Tag Archives: Plugins

Dougal on WordPress Community Podcast

By Dougal | Published: February 23, 2010

I was the guest tonight on the WordPress Community Podcast, hosted by Joost de Valk and Frederick Townes. We talked about upcoming features in WordPress 3.0, my past work as a WordPress core developer, my WordPress plugins, microformats, and a smattering of other topics. [...]

Posted in WordPress | Also tagged Development, interviews, iTunes, Microformats, podcasts, WordPress, wordpress 3.0, wordpress core | 2 Comments

WordPress Code Spelunking

By Dougal | Published: February 18, 2010

Earlier today, I finished up a WordPress plugin that I’ve been working on for a client. Without divulging too many details, I’ll say that it wasn’t a huge project, nor was it overly complicated, but it was interesting. . [...]

Posted in WordPress | Also tagged API, code, codex, core, Development, exploration, functions, http class, images, learning, phpdoc, scheduling, simplexml, WordPress, wp cron, wp_http, wp_insert_post, wp_upload_bits, xpath | 14 Comments

Plugin Pages

By Dougal | Published: January 13, 2010

I have finally gotten around to adding proper pages on this site to provide information about my WordPress plugins. It’s still a work-in-progress, but it’s at least at a point that they are useful. When I get a chance, I’ll document the methods I used to automate things. But basically, I’ve created a couple of page templates, and I’m using the Plugin Info plugin to automagically bring in plugin metadata from the wordpress.org plugin repository.

The main Plugins page lists each plugin, with the plugin name and version, number of downloads so far, and an excerpt of the plugin description. [...]

Posted in WordPress | Also tagged p52, templates, WordPress | 8 Comments

I’m speaking at WordCamp Atlanta

By Dougal | Published: December 16, 2009

I’m pleased to announce that I will be speaking at WordCamp Atlanta next month. I will be presenting an updated version of the Jumping Into WordPress Plugin Programming talk that I gave at WordCamp Birmingham in September. I think I can squeeze some more details in, and hopefully give some more detailed examples.

If you saw the original presentation (or just the slideshow), and you think there’s something else I need to cover, please feel free to let me know. [...]

Posted in WordPress | Also tagged Atlanta, Development, how to, presentation, Programming, speaking, wordcamp, WordPress | 3 Comments

Suggestion: WordPress Option Namespacing

By Dougal | Published: December 10, 2009

I happened to be poking around in my database a while ago, particularly in the WordPress ‘options’ table for this blog. There’s an awful lot of cruft hanging around from old plugins that I don’t use anymore. I cleaned a few things out, but something hit me as I was perusing all those options: I can’t always tell which options belong(ed) to which plugins, themes, or to the WordPress core.

In many cases, plugin authors tag the option names in a way that you can figure it out. [...]

Posted in WordPress | Also tagged best practice, collision, Community, namespacing, naming, option names, options, Programming, suggestions, WordPress | 7 Comments

WordPress 2.9 Features

By Dougal | Published: October 16, 2009

This site is now running on WordPress 2.9-rare (which is our “pre-alpha” designation, for those of you who don’t know). WP 2.9 is in “feature freeze”, which means no new features will be considered for this version, and the developers will concentrate on finishing up the existing new features and any outstanding bugs. So far, it appears that all of my plugins are working just fine.

The main new features I’ve actually seen so far are the addition of the “Post Thumbnail” box in the writing screen, the new “trash” status for posts, pages, and comments, and the image editor in the Media Library. [...]

Posted in WordPress | Also tagged alpha, Beta, cms, content management, content types, Development, embeds, features, Flickr, hulu, images, Media, Metadata, oembed, qik, testing, Themes, thumbnails, viddler, vimeo, viper, viper007bond, Widgets, WordPress, youtube | 82 Comments

Jumping into WordPress Plugin Development presentation

By Dougal | Published: September 26, 2009

Despite an extreme lack of sleep, I managed to make it through my WordCamp Birmingham presentation this morning on Jumping into WordPress Plugin Programming. I didn’t feel as prepared as I wanted to be, but several people gave me some kind comments, so I guess it must have gone okay. Here is the slideshow I used, which I’ve uploaded to SlideShare (where you can also find my presentation from last year).

Jumping Into WordPress Plugin Programming

View more documents from Dougal Campbell.

Obviously, with the slideshow, you don’t get the extra patter and commentary (did anybody record audio?), but the essential pieces are there. [...]

Posted in WordPress | Also tagged how to write wordpress plugins, howto, jump start, jumpstart, presentation, Programming, slide show, slideshare, slideshow, wcbhm09, wordcamp, wordcampbham, WordPress | 9 Comments

Getting ready for WordCamp Birmingham 2009

By Dougal | Published: September 25, 2009

In a short while, I’ll be leaving Atlanta, and heading west to Alabama for WordCamp Birmingham 2009. I’m giving a presentation on Saturday morning about Jumping Into WordPress Plugin Programming. Of course, my presentation still isn’t done, so I’ll be burning the midnight oil tonight, finishing up my notes, gathering up my bookmarks, and turning it all into a slideshow. [...]

Posted in WordPress | Also tagged Alabama, bhm, birmingham, PHP, plugin programming, presentations, Programming, wcbhm09, wordcamp, wordcampbham, WordPress, wordpress plugins | 3 Comments

W3 Total Cache Plugin

By Dougal | Published: August 26, 2009

There’s a new WordPress cache plugin in town, and it’s called W3 Total Cache. This plugin is one of the contestants in the 2009 Weblog Tools Collection Plugin Competition.

The W3 Total Cache plugin (W3TC for short) is an advanced cache plugin, and you can only have one of those on your site at once. [...]

Posted in WordPress | Also tagged apc, cache, caching, compression, CSS, html, JavaScript, memcache, memcached, minimize, Performance, PHP, php opcode cache, WordPress, xcache | 58 Comments

Jumping Into WordPress Plugin Programming

By Dougal | Published: August 16, 2009

In a few weeks, I will be a presenter at WordCamp Birmingham 2009 (that’s Birmingham, Alabama, not England, by the way). Last year, I did a presentation on “The Future of WordPress“, shortly before the release of version 2.7. [...]