Category: WordPress

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Recap WPTO June 2010

Yesterday was another great gathering of the Toronto WordPress Meetup group.

Alfred presented a great overview of Custom Fields and some of their potential uses. There was a great follow-up discussion talking about various uses and ideas how to implement them. Potential issues and concerns were also discussed as part of the presentations Q&A session afterward.

Our second presenter, Martin, was unable to attend due to an emergency which, to my understanding, the situation is much improved … stay healthy, Martin!

With the open session, the group discussed various points in regards to the recent release of WordPress 3.0 as well as helping one of our members work through a manual upgrade of one of their web sites.

Last, and actually first as well as on a personal note, I was given the fortunate experience of meeting a visiting group of Chinese Professors from north of Shanghai on my way to the Meetup.

I like to watch people, and simply could not help myself but smile when I saw this group of people enter onto the subway train and in a very tourist fashion start taking pictures of the various items of interest, such as the route map above the door, the station platform through the door windows … and me. I’m hoping to have copies of the pictures I was in emailed to me for a future post. In the meantime, please visit one of the group’s web site here: http://QQ.com (we exchanged calling cards). It may not be a WordPress site but maybe being a dot-com they will consider it … and QQ, as my new friend says refers to laughing. Enjoy the site, although you may need to brush up on your Chinese (or use a translator).

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Toronto WordPress Meetup June 2010

The Toronto WordPress Meetup for June 2010 is tomorrow the 19th at 2:00PM. We are meeting for the third time at Paupers Pub at 539 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M5S 1Y6; and, as I just checked on the Meetup web page we had our 20th RSVP Yes this morning!

I am looking forward to this Meetup. We have two presentation scheduled on the agenda. The first will be a short presentation on custom fields by Alfred Ayache; and, the second will be by Martin Hurford on the template hierarchy.

There is also a remote possibility of a guest (via Montreal) invited with a comment on one of his recent blog posts here.

Remember to use the twitter hash tag #wpto when tweeting about the Meetup.

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10 Steps to BuddyPress MultiSite

... as presented at the WordPress Toronto Meetup Group May 2010 meeting ...

The 10 steps to go from having no domain to a BuddyPress MultiSite installation:

Presentation Slides: [download id=”2″]

  1. Register (or choose) a domain; and, choose a web host if needed.
  2. Start downloading WordPress 3.0 or greater.
  3. Enable “Wildcard DNS“.
  4. Create a database and assign a user for your WordPress installation.
  5. Upload WordPress.
  6. Start the WordPress installation.
  7. Read this page thoroughly: http://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network!
  8. Add define ('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true); to wp-config.php
  9. Go to your Dashboard (or refresh the page).
    • Under Tools | Network (now available from above step)
    • Choose your settings; click install.
      • Follow the directions on the page to modify wp-config.php and .htaccess
  10. Install the BuddyPress plugin; activate it; and, choose a BuddyPress friendly theme.
Your BuddyPress is Ready!

Enjoy!

NB: These steps are based on my experiences using HostGator Web Services, other web hosting services may vary in their requirements.

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WPTO: Creating a Plugin

I will be delivering a brief overview at the WordPress Toronto April 2010 Meetup on how I recently created a plugin. This will be the first presentation made for the Meetup group; and, as part of the ongoing agenda ideas, the WordPress theme for this meeting.

The plugin, BNS Category Plus, was created for the HCAS Volunteers group and may be publicly available in the near future. The concept extends the default Categories plugin to allow additional options. The overview will cover some design ideas and programming tips on how this and other plugins can be quickly created to fill a niche. I will also talk about the tools and resources I use to write and research plugin code.

The slides from the presentation are available as a PDF here: [download id=”1″]

A link to the BNS Category Plus code will be provided once it is publicly released; meeting attendees are also welcome to contact me for a copy of the BNS Category Plus code before its release.

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WPToronto Meetup April 2010 #wpto

The Toronto WordPress Meetup Group‘s next meeting is set for April 17, 2010 at 2:00PM. This meeting’s venue will be Paupers Pub at 539 Bloor Street West, just east of Bathurst Street.

This will be another socially oriented meeting as the group continues to work on future themes, agendas, and presentations by WPToronto members … and other interesting people.

Come to the meeting and get to know some interesting people talking about WordPress and other related ideas … I’ll be there!

