Add WordPress Dashboard Widgets

Posted in: WordPress Hacks

Finally WordPress 2.7 is coming along with widgets in the dashboard area, so it will be possible to adjust your dashboard as you like.

For Plugin or theme authors it's even more interesting, since they can give the users additional value to their Plugins. They can offer information from their Plugin directly on the dashboard. The user can decide if he likes to display them or not.

It's easy to integrate and can be controlled like Meta Boxes (explained in detail). The following example shows how you can integrate a widget in a dashboard.
Continue reading …

WordPress FTP Data With Constant

Posted in: WordPress Hacks

Since version 2.5 it's possible to update your Plugins automatically. It's necessary to input your FTP information before you update your Plugin.

It is very popular and an easy process, but I like to upload the newest version via my FTP client. How sure is the use of your FTP login information in your WordPress Admin? If you like to use another way, you can just put a definition of constants in your wp-config.php. Continue reading …

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.