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Alex King: WordCamp Utah Recap

109 Views Published 3 months ago in Wordpress

(I had intended to get this posted early last week, but pushing all of the meetings, etc. from the week prior to WordCamp Utah to last week torpedoed that pretty effectively.)

WordCamp Utah was a great event - well organized by Joseph Scott (thanks Joseph!), well attended and with some very good speakers.

I gave a presentation about WordPress plugins. This was a challenging talk because of the vastness of the topic combined with the variety of the interest and technical background of the audience. Here are the slides.

WordPress Plugins (WordCamp Utah)

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: carrington plugins)

Some folks seemed upset that I didn’t give a technical demo of how to build a plugin. However, I chose to keep the talk at a high level based on the make-up of the audience.

Instead of getting into the code, I talked about techniques and approaches, and different kinds of plugins. My intent was to give people an idea of what they can do with plugins; and a little start on how to approach writing one. We may change this at WordCamp Denver and have some technical presentations.

I also announced a couple of goodies at the end of the talk. We pulled an all-nighter on Friday getting everything ready for release. My presentation might have suffered a bit as a result.

We’ve released some development tools for other WordPress developers to use. These are things we’ve had to build over the years, and thought others could make good use of.

WordPress Install (SVN Checkout) Script - a shell script will walk you through a checkout of multiple versions of WordPress from SVN and set up the requisite config file and database structure. This makes it easy to create a series of installs for testing purposes.
WordPress Compatibility Plugin - sets some constants and some other little things that provide backward compatibility for older versions of WordPress.
Quality Assurance (QA) Checklists - checklists to help guide plugin and theme testing. Includes considerations such as WordPress version, theme compatibility, browser type, WordPress settings, etc.

The biggest announcement - and the one I’m most excited about - was the Carrington theme, but I’ll have a follow-up post about that as there is just too much to cover here.

Thanks again to everyone who made WordCamp Utah a success.

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Tags: comments, database, plugin, release, test, testing, Wordpress, wp

Dev Blog: WordPress 2.7 Wireframes

89 Views Published 3 months, 1 week ago in Wordpress

For those of you who have been downloading the nightly builds or contributing code to 2.7, you’ve noticed how quickly features are being added, small layout changes are gradually being implemented, and the application is morphing before your very eyes. For the most part, the response has been extremely positive, but even the people who love 2.7 have been wondering what it’s going to end up looking like. Though 2.7 is still a work in progress, we’ve put together a set of wireframes to illustrate how we think it will all turn out, so you can take a look under the hood of the design process, so to speak.

The PDF attached to this post outlines the navigation model, header elements, and important screens such as the dashboard, the new post screen, and list screens for posts, comments, and media.

Some things to bear in mind if you’re not used to looking at wireframes:

1. These are a guide, not a dictate. Changes may be made by developers and designers as needed for technical, aesthetic and/or usability reasons. When you have a team of superfast developers like we do, sometimes wireframes can become out of date quickly. In the two hours since these wireframes were approved, for example, already there are a few things that have moved and a menu change or two. Tweaks will continue to be made over the next week or two before freeze. This is Alpha software, not Beta, and it’s not static. That’s part of what makes it exciting, that every time it’s updated there’s something new.

2. These are all black/grey/white. That’s because we have a designer hard at work on visual styles for the new admin panel, including color palette, fonts, graphic elements, etc. When we have a new look to show off, we will. For now, the wireframes are “lookless” on purpose.

3. Not every screen is wireframed. We focused on creating wireframes for those screens that are undergoing the most change. For screens retaining largely the same functionality and layout, we have not included wireframes. In some cases, we’ll be updating screens but haven’t decided how to do it yet, so those aren’t included either.

4. Some elements apply directly to wordpress.com or wordpress.org, so don’t be alarmed if you see something that doesn’t seem to apply (like multiple dashboards).

