I received five messages about various plugins of mine today. I don't think I've gotten so many in one day before. Hopefully, I've resolved everyone's issues.
There is a new plugin online for y'all. It's called "Countdown", and it lets you maintain a list of events like the ones you see in my sidebar under "Dates To Remember". You basically drop the plugin and a dates.txt file into your plugin directory, enable the plugin, add the output code to your WordPress template (read the readme.txt), update the dates file through the WP admin, and *poof*. You've got birthdays and holidays and all.
One nice thing that it does that you won't expect is that it will let you specify a date that recurs, like a birthday, or a date that is a one-time event, like this year's office Christmas party. Even nicer is that you can specify dates like "2nd monday september" and it'll figure it out every year.
The included dates.txt file has settings in it already for Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, and Daylight Savings. You should add your own.
Download it from the usual place.
Grr. You know... You rebuild something hastily, and everything goes kaplooey. :)
The readme is re-archived.
Did you have a fix for the non-sticky adhesive posts thing?
Hey that's totally cool, I'm going to have to try it out later!
I wanted something like that before but then never found what I wanted and so forgot about it.
Thanks! ;-)
Okay wait a sec -- I'm not finding the readme.txt. :-D
Possible bug?
If you have two dates defined it only shows one. Or maybe that's on purpose?
Either way, I have:
12-12 Erin's Birthday and
12-12 Direct Xmas play
Yet it only shows Erin's Birthday.
The Direct date is defined first in the txt file.
Ah yes. That is a bug. Very nicely done.
I have created a fix for this issue, and also moved the observed date for my birthday to June from July. Not sure what I was thinking there. The new version is alpha 4 and is available on the wp-hacks page.
Hi, a good number of your WP hacks look pretty cool. I tried using Adhesive, Countdown, EZStatic and MicroWiki and could only get Countdown to work. I'm using WP 1.2 and would loooove to get that MicroWiki to work. Any chance you could do some docs to better explain how to install EZStatic and MicroWiki? Thanks regardless for your great work!
Exhibit is a wonderful plugin, my thanks:~) I have two points to raise…
1) Exhibit seems to leave fewer error lines (in my server log) if I don’t use images from the root of the specified images area. If they are used from a deeper subdirectory the errors line slow down. I can live with subdirectories but would like to fix the error lines.
2) The (system) messages log keeps kicking out these lines…
Dec 10 10:53:47 systa httpd: PHP Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/e-smith/files/ibays/gl/html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/exhibitimg/exhibit10i.php on line 310
…and they always cite that one line. I even get them if I edit a thread that doesn’t even have a picture ’exhibited’. Is there something I might be able to do to resolve whatever issue is at fault at my site?
What's different about the 1.3 Adhesive version??
Well...
1) It works. :)
2) It's smaller.
3) The checkbox appears where it's supposed to more often.
4) The "Last 15 Posts" list in the admin includes sticky posts at the top, shown as "Sticky:Post_Title".
5) I put the sticky date text into a variable and moved it to the top so people can find it.
6) It uses built-in post queries instead of custom ones and magical post-jiggering to implement the stickiness.
7) There is detailed and hopefully useful documentation now in my wiki, which is pointed to by a readme.txt in the archive.
For whatever reason, people just didn't look at the code (where the installation insructions are), and then assumed that I hadn't written installation instructions, and then assumed that they'd never figure out how to install it, so I'd get all kinds of mail. Anyway, no more of that.
One new feature is that you can set it to not display sticky posts on the home page, but only on category pages. For most people that get excited about this feature it's probably not what they think, but it's a step in that direction.
There are basic installation instructions for EzStatic in the plugin file itself. I have written the definitive guide to EzStatic, which may answer many questions about installing EzStatic on a non-standard template.
Now maybe I'll move on to MicroWiki...
The new documentation for MicroWiki is up. The new version of MicroWiki is online, too.
A new WordPress 1.3-only version of Adhesive is on the hacks page, as well as full Adhesive documentation.
Thanks for the new docs, Owen! Actually, I did check the files themselves for the instructions, but I found them a bit lacking. I'm far from Mr. PHP, so I need more than "put file A here and activate it here" to make sense of what a plugin is even for--like EzStatic, which I only installed because I wanted to use MicroWiki, I need a bit more than I found--not your fault, I'm just a n00b. Either way, thanks for all of your hard work--even if I can't get all of your plugins to work, obviously there are plenty of people who can, so that's awesome enough for me.
