WP Engineer » WordPress Plugins

How To List All Posts Of An Archive, A Category Or A Search Result

Michael — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 07:52:28 +0000

Archive pages are usually paged according to your settings in options/reading. Sometimes you may want to offer a page with all posts for an archive (time, category, search result).

You need:

a separate address for the unpaged archive,
a filter for the internal WordPress query and
a link to your ‘all posts’ page.

We put everything into a class to avoid name collisions and to keep the global namespace clean.
We name the file class.View_All_Posts.php.

Let’s start with the class, the parameter and a checker, this is easy:

class View_All_Posts
{
    /**
     * GET parameter to trigger a complete, not paged archive.
     * @var string
     */
    protected $all_param = 'all';
 
    /**
     * Are we there already?
     *
     * @return bool
     */
    public function is_all_posts()
    {
        return isset ( $_GET[$this->all_param] );
    }
}

For the address I use a very simple approach: a GET parameter named all. You may change the name here; just stay with ASCII chars from a—z. все_сообщения will get you in trouble!

Next we need a constructor that manages our work:

    public function __construct()
    {
        /* Register the query argument. */
        add_filter('query_vars', array ( $this, 'add_query_arg') );
 
        /* Hook into the query. */
        add_action('pre_get_posts', array ( $this, 'view_all_posts') );
    }

The constructor references two internal functions – add_query_arg() and view_all_posts(), which we build next:

    /**
     * Registers the query arg in WordPress.
     * Otherwise it will be unset.
     *
     * @param  array $vars Already registered query args.
     * @return array
     */
    public function add_query_arg( array $vars )
    {
        return array_merge( $vars, array ( $this->query_arg ) );
    }
 
    /**
     * Alters the query to remove the paging.
     * @return void
     */
    public function view_all_posts()
    {
        if ( ! $this->is_all_posts() )
        {
            return;
        }
 
        $GLOBALS['wp_query']-&gt;query_vars['nopaging'] = TRUE;
 
        return;
    }

The first function just registers our GET parameter in WordPress. The second alters the query to the database and removes the paging.

We are almost done. A template tag for the link would be nice, wouldn’t it?

    /**
     * Creates the markup for the link.
     *
     * Usage in archive.php, category.php or search.php:
     * $GLOBALS['view_all_posts']->get_allposts_link();
     *
     * @param  string $text Linktext
     * @param  bool   $print echo or return
     * @return string|void
     */
    public function get_allposts_link(
        $text   = 'View all posts'
    ,   $before = ''
    ,   $after  = '
;'
    ,   $print  = TRUE
    )
    {
        if ( $this->is_all_posts()
         or $GLOBALS['wp_query']->found_posts <= get_option('posts_per_page')
        )
        {   // No link needed.
            return;
        }
 
        if ( isset ( $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] )
            && ! empty ( $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] )
        )
        {
            /* We have already visible GET parameters: /?hello=world. */
            $new_url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] . '&';
        }
        else
        {
            /* Note the difference: REQUEST_URL doesn't include
             * the query string while REQUEST_URI does. */
            $new_url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URL'] . '?';
        }
 
        $link = "$before$text$after";
 
        if ( $print )
        {
            print $link;
            return;
        }
        return $link;
    }

Note: $GLOBALS['wp_query']->found_posts holds the sum of all posts for a given query, not just for the current page. Useful if you want to print out the total number on a paged archive.

If you want to avoid duplicate content, hide the full archives from search engines in your header:

    /**
     * Prevents indexing from search engines.
     *
     * Add this as an action to 'wp_head'.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function meta_noindex()
    {
        if ( $this->is_all_posts() )
        {
             print '';
        }
    }

Our class is complete. Now we put an object of the class into the global namespace …

$GLOBALS['view_all_posts'] = new View_All_Posts;

… add an action to wp_head …

add_action(
    'wp_head'
,   array ( $GLOBALS['view_all_posts'], 'meta_noindex' )
);

… and include the file into the functions.php of our theme:

require_once dirname(__FILE__) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR
    . 'class.View_All_Posts.php';

In our archive templates (archive.php, category.php, search.php) we print the link:

$GLOBALS['view_all_posts']->get_allposts_link();

Done.