One of the things I love best about WordPress is the vibrant community full of talented developers and designers who care about the application and want it to be the best it can be. Despite the overwhelmingly positive response we’ve gotten when showing 2.7 at WordCamps and from the majority of the community, there will always be people who would prefer it to be structured another way, which is why we love plugins! The decisions that went into 2.7 were based on a combination of usability testing results from 2.5 and Crazyhorse (both including laser eye tracking, official report to be released soon, but slides from WordCamp SF available in meantime), community feedback, personal and professional opinions, and some thinking about where the next couple of versions will be going in terms of new features, so that we will have a design that scales to accommodate some the features we hope to incorporate in the future.

So, I hope you enjoy getting an inside look at how we’ve been organizing our thoughts around 2.7, and that when the community feedback starts flowing everyone remembers that we all want the same thing: the best WordPress possible.

Tags: comments, features, plugin, release, test, testing, Wordpress, wp

Lorelle on WP: How to Remove WordPress.com Ads From Your WordPress.com Blog

317 Views Published 3 months, 3 weeks ago in Wordpress

Matt Mullenweg has just announced that you can go “ad-free” on your WordPress.com blog.

While you may have never noticed, those who are not logged into WordPress.com will see ads on blogs across the WordPress.com network. two years ago, WordPress.com started experimenting with Google ads to help support the cost of the experimental and state-of-the-art multiple user free blog service. The intent was not to cover your blogs with ads, like many free blogging services do, but to show an occasional ad discretely within your WordPress Theme.

Since few complained or noticed, the experiment continued, helping to keep WordPress.com free and add a lot of free features that might have been paid upgrades.

These ads were so rare, I never saw them. So I forgot about them. I’ve written a lot about the WordPress.com Terms of Service policy that prohibits adding ads to your WordPress.com blogs, so I was dismayed a few months ago when I got a few emails accusing me of special favors from WordPress.com because I had ads on my blog. They were seeing the WordPress.com experimental ads. Unfortunately, one of the ads was - shall we say - inappropriate, a problem many have with Google’s ad program.

Still, this bothered me. I talked to the WordPress team about this and they agreed that users should have the right to determine whether or not to have WordPress.com ads on their blogs. As Matt explains:

At the same time it’s easy to imagine blogs that would never want ads on them: businesses, startups, non-profits, political activist sites, the list goes on. Google Adsense analyzes the content to show contextually relevant ads, but that might mean a link to a competitor. Because of this we’ve introduced a premium option that gives you control: the No-ads upgrade.

They’ve been working on this new feature for a while, trying to come up with a secure and affordable way for users to continue to support WordPress.com by permitting ads on their blogs, while allowing those with sensitive or special interests to not host ads. They’ve finally done it, and I applaud their foresight and integrity.

Removing Ads from Your WordPress.com Blog

Before you start jumping to remove ads from your WordPress.com blog, remember that those ads, most of which you will rarely ever see, help bring in income to keep WordPress.com going. If they don’t bother you or your readers, leave them alone. Why not?

You are using one of the most powerful, state-of-the-art blogging platforms, a service that will survive the Digg-effect and high traffic surges without charging you; a service that keeps bringing you options and features without charge; a service that gives you a platform upon which to express yourself proudly - and is incredibly SEO friendly. Why not help them continue to keep this service free for everyone?

If you do feel a compelling need to remove ads from your WordPress.com blog, go to Upgrades.

WordPress.com Upgrades Panel

Scroll down to No-ads and select the option.

Select no-ads to turn off ads on your WordPress.com blog

The cost to remove ads from your WordPress.com blog is 30 credits annually (USD $30 if you haven’t earned any credits) which comes to eight cents a day.

Whether you keep or remove ads from your WordPress.com blog, why not take a little time to give back to WordPress.com and other WordPress.com users by browsing the WordPress blog network and get to know your fellow WordPress.com members. You can use the Random Post feature in the gray dashboard bar at the top of your WordPress.com blog when you are logged in, or visit the WordPress.com Blogs of the Day which lists the most popular blogs by language, or the WordPress.com Tags list.