Well I hope that the new docs help get things working. I'm really not as bitter as I appear in some of the instructions (the EzStatic ones in particular), I just get very frustrated when people do the simplest thing they can possibly imagine to get one of my plugins to work and then go on at length about how it's no good, never worked, and can't possibly work, and then ask me to tell them where they can find something that does work, rather than trying to figure it out a little and asking learning questions (as opposed to the "Will you ever make this work right?" that I normally get). The nerve!
Obviously these plugins work somewhere, because I use them all here. I've tested them on freash WordPress installations. If something is not working, it's likely due to a change that they made, so it's particularly frustrating when someone says "I don't know PHP", yet they know enough to break WordPress for what should be a drop-in install.
Ranting complete. For now.
I understand--and don't blame you for feeling the way you do. I did figure out what was wrong--I have WP installed in a subdirectory but keep the index in my root. When I tell EzStatic to look for a directory (index.php?static=directory) it looks in the subdirectory WP is in. I tried digging through your script to see if I could fix it, but no luck. Unless you know off the top of your head how I can fix this, don't worry about it. I'll figure something out. Thanks again!
However, when I DL the latest version of MicroWiki, I don't get the three files the docs refer to. I get microwiki.php & wikihome.txt when I unpack the microwiki.zip I get from your WP-hacks page. Sorry--not trying to be a pain in the ass!
ul person… Wow! And I thought I had a chip… Dude is having a bad day, it would seem. I kinda thought he [...]
Hmm. Did you try downloading again? I just tried it and it has all four files in it, all named the right thing. Weird.
I did try to DL it again--3 times from here. Still just the same two files. Sorry, man--I really don't want to keep dumping on your WP support page!! (Sorry :() Is there maybe somewhere else I should get it from? Again, sorry to post so much!
Damn! I tried DLing it from the same link but in a different browser (Firefox instead of Camino) and got the proper files. D'oh! (I guess) Anyway, so things seem to be working fine now. I'm not sure my MicroWiki install is seeing that I'm logged in but, I'll mess with it and make it work. Thanks again, Owen!! I really appreciate the plugins!!
Aha, a cache problem! Well, that happens.
If you have trouble after trying to get MicroWiki set up, please let me know. I want to work out kinks, but I want to work with someone who at least tries to get it working themselves a little, you know? Too much ranting about that here.
Cool--well, I'm happy to help but try to get it right on my own 1st. Everything's up and running--the only problems I am having now are 1) I can't resize the content so that the sidebar doesn't cover it and 2) I can't seem to log in. I've tried 2 different browsers and cleared caches and so on. Feel free to check it out and tell me what you think. (Feel free to post to my tag board if you don't want to keep piling on the comments to this site.) Thanks again for your help.
FYI - Adhesive seems to have quit working with the latest nightly builds of wordpress 1.3
Use Adhesive 2.0 and see if this fixes your problem. :)
I've tried 1.5, 1.6a, and 2.0. I am running on IIS, if that makes a difference? I don't believe it should. The sticky check-box ends up at the very lower left corner of the page, and just doesn't seem to take effect.
Hmm. I'm running on IIS, I just checked out the latest CVS, I'm using Adhesive 2.0, and everything looks... Oops.
Get 2.1, online now. ;)
The checkbox shows up in the Advanced area under Post Status.
Owen, Seems that 2.1 solved ALL my problems, and makes me VERY happy. Thanks for the quick fix!!!
John
Owen, Seems that 2.1 solved ALL my problems, and makes me VERY happy. Thanks for the quick fix!!!
FYI - I'm getting this error from your verification page. It's probably due to the fact that my reverse dns isn't properly registered. I'm using a free DNS server from afraid.org to register my static IP. They can't register the reverse because it's owned by comcast.
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: checkdnsrr() in C:\Program Files\Ensim\Sitedata\asymptomatic\Inetpub\wwwroot\wp-content\spam-karma\captcha_confirm_form.php on line 246
John
Great! I'm glad Adhesive is working for you.
