WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamps Everywhere, Webware 100 Again, Plugins to Fix WordPress 2.5, Change Admin Colors, and More

WordCamps are popping up everywhere! Will there be one near you? WordPress.com wins the Webware 100, again. Plugins developed to help with WordPress 2.5 issues. New Administration Panel colors. Scott Reilly finishes 14 days of Plugins with 7 more in a bonus speed round. WordPressMU in beta testing for next version. And a lot more WordPress news.

WordPress News

WordPress.com Wins Webware 100: WordPress.com has won the Webware 100 awards this year for best publisher from among 1.9 million votes cast for the 300 finalists.

WordPress 2.5 Released: WordPress 2.5 was released last week. In the past two weeks, I published information on WordPress 2.5 with a WordPress Wednesday Special Edition: WordPress 2.5, and WordPress 2.5, Security Issues, Plugins Updated, WordPress vs WordPressMU and last week’s WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.5 Issues, WordCamps Everywhere, Mullenweg Addresses Security Fears, Coffee2Code Finishes 14 Days of Plugins, and More.

How Do You Edit Comments in WordPress 2.5? I’m among the many struggling to find out how to edit commnents in WordPress 2.5 which the changes in the Administration Panels. Mark Jaquith explains how by clicking the name of the commenter or the name of the site in the Comments Panel. Many are frustrated with this, so he’s started an idea in the WordPress Idea forum asking for your input and option on putting the Edit link back in the Comments Panel. I vote yes!

WordPressMU Release Candidate for Testing: The WordPressMU 1.5 RC1 has been released for testing, incorporating WordPress 2.5 Administration Panel changes and improvements. The new version will also include an experimental support for CSS styles. This release is for testers only.

WordPress Development Continues: WordPress Development Updates reveal that post revisioning, the process of viewing various post drafts and showing the difference between any two versions, is in the trunk for inclusion in the next version of WordPress. Work also continues on streamlining queries on the Write Post and Comments panels to speed things up.

Weblog Tools Collection Video Plugin Reviews: Ronald Huereca of is releasing WordPress Plugin Video Reviews and the Organize Series WordPress Plugin is the latest review. The review includes video coverage of the Plugin and commentary on the pros and cons of using the Plugin, a great way of seeing a WordPress Plugin in action before you use it. You can find more at Weblog Tools Videos.

Avatars in WordPress: Gravatar now recognizes Identicons, MonsterID’s, and Wavatars and is working on adding the ability to add more avatar recognition to Gravatar.

WordPress Community Discounts: An Event Apart Discount for their events is now available for WordPress users, resulting in a discount up to USD $200 for any Event Apart events.

WP Weekly Podcast: The WordPress Weekly live show with Jeffro2pt0 featured me, Lorelle, and the audience asking questions and talking about WordPress news, tips, WordCamp Dallas, and more.

Update Super Cache: Donncha has updated the popular WordPress Super Cache Plugin due to a strange bug. Please update your Plugin immediately.

Do You Need Help with WordPress? I’m finding a lot of people still asking for help with their WordPress and WordPress.com blog by blogging their request. This is really dumb, folks. You don’t know who is reading or how qualified they may be to help you. Or you might never get the help you need. Please, go to the for help with the full version of WordPress and the WordPress.com Forums for help with WordPress.com blogs. Get the help you need directly from those who can help you.

Do You Want to Help with WordPress Development and Community? If you would like to help with the , the official online user manual for WordPress users, we need you. If you would like to contribute to WordPress as a volunteer in the WordPress Support Forums, testing, coding, and more, see Contributing to WordPress. If you would like to help improve WordPress by reporting bugs, please report them via the WordPress Bug Report form. Your help is needed to ensure WordPress works.

WordPress Hero Products: WordPress: Hero With Half a Dozen Faces covers the history and various products offered by Automattic and WordPress.

Last Week’s WordPress Wednesday News: Can’t get enough WordPress news and tips? There is so much news coming out about the latest version, so you can catch up with the past news in last week’s WordPress Wednesday News report WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.5 Issues, WordCamps Everywhere, Mullenweg Addresses Security Fears, Coffee2Code Finishes 14 Days of Plugins, and More.

WordPress on Your Calendar

WordPress Events CalendarWordCamps Everywhere: In a quick update, The WordCamp Report announces that WordCamps are forming all over the world with a short list of most of the known, upcoming WordCamps in the UK, Paris, Alabama, and so on. I personally know of volunteers working behind the scenes to get WordCamps started in Australia, Germany, New York, Utah, and more. Do you know of a WordCamp starting near you or do you want to bring one to your community? Let me know and we’ll help you get started.

WordCamp in Alabama: September 26-28, 2008, is South By Deep South which will now feature a WordCamp conference as part of the overall events.

