WordPress Planet

Mark Jaquith: Bob Barr enters U.S. presidential race, powered by WordPress

Mark Jaquith — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:20:47 +0000

Bob Barr, former Georgia Congressman, has announced a bid for the Libertarian nomination for president. He’s likely to receive it. Mr. Barr’s campaign blog is powered by WordPress. He even has open comments on his blog’s entries!

Weblog Tools Collection: WordPress Theme Releases for 5/12

Keith Dsouza — Tue, 13 May 2008 03:55:06 +0000

One Column Themes

R3volution Continued

R3colution Continued is a one column theme. Clicking on the menu image will show you a hidden content area which you can manage using a widget provided in the theme admin section.

Two Column Themes

KeeSheep

KeeSheep is a two column widget-ready theme which is made up of bright orange colors. The theme makes good use of rounded corners throughout the theme.

Elegance

Elegance is a two column widget-ready theme with light colors. It comes with the PSD source files to edit graphics. There’s a cool ajax text loader at the top and other effects.

True Colours

True Colours is a two column fixed-width, widget-ready theme which makes use of sea-blue and green colors.

Corporate

Corporate is a two column widget ready theme. The theme uses a flash based plugin to rotate header images. The rest of theme is simple and uses basic colors.

YG Desire

YG Desire is a 2 column widget-ready themes. Theme uses deep background colors but the content area is plain white for maximum readability.

Matt: Milan Day Three

Matt — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:46:23 +0000

A bit of sightseeing. Milan at sunset.

Weblog Tools Collection: Chronological Order of Comments on a Post

Mark Ghosh — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:32:17 +0000

I never get this right. There are times when I will be reading a post and it feels as if the chronological order of comments would make better sense. At other times, such as the comments on this post on IP Democracy (which has newest comments on top), seems opposite. I actually found it quite difficult and counter intuitive to read through the comments on that post to follow the story as it unfolded. Scrolling upwards on a post is just plain weird. On more popular posts, readers tend to complain when the list of comments grows beyond a certain number and they loose the forest for the trees. The TechCrunch comment threads are simply useless if you want to follow any part of the discussion and I tend to just read the highlighted ones from Michael or the other authors. On the other hand, comment reply threads are unwieldy, take up too much space and somehow fail to mirror forum discussions. Alternatively, outsourcing comments to a third party is just not an elegant or attractive solution for most people.

I feel that commenting systems on blogs need to evolve some more. Some blogs have decided to spin off comments to forums. Others have moved their comments to external services such as Disqus. Yet others like TechCrunch move comments to a linked forum for further discussion after the post has become somewhat stale.

What do forums have that comment threads on blogs do not? Are paged comments a good idea? Should comments threads be pruned by type? Are you more willing to participate in a forum discussion than post a comment on a blog? If that is the case, how could we enhance commenting on blogs to mimic the reader involvement of forums?

I don’t think there is a single right answer. However, I do consider our readers’ comments to be the lifeline of our blogs and shy away from shipping them off elsewhere. That being said, Disqus and Intense Debate have the right idea but the execution takes away from blog ownership. Comment editing and tagging, and comment to post and comment to commenter relationships need a lot more TLC if comments are to become as ubiquitous and as widely used as forum posts. Gravatars go a long way in bringing those relationships closer to a global audience but more needs to be done.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the present state of comments in the blogosphere. Did you come across a commenting system that bridges some of these gaps? Was there some feature that stuck with you or made you go Hmmm? What would make commenting less of a hurdle for you?

Weblog Tools Collection: 15 Websites and,or Services I’d Actually Pay For

Mark Ghosh — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:15:06 +0000

15 Websites / Services I’d Actually Pay For Ryan lists fifteen websites/online services he would be willing to pay for, if they were not free. Worthy of note is the following in the list: Wordpress.org: The benefit of blogging with WP is so significant (SEO, functionality, flexibility) that it’s well worth paying for. I’d probably pay a $200 for an installation… which makes me realize how much I rely on the product.

This is an incredibly interesting line of thought and I am sure a lot of Web 2.0 companies/services would kill to have more user data and input on this. I strongly believe that revenue models and monetization techniques are the stuff that make or break a company in spite of the fantastic idea/concept that it might provide. In that spirit, here is my list of 12 things online (15 things were hard to find quickly) I am willing to pay for.

