WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, WordPress Rules the UK, and WordPress Plugin News

WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco is this weekend and WordPressers are flying in from around the world to attend the big event. Look for them prowling around San Francisco in a fundraising Scavenger Hunt on Sunday! WordPress is now running the British government, with WP Super Cache supporting it. Vote now for your favorite WordPress Plugin. Learn the secrets behind the new WordPress Theme Directory. WordCamp Utah speakers announced. Lots of news about WordPress Plugins. And more!

WordPress News

WordPress Rules the British Government: As has been widely reported, number10.gov.uk for Number 10 Downing Street, home of the British Primer Minister’s office, is run with WordPress. Donncha is excited for that, but mostly because they are using his WP Super Cache WordPress Plugin to handle the traffic load smoothly fairly well.

Weblog Tools Collection WordPress Plugin Competition – VOTE NOW! Have you voted yet? Get your vote in for your favorite in the WordPress Plugin Competition. There are some top notch Plugins included, and Ozh has written his review of the entrants in part one and part two of the competition, giving you insights into which are the ones he likes and why, and things WordPress Plugin authors can learn along the way to improve their Plugins.

WordPress 2.6.1 Beta 2 Released: Last week, the beta 1 version of WordPress 2.6.1 was released, and WordPress 2.6.1 Beta 2 is out this week. Ryan Boren reports that the first draft of the automatic upgrade is in the truck for the next major release of WordPress:

It is hairy, ill-tempered and eats kittens. You can use it to automatically upgrade to each nightly build if you are brave. Don’t use it on blogs you want to keep.

WordPress Theme Directory Revealed: In an interview with Matt Mullenweg and Joseph Scott about the WordPress Themes Directory with Theme Shaper, they reveal some of the goodies coming up soon with the new repository for WordPress Themes, including the news that if you want to get exposure for your Theme in the upcoming WordPress 2.7 release that will access the directory through the Themes Panel, you better get your Theme in the directory!

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.

Got an Idea for a WordPress Plugin? Blue Fur is looking for WordPress Plugin requests from the WordPress Community of fans, collecting suggestions for Plugins they can develop. Some interesting Plugins have been mentioned, but be really specific in your requests so they and all of us watching know what your intension and usage is for the suggested Plugin. Any other Plugin experts taking requests?

WP-Vote: WP-Vote is a new Digg-style site by Jean-Baptiste Jung to help support the WordPress Community by submitting WordPress-related stories and voting upon them.

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.

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: WordPress 2.7, WordCamp News, 2.6.1 Beta Released.

WordPress Podcasts

WordPress Podcast: The WordPress Podcast: Episode 44 includes news and information on the release of WordPress 2.6, the WordPress iPhone, XML-RPC controversy, and an exclusive interview with co-founders, Elie Khoury and Jad Younan and their Woopra WordPress Plugin.

WordCast Podcast: WordCast 24: Non-blog Blog with Beth Skinner, Kym Huynh and Dave Moyer featured WordPress 2.7 news, tag clouds, WordPress.com 24/7 support, using WordPress as a CMS, what defines a blog, delicious, and more WordPress news, Plugins, and tips.

WordPress on Your Calendar

WordPress Events CalendarWordPressers Invade San Francisco: WordCamp 2008 is bringing WordPress fans from around the world to San Francisco. The line up of speakers for the one-day event includes the best of the best. There will also be a WordPress Genius Bar to get personal one-on-one WordPress help and advice, and a special fundraising charity event on Sunday called the WordPress Charity Scavenger Hunt. There are a few spaces left, so register now for WordCamp 2008. Hope to see you there.

WordCamp Utah: WordCamp Utah is now open for registration for the September 27, 2008, event. The speaker schedule is out with some top speakers including Matt Mullenweg, Richard Miller, Cameron Moll, Thom Allen, Ash Buckles and Alex King. The rest of the WordPress pros will be at WordCamp Portland the same weekend. :D Okay, I’ll be at WordCamp Portland.

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).

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 Security News

WordPress SecurityWP Contact Form: BlogSecurity reports vulnerabilities in the popular WP Contact Form. Recommended deactivate the Plugin until it is fixed and updated.