WordCamp San Francisco: Matt Mullenweg hints that news of WordCamp San Francisco will be released soon. Bets are in for July or August. Hope the conference location is air conditioned this year!

WordPress Meetup or WordCamp Near You? If you are putting together a WordPress event, please email me so I can publicize it here. If there is a WordCamp near you, go. If you are interested in setting up a WordCamp, stay tuned for news and information on to bring a WordCamp event near you.

Here are some WordPress-related dates and events to put on your calendar as found on the WordPress Roadmap and the WordPress Meetup Group Listings (subject to change):

WordPress Security News

WordPress SecurityHas Your WordPress Blog Been Hacked? Make Sure Your WordPress is Not Hacked by Daily Blog Tips recommends the traditional and easiest manner to spot whether or not your WordPress blog has been hacked, or you have chosen a sponsored, ad-filled Theme unknowingly. Check your generated web page source code in your browser. Look at all the code, whether you understand it or not, for anything that looks like it shouldn’t be there.

The best recommendation to protect your blog from hackers? Update.

WordPress Security Prevention and Scares: Matt Mullenweg spoke out recently on the recent bogus “SecurityFocus SQL Injection” fear spreading across the web. He also offered some sensible tips and information for those worried about the “increasing security threats” to WordPress, which he likens to “running into a crowded theatre and yell ‘fire’ and the less basis there is in fact the more people link to them. It’s not uncommon to see crying-wolf reports like the above several times in a week…” His recommendations: Update WordPress. Use common sense. Use strong passwords. Be aware.

How Do I Know if My WordPress Blog is Vulnerable and Has Been Attacked? Your WordPress blog is vulnerable if it is not versions 2.5, 2.3.3, 2.1.3, or 2.0.11. Upgrade now. See the WordPress Release Archive for past versions. For more information, see a past issue of the WordPress Wednesday News.

WordPress Plugins and Themes News

WordPress Plugins DatabaseCompetition for the Native WordPress Plugin Updater: Plugin Central WordPress Plugin works with WordPress 2.5 and is meant to be a replacement to the native WordPress Plugin Updater. It allows installation of multiple Plugins by name from the WordPress repository, updating all Plugins at once, sorting the Plugins list, easy moving WordPress Plugins from one blog to another, Dashboard Plugin status and updates, and more.

An Alternatives to the Built-in Gallery: Cleaner WordPress Gallery Plugin acts as a replacement with the default gallery feature of WordPress 2.5, and solves a lot of problems users are reporting. It has the same features as the new gallery but adds valid XHTML, style rules injection for the middle of a post display, and works with Lightbox, Slimbox, and Thickbox support.

14 Days Plus of Non-Stop WordPress Plugins: Coffee2Code Ends 14 Days of WordPress Plugins with 7 More! I’ve been talking about Scott Reilly of Coffee2Code’s 14 Days of Plugins series, and he ends two weeks of non-stop coding with a big bang, releasing seven additional WordPress Plugins:

  1. Extra Sentence Space
  2. Text Hover
  3. Last Logins
  4. array_partition
  5. Loop Post Navigation Links
  6. Get Upcoming or Past Posts
  7. Never Moderate Registered Users

Comment Ninja and Auntie Akismet Updated: WordPress Comment Ninja and Akismet Auntie Spam for WordPress Greasemonkey Scripts for FireFox by Engtech of Internet Duct Tape have been updated to work with WordPress 2.5.

Make Your WordPress Plugins Work with Automatic Updates: Ozh offers “4 Checkpoints to Make Sure Plugin Update Notices in WordPress Will Work”, an article to help WordPress Plugin authors ensure their Plugins will work with the new Automatic Plugin Update feature in WordPress 2.5.

WordPress Functions Updated: The WordPress Function Reference page in the , the online manual for WordPress Users, continues to be updated with information and references on all the functions within WordPress, especially for WordPress 2.5. Volunteers are needed to help fill in all the missing blanks, so if you would like to help, read Contributing to WordPress and join the fun.

PlanetOzh Updates Plugins: planetOzh reports updating his two most popular WordPress Plugins, Absolute Comments and Admin Drop Down Menu to work better with WordPress 2.5 and WordPressMU and adds some new features.

Administration Panel Plugins: With the new WordPress 2.5 Administration Panel interface comes Plugins to add colors and a variety of features. Fluency Admin WordPress Plugin and Baltic Amber Themes WordPress Plugin are the first out of the gate.

Plugin Styles Guides: We now have two WordPress 2.5 Plugin Style Guides to help WordPress Plugin authors. Epicalex – WordPress 2.5 Plugin Style Guide and Joost De Valk – WordPress 2.5 Plugin Settings Pages Style Guide.