GMail: Without a doubt my one most used tools online. I returned to GMail a few years ago and cannot imagine my life without it. Add other services such as Google Reader and Google (outside of google search, without which I would be completely lost, at least for a few days) is indispensable to me.
WordPress: I would pay for it undoubtably, but I think the allure would be gone if I had to pay. Whenever I think WordPress, I think GPL and Open Source and I just cannot imagine the two apart.
Firefox: This was a tough one. I would pay for it, but look at #2. I would however, be willing to pay for the Web Developer Toolbar extension, the colorpicker extension and a few others that I use everyday.
Akismet: I do pay for Akismet. The service has caught 3,263,951 spam on this blog since I first installed it.
SlickDeals: I am an addict. If I had to pay to be a member, within reason, I would pay for it.
StatCounter: Their free service is great, but if they started charging for their basic service, the switching cost of years of accumulated data would force me to pay.
Techmeme: Nominal, yearly charges would be fine by me, especially if it removed those sponsored posts. I use it too often.
Skype: Again, nominal yearly charges would be acceptable for the basic PC to PC calling. I already keep my account topped off for when I call international phones once in a while.
Craigslist: If I had to pay a small fee for the listings, if the charge was only initiated for items that are sold (which I understand would be hard to monitor), I would pay for it. Craigslist is a much better place to buy and sell everyday used items than eBay and I have made better deals via Craigslist than any other online selling venue.
Woopra: I am getting addicted to the Woopra fever. As I have expressed in the past to JohnP, Elie and others, I would be willing to pay a reasonable fee for it.
Various WordPress Plugins: I have paid and have dontated to the developers of various WordPress plugins that I find extremely useful and which have become completely indispensable after I have installed them and used them. They include OIOPublisher, Ozh’s Who Sees Ads, Mark’s Subscribe to Comments etc.
Feedburner: Now another Google service but Feedburner reduces the traffic load from feed readers and I would have paid for the service if it were not free.

What would you be willing to pay for? If famous OSS programs were not OSS, would you pay for them? Does the cost of software make it less or more attractive (not the relative cost, but just the fact that it is not free)? Would you pay for Twitter? How about Flickr or Google Analytics? What if TechCrunch went to a registration model? Would it still be as popular? How much do you spend on personal online services every month today? Are online vendors sharing more of your wallet today than say, two years ago? Do you think this trend will continue to increase?

These are the kinds of things that keep me up at night.

Lorelle on WP: Learning from the Voices of WordCamp Dallas

Lorelle VanFossen — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:52:44 +0000

Charles Stricklin, the host of WordCamp Dallas 2008 and The WordPress Podcast has released The Voices of WordCamp Dallas, a collection of quick interviews and questions I asked during the event.

I was so amazed at how open everyone was, willing to share their thoughts on WordPress, WordCamp, blogging, and the magic of the web today. I talked to bloggers who had been blogging for years and newbies, with only a few weeks under their belts. It was a collection of the whose who and whose upcoming in the blogosphere and thank you to Charles for sharing the magic that his efforts brought together in one place.

Some of the interviews are excerpted and I hope to bring them to you in their entirety soon, so stay tuned. In the 30 minute set of The Voices of WordCamp Dallas, you will hear:

00.10 Bill Sholar of Webfratelli
00.37 Dan Bates
00.59 Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today
01.45 Ptah Dunbar
02.34 Bryan Lee
03:14 Cory Miller of iThemes Media
03:44 Henry Pugsley
04:07 Kerry Webster of WEBsmith internet consultants
04:44 Wendi McGowan of Wendistry, LLC and Scott Ellis of vsellis.com
05:36 Dave Curlee and Katherine Curlee of RealCookN.tv
06:28 DB Ferguson of No Fact Zone
07:48 Alexander Frison of Not a Niche
09:18 Tony Cecala of Holistic Networker
10:04 Mike Borschow of MetroQ.com
11:55 Mark Ghosh of Weblog Tools Collection
12:30 Dorian Karthauser of DK Enterprises (beginner blogger)
17:35 Charlene Mullenweg (sister of Matt Mullenweg)
23:15 Jim Halloran of AlcoholismDiseaseFree.com
24:13 Ryan Joy and Michelle Greer of Volusion and Michelle’s Blog
26:41 Kathleen Ratliff
27:14 William Addington of Williamedia
28:31 Doug Smith of smithsrus.com and Hide a Pod
29:25 Ronald Huereca of Readers Appreciation Project and Weblog Tools Collection
30:23 Dimitri (blog not public - biotech)

I look forward to repeating this fascinating dialog in future WordCamps and blogging events I travel to and speak at. It’s a humbling experience as I come to teach and come away learning more than I ever expected. Thank you to all for sharing your thoughts and passions with me!

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Matt: Community Tagging

Matt — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:48:13 +0000

I’m testing out a new community tagging feature, you should see a form to add people tags on photo pages now. Try it out, particularly on the Milan/WordCamp galleries - day one and day two. Proposed tags go into a moderation queue, so they’ll show up after they’re approved.

