WordPress iPhone has already been updated. Over 201,000 blogs using WordPress 2.6. More than 300 WordPress Themes uploaded to the new WordPress Theme Directory. Simon Dickson rocked WordCamp UK with great info on WordPress as a CMS for businesses. WordCamp San Francisco opens registration. Need help tracking changes in WordPress versions? There is now a Plugin that will help your WordPress Themes and Plugins make the transition. WordPress 2.5 is dead. WordPressMU 2.6 is alive. And Mark Jaquith writes a one line WordPress Plugin.
WordPress News
WordPress iPhone: The WordPress iPhone is now at version 1.1 with a lot of improvements and a couple bug fixes. You can learn more about it on the WordPress iPhone Development Blog and study the source code on the WordPress iPhone SVN.
WordPress 2.6 Released: WordPress 2.6 was released last week and appears to be a fairly stable release. It is a mandatory release with security patches and you should Download WordPress 2.6 now. Over 194 bugs were fixed, too. I’ve included a lot of the new features in past issues of the WordPress Wednesday News. For those with WordPress Themes that have not been updated to handle the new image placement, see Hack WordPress and WP Lover for technical help.
WordPress 2.6 Stats: Matt Mullenweg released some numbers on WordPress 2.6. Within the first 10 days, there are 201,000 blogs using 2.6. The English version had been downloaded on average 23,000 a day. According to the WordPress Development blog, there have been 34 issues fixed so far for the upcoming release of 2.6.1.
WordCamp UK Simon Dickson Presentation: The presentation by Simon Dickson has been declared a showstopper at WordCamp UK and he goes into more detail about the things he covered on using WordPress within a business, including a the use of WordPress for 10 Downing Street, the seat of the British Prime Minister. He also offered tips on how WordPress could improve, especially as a CMS.
WordPress 2.5 Branch No Longer Supported: The announcement of the release of WordPress 2.6 came with the news that WordPress 2.5 will no longer be supported. It is nearly identical to the new version and has little impact on Themes and Plugins.
WordPress Theme Directory Submissions: Matt Mullenweg reports that more than 300 WordPress Themes have been added to the new WordPress Theme Directory in the first 6 days. Jeff Chandler of Performancing offers a guided tour of the new WordPress Theme Directory.
WordPressMU 2.6 Released: WordPressMU 2.6 has been released and Donncha offers details on the improvements, including bringing it up to WordPress 2.6 specs. As mentioned last week, the signup page is more secure, improvements have been made in WordPress Themes, Plugins, custom front page posts, and more. A lot of security issues have been addressed and a bunch of bugs fixed in this multiple user version of WordPress.
Checked out Weblog Tools Collection Lately? One of the best resources for top-notch information on WordPress is the Weblog Tools Collection blog. They cover everything including frquent WordPress Plugin Releases (see WordPress Plugin Releases for 07/29, WordPress Plugin Releases for 07/28), and WordPress Plugin Releases 07/24), WordPress Theme Releases and Announcements (see WordPress Theme Releases for 07/25 and WordPress Theme Releases 07/23), and now offer a summary of WordPress Tips they find along their daily WordPress surfing (see WordPress Tips for 7/27. They are also the host of the annual Weblog Tools Collection WordPress Plugin Competition and voting is on right now, so go vote for your favorite WordPress Plugin in the competition and turn a Plugin author into a rockstar and WordPress guru!
Having Trouble Publishing Code in Posts and Comment? If you publish code in your WordPress posts and comments, WordPress may think it is code. To prevent code acting like code, WordPress automatically filters it out of the posts and comments, as does many other blogging and CMS programs. To publish code as content, see Writing Code in Your WordPress Posts and Writing and Publishing Code in Your WordPress Blog Posts.
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: iPhone, 10 Downing Street, WordCamp UK, WordPress 2.6 Rocks, WordPress International, and WordPress Themes Directory.
WordPress Podcasts
WordPress Podcast: The WordPress Podcast: Episode 43: Out Of Date Blogs Hacked, All-In-One SEO Gets Dropped, Then Picked Up covered those topics and the development of the Crazy Horse new WordPress Administration Panels interface, Batcache, HyperDB, WordPress Plugins, WordPress 2.6, and security issues.
WordCast Podcast: WordCast 23: Sexy Asian Commenters has been released and features WordPress Plugins, Liz Strauss pushing WordPress by releasing over 260 blog posts – one a minute – using the future post feature, the WordPress iPhone, WordPress 2.6 statistics and news, and more. The WordCast Mugshot Contest is still on. Send in a photograph of your Mug and you may win.
