OpenSearch – Search Field For Mozilla And Internet Explorer With WordPress

Posted in: WordPress Tutorials

Nowadays search field in your browser improved quite a bit, even IE supports OpenSearch format. But what is so great about OpenSearch and how easy it is to use with your WordPress installation has two aspects: WordPress comes already with OpenSearch and it's easy configurable with XML.

in IE 7

You just have to put a link in your theme and a xml file on your server to let the browser know that your blog supports the search field. So go ahead and improve your Plugin with little work and no use of a Plugin.

The following code should explain it. Adjust the syntax and link to the favicon and xml-file.

After you uploaded both files (favicon.ico und os.xml) add a link into the header.php of your theme. You can use the code one by one if you put os.xml in your root. After that it's possible to integrate your blog in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

The declaration of each XML tag is well documented on the OpenSearch website.

for the head area in your template - header.php:

<link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" title="<?php bloginfo('name'); ?>" href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/os.xml" />

XML file:

Copy code, adjust and save as os.xml, then upload on your server.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
	<ShortName>bueltge.de [by:ltge.de]</ShortName>
	<Description>Use bueltge.de to search on blog.</Description>
	<Url type="text/html" method="get" template="http://bueltge.de/?s={searchTerms}"></Url>
	<Contact>info@bueltge.de</Contact>
	<LongName>bueltge.de [by:ltge.de] Weblog Search</LongName>
	<Image height="16" width="16" type="image/x-icon">http://bueltge.de/favicon.ico</Image>
	<Tags>Weblog WordPress Webdevelopment</Tags>
	<Url type="application/atom+xml" template="http://bueltge.de/?q={searchTerms}&pw={startPage?}&format=atom"/>
	<Url type="application/rss+xml" template="http://bueltge.de/?q={searchTerms}&pw={startPage?}&format=rss"/>
	<Url type="text/html" template="http://bueltge.de/?q={searchTerms}&pw={startPage?}"/>
	<Query role="example" searchTerms="blog"/>
	<Developer>Frank Bueltge</Developer>
	<Attribution>
	    Search data Copyright 2007, bueltge.de [by:ltge.de], All Rights Reserved
	</Attribution>
	<SyndicationRight>open</SyndicationRight>
	<AdultContent>false</AdultContent>
	<Language>de-DE</Language>
	<OutputEncoding>UTF-8</OutputEncoding>
	<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
</OpenSearchDescription>

Blog Action Day: Poverty – Parallels Between Webdesign And Real World!

Posted in: WPengineer Misc


Poverty is the topic of todays Blog Action Day. If you thing about poverty, first think what comes in mind are poor people, poor countries, where people don't have anything to eat or a house to live in.

But why does it always have to have a human aspect if you talk about the term of being poor. Unfortunately in web design and web development it is just normal to see poor coding everyday. How many new sites are getting online nowadays without sticking to the web standards? Even many browsers are not following those standards and making the life of web designers and developers miserable and difficult to have valid code.

Since years people talk about it, but many people don't care. Sure, this problem is by far not as big as the poverty around the world, but you can see parallels between the ignorance and laziness of big companies who are creating those browsers, people who are still writing poor code and the rich economy, wealthy people who don't care about a thing what's going on in the real world, the poverty, dying children because of hunger, poverty of a whole country because the government prefers to spent the money for rockets and so on.

There are a lot ways to do something against poverty. We cannot only think about it, we have to do something. I did my part today by sending products to people I met on my trips. They were poor, they barely have something to eat every day and without having a home. But they were rich with their kindness and hospitality. Many people helped me and my family without hesitation on our trips through their country. I won't never forget that. Blog Action Day is a good reason not only to think about them but to do something to make their life a little bit better.

New Navi-Design in WordPress 2.7

Posted in: WordPress News

The Design and structure of the coming WordPress version 2.7 were presented several times already and discussed many times. Here are the new structure how the navigation design looks in WordPress 2.7, your thoughts?

WP 2.7 Navi. actually Beta

WP 2.7 Navi. actually Beta

Update

The new Design, today (29/10/2008) in beta.

WP 2.7 with new Widget in Dashboard

WP 2.7 with new Widget in Dashboard

Sticky Function in WordPress 2.7

Posted in: WordPress Hacks

Flag for Sticky in WP 2.7

Flag for Sticky in WP 2.7


With WordPress 2.7 you are able to make a post sticky, so this particular post will be showed on the top always. Before that you had to use a Plugin.

You can activate this setting for a post in the publish area, where you edit the publish date. It's pretty easy to do.

But what, if you like to format the sticky post? For this matter there is a new function - post_class(). This gives classes for the different posts, also the class sticky, if it's a sticky post.

Additionally are classes for categories and tags available. An example here with some information.
Continue reading …

Secure Include Plugin In WordPress

Posted in: WordPress Themes

Some people use more and other less Plugins in WordPress. but it is allways advisable to check via code if a Plugin is active or not. That makes sure the theme wouldn't break if the Plugin is not active. It's pretty easy to include a little bit code to check for inactivity. I show you an example where I use it in my Plugin RSSImport.

<?php if ( function_exists('FUNCTIONSNAME') ) : ?>
...
<?php endif; ?>

Example for Plugin RSSImport:
This is how the function looks like in the code of the Plugin RSSImport.

...
function RSSImport($display=0, $feedurl, $displaydescriptions=false, $truncatetitle=true) {

if ( $feedurl ) {
...

<?php if ( function_exists('RSSImport') ) : ?>
<?php RSSImport(10, "http://feeds.feedburner.com/WpEngineer", false, false); ?>
<?php endif; ?>

or a little bid smaller

<?php if ( function_exists('RSSImport') )
RSSImport(10, "http://feeds.feedburner.com/WpEngineer", false, false); ?>

How Core Update in WordPress 2.7 Works?

Posted in: WordPress News

In recent days, there are more and more information about WordPress version 2.7 coming up. Especially about the automatic upgrade of WordPress.

You already know the update function for Plugins, which is very convenient. Now the same for your WordPress installation, one click and you are up to date.

Such a powerful and important function comes along with some questions and doubts of course.

WordPress 2.7 Core Update

WordPress 2.7 Core Update

It's your own decision if you want to trust this function, but it's more secure than the automatic update for Plugins, since the Plugins are provided by different authors without control by the WordPress team. The process of the automatic WordPress update is well thought out, which I will explain, so you can get a better picture of it and it makes your decision easier for you if you want to use it or you still update manually.
Continue reading …