Weblog Tools Collection: Theme Designers And Print.CSS

Jeff Chandler — Sun, 11 May 2008 12:03:19 +0000

Here at WeblogToolsCollection, we see quite a bit of WordPress theme releases coming through our inbox and I’ve noticed a trend. Hardly any of them include printing support. The question I’d like to have answered is why? Is adding printer support to WordPress themes too hard? Does adding this feature take up time? Or is it that this feature is barely any use to anyone?

For those wanting to add this type of support to your theme, you can install WP-Print. WP-Print picks up where most theme authors have left off by providing printing support in such a way that end users can print either articles or comments, depending on how you have configured the plugin.

In fact, doing a search on the plugin database for the keyword of “print” brought up two pages worth of search results. Another solution for you theme authors out there is called Bunny’s Print CSS. This plugin provides two files, print-css.php which is the plugin file and print.css which is the print stylesheet.

A link to the print stylesheet will be placed in your theme’s header, providing it uses the wp_head() function/hook. An admin panel is added to the Presentations menu and it will allow you to edit the stylesheet if you make print.css writeable. You probably want to edit the stylesheet provided to your liking, though it will hopefully do most of the job if your theme is sandbox-based.

This method takes most of the hard work out of creating a print.css file, even though theme authors would most likely have to modify the stylesheet to make it compatible with their theme.

For those who would like to manually create the style sheet, there is an article on the Codex entitled “Styling For Print” which covers all of the basics necessary to make a pretty, yet functional print stylesheet to include with your theme/themes.

I hope that by linking to the Codex article and bringing this issue to light, we will start to see more themes being released with built in printing support. It’s not a deal breaker for me, but I’d rather see themes that support this feature than those that don’t. My personal opinion is that, printing support is a nice finishing touch to round off any theme, and having it built in allows me and a number of other users to stop using another plugin.

Now it’s time for you to sound off. Is this a trivial issue, or is there anyone else out there that would like to see this feature in more themes?

Matt: WordCamp Milan Photos

Matt — Sun, 11 May 2008 09:33:54 +0000

Day two in Milano; WordCamp Italy.

Weblog Tools Collection: Getting ready for WordPress Plugin Competition 2.5

Ajay — Sat, 10 May 2008 04:01:27 +0000

Good day. I am Ajay D’Souza. I blog at http://ajaydsouza.com/ and http://techtites.com/. Those of you who have been following this blog for more than a year may remember my daily release posts as well as the A-Plugin-A-Day series. MBA life has kept me busy since then, but that’s another story.

As part of my new assignment out here, I’ll be looking after the Plugin Competition. I’ll be maintaining the WordPress Plugin Competition Blog as well as making weekly posts both here and at the Competition Blog.

With the WordPress Plugin Competition 2.5 beginning today, I thought I’d just write in with a few tips on making your entry.

Firstly, read the rules to be followed are listed in the post. Please make sure that your entry does not break any of them.

Getting Inspired

One of the important rules that we have is that the plugins should be new, i.e. no updates to already existing plugins. One great place to get inspired is WordPress Ideas. WordPress Ideas is a place where the people from the WordPress Community, both users and developers vote for what they would like included in WordPress. Some have been implemented, while some may actually appear in future versions and still others that may not be. So, why not make a plugin to accommodate for the latter two?

You can also hunt for ideas in these posts or this posting in our News Forum.

Offering the plugin for download

Something that many authors forget in their zeal to develop a plugin (or a theme) is its documentation.

Firstly, make sure your plugin zip file contains a readme.txt. If needed, include a full fledged help section as well. You can also put this on the plugin release page on your site.

Next, create a separate page on your blog / site dedicated for the plugin. Posts are a no-no! They get lost in the crowd.

Make sure the page has the following:

Overview
Requirements
Features
Installation Instructions
Download Link
License
Method to get support

When linking to the download file, one method I follow is to link to a file without any version etc. e.g. it reads simply pluginname.zip. The purpose of this is that I can always update the zip file with the latest version of the plugin without bothering to change the link.

Old versions of the plugin can be archived as pluginname_v1.0.zip, pluginname_v1.1.zip and so on.

Sending it to us

You’ll need to send your plugin to us via email. We will reveal the email address that you need to send the plugins to in the second month of the competition.

The competition is on for another two months, which gives you plenty of time to release a feature rich plugin.

Before that, release a well tested version to the public. Fix any bugs that come up, try to provide more features as requested.

The WordPress community is demanding and extremely helpful at guiding you down your path.

All the best for now.

To the WordPress Community

I’m sure you’ll love the competition and many of the plugins that stem from it. Authors are always hunting for ideas and who better to tell them than you. Please feel free to post your ideas in the comments section below.

