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Please Note:
My WordPress plugins have a new home.
If you would like to take a look at my plugins that are currently available please visit my plugin site and follow your nose – Stuff at Yellow Swordfish.
I have had something of another coding frenzy over the last four weeks which partly explains the lack of posts. Three and a half WP plugins although, of course, I have only published the three so far.
Interestingly two of them came about because I wanted specific plugins, of which there are a variety out there, but was unable to find ones that both worked and apparently still supported.
First up was an integrated forum sub-system. I do believe it is my responsibility to support my plugins but was finding it harder and harder to track issues, problems and suggestions through the comments system. A simple forum was the answer and I looked at various packages but really wanted something integrated in look and feel. There are a couple of good plugins available but one I just couldn’t get to work and the other appeared to be unsupported and abandoned.
So I created Simple Forum to do the job and am rather happy with it so far. The main problem is convincing people not to use the comments! But it is starting to get used as intended.
My next task was to sort out the download counter. It’s nice to see how many people download the plugins even knowing that a download does not equate necessarily to a user. The plugin I had been using had always given me trouble and I often found I had to go and edit the database table manually to correct data. So I hunted around for another one and again, there a few available. The only one I found that worked did much more than I needed so Download Counter was born. That’s all it does – track downloads. Simply and efficiently and – so far – correctly!
([Update 7th Jan 2007] After several months of the 2.1 alpha showing this behaviour and now, after the first official beta release, the dev team have suddenly decided that the category listing problem (described below) is a bug and are going to change it so I have withdrawn the following plugin.)
My final offering in this batch stems from a bit of a personal gripe. Soon to be released will be WordPress version 2.1 and, as I have discussed before on this site, Post Categories and Link Categories – up until now held as two separate entities – will be merged. I can see that this is a benefit to many – maybe even to most – but I like to keep my post and link categories separate.
The new implementation still allows me to do that but the annoyance – to me – is the fact that the category listing on the ‘Write Post’ page now lists ALL categories which firstly makes the list longer than need be and secondly makes it very easy to tick the wrong box! Hence, my third plugin called, rather clumsily, Post Category List Filter removes any categories that have ONLY ever been used for links. In other words, the list becomes filtered to the same list that WP 2.0 produces but includes any defined categories that have not yet been used for anything. Which makes me happy!
I just stumbled upon your site because of the new forum plugin. You’ve got an interesting set of plugins I need to “play” with. I did want to tell you that your theme is very cool. It is one of the most different ones I have scene. Great use of color and layout.
Why thank you Mike. I have been asked a few times if it is ‘theme’ that can be downloaded but it is a little too entwined with the plugins I use to make that possible
Andy,
Like Mike I only recently discovered your site and was so impressed with it that I emailed a couple of my blogger friends and pointed it out to them as an example of a really beautiful blog design. My words were “I so wish I were able to grab this guy’s theme to use at my blog, because I admire the clean, clear and clever design of it.” I have subscribed to your RSS feed, but yours is the only site in my list that I prefer reading at the site over reading your posts in my RSS reader, just because of the design here.
I would urge you to consider packaging this design if at all possible. I know I’d use it if I could and would even be willing to pay a reasonable fee for doing so. I suspect I am not alone. But until you decide to tackle that perhaps formidable task, I’ll continue to visit and drool.
Perry
Well thank you Perry. I am sure getting an unexpected and welcome ego boost this morning
I have thought about trying to package up the theme and to be fair, several people have asked. Perhaps I’ll give that some attention after WP 2.1 is out and the dust has settled…
Thanks for visiting. if it ever gets packaged up, you’ll read abiut it here
I have been hacking away, trying to get my little wordpress monster site going, and I have downloaded the popup image gallery (and today the page category) plug in(s)…. EVENTUALLY I hope that all will be well. I am still trying to learn how to do some of the most basic tweaks to the theme(s). EEK!!!
But I have to say that I have been sooo impressed with what you have created. Once I have more to show I’ll be back with you to let you see what I have done.
SOOOO many things I want to do.
QUESTION: I would like to put links to downloadable pdfs on my site (once I get the teaching side together). I teach art and I’d love to have links to downloadable pdfs. Syllabus. Art supply store list. project 1. project 2. project 3. etc. Can the new download counter plug in count those?
Wjy – thank you.
And yes – I can see no reason why the download counter will not work OK with PDF files. if you have any problems report them on my support forum and I can take a look at them.
And good luck!