…

Oh, wait … maybe you want to see the full code? And a download link?

Here’s the link: Download class.View_All_Posts.php

The complete code:

/**
 * Adds a view all posts page to any query.
 * @author Thomas Scholz http://toscho.de
 * @version 1.1
 */
class View_All_Posts
{
    /**
     * GET parameter to trigger a complete, not paged archive.
     * @var string
     */
    protected $all_param = 'all';
 
    public function __construct()
    {
        /* Register the query argument. */
        add_filter('query_vars', array ( $this, 'add_query_arg') );
 
        /* Hook into the query. */
        add_action('pre_get_posts', array ( $this, 'view_all_posts') );
    }
 
    /**
     * Registers the query arg in WordPress.
     * Otherwise it will be unset.
     *
     * @param  array $vars Already registered query args.
     * @return array
     */
    public function add_query_arg( array $vars )
    {
        return array_merge( $vars, array ( $this->query_arg ) );
    }
 
    /**
     * Alters the query to remove the paging.
     * @return void
     */
    public function view_all_posts()
    {
        if ( ! $this->is_all_posts() )
        {
            return;
        }
 
        $GLOBALS['wp_query']->query_vars['nopaging'] = TRUE;
 
        return;
    }
 
    /**
     * Are we there already?
     *
     * @return bool
     */
    public function is_all_posts()
    {
        return isset ( $_GET[$this->all_param] );
    }
 
    /**
     * Creates the markup for the link.
     *
     * Usage in archive.php, category.php or search.php:
     * $GLOBALS['view_all_posts']->get_allposts_link();
     *
     * @param  string $text Linktext
     * @param  bool   $print echo or return
     * @return string|void
     */
    public function get_allposts_link(
        $text   = 'View all posts'
    ,   $before = ''
    ,   $after  = '
'
    ,   $print  = TRUE
    )
    {
        if ( $this->is_all_posts()
        or $GLOBALS['wp_query']->found_posts <= get_option('posts_per_page')
        )
        {   // No link needed.
            return;
        }
 
        if ( isset ( $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] )
            && ! empty ( $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] )
        )
        {
            /* We have already visible GET parameters: /?hello=world. */
            $new_url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] . '&';
        }
        else
        {
            /* Note the difference: REQUEST_URL doesn't include
             * the query string while REQUEST_URI does. */
            $new_url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URL'] . '?';
        }
 
         $link = "$before$text$after";
 
        if ( $print )
        {
            print $link;
            return;
        }
        return $link;
    }
}
 
$GLOBALS['view_all_posts'] = new View_All_Posts;

Mission completed. Any suggestions?

Guest Post

This post is written by Thomas Scholz toscho.de, a good friend of us and a web designer from Halle, Germany.

Thank you very much from our part to Thomas.

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WordPress Plugin Development: Style Your Message Boxes

Alex — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 05:53:32 +0000

Displaying a message to the user after he started an action belongs to a good usability. In the era of Web 2.0 applications, the user is expecting such optical signal after his actions. Also WordPress Plugin developer should give the user a result message, if necessary, provided with further information.

The WordPress admin area often likes to show information at the top of the window. For developers, this has a great benefit: Tools for generating the error and information messages are integrated and can easily be implemented in Plugins - without any self-definitions or changes in the style sheet.

Automatically generated information in WordPress

wp_safe_redirect(
  add_query_arg(
    'updated',
    'true',
    wp_get_referer()
  )
);

Manual and more flexible solution to output a message box

<div id="message" class="updated">
  <p>
    Output
  p>
div>

Colorful: The availability of CSS classes

Messages within an application have to communicate different informations. For this purpose WordPress has numerous stylesheet classes available, which suits best to the message.