Tracking WordPress Compatibility: It’s often difficult to track what Plugin and Theme is compatible with which WordPress version. In the are two “master” pages that list all the various compatibilities: WordPress Theme Compatibilities and WordPress Plugin Compatibilities. No matter which version you are using, and in preparation for the next version of WordPress, add these to your WordPress resource list to check before you upgrade.

See Also

Plugin and Theme Compatibility Issues for Authors and Designers: If you have a WordPress Plugin or Theme, see Migrating Plugins and Themes for tips on updating your Plugin or Theme for the latest version of WordPress. Once updated, make sure to include it on the WordPress Compatibility lists so users will know which version is updated and ready to work with the latest WordPress.

Interesting WordPress Plugins: The following are some interesting WordPress Plugins I’ve uncovered over the past few weeks:

  • Better Plugin Page WordPress Plugin helps those running dozens of Plugins improve their Plugin Panel to help find the Plugin with less clutter, quick action links, tiny icons, and filter buttons.
  • WP_Censor WordPress Plugin adds the ability to “black out” certain words that may appear in a post on a “family” website.
  • Page Links To WordPress Plugin allows specific WordPress Pages or posts to link to a URL of your choosing instead of their WordPress Page or Post, redirecting the visitor to a WordPress or non-WordPress link. For example, if you are using any static HTML pages or have a photo gallery or forum, you can create a new Page and include a custom fields link to redirect to the URL of your choice. This is an alernative to manually coding links within your WordPress blog’s navigation in the Theme.
  • WordPress Plugin PostLists has been update and features configurable dynamic lists of posts within your posts, Pages, or Widgets.

Finding WordPress Plugins: For more WordPress Plugins see the official WordPress Plugin Directory, the WordPress Plugins Database, and Weblog Tools Collection Plugin and Theme announcements.

WordPress Techniques and Tips

30 Days of WordPress Hacks: By its true definition, a “hack” is a change to the core programming, but many use this term to denote a tip or technique, which is part of what JT Pratt is doing in his “30 WordPress Hacks in 30 Days Series”. Check it out.

Want to Write a WordPress Tip and See It Here? If you would like your WordPress tip and technique included in this list, see Tips For Writing Good WordPress Tips and Writing and Publishing Code In Your WordPress Blog Posts. When its ready, contact me at lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com.

WordPress Help: If you are looking for help on using WordPress, begin by visiting the , the online manual for WordPress Users, then searching the or WordPress.com Forums, depending upon your version.

WordPress.com News

WordPress.com W logoOne Cool Site WordPress 2.5 and WordPress.com Tips: One Cool Site on continues to offer some great tips on using WordPress 2.5 in WordPress.com, which applies to full version WordPress blogs, too. Recent tips include:

New Search Feature for WordPress.com: WordPress.com has announced a new Search WordPress.com feature allowing visitors and users to search through their almost 3 million blogs. The search feature searches by most recent or most relevant posts on WordPress.com. Posts are indexed within 30 minutes of publishing. The search feature is powered by Flaptor’s Hounder, a new open source project working with Automattic.

WordPress Community News

WordPress Community graphicVote for WordPress Ideas: There is still time to get your vote in for ideas on upcoming versions of WordPress in the The section. Why not take advantage of it and add your voice to the vote.

Looking for a WordPress Expert? If you are looking for a WordPress expert, try the WordPress Consultants list the WordPress Jobs listings, and the WP-Pro mailing list.

WordPress Installed For Free: Installing WordPress for Free (aka Install4Free WordPress) is a free, volunteer-driven service is limited to personal blogs only, and they help only with installations, not upgrades.

Using WordPress in Your Blog’s Name: It’s about respect. Please use WordPress names right because WordPress is a trademark and you are not allowed to use WordPress in your blog’s domain name or URL unless you have permission of and . Also, remember, it’s spelled “WordPress” not “Wordpress”. Oh, and Plugin is Plugin, not plug-in (what you put into a wall electrical socket).

Found a Bug in WordPress? If you find a bug in WordPress, report it by following the instructions in Reporting Bugs on the , the online manual for WordPress Users.

Shop WordPress: You can now buy t-shirts, hoodies or mugs with the WordPress logo on them in the WordPress Shop.

Even More WordPress News?

Past WordPress Wednesday News Reports

WordPress News Sources

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Each Wednesday on is WordPress Wednesday, featuring the news around the WordPress Community. If you have a WordPress news item or tip to suggest, please contact me at this special email address: lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com

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Lorelle VanFossen

The author of Lorelle on WordPress and the fast-selling book, Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging, as well as several other blogs, Lorelle VanFossen has been blogging for over 15 years, covering blogging, WordPress, travel, nature and travel photography, web design, web theory and development extensively as web technologies developed.

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