WordPress

Introduction to Organize Series Usage Tips

By Darren on March 23, 2008

This entry is part 1 of 10 in the series Organize Series Usage Tips

When I first started off in the WordPress blogging world there are a few things I discovered fairly quickly:

WordPress is a kick-butt platform for publishing on the web. It’s not only a great tool for typical blogging usage but also makes a great system for designing CMS based websites.
There’s an awesome community behind WordPress. Having such a big and helpful community certainly makes learning and using WordPress all the more easier.
There’s tons of plugins that extend the capabilities of what WordPress can do.
I like tweaking and playing with the codebase of WordPress.
There’s nothing built into the core for handling series of articles…

That last point was something that I encountered more and more as developed other websites (in particular my sermons website at UnashamedSermons.com). Out of that need and not finding a plugin to meet that need I went on to write what is now known as the Organize Series WordPress Plugin. Of course, shortly after the first release I was pointed to the “InSeries Plugin” currently being maintained by Travis Snoozy. He’s doing good work with In-Series but bleh, I decided a little competition won’t hurt (and I like my approach to series a bit better ).

...This is a preview of Introduction to Organize Series Usage Tips.
Read the full post
(563 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

Posted in Neurotic Plugins, Organize Series, Talkin Tech, WordPress | 2 Responses

Be careful using the Automatic Plugins upgrades in WordPress 2.5

By Darren on March 18, 2008

Well the long awaited sequel to the 2.3 branch of WordPress is almost out the door. Release Candidate 1 of WordPress 2.5 is now available for those brave souls who want to do some testing before the final release. WordPress 2.5 has been covered pretty well on the blogosphere so I’m not going to go into all the details here but I did want to write a post about one new feature that could cause some problems with users upgrading.

WordPress 2.5 comes with the ability for blog owners to upgrade their plugins automatically via the Plugins Page. “Automatic Upgrade” means that instead of having to download the plugin and then ftp it to your server, you can simply click the “upgrade automatically” link and WordPress will take care of everything for you. (click the picture below to see what it looks like)

It’s a great idea and definitely one that will work okay with most basic plugins but here’s the problem(s):

...This is a preview of Be careful using the Automatic Plugins upgrades in WordPress 2.5.
Read the full post
(559 words, 1 image, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)

Posted in Talkin Tech, WordPress | Tagged automatic upgrade, bugs, plugin design, WordPress, wordpress 2.5, WordPress plugins | 20 Responses

Organize Series 2.0 Beta 1 Release

By Darren on March 4, 2008

UPDATE: Organize Series 2.0 Final has been released. You can get it here.

Finally, I’ve reached the point where I can release a beta version of the Organize Series 2.0! It’s been a long time in the making and I’m glad to finally have reached this stage. UnfoldingNeurons.com is now running on WordPress 2.3.3 and I’ve installed OrgSeries and all seems well.

I’m still going through the code and cleaning it up, adding internal documentation, and structuring the files so it’s a bit more intuitive. I also want to get OrgSeries 2.0 ready for WordPress 2.5 before I do a final release. However, since I know so many people have been patiently waiting for me to get this version out the door I decided to release the Beta for those brave souls who want to give it a go. REMEMBER though, that this is a BETA release and I take no responsibility for any problems you may have with it. I’m hoping that releasing this BETA will also lead to some great feedback from users, helping me to improve it in time for the big release.

...This is a preview of Organize Series 2.0 Beta 1 Release.
Read the full post
(1228 words, estimated 4:55 mins reading time)

Posted in Neurotic Plugins, Organize Series, Talkin Tech, WordPress | Tagged Organize Series, plugin releases, plugins, WordPress | 19 Responses

Launch of vohzimbabwe.com

By Darren on October 24, 2007

This entry is part 27 of 27 in the series Zimbabwe 2007 Project

As part of the team of men who went to Zimbabwe in June - I was amazed by the work being done to make a difference in the country of Zimbabwe by the Village of Hope and their work with children. One of the things that I discovered in working with them is that they don’t have a website to promote what they are doing and provide an information/communication portal for their current and potential supporters. I decided to donate my services to design and host the website because I believe so strongly in the work the Village of Hope is doing.

So without further ado, I’m announcing the launch of the brand new website for the Village of Hope in Zimbabwe (vohzimbabwe.com).

Coincidently, that is why there’s been some inactivity on this blog lately (and also why development of the Organize Series Plugin has been stalled)…

Permanent link to this post
(160 words, 1 image, estimated 38 secs reading time)

Posted in Aside, Talkin Tech, WordPress | Tagged village of hope, Web-Design | Leave a response

Organize Series 2.0 Roadmap

By Darren on October 8, 2007

I just thought I’d write a little update about some of the things I’m working on for the next version of my Organize Series WordPress Plugin. As I’ve noted in my earlier post, the existing version of Organize Series will not work with WordPress 2.3 because of the way I had written the plugin to integrate with the category system of WordPress. The good thing is that if you upgrade your blog to WordPress 2.3 you can deactivate Organize Series and your existing series structure will stay intact because it’s based on WordPress categories. This means you can still blog using the series structure you’ve been accustomed to with one caveat of course - the “organize” part of Organize Series won’t be available…yet. The bad news is that although I am wanting to get Organize Series upgraded as soon as possible (because I use it myself and want the spiffyness of WordPress 2.3!) I am not able to work on the plugin full-time so - it will still be a while yet before the update is done.

...This is a preview of Organize Series 2.0 Roadmap.
Read the full post
(1486 words, estimated 5:57 mins reading time)

Posted in Neurotic Plugins, Organize Series, WordPress | Tagged Organize Series, plugins, roadmap, upgrade, WordPress, wordpress-2.3 | 8 Responses