WP Downloads Manager Security Vulnerability: BlogSecurity also reported that the WP Downloads Manager WordPress Plugin has a security vulnerability and should be discontinued until a fix is published.

WordPress Plugins and Themes News

WordPress Plugins DatabaseWordPressMU Domain Mapping Plugin: The WordPressMU Domain Mapping WordPress Plugin by Donncha O’Caoimh has been released and is entered in the WordPressMU Plugin Competition. This Plugin works with WordPressMU to redirect or “map” individual blogs to a new domain name from the subdomain name structure.

Learning WordPress Plugin Techniques from a Master Plugin Writer: Automatic Timezone WordPress Plugin is part of the Weblog Tools Collection Plugin Competition and helps set the timezone for your blog, but more importantly, it contains code that will help Plugin authors write better Plugins. The code serves as a tutorial, giving examples of how to modify the Plugin options on the fly and modifying sections of the core Administration Panels. If you are a WordPress Plugin author, consider digging into this Plugin to find out how a master works and how to make your Plugin even better.

Jacob Santos Finishes the WP-Admin Directory Inline Documentation: A long but worthwhile project, Jacob Santos is finishing the WP-Admin Directory Inline Documentation for the WordPress core programing, helping current and future WordPress users, coders, Plugin and Theme authors figure out what all this means under the hood. Thanks, Jacob, to you and your team. Well done!

Also see WordPress Inline Documentation site with PHPdocumentor and the WordPress Codex Function Reference for more inline documentation resources.

Custom Actions in WordPress Plugins: Nerdaphernalia writes about how to use custom actions in your WordPress Plugins that go beyond hiding the Plugin if it is deactivated. Have you explored all the custom actions your Plugin can take to make it even more powerful and flexible?

Admin Drop Down Menus Updated: planetOzh reports an update to his popular Admin Drop Down Menu WordPress Plugin, one of my favorites. The Plugin converts all the Administration Panels into drop down menus. Instead of clicking one tab at a time to drill down to the various panels, move your mouse across the menus and select the subpage panel tab of your choice. It works with the latest version of WordPress.

Fixing the Pagination of Query Posts: Kafkaesqui helped StylizedWeb fix a problem with the query_posts() pagination feature which puts bak the page navigation when using the function for customization of your various multi-post page views. If you are having a problem, check out the post for some great tips on this aspect of the function.

WordPress Meets Disqus: DISQUS WordPress Plugin has been updated for handling comments with Disqus, an external comment system. The new version will allow importing of old comments and moderation from within the WordPress Administration Panels, and synchronization between Disqus and WordPress.

Interesting WordPress Plugins:

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.

See Also
Media Strategies

WordPress Techniques and Tips

Here are some interesting WordPress tips I’ve uncovered:

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

WordPress.com W logoWordPress.com Members Invited to WordCamp San Francisco: Matt Mullenweg made a invitation to all WordPress.com members to join other WordPress fans at WordCamp San Francisco 2008 on August 16 and for the WordPress Charity Scavenger Hunt.

WordPress.com Gets Improved Stats Charts: WordPress.com reports improvement in their stats charts, fixing a bug long past due which allows charts to display days with zero pageviews. They’ve also added similar charts for the Referrers, Search Terms, and Clicks.

WordPress.com Now 24/7 Support: WordPress.com announced full-time 24-7 member support. You got a problem, they are there for you, no matter what time zone or time. Response time is about 24 hours, though usually it is less than that. The WordPress.com Forums continues to provide help and support for members by members and staff, and is also a great place to meet fellow WordPress.com members.

WordPress Community News

WordPress Community graphicWordPress Facebook: Fan of WordPress? Check out the WordPress on Facebook fan page and join the fun!

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 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 , the online manual for WordPress Users.

Vote for WordPress Ideas: Want to have your say in what happens with WordPress. Vote for ideas on upcoming versions of WordPress in the section.

Looking for a WordPress Expert? If you are looking for a WordPress expert, try the WordPress Consultants list from , 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 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).

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

Picture of Lorelle VanFossen

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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