as $atag){
     $atag = str_replace(" ", "", $atag);
     if($atag !=NULL){
           wp_set_object_terms($post_ID, $atag, 'post_tag', true );
     }
  }
}

add_action('save_post', 'SaveTitleAsTag');

I’ve wrapped the above code up in a plugin. Just download the file, upload to your WordPress plugin folder and activate.

Download

NOTE: For the latest version of the plugin and updates to the code, please visit the download details page: http://fusedthought.com/downloads/autosave-post-title-as-tags-wordpress-plugin

This is probably quite a common question, and it’s definitely one of the few things that I looked for when dynamic sidebars were introduced in WordPress. I’ve decided take the reply which I gave and make it into a tutorial.

There should be quite a number of tutorials or solutions out there already, but let me just add a step-by-step tutorial to the fold as well….

So Let’s Go:

1. First up, open the function.php in your theme folder.
   • If the file doesn’t exist, skip to step 3.
2. Find the line that says:

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ) {
	register_sidebar(array(
		'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s">',
		'after_widget' => '</li>',
		'before_title' => '<h2>',
		'after_title' => '</h2>',
	));

and replace it with the code from step 3.

3. Create a function.php file and add the following codes to the file:

   if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ) {
      register_sidebar(array('name'=>'primary_sidebar',
          'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s">',
          'after_widget' => '</li>',
          'before_title' => '<h2>',
          'after_title' => '</h2>',
      ));
   
      register_sidebar(array('name'=>'secondary_sidebar',
          'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s">',
          'after_widget' => '</li>',
          'before_title' => '<h2>',
          'after_title' => '</h2>',
      ));
   
   };

   Note the part of the array that says: 'name'=>'primary_sidebar'. It defines a name for the dynamic sidebar instance which you can call later.

4. After you’re done, find your current sidebar code, usually located in your sidebar.php and replace the following line:

   if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar() : ?>

   with

   if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('primary_sidebar') ) : ?>

5. To show the second sidebar, go to the part of your code where you want and add the following:

   <ul>
      <?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('secondary_sidebar') ) : else : ?>
      <?php endif; ?>
   </ul>

6. That’s all!. Now it’s left to styling your new sidebar!

Having more than two sidebars:

In the event you need to define more dynamic sidebars, just add a new register_sidebar array, and make a call in the template to the name of the new sidebar array.

Note

One thing to note: the default WordPress kubrick and the above code outputs your widgets in a list. To change that, modify the before_widget and after_widget variables and remove the <ul> and </ul> enclosing the function call..

Another thing to note is that the function calls to the sideabrs should not be nested within each other.

However, I felt the interface lacked contrasts between menu and lacked quick links on the front-page. As such, I’ve started coding a custom admin theme for my personal WordPress installations. In addition to the “quick links” in the dashboard, it also features an accordion menu in place of the usual expandable menu.

Here’s a screenshot:

I am thinking of releasing it as a plugin but there are a few kinks that’ll have to be ironed out before it reaches release level. One of them would be the toggling of the navigation menu. Since I’ve only used it on my own sites, I never felt the need to code it.. probably I will have to consider that now..

Currently it’s codenamed: FlowMod (Short for Flow Modify).

For the benefit of those who haven’t, URL Canonicalization, also known as URL normalization is a process by which URLs are modified and standardized in a consistent manner. Search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing) allows site owners to specify their preferred version of a page through the canonical meta tag. This is useful in the event that there are multiple URLs pointing to the same page/content.

Adding support for canonical URL meta tag is normally one of the first things I do in recent months. The following is the code I usually use for my WordPress themes:

function post_canonical_url() {
   if ( is_singular() ) {
     $canonical_url = '<link rel="canonical" href="' . get_permalink() . '"/>';
   } elseif ( is_home() ){
     $canonical_url = '<link rel="canonical" href="' . get_bloginfo('home') . '"/>';
   }
echo $canonical_url;
}
add_action('wp_head', 'post_canonical_url')
?>

For WordPress, it is easy to achieve through a plugin. However, for those who don’t want to add another plugin, or want a simple, no-frills method, just copy the above code into your functions.php.

After adding the above code,  a canonical meta tag will be added to your index, posts and pages.

(EDIT 291109: This code is only needed in WordPress 2.8 and below. According to the development builds of WordPress 2.9, it has native support for canonical URLs).

Starting from today, in addition to the usual comment methods and Facebook Connect (FBC), you can also use Google Friend Connect (GFC) to leave a comment. Using Google Friend Connect or Facebook Connect allows you to skip typing in the required fields everytime you need to leave a comment.

GFC currently supports authentication with Google accounts, OpenID, Yahoo, AIM and Netlog.

I may be expanding the usage of both FBC and GFC on this blog in the future. For now, it is limited to the comments section only.

Due to a request by a user in the WordPress support forums, I’ve updated the URL Shortener plugin to include the awe.sm service as well…

At the same time, I’ve also updated the post activation hook to take into account scheduled posts. Previously, Short URLs were not generated when scheduled posts are published even though Short URL generation is set to auto in the settings page. This update fixes the above-mentioned issue.

The version number has also been bumped up to 1.6.

For now, I am still determined to have a central administration page for the Short URLs generated but there seems to be no simple way to do it… I’ll definitely want it in a future version.. If anybody has any ideas, please leave a comment…

In the meantime, do try out the updated plugin and give your feedback on the plugin support forum on any bugs or the awe.sm feature. I don’t have a permanent account at the awe.sm service, neither do I have access to their custom domain service… As such, I couldn’t conduct as many tests as I wanted…

For more information on the plugin, head over to the Plugin Page

Frankly, I really feel that a custom content length should be built into the WordPress core.

Anyway, there are plugins available but just didn’t want to add another one to the installation if I can help it… so I decided to add a simple function instead…

For those interested:

function limit_content($content_length = 250, $allowtags = true, $allowedtags = '') {
	global $post;
	$content = $post->post_content;
	$content = apply_filters('the_content', $content);
	if (!$allowtags){
		$allowedtags .= '<style>';
		$content = strip_tags($content, $allowedtags);
	}
	$wordarray = explode(' ', $content, $content_length + 1);
	if(count($wordarray) > $content_length) :
		array_pop($wordarray);
		array_push($wordarray, '...');
		$content = implode(' ', $wordarray);
		$content .= "</p>";
	endif;

	echo $content;
}

Just copy the above code into your functions.php file.

Usage:

limit_content( $length,  $allow-tags, $tags-to-allow )

Example:

limit_content('300',  false, '<p><a>');

Parameters:

$length
(integer) Number of characters desired.

Default: 250

$allow-tags
(string) (optional) Allow any formatting?

Default: true

$tags-to-allow
(string) (optional) If $allow-tags is set to false, you can use this parameter to selectively allow certain formatting tags.

Default:  ‘ ‘

$content .= "</p>";