<div id="message" class="updated">...div>

<div id="message" class="error">...div>

<div id="message" class="updated highlight">...div>

<div id="message" class="updated below-h2">...div>

Recommendation

Don't use your own format. A common and familiar message box provides trust and increases the potential of perception.

Guest Post

This post is written by Sergej Müller wpseo.org, who created the popular WordPress Plugin to optimize your SEO.

Thank you very much from our part to Sergej.

If you also like to have your interesting post published on our website, please let us know on our contact page. Of course we will appreciate your contribution!

Example How To Add Meta Boxes To Edit Area

Frank — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 06:01:27 +0000

Additional fields, meta boxes, in the edit area of WordPress often are useful and easier for customers instead of using Custom Fields. A small Plugin will show you three options. Use it, make WordPress even better for your clients. Learn how easy it is to adjust the edit area in WordPress.

This Plugin adds 3 new field in a meta box:

Subtitle - a line without formatting
Additional information - a complete editor, you can even add attachments, it's almost like the standard content editor.
List data - It's possible to put in each line content, which will displayed as an unordered list. ul

Each of these fields can be used in a theme template, since it has a template tag, which controlls the output. Only if you have data in a field it will be displayed. The following example will output the 3 fields.

 post_class() ?> id="post- the_ID(); ?>">
 
     the_title(); ?>
 
     if ( function_exists('the_DifferentTypeFacts') ) the_DifferentTypeFacts($post->ID, 'heading'); ?>
 
    
 
         the_content('Read the rest of this entry »
'); ?>
 
         if ( function_exists('the_DifferentTypeFacts') ) the_DifferentTypeFacts($post->ID, 'additional-info'); ?>
 
         if ( function_exists('the_DifferentTypeFacts') ) the_DifferentTypeFacts($post->ID, 'listdata'); ?>

This Plugin should be just an example, if you like it, you can adjust it to your liking. So you can provide a nice backend for your authors, without custom fields.

The Plugin takes care, that the meta boxes "Custom Fields" and "Trackbacks" aren't there anymore (remove_meta_box()); just another example for the usage of this Plugin. Here is the code and below you can find the link to download the Plugin, including readme, language file for German users and the necessary scripts.


/**
 * @package Different Type
 * @author Frank Bültge
 * @version 0.1
 */
 
/*
    Plugin Name: Different Type
    Plugin URI: http://bueltge.de/
    Description: Add different types to posts
    Author: Frank Bültge
    Version: 0.1
    License: GPL
    Author URI: http://bueltge.de/
    Last change: 21.03.2010 01:12:21
*/
 
/**
 * Example for use outside the loop:
 * ID); ?>
 * @param $id Integer - Post-ID
 * @param $type String - heading, additional-info, listdata (default is ''-empty)
 *
 * Example: ID, 'heading'); ?>
 */
 
//avoid direct calls to this file, because now WP core and framework has been used
if ( !function_exists('add_action') ) {
    header('Status: 403 Forbidden');
    header('HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden');
    exit();
}
 
if ( function_exists('add_action') ) {
    //WordPress definitions
    if ( !defined('WP_CONTENT_URL') )
        define('WP_CONTENT_URL', get_option('siteurl') . '/wp-content');
    if ( !defined('WP_CONTENT_DIR') )
        define('WP_CONTENT_DIR', ABSPATH . 'wp-content');
    if ( !defined('WP_PLUGIN_URL') )
        define('WP_PLUGIN_URL', WP_CONTENT_URL.'/plugins');
    if ( !defined('WP_PLUGIN_DIR') )
        define('WP_PLUGIN_DIR', WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins');
    if ( !defined('PLUGINDIR') )
        define( 'PLUGINDIR', 'wp-content/plugins' ); // Relative to ABSPATH.  For back compat.
    if ( !defined('WP_LANG_DIR') )
        define('WP_LANG_DIR', WP_CONTENT_DIR . '/languages');
 
