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.

Popularity: 7% [?]

The “official” WordPress theme viewer appears to be suffering some server issues.

Undersigned comments on the site

The server times out due to excessive traffic and poor connections. We are still working on it. I was told some needed changes will be made within the next few days. Thanks for your patience.

With the recent healthy discussions about the state of the theme viewer, hopefully this is a blessing in disguise, and the issues will be resolved, as well as a decision on how to proceed with sharing of themes that are solely released with the intention of selling sponsorships.

Popularity: 1% [?]

while on the topic of plugins particularly, I’d like to take a minute to suggest to users to really think about making donations to authors who provide the ability to do so. Though WP can be downloaded for free, and almost all plugins are freely available, it would hurt to if everyone who downloaded a plugin once donated a dollar, it would make a significant difference to the authors, and I’m sure would spurn quicker development, or user suggested features incorporated at a quicker rate. If not for every download, at least for ones that you’ve consistently relied on. (Especially spam plugins).

And this is not relegate to just plugin authors. Theme authors should be thought about as well. A lot of time and energy is spent on some of the themes, so giving back some of that in the form of a donation would be nice.

This particularly could be said about blogs that create revenue. Andy Beardrecently solicited suggestions for who to make donations to, as he is pledging to donate 50% of all revenue from doing paid reviews. More of this should be happening. Well done Andy.

So the next time you download a killer plugin, consider sending a paypal donation. Any amount will be appreciated, and know that it is one more way to keep the WordPress community strong.

For the record, I have donated to several plugin authors, and as this is will be the first month that WP Station has earned any amount of revenue outside of covering hosting costs, I will explore some of the other plugins I use on this and other sites I maintain.

Popularity: 1% [?]

It was recently announced that a new “official” plugin repository. This is a good thing, however, before all the fan fare, a few things should be pointed out, as I see them.

First, for a plugin to listed there, it MUST be GPL. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a coder, or a lawyer, so I do not even begin to understand all the intricacies of what that means, but not all plugins are GPL. So this will never be a complete list of all the plugins available.

Second, the plugin author MUST upload the plugin to the wp server, and use their subversion directory. This could be a good thing, as it will help in version control, however, again, not all plugin authors are going to want to do this, either because they have their own subversion, method of development, or are just lazy. Also, a lot of plugin authors want the traffic for creating the plugin. Hosting the plugin off wp.org will take some of that away. WordPress.org is offering noticeable links back to their site, as well as paypal button for donations, however, that may not prove enough of a trade off for the authors.

Next, unless a decision is made to drop the bundled plugins from the “most popular” (akismet, default widgets if that becomes part of the download package, I see the delicious widget is included in that list), the data will be skewed. Speaking of “skewed”, the most popular tags listed on the left of the page there are numbers in parenthesis. Skype is listed first, with the # 36. Click on that tag, you see 1 plugin. Confusing? Yes. Granted these bugs could be worked out, however I would have thought some of the UI would have been better thought out before launching.

Another issue there is not currently a RSS feed for this, only feeds for individual tags. I’m quite surprised by this, but assume that will be another bug worked out.

Finally, as people have experienced with the “official theme viewer”, it is volunteer supported (or so I understand). And just as the other major source of plugin info, lapses in volunteers can lead to a bad experience for users.

All of that said, it is still a positive move, as more and more people rely on plugins for extending WP beyond basic blogging. An advantage I already see is it would provide developers with a localized source of plugins to develop new versions against. If you know certain plugins are highly rated and downloaded, you can test development against the plugins to avoid major “breakage” of a lot of blogs with an update. However, this will rely on authors keeping the plugin subversion up-to-date, and participating in general.

Another feature I see that can be beneficial to the community is the commenting on the plugin page. This very well can be used as a source of support, potentially moving that from the general support forums, to where the author can better track their plugin and offer support (or other users of the plugin if the author doesn’t participate).

Finally, the plugin page is beautiful, with lots of useful info, including the ability to have screenshots and FAQs.

So while a move in the right direction, I’m not sold this will be the de-facto solution, however only time will tell.

Popularity: 2% [?]

WordPress

If you haven’t seen your dashboard, or caught this in an email, it’s is imperative that you read up, and take action. From Matt on the dev blog:

Long story short: If you downloaded WordPress 2.1.1 within the past 3-4 days, your files may include a security exploit that was added by a cracker, and you should upgrade all of your files to 2.1.2 immediately.

This is a serious situation, and one not to be taken lightly. For those new to WordPress, you may want to read over the codex page on how to upgrade.

If you have any questions, you should visit the support forums, or feel free to contact me about the process.

Popularity: unranked [?]

MarkJaquith
Mark has been handling for the most part, the 2.0.x line (and from my understanding, will continue to do so after 2.1′ release), and outlines the files that need changing for this upgrade. Primarily a security fix, with a few bug fixes (including quicktag support, among others), this is a highly recommended upgrade.
That said, a minor bug appeared with this release, affecting a few users on random occasion with their feedburner feeds. As usual, this bug was quickly found, and also as usual, Mark has quickly released a fix. This post outlines your options in handling this issue. I would really like to take a second to personally commend Mark on his forthrightness about the issue, and quick response. As he states in the post regarding the Feedburner issue, he’s willing to accept a little criticism regarding the bug in the hopes it brings a few more beta testers to the fold. With the scores of different server configurations out there, testers really are the heart and soul of any stable release, and the more people who subscribe to the wp-testers mailing list, and actively participate, the less chance a bug of this nature slips through. This is a perfect example of how even non-technical members of the WP community can contribute. Simply having a test environment set up on your sever (always a good idea for testing plugins, themes, etc), installing beta and RC installs, and reporting back feedback can further the process. As he said, the more eyes, the less chance of these bugs.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Guardian Unlimited – The new 100 most useful sites

From their Blogs: Writing section:

The open-source and free software project Wordpress has risen to prominence, elbowing aside many rivals with its blog creation, management and (importantly) spam-beating tools….Blogger is the best of the rest…

A nice little nod from a not so small source. Congrats to those that have pushed WP to the forefront.

Popularity: unranked [?]

The WP Community

Episode 14 is up with your feedback on the Mullenweg interview, ways to customize your blog, a few plugin reviews, and a preview of an upcoming episode that deals with gravatars.

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Development Blog

In case you haven’t looked at your dashboard lately, Automattic is offering up some limited number of WordPress T-shirts via a 3rd party shipper. Which means, international buyers are out of luck. However, in the spirit of how I got my, if someone wants to send me the funds for the shirt and shipping via paypal, I’ll gladly see it gets sent over seas. Just hit me on the contact page, and we can go from there.
Oh, and a suggestion Matt, there are a few volunteers in the forums and codex that a t-shirt like this would go a lot further than a custom moniker, especially around the holidays.

Popularity: 4% [?]

WP Community

Part 2 of the interview with Matt Mullenweg rounds out this episode.

Popularity: 1% [?]