WordPress on Your Calendar
WordCamp San Francisco 2008: Registration is now open for WordCamp San Francisco 2008 on August 16, 2008 at the Mission Bay Conference Center. There is a constantly updated list of attendees and the schedule is yet to be announced for the speakers and events. Lloyd Budd is looking for WordPress Geniuses to help set up a help “bar” during WordCamp to help answer WordPress questions and solve problems. Interested?
Record Breaking WordCamps: We’ve got some record breakers coming up for WordCamp events. There are 5 WordCamps set for this September, and three will all be on September 27: WordCamp Utah in Salt Lake City, WordCamp Birmingham in Alabama, and WordCamp Portland in Oregon. Three WordCamps are scheduled so far for October. It’s going to be an autumn stuffed with WordCamp and WordPress fun.
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).
- WordCamp San Francisco 2008 at Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF – August 16, 2008
- The New York City WordPress August Meetup – August 16, 2008
- The Boston WordPress August Meetup – August 21, 2008
- The Dallas/Ft. Worth Area WordPress August Meetup – August 23, 2008
- WordCamp South Africa – Cape Town – August 23, 2008
- Central Coast WordPress Meetup – Pismo Beach, California – Aug 30, 2008
- WordCamp Philippines – September 6, 2008
- Blog World Expo, Vegas – September 20-21, 2008
- WordCamp China – Beijing – September 20-21, 2008
- WordCamp Utah – Salt Lake City – September 27, 2008
- WordCamp Birmingham – Alabama – September 27, 2008
- WordCamp Portland, Oregon – September 27, 2008
- WordCamp New York – New York – October 4, 2008
- WordCamp Toronto – October 4-5, 2008
- Podcamp and WordCamp Hawaii – Oct 24, 2008
- MinneWordCamp – Minneapolis – November 15, 2008
- WordCamp Australia – Sydney – December 6-7, 2008
WordCamps and WordPress Meetups Everywhere: A WordPress Meetup is a frequent meeting of WordPress fans. A WordCamp is a day or two long event with sponsors and dozens if not hundreds of WordPress fans gathering annually. If you would like to sponsor or host a WordCamp, check out the new official site for tracking WordCamps is WordCamp Central, which includes instructions and guidelines for running a WordCamp. If you would like to start a WordPress Meetup group, find a meeting place and announce it among your friends, and add a listing to the Yahoo Upcoming events for WordPress, as many track WordPress event announcements there.
WordPress Plugins and Themes News
Mark Jaquith – One Line WordPress Plugin: After publishing How to Write a Solid and Stable WordPress Plugin, Mark Jaquith wrote a WordPress Plugin all on one line just to prove it could be done. The Post Timestamp Visible WordPress Plugin opens the post timestamp editing fields so they are visible all the time for those who use the future posts feature of WordPress. The technical article on writing WordPress Plugins is a good guideline for creating consistent, well-written, and secure Plugins and worth adding to your references.
Inline Documentation for WordPress: Peter Westwood has created the WordPress Inline Documentation site with PHPdocumentor which outlines all the classes, functions, and more in WordPress. This is excellent for Theme and Plugin authors. This joins the ranks of other core programming functions and resources such as the WordPress Codex Function Reference. Peter Westwood also has a good guide on how to track deprecated functions for WordPress coders and extenders.
Prologue WordPress Theme Upgraded: The Prologue WordPress Theme is now version 1.4.1, updated with fixes in the CSS for lists, improved comments login message, iPhone stylesheet integration, and much more overall improvements and fixes. The Prologue WordPress Theme is a “social” Theme produced by Automattic, and considered a Twitter-style blog format.
Log Your Deprecated Calls: Stephen Rider has released the Log Deprecated Calls WordPress Plugin especially for Plugin and Theme authors. If WordPress calls a function or file that has been deprecated due to version changes or modifications, a message is logged in a PHP file that identifies the call’s location and makes a recommendation on what to replace it with. It should allow faster and easier upgrades and modifications from version to version.
Using Classes in WordPress Plugins: Stephen Rider of Nerdaphernalia wrote about how to use classes in your WordPress Plugins to improve code portability and minimize name conflicts within the code. He discusses the pros and cons and highly recommends you wrap your Plugins’ functions in a PHP class to future proof your Plugins.
Interesting WordPress Plugins: Here are some interesting and unusual Plugins I found recently:
- WordPress Tabs and Slides WordPress Plugin adds accordion-style navigation to your WordPress Theme with tags and slides, creating a multi-page structure within a single pageview.