If you are familiar with how WordPress.com works, then why not help out in the WordPress.com forums and get to know the volunteers and staff there as well as your other fellow WordPress.com members. It’s a simple way to say thank you for this powerful free blog service.

I Want to Put Ads on My WordPress.com Blog

A lot of WordPress.com bloggers want to put ads on their blogs to make money for themselves. While some free blog hosts permit that, don’t forget that WordPress.com is also a testing site for many of the latest features of WordPress development.

While the world has to wait for the release of WordPress 2.7, WordPress.com users are already using the new sticky post feature and will soon be playing with other new features as part of the new WordPress Administration interface redesign, a continuation of user interface improvements from the previous version of WordPress - long before anyone else.

This means that WordPress.com has to stay clean of code that will screw up not just one blog but all the blogs on the WordPress.com network powered by WordPressMU. While most ad code is harmless, opening up WordPress.com to Javascript and other code languages opens the door up to malicious code, too. It’s a security risk WordPress.com isn’t willing to take, and I support that policy.

If you want to monetize your blog, get the free version of WordPress and pay for cheap hosting. Some hosts are offering web hosting for under USD $10 a month. With the full version of WordPress, you can not only add ads, but customize the whole look, add all kinds of cool WordPress Plugins, and really tweak your whole site to maximize its revenue potential.

WordPress.com has always been about blogging, about freedom of expression and creativity. It’s not about the code. It’s about the words. WordPress.com is working overtime to make sure we have a place to share our words with others around the world - no holds barred.

Site Search Tags: wordpress news, wordpressdotcom, wordpress.com, wordpresscom, ads, ads on blogs, blog ads, advertising, blog advertising, monetization, advertising on WordPress.com, WordPress.com ads, make money, make money with blogging

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging.

Posted in WordPress News, Wordpressdotcom

Tags: comments, features, google, options, plugin, release, seo, test, testing, Wordpress, wp

vBulletin 3.8.0 on vBulletin.com

88 Views Published 3 months, 3 weeks ago in News and Announcements, vBulletin.org

As you may have noticed, we have just upgraded the vBulletin.com forums to version 3.8 in order to get some initial production testing.

We’ll post more details as time allows, but for now please…

Tags: features, test, testing, vb, vbulletin, wp

Lloyd: Interested in Freeing Yourself from the TypePad Trap?

82 Views Published 3 months, 3 weeks ago in Wordpress

My co-worker Noel Jackson, tired of hearing me whine about the Six Apart TypePad Trap, has created a WordPress importer mashing together the MT formatted export file (missing permalinks) and the broken TypePad AtomPub (missing comments and trackbacks). We are currently testing this on WordPress.com before polishing the code up and sharing it. We are looking for some TypePad customers to help us test it — it’s completely harmless, read-only.

If you are interested, let me know and we can set up a private blog on WordPress.com for you to import into. Bonus is that you will have a backup of your blog ready to go live if anything ever befalls TypePad.

This importer wouldn’t be possible without the heroic effort Ronald Heft Jr put into creating a TypePad AtomPub importer for WordPress — it’s not his fault TypePad still doesn’t have a way to export your full blog.

What’s an AtomPub? While working on this importer Noel contacted TypePad support only to have them tell him they don’t know what AtomPub is, and that they don’t support it.

Anyway, as I said, if you are a TypePad customer, and want to participate in open source development by testing this exporter, or would just like a backup of your blog ready to launch on WordPress.com, leave a comment or send me an email.

Tags: comments, test, testing, Wordpress

vBulletin 3.8.0 on vBulletin.com

102 Views Published 3 months, 3 weeks ago in Announcements, vBulletin Fans

vBulletin.com Announcement: *vBulletin 3.8.0 on vBulletin.com*
Author: *Kier*
Published: 18th September 2008 06:30 PM