The checkdnsrr() thing is a problem in Spam Karma. It might be fixed in a newer version, but I got tired of upgrading every time Dr.Dave makes a change (like, every half hour), so I probably don't have it if it does exist. I made a small fix and things look ok from here.
Just wanted to pass on something I figured out about the MicroWiki script. It tends to not work quite as advertised on some browsers if your WP index.php file is outside of your WP directory. Basically, in some browsers (most that I tried) the MW script can't tell that you're logged in, even if you are. It's a weird glitch within WP that they say will be fixed in 1.3. (I'm not daring enough to give the beta a try just yet.) However, I found a fairly straightforward solution. You simply leave a copy of your WP index.php in your WP directory with this in the index.php's head: < ?php
/* Don't remove this line. */
require('./wp-blog-header.php');
?>
Then, to access the wiki, you don't go to where your main WP index.php file is--you go to the one in your WP directory, like this: http://blahblah.com/wpress/index.php?static=wiki
At least, that's working for me. Please feel free to contact me if anyone has questions I may be able to help with. And thanks again to Owen for making the plugin in the first place!! Now if I can just figure out how to include the latest additions to the wiki on my main page.
One other question about MicroWiki: How do I delete pages? I tried reading through the docs, but couldn't find anything. Thanks in advance and Happy New Year!
Wow, ThePete, I'm sorry I've been unresponsive, but I'm glad you've seemed to sort out the problem you were having. I'll see what I can do with the MicroWiki docs to address the issue, but at first glance, I think this is the prescribed method for using WordPress from a subdirectory.
Anyhow, MicroWiki is missing a "delete" feature, which kind of sucks, doesn't it? Maybe I'll add that next. :)
No worries, man! Holidays and all... as for the delete feature, yeah--that'd be nice! :)
I hate to keep posting, but I feel like I need to ask you to post the code you use to include your "from the wiki" section on your site. I've tried many different methods for getting the RSS to show up, but it just doesn't do it. I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing wrong or what. I'd appreciate anything you can pass on and apologize if I'm being rude by posting so much. I did do my best to find a solution on my own with no luck. Thanks, Owen!
I cheated:
$wikipage = $wpdb->get_row("SELECT mw_wiki.*, CHAR_LENGTH(mw_wiki.body) as sz FROM mw_wiki LEFT JOIN mw_wiki AS s2 ON mw_wiki.keyword = s2.keyword AND mw_wiki.postdate < s2.postdate WHERE s2.id IS NULL ORDER BY mw_wiki.postdate DESC LIMIT 1");echo "<a href="http://www.asymptomatic.net/_wiki/{$wikipage->keyword}">". ((($wikipage->title)=='')?$wikipage->keyword:$wikipage->title)."</a>";
Hey, that works, too! Thanks, man!!
There is a little bug in adhesive with regard to the the_date function: it allways removes the date, even on single pages. As I understand it on single pages (when only the sticky post is shown) the date should be shown. I added a && (!is_single()) condition to the check in the adhesive_the_date filter and now it works fine.
Hmm. You might be right. I'll have to check on that.
Semi-automate the process of what, exactly?
I have two web sites I would like to use EzStatic on. One has about 60-65 pages and a number of pictures. The other has over 1,000 static html pages, over 800 png, and over 800 zip files.
Would there be a way to at least semi-automate the process ?
Thanks.
and I can’t say how much it has and will help with working in WP) I came across the countdown plug-in. So, I removed my birthday-list and my other countdown [...]
Hi i've been trying to setup Exhibit but i'm getting an error on the exhibit_full.php page.
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: numeric_index() in /web/htdocs/www.stereotipic.it/home/wp-content/plugins/exhibitimg/exhibit10p.php on line 650Everything else looks like it's working properly:
create thumbs, inserting them into posts, previews etc.
Folders and files should have the correct permissions
but i didn't configure the chmod option in the exhibit config: could it be a problem?
I'm putting back up the post so you can have a look if it helps.
the post i'm talking about
thanx in advance
I didn't manage it to have events with more than one day. Can you provide me an example entry how to do it? Or is there no support for this?