    // plugin definitions
    define( 'FB_DT_BASENAME', plugin_basename(__FILE__) );
    define( 'FB_DT_BASEDIR', dirname( plugin_basename(__FILE__) ) );
    define( 'FB_DT_TEXTDOMAIN', 'different-types' );
}
 
if ( !class_exists( 'DifferentType' ) ) {
    class DifferentType {
 
        // constructor
        function DifferentType() {
 
            if (is_admin() ) {
                add_action( 'admin_init', array(&$this, 'on_admin_init') );
                add_action( 'wp_insert_post', array(&$this, 'on_wp_insert_post'), 10, 2 );
                add_action( 'init', array(&$this, 'textdomain') );
                register_uninstall_hook( __FILE__, array(&$this, 'uninstall') );
                add_action( "admin_print_scripts-post.php", array($this, 'enqueue_script') );
                add_action( "admin_print_scripts-post-new.php", array($this, 'enqueue_script') );
                add_action( "admin_print_scripts-page.php", array($this, 'enqueue_script') );
                add_action( "admin_print_scripts-page-new.php", array($this, 'enqueue_script') );
            }
        }
 
        // active for multilanguage
        function textdomain() {
 
            if ( function_exists('load_plugin_textdomain') )
                load_plugin_textdomain( FB_DT_TEXTDOMAIN, false, dirname( FB_DT_BASENAME ) . '/languages' );
        }
 
        // unsintall all postmetadata
        function uninstall() {
 
            $all_posts = get_posts('numberposts=0&post_type=post&post_status=');
 
            foreach( $all_posts as $postinfo) {
 
                delete_post_meta($postinfo->ID, '_different-types');
 
            }
        }
 
        // add script
        function enqueue_script() {
            wp_enqueue_script( 'tinymce4dt', WP_PLUGIN_URL . '/' . FB_DT_BASEDIR . '/js/script.js', array('jquery') );
        }
 
        // admin init
        function on_admin_init() {
 
            if ( !current_user_can( 'publish_posts' ) )
                return;
 
            add_meta_box( 'different_types',
                                    __( 'Different Types', FB_DT_TEXTDOMAIN ),
                                    array( &$this, 'meta_box' ),
                                    'post', 'normal', 'high'
                                    );
 
            // remove meta box for trackbacks
            remove_meta_box('trackbacksdiv', 'post', 'normal');
            // remove meta box for custom fields
            remove_meta_box('postcustom', 'post', 'normal');
        }
 
        // check for preview
        function is_page_preview() {
            $id = (int)$_GET['preview_id'];
            if ($id == 0) $id = (int)$_GET['post_id'];
            $preview = $_GET['preview'];
            if ($id > 0 && $preview == 'true') {
                global $wpdb;
                $type = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT post_type FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE ID=$id");
                if ( count($type) && ($type[0]->post_type == 'page') && current_user_can('edit_page') )
                    return true;
            }
            return false;
        }
 
        // after save post, save meta data for plugin
        function on_wp_insert_post($id) {
            global $id;
 
            if ( !isset($id) )
                $id = (int)$_REQUEST['post_ID'];
            if ( $this->is_page_preview() && !isset($id) )
                $id = (int)$_GET['preview_id'];
 
            if ( !current_user_can('edit_post') )
                return;
 
            if ( isset($_POST['dt-heading']) && $_POST['dt-heading'] != '' )
                $this->data['heading'] = esc_attr( $_POST['dt-heading'] );
            if ( isset($_POST['dt-additional-info']) && $_POST['dt-additional-info'] != '' )
                $this->data['additional-info'] = $_POST['dt-additional-info'];
            if ( isset($_POST['dt-listdata']) && $_POST['dt-listdata'] != '' )
                $this->data['listdata'] = esc_attr( $_POST['dt-listdata'] );
 
            if ( isset($this->data) && $this->data != '' )
                update_post_meta($id, '_different-types', $this->data);
        }
 