- MaxRef WordPress Widgets adds unlimited widgets to your WordPress blog sidebar to display posts from a specific category, links from a link category, comments, and a variety of other sidebar options.
- uses a filter to display a keyword “cloud” based upon search engine queries to your blog.
- Display Google Spreadsheet WordPress Plugin allows embedding of Google online spreadsheets within your WordPress blog post.
- Peter’s Collaboration E-mails WordPress Plugin takes advantage of the Pending Review feature of recent versions of WordPress to send an email to the moderators or editors when a post is submitted and ready for review, and another to the contributor when the post is approved for publishing.
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
Here are some interesting WordPress tips I’ve uncovered:
- ZEPREZ WordPress Video Guides – How To Publish Posts To Your Website With WordPress 2.0
- How To: Display the Recent Posts of Specific Categories
- HACK: Fixing The Code Syntax Highlighter WordPress Plugins To Work With WYSIWYG
- How to Put Adsense on Your WordPress Blog
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.com News
Post Revisions on WordPress.com: The WordPress.com Blog goes into greater detail on how the new Post Revisions feature works for WordPress.com bloggers. For those with multiple bloggers, it helps track who has done what on the blog posts. If you make a boo boo, you can easily go back to an older version.
Adding Captions to Images on WordPress.com: You can now add captions to photographs on your WordPress.com blog. Captions have been a real bear for web page designers, so this is a major accomplishment to add to WordPress.com blogs. To add a caption, type it in the Caption field on the Media Library Image panel and it should appear. There are also shortcodes you can use to create the caption.
iPhone updated for WordPress Themes: The new iPhone WordPress application has been updated to work with the Prologue and Mdot WordPress Themes on WordPress.com. The mobile interface has been updated, which can be reached at m.wordpress.com
. They are working on improving the look, but for now, you can post to your blog, check stats, add a bookmark, and other goodies to your WordPress blog from your iPhone.
WordPress Community News
Looking Back Into the History of WordPress: Keith Dsouza of Weblog Tools Collection shares “Evolution of WordPress: B2/Cafelog to WordPress 1.0”, a history lesson on how WordPress grew out of B2/Cafelog in the early days.
Get Your WordPress Mug: I love my new WordPress mug. Go get yours at the WordPress Shop along with t-shirts and hoodies. Don’t want to buy one? Enter the WordCast Mugshot Contest and you could win one, alone with some other fun schwag. A lot of blogs are offering WordPress mugs for prizes. Why not you?
Found a Bug in WordPress? If you find a bug in WordPress, report it by following the instructions in Reporting Bugs on the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users.
Give Something Back to WordPress: Jeff Chandler of Weblog Tools Collection has written “24 Ways To Contribute To WordPress” with suggestions on how to get involved in helping WordPress development. If you would like to help with the WordPress Codex, 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.
Vote for WordPress Ideas: There is still time to get your vote in for ideas on upcoming versions of WordPress in the The WordPress Ideas 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 from Automattic, 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.
Don’t Use 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 Automattic and WordPress. Also, remember, it’s spelled “WordPress” not “Wordpress”. Oh, and Plugin is Plugin, not plug-in (what you put into a wall electrical socket).
Past WordPress Wednesday News Reports
- WordPress Wednesday News: iPhone, 10 Downing Street, WordCamp UK, WordPress 2.6 Rocks, WordPress International, and WordPress Themes Directory
- WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamps in Africa and China, WordPress 2.6, WordPress Plugin Contest Ready for Votes, WordCamp UK, and More WordPress News
- WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamps in Australia and Hawaii, Security Check Plugin, Google Gears, Lots of Plugin News and Tips, WordPress 2.6 News, and If Not WordPress, What?
- WordPress Wednesday News: Your Own Song in the Plugin Competition, WordPress 2.6 Beta and First Looks, WordCamp UK New Location, Batcache, Naked Themes, and More
- WordPress Wednesday New: Planet WordPress Canada, WordPress Plugins Contest, Crazyhorse, BuddyPress Default Theme, Blog Hacked, Sitemaps, and More
- WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress Blogs Hacked, Plugin Competition is Hot, BuddyPress, WordPress Sayings, and Lots of WordPress Plugin News
WordPress News Sources
- WordPress Planet
- WordPress Development Blog
- WordPress.com Blog
- Weblog Tools Collection
- The WordPress Podcast
- Lorelle on WordPress
- Planet WordPress from Planet Ozh
- WordPress Publisher Blog
- Planet WordPress Canada
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Each Wednesday on Blog Herald 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