Hi there, thies might be a stupid question, but I have just came to the "WorldPress" world ;) and I've tried your countdown plugin and I live it (exhibit is one of the best plugins thou). Anyway, I'm not good at programming so here is my question: I see the "dates to remember (gray, don't like it and it's dificoult to read) and the dates in the same color! How can I change that? Well, I hope you can help me :)
Nice work.
Saludos
Alejandro
zogre- Sorry for the delay. The lines in exhibit10p.php that use numeric_index() should be calling exhibit_numeric_index() instead. If you make the change, it should work.
fukami- I don't know what you mean. Only the very next occurrance of a repeating event appears in the list. So if it should happen more than once within the list range you've specified, you'll only see the first instance. Is this a bug? I don't know - you tell me.
Alejandro- All of the date styling is handled via CSS. You should be able to set the style of the LI/UL tag that contains your date list so that the elements that are hard to read (likely they are dates in the past, with a special class) become easier to read. On my site the classname is ".importantdates", but yours may be different. By default, the LI tags for dates in the past are styles with the class ".pastevent".
Well, that did it! It's working now! thanks very much and keep the hard work :) you're doing it amazing!
Saludos
Alejandro
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Actually, the dates has no year so I'm sure they are not as pastevent :-\ You can see it yourself here (I've just started so don't spect so much :P ) Is a very fresh install and that's how I see it. Haven't change anything at all :?
Saludos
Alejandro
Yeah, ok... This one is not so obvious, but I'm sure it will make sense when I explain it. All of your sidebar's LI elements that appear in black (the color you want) are links. So your links are styled as black, but the default color for LI elements that aren't links is gray. What you need to do is add something like this to your stylesheet:
#menu ul ul li {color:black}That seems to fix it. Good luck!
Ok, I'll answer this one, but I'm not fielding any more CSS questions. You'll have to find a CSS reference and figure things out for yourself. There are plenty of good books available, and there are a number of well-maintained resources online to reference as well. You might even be able to find links to this kind of info at the WordPress codex.
Each of the sections in the sidebar has an id parameter it. You can use the id to specify the color of the subject of individual items in the sidebar. For example:
#categories {color:lime;}If you want to change all of them at once, you need the tag type for the menu titles and the container that they're in:
#menu li {color:lime;}Note that with CSS, if some other rule provides more specifiers than you do, it will override your settings. So if you want to add a new rule that changes the color of items in the menu, you need something like:
#menu ul li li a {color:pink;}-- OSA:Approved WordPress User Level: 10
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I still have a question but this time it has nothing to do with your plugin, but still I hope you would help me. How can I change the color (which tag is it??) of the subject of each single "section" in the sidebar?
Hope you understand what I mean :?
Saludos y gracias
Alejandro
Don't know if you read the support forums at Wordpress and the last post there regarding Exhibit is dated last June, so I thought I'd try you here.
I'm running WP 1.5 beta 1. The thumbnailing process works, which seems to be the bugaboo for most, so I'm kind of at a loss as to what's going on. The problem is when I click on the image to add it to the post nothing happens. I know this is not much to go on but any hints would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Bill
You need to do two things...
1) Upgrade WordPress to 1.5 final.
2) Upgrade Exhbiit.
The latest version of Exhibit is labeled "asy" on my hacks page. I'm surprised that you didn't run into some notes about it on the support forums.
Hi Owen,
Maybe I didn't look deep enough into the WP support forum, but your suggestion did the trick! It's awfully good of you to first write the plugin, and then offer this level of support. Where do you find the time? ;)
Thanks again,
Bill
I'm trying to use your countdown plugin, but when I put the code into the sidebar template, I get the followign error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: gettime() in /home/.alexi/idcadmin103/indianademclub.org/blog/wp-content/plugins/countdown.php on line 171
Any clue? Is it a server config issue? Am I plain out of luck?
THanks a bunch. This plugin looks like just what I need and I really hope I can get it working.
Huh. On that line
gettimeshould begetdate. Sorry about that.Thanks a million! That worked.
gonna be a pain in the ass again. sorry. things seem to be working okay, except all my dates seem to be skipping from february to december. I put something like "4th tue all FOO" and it shows the next event being the 4th tuesday of december.