        // load post_meta_data
        function load_post_meta($id) {
 
            return get_post_meta($id, '_different-types', true);
        }
 
        // meta box on post/page
        function meta_box($data) {
 
            $value = $this->load_post_meta($data->ID);
            ?>
            
                
                     _e( 'Subtitle:', FB_DT_TEXTDOMAIN ); ?>
                     echo $value['heading']; ?>" tabindex="6" style="width:99.5%"/>
                
                
                     _e( 'Additional information:', FB_DT_TEXTDOMAIN ); ?>
                    <span style="color: #000000; font-weight: bold;"><?php</span> <span style="color: #b1b100;">echo</span> wpautop<span style="color: #009900;">(</span> <span style="color: #000088;">$value</span><span style="color: #009900;">[</span><span style="color: #0000ff;">'additional-info'</span><span style="color: #009900;">]</span> <span style="color: #009900;">)</span><span style="color: #339933;">;</span> <span style="color: #000000; font-weight: bold;">?></span>
                        
                            
                                
                                     
                                     
                                
                            
                        
                    
                
                
                     _e( 'Listdata:', FB_DT_TEXTDOMAIN ); ?>
                    <span style="color: #000000; font-weight: bold;"><?php</span> <span style="color: #b1b100;">echo</span> <span style="color: #000088;">$value</span><span style="color: #009900;">[</span><span style="color: #0000ff;">'listdata'</span><span style="color: #009900;">]</span><span style="color: #339933;">;</span> <span style="color: #000000; font-weight: bold;">?></span>
 _e( 'One list per line', FB_DT_TEXTDOMAIN ) ?>
                
            
            
        }
 
        // return facts incl. markup
        function get_DifferentTypeFacts($id, $type, $value) {
 
            if (!$value)
                return false;
            if ( $type == '' )
                return false;
 
            if ( 'heading' == $type && '' != $value['heading'] )
                return $value['heading'];
            if ( 'additional-info' == $type && '' != $value['additional-info'] )
                return wpautop( wptexturize($value['additional-info']) );
            if ( 'listdata' == $type && '' != $value['listdata'] ) {
                $return = '';
                $listdatas = preg_split("/\r\n/", $value['listdata'] );
 
                foreach ( (array) $listdatas as $key => $listdata ) {
 
                    $return .= '' . trim($listdata) . '
';
 
                }
                return '' . $return . '
'. "\n";
            }
        }
 
        // echo facts, if exists
        function DifferentTypeFacts($id, $type, $string) {
 
            if ( $id ) {
                $value = $this->load_post_meta($id);
 
                echo $this->get_DifferentTypeFacts($id, $type, $value);
            }
        }
 
    } // End class
 
    // instance class
    $DifferentType = new DifferentType();
 
    // use in template
    function the_DifferentTypeFacts($id, $type = '', $string = '') {
        global $DifferentType;
 
        $DifferentType->DifferentTypeFacts($id, $type, $string);
    }
 
} // End if class exists statement
?>

You can find the complete Plugin at github.

WordPress: Useful Default Configuration Settings Via Plugin

Michael — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:24:41 +0000

Everybody who installs WordPress quite often knows the problem: You always have to do the same adjustments, for example deleting the Hello World post. That cost time and money. Our friend Thomas Scholz alias toscho had a simple but genius idea, he puts all needed option settings in a Plugin. Just activate the Plugin, deactivate it and delete it. Done!

You can adjust and expand the options as you like. A good overview is the wp-admin/options.php.