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Commemorative WordCamp Calling Card

I realized I did not include the commemorative calling card I created for WordCamp Toronto 2010 after I wrote yesterday’s post. These unique cards fit a niche market I like to address: short-run custom calling cards.

Here are the front and back images:

Edward Caissie - WordCamp Toronto 2010 (front)
Edward Caissie - WordCamp Toronto 2010 (back)

Feel free to contact myself if you have a need for your own short-run custom calling card.

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Successful WordCamp Toronto 2010 #wcto2010

WordCamp Toronto 2010 came to a close today a little behind schedule but filled with great information, wonderful ideas, and a growing network of new and old friends. A hearty thanks goes out to Matthew Yuill and Melissa Feeney for all their hard works and efforts organizing this WordCamp.

I offered my time at WordCamp as a volunteer. I believe that choice was one of the best I have made. I was given the opportunity to meet and greet almost every single attendee from “behind the bar” giving out the complimentary tee shirts.

There were many volunteers at the event and each one really appeared to enjoy the time at their stations … don’t let these candid photos fool you, these three “behind the bar” with me were all having a great time:

Claudia
Miroslav
Janine

Although I missed getting pictures of the other volunteers (Zamina, Paul, Sam, and Mike) they all did a great job and appeared to really enjoy themselves as well. I have a few pictures taken with my iPhone I will need to go through (and add at a later date?) but in the meantime I would like to add my thanks to the volunteers for their enthusiasm and strong work ethic. A job well done by all!

… and by all measures a very successful WordCamp!

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WordPress Ideas Help

Jane Wells posted on the WordPress Development Updates blog this post recognizing the initial efforts of Jeff Chandler and suggesting the community in general can add to this effort. The idea: clean up the old outdated threads in the WordPress Ideas section to improve its functionality. From Jane’s post:

If you want to help (this is an easy way to contribute for those who aren’t coders), go to http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/view/considering and start looking at threads. Start from the pages at the back of the list, and on each one you can help resolve:

  • Read the thread.
  • If you don’t know if something exists as a plugin or has been implemented, use Google.
  • Add a comment to the thread indicating the status/outcome. If you found an appropriate plugin, link to it.
  • Add the “modlook” tag.
  • Bask in the glow of knowing that this small task is part of a big job, and is much appreciated by the community.

The sooner we get the old ideas cleared out of there, the sooner it can become more useful as a discussion tool (and clear up Trac to focus on accepted features and enhancements). So thanks, Jeffr0, and anyone else who steps up to join us in this task!
Jane Wells

I will be adding this to my daily to-do list of WordPress related items, will you?

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Recognition

Recognition for ones contributions is always a reward in itself.

I like to spend time on the WordPress Support forums helping where I can. Some days I’m able to offer a tip, or a suggestion, or a bit of advice; other days I am learning from what I read. I do what I can to contribute to the community and I was greatly pleased to see it recognized … as well as seeing all the other great people that volunteer their time and efforts on the Support forums receiving recognition for their efforts, too.

The following is an excerpt from the blog post “A Little Support?” at WordPress.org:

The Honor Roll
These people are not official moderators, but their knowledge and activity levels have caught the attention of those who are. A big round of thanks to these folks for selflessly sharing their knowledge with other WordPress users.

Most active volunteers, nominated by more than one official moderator for recognition (for the reasons given):
alchymyth – “Overall knowledge”
apljdi – “Overall knowledge and programming skills”
t31os_ – “Programming skills”
whooami – “For her security responses” “Knows her stuff”

Generally active volunteers, nominated by official moderators for recognition:
esmi, ClaytonJames, numeeja, stvwlf, buddhatrance, songdogtech, alism, alchymyth, Ipstenu, RVoodoo, jdingman, kmessinger, ArnoldGoodway, Shane G., figaro, jonimueller, blepoxp, cais, mfields, designdolphin, doc4, greenshady, mercime, mrmist, bh_WP_fan , henkholland, krembo99, jdembowski, pboosten, adiant, andrea_r, GDHosting, Gangleri.

Some newcomers who’ve been getting active:
a_johnson, equalmark, WebTechGlobal, kymac.
Posted November 30, 2009 by Jane Wells.

Thank you to all those mentioned above, the list is by no means exhaustive …