I set option in dates_to_remember to start earlier this month and it gets the february date. but nothing for any month mar-nov shows up using 'all'
I'm using alpha 5 of countdown. Should I try an earlier version?
thanks for the great plugin and the even better support. doubt there's much I can do to repay, but hey, let me know.
just wanted to say thanks for the great plugins and to ask what kind of font your using for your titles like Susbscribe, etc..
i love the countdown plugin and made a slight adjustment to have 2 different countdowns on my blog, but i dont know how to remove the ( days) from the dates, is there anyway to remove how many days left until the date?
Hi!... I just want to ask in setting up / integrating MicroWiki and EzStatic into my blog theme (Obsidian2).. I have no experience in PHP nor StyleSheets coding.. I did not know where else to ask for this, as there is no specific forums (and WordPress Support Forum is very slow)..
It does work with only one column, but the problem is how to make one-column page for only those wiki pages?
Thanks for any answers...
I installed adhesive and ut seems to work, just two smaller problems.
1. When I load the page after I've marked a post as sticky I get a "Done, but error on page" most of the time. And it seems that a "Object is missing". Everything work, just the error message that's a bit annoying.
2. I can't style either Adhesive or Countdown, no matter what i do in my CSS it doesn't work. Probably my lack of knowledge. Would appreciate some help.
My site is: www.seansite.net btw.
I created a Countdown wiki page that has some ideas about styling Countdown. Your page isn't styling countdown because you don't have any way to address those tags. There are no IDs or classes. Add one and you'll find it much easier to create a style rule that works.
I need to see errors to debug them. Sorry, but as you might imagine, there just isn't time for me to speculate what errors might be.
WP 1.5
Version: 1.0 alpha 5
Mar. 28 - Blah event (1 days)
Mar. 31 - Blah event again (4 days)
Wanted to ditch the "s" when there was one day to go...so, within the countdown_days function I commented out one line and added a few others. I'm not sure if it's exactly right (I'm sure there's possibly a more elegant want to get the same results), but it seems to work.
//echo ($until == 0) ? 'Today' : "{$until} days";if($until == 0) {
echo "Today";
} elseif ($until == 1) {
echo "{$until} day";
} else {
echo "{$until} days";
}
results are now:
Mar. 28 - Blah event (1 day)
Mar. 31 - Blah event again (4 days)
Thanks for the plugin. Very nice.
Amazing what you can find in comments here. I just ran into the gettime() error today and now it's fixed based on these comments. Plus, I wanted to pass along code similar to Darrell's here that I used to do the same kind of thing with Today/day/days.
The only difference is that I also decided to bold everything that was a "today" thing.
$date_print = date($date_format, strtotime($date));echo ($until == 0) ? "$date_print" : $date_print;
echo ($until == 0) ? " - {$event} (" : " - {$event} (";
echo ($until == 0) ? "Today" : "";
echo ($until == 1) ? "{$until} day" : "";
echo ($until > 1) ? "{$until} days" : "";
echo ($until == 0) ? ")" : ")";
echo $endswith;
WP 1.5
Version: 1.0 alpha 5
Thanks for the plugin - very nice feature.
I have a problem in that the 'Today' events do not display. No error code, events just disappear after the 1 day point. Sorry I'm not a hacker or anything like that but I would appreciate any ideas.
Oh forgot one thing - it looks like countdown is working under GMT - I know there is a way to get local time, but I'm afraid I'll mess something up! Right now the counter changes over at 8pm local for me.
Thanks again.
Darrell,
The format for the dates are yyyy-mm-dd. Besides the GMT rollover and Today issue, everything is displaying properly. I am using the alpha 5 version 'as is' except fixing the gettime() error mentioned above.
Rick -- What parameters are you sending dates_to_remember? What format are you using for dates.txt?
waymorefunner -- nice.
Owen (or the masses) -- I tried it once already, but had mixed (read: failed) results, but if anyone has a nice PHP trick to selectively show the countdown for certain days, I'd be interested. Something like:
Y 2005-03-28 Blah event
N 2005-03-31 Blah event again
Y 2005-04-01 Blah event once again
Mar. 28 - Blah event (1 day)
Mar. 31 - Blah event again
Apr. 1 - Blah event once again (5 days)
or along these lines anyway...there were some instances were I preferred to not see the remaining days for some, but not for others.
More info on the Countdown update over here.