/*
Plugin Name: Toscho's basic settings
Plugin URI: http://toscho.de/2010/wordpress-grundeinstellungen-per-plugin-setzen/
Description: Some useful default configuration settings. See 'wp-admin/options.php' for more options.
Version: 0.2
Author: Thomas Scholz
Author URI: http://toscho.de
*/
 
function set_toscho_defaults()
{
    $o = array(
        'avatar_default'            => 'blank',
        'avatar_rating'             => 'G',
        'category_base'             => '/thema',
        'comment_max_links'         => 0,
        'comments_per_page'         => 0,
        'date_format'               => 'd.m.Y',
        'default_ping_status'       => 'closed',
        'default_post_edit_rows'    => 30,
        'links_updated_date_format' => 'j. F Y, H:i',
        'permalink_structure'       => '/%year%/%postname%/',
        'rss_language'              => 'de',
        'timezone_string'           => 'Etc/GMT-1',
        'use_smilies'               => 0,
    );
 
    foreach ( $o as $k => $v )
    {
        update_option($k, $v);
    }
 
    // Delete dummy post and comment.
    wp_delete_post(1, TRUE);
    wp_delete_comment(1);
 
    return;
}
register_activation_hook(__FILE__, 'set_toscho_defaults');
?>

Here you can download the Plugin by toscho.

24th Door – The WPE Quit Smoking Widget

Michael — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 07:12:19 +0000

For the last door in our Advent Calendar I had something special in mind. This year is coming to an end and I'm sure some of our readers want to quit smoking next year. To support their goal, I created a WP Engineer Quit Smoking Widget.

Here a screenshot of all setting possibilities:

And this is how it would look like on your blog:

Even though, this idea seemed to be easy to realize. It was a piece of work. I don't want you to be bored, so I'm not explaining the whole code, but I just want go in detail on some details, what I had to consider to make this Widget workable.

I check the date if it's valid ( 2009/02/30 doesn't exist). Then I had to avoid division by zero, if the Widget is active but doesn't include any values yet. For the correct formatting of the saved money depending on the language I used the WordPress function number_format_i18n:

$saved = number_format_i18n($packs * $price, 2);

Unfortunately, there is no feature in WordPress, which displays the currencies correctly (but I guess, this is probably not necessary). Therefore, I added a field "Currency position" with the values "before" and "after", so that the currency will be displayed properly, depending on the country. The year field automatically displays the current year minus 5 years, so that the widget is also current in 100 years.
The rest are fields for entering the text output before and after values.

Installation

Unzip file wpe_quit_smoking_widget.zip and copy it to wp-content/plugins/ , then activate it in your backend. After that the Widget will be available in your Widgets area.

Please Note: The Widget needs WordPress Version 2.8 or higher, otherwise it won't be displayed.

Download

Download WPEngineer Quit Smoking Widget

Have fun with the Widget and good luck with your goal to stop smoking! The team of WP Engineer wish you all Happy Holidays!

Change WordPress Mail Sender

Frank — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:55:04 +0000

WordPress makes it easy and fast to add new users in the backend. Since version 2.8 of WordPress, it can send the access information via email. A nice feature, with no additional settings to change the sender of this email. For example the email should be send from the administrator instead from WordPress.

Nevertheless, there is a possibility and with the help of two hooks, the sender can be changed. I created a small Plugin, where you can easy and simple adjust the sender name and sender email.
-
The Plugin is available in the following source code and has no options for the backend and doesn't leave any data in the database. Anyone who wants can simply extend the Plugin.


/**
 * @package WP Mail From
 * @author Frank Bültge
 * @version 0.1
 */
 
/*
Plugin Name: WP Mail From
Plugin URI: http://bueltge.de/
Description: Change the default address that WordPress sends it’s email from.
Version: 0.1
Author: Frank Bültge
Author URI: http://bueltge.de/
Last Change: 11.08.2009 08:41:06
*/
 
if ( !function_exists('add_action') ) {
	header('Status: 403 Forbidden');
	header('HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden');
	exit();
}
 
if ( !class_exists('wp_mail_from') ) {
	class wp_mail_from {
 
		function wp_mail_from() {
			add_filter( 'wp_mail_from', array(&$this, 'fb_mail_from') );
			add_filter( 'wp_mail_from_name', array(&$this, 'fb_mail_from_name') );
		}
 
		// new name
		function fb_mail_from_name() {
			$name = 'My Blog is my Blog';
			// alternative the name of the blog
			// $name = get_option('blogname');
			$name = esc_attr($name);
			return $name;
		}
 
		// new email-adress
		function fb_mail_from() {
			$email = 'info@example.com';
			$email = is_email($email);
			return $email;
		}
 
	}
 
	$wp_mail_from = new wp_mail_from();
}
?>

The values for name and email have to be maintain in each of the associated function. After that, the two values are getting examined, but is not necessarily needed.

