ShareThis

One day, he hopes, people with heart trouble will be told, “That’s OK. We will just grow you another one.

While I think the prospects of this are pretty cool. I couldn’t help thinking as I read the article: Let’s say this does work out great and there are no harmful side effects - Let’s say that this solves the problem in today’s society with not enough donor organs for people waiting for transplants -Let’s say this makes it possible for people who have lost organs/limbs due to disease or disaster get them back - truly that would be absolutely amazing and would be beneficial for so many people BUT think about some other consequences of this (not necessarily bad consequences but just things I got thinking about…)

• would people take more risks knowing that if anything happened to their body it could be replaced?
• would recklessness rise to new levels in society?
• would the trend towards health consciousness in our society start to reverse when people realize that their body parts are “disposable” and “replaceable”
• would a new market open up in the cosmetic field for ‘customized body parts?’ (albeit this thought is a big stretch from what this article talks about…still…)

Just a few thoughts that entered my mind. Don’t get me wrong - obviously this would be a great medical breakthrough for those who could use it now. I just got thinking. Take antibiotics for example. For years known as the “cure” for infections, people would go to the doctor with a cough - and get prescribed an antibiotic - you could have the slightest symptoms (or discomfort) and you would get an antibiotic. Today, most antibiotics don’t work. The best way to avoid “catching something” is the same as it has always been, wash your hands, stay clean, avoid the sick.

Ultimately, this is the question going through my mind - if limb and organ replacement became this simple would it make things better in the long run?

ShareThis

Every organization has momentum - I really don’t believe there is any such thing as the “status quo”.  When you are maintaining the “status quo” all you’re really doing is slowing negative momentum.  Here’s the thing - negative momentum happens when you do nothing.  Positive momentum takes a lot of energy to get going and a constant addition of energy to keep it going.  The key to keeping positive momentum is to focus your energy on the right things:

• Identify the momentum killers in your organization and deal with them. Quickly.  The sooner you do so, the longer the positive momentum will continue and the less energy you’ll expend to keep it going.  This requires the ability to see down the road and anticipate the things that might slow your positive momentum.
• Identify the momentum builders and release them.  Ask the question, “What is keeping my momentum builders from building?”
• Don’t get caught in the trap of “maintaining” the momentum.  That is the biggest killer of positive momentum.
• Do “maximize” the momentum - what is the momentum enabling you to do?  If it enables something that builds on where the momentum has brought you then go for it.

ShareThis

In the last post, I talked about how you can show off the latest series in your sidebar.  One of the caveats of the latest_series() function/widget is that it only shows one series.  The “latest series” function is just a way of giving readers quick insight into the most recent series you’ve published to your blog and is the easiest to customize.

However, there is another more powerful function included with Organize Series that you can use to output a list of all the series you’ve written where you want that acts very similar to the “wp_list_categories()” template tag in the WordPress core. What that means is that if you’ve already got a handle on how to use “wp-list_categories” then you’ll have no problem with “wp_list_series()”.  Let’s take a closer look:

The Widget

For those of you who are uncomfortable with editing your theme files and who are using a theme with widgets enabled there is a widget included with Organize Series that you can use to output the list of series in your sidebar.

The widget name is “Series Widget” (imaginative eh?) and when you activate it you’ll see that there are some options you can set for the widget (Click on “Edit”).  Here’s a breakdown of what the various options are:

• Widget Title - simply enter what you want to appear as the title of this section in the sidebar.
• Dropdown/List - This controls how the list of series will appear on your blog.  If you select “Dropdown” it will result in a dropdown list of series (which is javascripted so when a user clicks on a series in the dropdown they’ll go to the archives page for that series). I’ll talk more about dropdown lists in the next post.  If you select “List” you’ll get a typical hyperlinked list of series you’ve written.
• Show Post Count - If checked, the number of posts in the series will be located next to each series title in the list.
• Hide Empty Series - If checked, any series that don’t have any posts associated with it yet will not be included in the list.
• Post List Toggle - If checked, when you are on a single post page that is part of a series a list of other posts in that series will display in the widget.

The Fun Way

If you’re anything like me, you like having more fine control over how things appear on your blog.  That’s where the handy wp_list_series(); function comes into play.  The usage of wp_list_series is to insert <?php if (function_exists('wp_list_series') wp_list_series(); ?> wherever you want.  However, the real control comes in when you submit various parameters via the function.