Or, you can also post them in any of these two posts or this posting in our News Forum.

If you would like to sponsor a prize or donate some money to the competition, please contact us. Lots of eyes see these competitions and your encouragement goes a long way in helping provide incentives.

Stay tuned and please help spread the word.

Weblog Tools Collection: WordPress Theme Releases for 5/9

Keith Dsouza — Sat, 10 May 2008 03:58:14 +0000

Two Column Themes

K2 is a popular WordPress theme which is not fully compatible with WordPress 2.5. The theme now has options to dynamically reduce the number of columns to fit screen size and also support for Hooks and PHP. The theme also has Avatar support and Image gallery templates for WordPress 2.5 and above.

Daydreams

Daydreams is a 2 column minimalist theme for WordPress. The theme has not widget support.

Three Column Themes

Starscape

Starscape is a three column widget-ready theme which comes in three different colors, the theme also has a extended sidebar in the footer. You can turn the sidebar on or off from the Admin section.

Choice

Choice is a simple three column theme which has a configuration file in the back-end that gives you a nice selection of options that control color choice, column amount, number of sidebars and more among other things.

Aqua Marina

Aqua Marina a three column theme made up of blue colors, the content area is surrounded by two sidebars on either side. The theme also has a area on the top of the page which you can use to display latest posts, recent comments etc.

Weblog Tools Collection: Opt In To Subscribing

Jeff Chandler — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:17:20 +0000

While reading Lorelle’s awesome post over at the blog herald entitled WordPress Wednesday I noticed a blip she mentioned about Mark Jaquith’s Subscribe To Comments plugin. Apparently, Mark has changed the way in which subscriptions are dealt with by default. In earlier versions, Subscribe To Comments would leave the Subscribe Box check marked by default, causing anyone who commented to automatically be subscribed to that blog post. This in turn created an opt-out way of thinking which has been and continues to be a bad practice.

Mark has changed this around and now leaves the subscribe box blank by default, leaving it up to the end users to decide on whether they would like to subscribe to the post or not. A much needed and welcomed change. Mark even set the plugin up so that even those who want to be subscribed to every post they comment on can do so via cookies:

I appear to have misread into Marks’ post as has been pointed out by both Mark and Lloyd Budd in the comments. What really changed with the plugin is the fact that the site admin now no longer has the configurable option of making the plugin opt-in or opt-out by default. According to Mark,

Before: option of opt-in or opt-out with default of opt-in for new installs. After: opt-in only, but with per-user checkbox stickiness. And yes, the change is old — I just have been getting a lot of e-mail about it and realized I never explained the change publicly.

I realize the change is old and the post I linked to was written in April, but because of the way I read into the post, I thought this was something that needed to be brought up due to the ethical nature of the changes that were made.

Matt: Milan Day One

Matt — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:00:46 +0000

First day in Milan.

Weblog Tools Collection: Top 10 Tools to Get Blogging Done

Mark Ghosh — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:11:48 +0000

Top 10 Tools to Get Blogging Done: Just like it sounds, LifeHacker lists the top 10 tools, according to them, to get the job of blogging done. If you have ever been to a WordCamp and heard Lorelle speak, she has some of the best power blogging tips that I have ever come across. JohnP has some pretty effective tips on power blogging as well.

Matt: Foxmarks Beta

Matt — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:32:38 +0000

The new Foxmarks beta works with Firefox 3 and seems pretty solid. Check out Foxmark’s WordPess-powered blog.

Matt: Kyle Skips OpenID

Matt — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:18:49 +0000

5 reasons I won’t be getting on the open id train, by Kyle Neath. Animated comment thread.

WordPress Planet

Mark Jaquith: Bob Barr enters U.S. presidential race, powered by WordPress

Weblog Tools Collection: WordPress Theme Releases for 5/12

One Column Themes

Two Column Themes

Matt: Milan Day Three

Weblog Tools Collection: Chronological Order of Comments on a Post

Weblog Tools Collection: 15 Websites and,or Services I’d Actually Pay For

Lorelle on WP: Learning from the Voices of WordCamp Dallas

Related Articles

Matt: Community Tagging

Weblog Tools Collection: Theme Designers And Print.CSS

Matt: WordCamp Milan Photos

Weblog Tools Collection: Getting ready for WordPress Plugin Competition 2.5

Getting Inspired

Offering the plugin for download

Sending it to us

To the WordPress Community

Weblog Tools Collection: WordPress Theme Releases for 5/9

Two Column Themes

Three Column Themes

Weblog Tools Collection: Opt In To Subscribing

Matt: Milan Day One

Weblog Tools Collection: Top 10 Tools to Get Blogging Done

Matt: Foxmarks Beta

Matt: Kyle Skips OpenID