As a note: the function esc_attr() is only since version 2.8 available and replaces the function attribute_escape(). Should the solution be used in an earlier version, then you have to change the function.

For suggestions and improvements, I am grateful, as always. You can use this Plugin to improve WordPress a bit and the user is not surprised about the sender "WordPress".

Join To Design A Graphic For The New Maintenance Mode Plugin

Alex — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:57:28 +0000

The Maintenance Mode Plugin "!Wartungsmodus" is a very often used Plugin but I hardly changed it for a long time. But not long ago David Hellmann came up with a wonderful design proposal and I created the Plugin completely new with different options. From now on you can pick the design for the maintenance page. Also, you can choose various options without changing the code.

A short description of the Plugin:

It adds a maintenance-page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. User with rights for theme-options get full access to the blog including the frontend. This Plugin writes nothing in your database! Activate the Plugin and your blog is in maintenance-mode. Nevertheless, it was important to me that it is simple and easy to use, and so there is no separate page in the backend just for the settings. You can adjust the settings right below the Plugin in the Plugin list.

Where you can come in!

Also, I built the site so it is quite simple to add new designs, which brought me to the idea: Send me your design proposals to info [at] wpengineer.com, and I build them into the Plugin.

How does it work?

To create new designs for the maintenance mode, I need the stylesheet from you and the relevant images, if necessary. If the text "Maintenance Mode" is an image, I also would need the image in PSD format so I can change it to English and German as an image (PNG or JPG), because the Plugin should work multilingual.

But if you are just a designer with no CSS knowledge, we are also happy if your provide us a cool design without the CSS.

Now, however, to write the CSS, it is necessary to follow the markup. Based on this markup, I would like to get a stylesheet from you.


"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="de" lang="de" id="wartungsmodus" >
 
<head>
    <title>Blogname - Maintenance Mode</title>
</head>
 
<body>
 
    <div id="header">
        <p>WP Dev</p>
    </div>
 
    <div id="content">
 
        <h1>Maintenance Mode</h1>
        <p>Sorry for the inconvenience.<br />Our website is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance.<br /><strong>Please try back in 231 weeks.</strong><br />Thank you for your understanding.</p>
        <div class="admin"><a href="http://example.com/wp-admin/">Admin-Login</a></div>
    </div>
 
    <div id="footer">
        <p><a href="http://bueltge.de/">Plugin by: <img src="http://bueltge.de/favicon.ico" alt="bueltge.de" width="16" height="16" /></a></p>
    </div>
 
</body>
</html>

But as a normal user you can also add your own stylesheet and add the URL of this style to the options of the Plugin. Write your style according to this markup and upload to your webspace; after that add the URL including http:// to the settings of this Plugin and change the theme to "My Theme":

What are the benefits to provide a design?

I'm sure many will ask. I just hope that you recognize the value for you and the community. You get recognition by our readers and users of this Plugin. In addition, I will of course list the authors of the designs on the Plugin page at wordpress.org. Optional is a link on the site, if the maintenance mode is active, so depending on the design, the favicon of the designer is listed. Since the Plugin is under GNU license, it is possible to disable the link in the backend of WordPress.

Last but not least not to forget it is fun and should not be difficult to create a graphic or CSS for the design.

Time frame?

Basically, you can always send me new designs info [at] wpengineer.com, I will install them after review. But beginning of September we will let our readers vote for the best Maintenance Mode design and the top 10 designs will be included in the Plugin. It would be great if you can send your designs by August 31st!

