Packt is pleased to announce a new book called WordPress 3.0 jQuery that seeks to enhance the visual interest in WordPress 3.0 websites with easy to use jQuery techniques. Written by Tessa Blakeley Silver, this book teaches developers to implement just about any jQuery enhancement on a WordPress website without having to make a the content editor switch over into HTML view.
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Video: BuddyPress and future of Wordpress plugins
WordPress.TV: Learn what BuddyPress is, what it can do, how to set it up, integrate it, and extend it. Get a preview of some of the features coming in BuddyPress 1.1, and learn why it is to your advantage as a WordPress developer to incorporate BuddyPress consulting into the services you offer in this session from Mark Jaquith. Also covered: why BuddyPress is a good model for the future of the WordPress plugin landscape.
10 WordPress Plug-ins for a Better Blog
PCWorld: "A content management system (CMS) is a common way to organize data and tools, and WordPress is one of the most popular CMSs. One reason for WordPress's ubiquity is the availability of over 4,000 plug-ins, offering Webmasters seemingly endless ways to expand and customize their blogs. I've tried many WordPress plug-ins to fill different needs and have discovered 10 that I consider essential. This article describes those plug-ins plus a few more that you may find useful"
After the Deadline: Contextual Spell Checking
Raphael Mudge sent us an email on his latest project, After the Deadline.
I'm a computer scientist working to fill a gap in current CMS feature sets. It isn't a new social or wireless feature. I'm working to bring spelling, style, and grammar checking to web applications. The technology is available for WordPress and the Open Source TinyMCE editor.
After the Deadline is an exciting plugin that adds a much needed feature often missing in most CMS rich text editors. After the Deadline currently supports plugins for TinyMCE and Wordpress. Some additional bullet points behind the plugin include:
- Corrects spelling with 90% accuracy
- Checks 1,500 words for misuse
- Finds grammar errors
- Improves writing style
- All plugins are licensed under the LGPL
SitePress - a new mega plugin for WordPress as CMS
WordPress is the de-facto standard blogging engine and is often used to build full websites. Its power lies in its simplicity, allowing authors to start building their websites in minutes. However, WordPress is still missing some basic features keeping it from becoming a full fledged CMS. SitePress tries to close that gap.
SitePress is an ambitious mega-plugin for WordPress. It intends to turn WP into a reasonably featured content management system. SitePress contributes exactly where WordPress is short:
- Multilingual content management
- Site-wide navigational elements
- Robust internal links
SitePress isn't going to turn WordPress into a web application frameworks. You're still not going to build your next CRM with it. However, for building complex websites which are comprised mainly of pages and posts, WordPress with SitePress work just fine.
Multilingual support for WordPress
Most of SitePress' strengths come its roots. Its design is inspired by Drupal's architecture, with the jewel crown being its multilingual support. SitePress' Multilingual support boasts similar functionality as Drupal's i18n, but without any of its complexity.
A single screen lets users configure a fully functional multilingual system. It allows selecting active languages for the website, language negotiation (language directories or independent language domains) and theme localization. A language switcher can also be added to the theme, as a widget.
Just like Drupal's i18n module, SitePress keeps different languages in different pages and posts. Each page has its own language and different related pages are linked together via "translation groups".
WordPress Menu Creator
Jared Ritchey: "I managed to break free for 30 minutes and wrap up a small bug in the WordPress Menu Creator. As it stands we are at version 1.0.2 which is only a maintenance release to fix some issues when using widgets in conjunction with the menu manager."
My upgrade to Wordpress 2.3
I recently upgrade a blog of mine from Wordpress 2.2 to Wordpress 2.3. My wife and I don't post on the blog much (looking for better ideas on how to utilize the site), but it's great to keep around to test the latest and greatest Wordpress has to offer. In my view, the most important new feature in Wordpress 2.3 is the baseline introduction of tags (also called taxonomy or even categories in other CMS applications).
Jared Ritchey: Index Faster in Google with WordPress
Jared Ritchey has a few things to say about search engine optimization and WordPress.
WordPress realistically only takes about 5 minutes to install but as any WordPress professional knows, the configuration and setup of other elements of design can take many hours if good results are expected. Since my #1 SEO suggestion to site owners is a blog, It makes sense for me to keep and maintain up to date versions of the tools I work with.In his post, "Index Faster in Google with WordPress", he gives you six must-have plugins for your Wordpress site that he has found improves your rankings with the search engines. So you might as well go for a visit to his site as I won't spill the beans here. Though, I will say that the last plugin he suggests will likely not be needed if you've upgraded to the just released Wordpress 2.3.
IIS Authentication plugin for Wordpress
Matt Mullenweg says it all on his blog:
IIS Authentication plugin for the Wordpress PHP blogging engine. So wrong, yet so right.
Lorelle on WP: Fear Not WordPress 2.1 and WordPress Plugins
"The biggest fear I hear over and over again is that people do not want to upgrade because they are afraid their WordPress Plugin won’t work. This is a good example of how important WordPress Plugins are to our WordPress blogs, as well as how dependent we’ve become on them."
Wordpress.org: Is your plugin Naughty or Nice?
"WordPress 2.1 is almost here and you know what that means for developers. It’s time to pull out those old plugins you’ve had stashed, blow off the dust and start applying some spit and polish and make sure it will last longer than Grandma’s Ham and Bean soup that has been sitting in the refrigerator for weeks."
Donncha: Caching WordPress with WP-Cache in a spam filled world
"WP-Cache and spam. Who’d have thought they were related? Unfortunately they are because when your blog is spammed WP-Cache doesn’t check if the comment is legitimate or not and deletes cached files related to the spammed post."
Akismet: New Movable Type Plugin
Akismet announced that a new version of the Movable Type plugin (Version 1.03) has been made available. Akismet is a service for blog applications and other content management systems that filter out comment spam and trackback spam. The new Movable Type plugin for Akismet was necessary because many users were having problems with the previous plugin breaking after users upgraded to Movable Type 3.31.
A download link to the new plugin can be found on the original announcement posted at Akismet.
WordPress 2.0.5 released
Wordpress 2.0.5 was released late last week. This new version of Wordpress mainly contains bugfixes, security fixes, and some very minor enhancements. According to the original announcement at Wordpress.org, the fixes center around feeds, custom fields, and internationalization. Links to download Wordpress 2.0.5 are available at the "official" Wordpress 2 download page.
Also, some Wordpress users after upgrading to version 2.0.5 have experienced Server 500 errors. If you are one of these unfortunate users, check out Mark Jaquith's blog for a plug-in that should fix this known problem.
Lorelle on WP: Digital Fingerprints Help Track Blog Content Theft
"In an attempt to help bloggers track down content theft and copyright violations, MaxPower.ca has created the Digital Fingerprint Detecting Content Theft WordPress Plugin for full version WordPress blogs. The plugin injects a “digital fingerprint” manually into your posts which is seen only in your feeds, not in the post itself."
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