The Defaults:

$defaults = array(
	'orderby' => 'name',
		'order' => 'ASC', 'show_last_update' => 0,
		'style' => 'list', 'show_count' => 0,
		'hide_empty' => 1, 'use_desc_for_title' => 1,
		'feed' => '', 'feed_image' => '', 'exclude' => '',
		'title_li' => __('Series'),'number' => '',
		'echo' => 1
	);

By default wp_list_series() outputs a list…

• ordered by the names of the series
• in ascending order
• that does not show the date/time of the last updated post in the series.
• outputted in “list” style (i.e. with <li> and </li> surrounding each series item.
• that does not show the number of posts in the series.
• hiding series that do not have posts
• using the description of the series as the “title” attribute for the link to each series.
• with no feed or feed image used
• not excluding any series
• displaying “Series” as the heading over the list,
• with no “limit” set for the number of series pulled from the database, and,
• echoed (i.e. displayed) instead of just returning the output (not displaying).

The Parameters

Here’s a more detailed summary of each paramater:

orderby
(string) Sort categories alphabetically, by unique Series ID, or by the count of posts in that Series. The default is sort by series name. Valid values:

• ID
• name - default
• count

order

(string) Sort order for series (either ascending or descending). The default is ascending. Valid values:

• ASC - default
• DESC

show_last_updated

(boolean) Should the last updated timestamp for posts be displayed (TRUE) or not (FALSE). Defaults to FALSE.

• 1 (true)
• 0 (false) - default

style

(string) Style to display the series list in. A value of list displays the series as list items while none generates no special display method (the list items are separated by <br> tags). The default setting is list (creates list items for an unordered list). See the markup section for more. Valid values:

• list - default.
• none

show_count

(boolean) Toggles the display of the current count of posts in each series. The default is false (do not show post counts). Valid values:

• 1 (true)
• 0 (false) - default

hide_empty

(boolean) Toggles the display of series with no posts. The default is true (hide empty series). Valid values:

• 1 (true) - default
• 0 (false)

use_desc_for_title

(boolean) Sets whether a series’ description is inserted into the title attribute of the links created (i.e. <a title=”<em>Series Description</em>” href=”…). The default is true (series descriptions will be inserted). Valid values:

• 1 (true) - default
• 0 (false)

feed (string)

Display a link to each series’  rss-2 feed and set the link text to display. The default is no text and no feed displayed.

feed_image

(string) Set a URI for an image (usually an rss feed icon) to act as a link to each series’ rss-2 feed. This parameter overrides the feed parameter. There is no default for this parameter.

exclude

(string) Exclude one or more series from the results. This parameter takes a comma-separated list of series by unique ID, in ascending order.

title_li

(string) Set the title and style of the outer list item. Defaults to “_Series”. If present but empty, the outer list item will not be displayed.

number

(integer) Sets the number of Series to display. This causes the SQL LIMIT value to be defined. Default to no LIMIT.

echo

(boolean) Show the result or keep it in a variable. The default is true (display the series organized). Valid values:

• 1 (true) - default
• 0 (false)

Markup and Styling of Series Lists

By default, wp_list_series() generates nested unordered lists (ul) within a single list item (li) titled “Series”.

You can remove the outermost item and list by setting the title_li parameter to an empty string. You’ll need to wrap the output in an ordered list (ol) or unordered list yourself.  If you don’t want list output at all, set the style parameter to none.

If the series list is generated on a Series Archive page, the list item for that series is marked with the HTML class current-series. Each series item also has the class series-item and series-item-{series-id}.

...
<li class="series-item series-item-5 current-series">
  [You are on this series page]
</li>
<li class=”series-item series-item-6″>
  [Another series]
</li>
…

You can style that list item with a CSS selector :

.current-series { ... }

Usage:

Let’s give an example:

Say you wanted to show the three most recent series you’ve posted, with the number of posts in each series indicated, not including the crappy “101 ways to watch paint dry” series that you wrote.  First, going to the “manage->series” page in your WordPress Administration you find that the series id of your “101 ways to watch paint dry” series is 33,  equipped with this information here’s the code you would write:

<?php wp_list_series('orderby=id&order=DESC&show_count=1&exclude=33&number=3'); ?>

It’s that simple!

ShareThis

Without further ado, here’s the changeset for version 2.0.7 of Organize Series (you can download this version by clicking here):

Minor Changes:

• Removal of extraneous html from series.php and seriestoc.php template files.
• Updated readme.txt for suggestion to copy customized series.php and seriestoc.php files to theme directory.
• Added missing < /div > to seriestoc.php file to fix “98%” of the typical default installations of this plugin.
• fixed a potential bug with the get_series_toc() function/template tag.
• Fixed a few spacing, code structure errors throughout the files.
• Changed the “title” attribute for the get_series_toc() link to something a bit more friendly.

Major Changes:

• Fixed bug affecting installs of Organize Series on blogs with a subdirectory in their blog address (i.e. http://www.myblog.com/blog/). In these setups the Series Table of Contents page re-direct wouldn’t work. This bug also affected custom seriestoc urls set on the Series Options pages with a multiple slash structure (i.e. the default is \series\, but if you used \series\seriestoc it wouldn’t work). Many thanks to Ken Carlson for his help in getting it fixed.

ShareThis