Please send your design as ZIP file with all the data to info [at] wpengineer.com. We really appreciate your contribution!

I'm anxious to see your ideas and creativity!

Joomla Fireboard to WordPress WP-FORUM Converter

Alex — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:29:28 +0000

Not long ago, we introduced a script by Marco to convert your Joomla content to WordPress. Now Marco from solariz.de adapted the script to convert your content of Joomla Fireborad to WordPress WP-Forum.

It works exactly like the Joomla converter, it is also not a "click & ready" script, basic knowledge of PHP are needed in order to achieve the conversion. It is important that the WP-Forum is empty before you start to convert.

Short instructions:

Install WP-Forum in your WordPress system
Create categories and sub-forums
Download script, unpack and upload to the server
Adjust the accompanying config.php
Go through the settings in config.php step by step and set the preferences
On line 37 / 38 enter the source ID of the Fireboard forum and the ID of the WP-Forum
Execute the converter

After a successful conversion you should see something like this:

Converting Category 5 to 3
Processing 17 Threads
Inserted 17 Threads
Inserted 84 Posts

If it was successful, please repeat step 6 and 7 with all your forums.

Then you should be done!

You can download the script at the bottom of his German article.

WordPress Updates via FTP on Windows XAMPP installations

Heiko — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:04:31 +0000

Sometimes I have the need to simulate an ordinary hoster environment that behaves the same way as a real one would do. This also includes the automatic update behavior WordPress shows for Core, Plugins or Themes. In most cases this is useful for testing purpose but also to create tutorial screencasts like "How to use WordPress."
But if you ever tried Windows XAMPP installations, you may know, that you are not able to show the FTP update mask like your hosting would do.

That's why I was searching a solution and was ending up with writing a new Plugin for internal testing purpose.
It extends the "Dashboard" -> "Settings" -> "General Settings" with following option:

If you enable this option, your local Windows based installation of XAMPP (WordPress) will ask you now at every update with the well known FTP update mask about your credentials. But it's not done by enabling this option, you will need at least a well configured FileZilla FTP Server doing the required work for you too.
Once you have configured a user, his/her home dir and access rights, WordPress will update from now on all affected components as expected but now using FTP.

The Plugin has been tested only a few days, so we are still at QA phase, but we would share this, if there is any demand for it.
Please let us know, if you are interested in. If we get a significant amount of requests, we (or especially I) will publish it on my blog Code Styling Project. This would include also a complete description, how to configure the FileZilla Server based on a simple example.

This is my first article at WP Engineer as new member. It may be a bit technical but my main work is normally developing solutions. I hope, it's interesting for you nevertheless.

Warning Message For Self Customized Plugins

Frank — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:25:36 +0000

Now and then you have to modify an existing Plugin for your own special needs. But you still get a message if an update exists for the original Plugin. If you modified the Plugin several month ago and you forgot about it, so you update the Plugin and all your modifications are gone. Most of the time you have a backup, but even though it's annoying to upload the customized Plugin again after you realized the original Plugin is not exactly what you want. Therefore you can paste a little function in the specified Plugin to display a warning right after the update message. So you won't forget, that you modified this Plugin a while ago.

function my_update_notice() {
	$info = __( 'ATTENTION! Plugin was modified.', MY_TEXTDOMAIN );
	echo '' . strip_tags( $info, '
' ) . '';
}
 
if ( is_admin() )
	add_action( 'in_plugin_update_message-' . plugin_basename(__FILE__), 'my_update_notice' );

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Join To Design A Graphic For The New Maintenance Mode Plugin

A short description of the Plugin:

Where you can come in!

How does it work?

What are the benefits to provide a design?

Time frame?

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Joomla Fireboard to WordPress WP-FORUM Converter

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WordPress Updates via FTP on Windows XAMPP installations

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Warning Message For Self Customized Plugins

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