WordPress Station

Well, things behind the scenes here at the Station have been less than ideal, and thus no time to keep up with the constant growth of WordPress. However the dust is settling, so with the release of Getz, I figured now was as good a time as any to pick back up. I have a few bookmarks to follow up on, and then will try to get back into a regular posting schedule. I’m still struggling with how to track the many minor updates as well as new releases, not to mention the issues with the dozens of “new” themes released daily.

I had intended to weigh in on the issues of this most recent release, for those not aware, tagging was going to go into the core of WP, but due to strong disagreement from the community in the approach that was being taken, it was shelved in this release, and instead, “widgets” became the major new feature. Personally, I’m not a fan of widgets, as it minimizes the ability to customize the output in many of the core widgets (though I haven’t tested the newest versions - specifically the list page widget I’m referring to).

Look for new posts wrapping up some of the releases I’ve come across recently, as well as a potential new format. Thanks to those who’ve kept the Station in their feed readers.

If you are seeing this, then you are on the Media Temple server install, not the previous ASO server. I had many issues with ASO’s shared server environment, and even more with their customer service. I understand that shared environments are potentially troublesome, and you get what you pay for, but when an issue goes on for weeks and you do nothing to ease the mind of your customer, then say “we will do nothing to keep you from moving”, screams to me you don’t want my business. So, Media Temple, here I am. I can only hope you will not take the same approach if similar issue arise.

I’ll be migrating WP Station over the next few days to Media Temple, and hopefully making a few changes, possibly design wise in the process. Hopefully functionality won’t be affected, but if it is, I apologize in advance. Also during the move, I’m upgrading the site to the latest SVN, so there might be issue along the way, but for a multitude of reasons, I need to stop using 2.1.x branch. Anyway, just a heads up for any that care.

Justin Shatuck has released an interesting plugin that sends new commenters a thank you email for commenting, with the ability to customize the message. I’ve installed it on this site, as I’m trying to develop a bit more of a community, however, with so many WP sites, I know that is a tall task. Anyway, if you want to see how it works, leave a comment, and you should receive a message from me.

I’m not sure if everyone is suffering from this bug, but I’ve experienced it on 2 separate installs WP 2.1.2 (and since this is 2.1.3 RC1 it still hasn’t been addressed). What happens is, when attempting to post, delete, change categories, just about anything that requires some “AJAXy goodness”, you get an error, “you don’t have permission to do that”.

I didn’t come across the nature of the bug until yesterday while doing some research in the support forums, , and alas, in both Safari and FireFox, if I disable javascript, I do not get the permissions error. I’ve done all kinds of other trouble shooting, from a blank install with no plugins, to deleting cookies, caches and the kitchen sink. I really hope this gets addressed soon, it’s far more troubling to me than some remotely dangerous security issue.

Dan Cameron
Dan is at it again, offering up another great plugin. This one allows for user switching of CSS without reloading the page, and it stores the info for future visits.

Quix0r
I had been meaning to mention this plugin for some time, and actually thought I had, until Quix0r stopped by, and mentioned it. I then realized I never actually got around to blogging it.
I personally have been blessed by the combination of Spam Karma2 and Bad Behavior (maybe it’s due to the fact that I have donated to the authors, hint, hint) but anyway, many people still run into issues with spam, and this one seems like a good addition to the arsenal. I’ll leave the technical explanation to the author, but my basic understanding is it “hides” the name of the file that most spammers attack, so basically they are missing the target. Sounds good, and appears to be successful for those that need it. Worth checking out if you are still having issues with spam.

Solo Technology
I missed the first release, but just in time to announce new support for a second related posts plugin, this one from Wasabi. Basically, this ingenious plugin takes data from either the wasabi related posts plugin, or as originally intended, Ultimate Tag Warrior’s related posts, and adds them to your feed.
Really a brilliant way to attract readers, as though someone may have recently discovered your site, they may not have read older posts. This is a way to introduce them to your older content. Also, helps people see what other types of information you might have on your site.
I haven’t tested it yet, and can’t with this site, as I made a fateful decision to use certain tags that throw off related posts (UTW doesn’t have a means to exclude a tag from the relationship), however, I trust that it does exactly what it says.

Easily display a tag cloud of all your post categories in your sidebar. This plugin uses the WordPress Widgets sidebar. The plugin utilizes the category slugs you define as links and shows the amount of posts with that category tag as a measure of font size. Quick and easy install!

Learn More and Download Ryboe Tag Cloud for WordPress here!

This post was submitted by Sean Sullivan.

FELIX KRUSCH

A very interesting, 3 column theme, with subtle graphic atop each center column post to offset the starkness of the design that somehow works. Lots of white space, with gray text, accented by a dark purple header text, and magenta link colors. No mention if there’s a simple means to customize the header image, but anyone comfortable with an image editing application shouldn’t have a problem doing so. Looks customizable, though it’s widget ready, so most may not feel the need.