GaMerZ.WordPress

Want to know what is the difference between Announcement Posts and Sticky Posts? Check it out here.

DO NOT POST support questions in the comments, please use http://forums.lesterchan.net instead.

BUT before you do that, please make sure you have read the plugins online readme and NOTE the tabs at the top. That is the exact same readme.html that is included in the zip file of each plugin.

WordPress 2.5.1 has been released. It includes a number of bug fixes, performance enhancements, and one very important security fix.

If you are interested in only the security fixes, just replaced the following files.

1. /wp-includes/pluggable.php
2. /wp-admin/includes/media.php
3. /wp-admin/media.php

There are more than 70 bugs and performance fixes in 2.5.1, here is an outline of it:

• Performance improvements for the Dashboard, Write Post, and Edit Comments pages.
• Better performance for those who have many categories
• Media Uploader fixes
• An upgrade to TinyMCE 3.0.7
• Widget Administration fixes
• Various usability improvements
• Layout fixes for IE

I have received several feedback that the Automatic Plugin Upgrade feature in WordPress is causing problem with my plugins.

I want to say that ALL my plugins currently will not work with the Automatic Plugin Upgrade feature because there is a problem with the path. It is a little difficult for me to explain it here.

The new version of my plugins that I am going to release on 1st June 2008 will address this issue. In another words, if are using 1.30 or 2.30 beta of my plugins, the problem has been solved.

So in the mean time, DO NOT use the Automatic Plugin Upgrade feature for my plugin.

Source: WordPress.org Forums: wp-dbmanager is showing as an upgrade for wp-postViews Widget

Below is a list of my plugins in development that WILL work with WordPress 2.5. The reason why I consolidated it here is because the current version of the listed plugins does not work properly with WordPress 2.5.

  WP-DownloadManager 1.30 Beta 2 (38.2 KiB, 5,707 hits)

  WP-Email 2.30 Beta 2 (41.9 KiB, 3,805 hits)

  WP-Polls 2.30 Beta 2 (61 KiB, 6,772 hits)

  WP-PostRatings 1.30 Beta 2 (99.8 KiB, 4,464 hits)

  WP-Print 2.30 Beta 2 (18.8 KiB, 2,940 hits)

  WP-ServerInfo 1.30 Beta 2 (10.3 KiB, 782 hits)

  WP-Sticky 1.30 Beta 2 (11.2 KiB, 2,590 hits)

  WP-UserOnline 2.30 Beta 2 (22.8 KiB, 2,118 hits)

If the plugin is not listed here, it means that the current version of that respective plugin will work fine in WordPress 2.5. You can get the current version of all my plugins in my portfolio page.

NOTE: YOU NEED TO READ THE readme.html AND NOTE THE INSTALLATION TAB IF YOU ARE INSTALLING A NEW COPY OF THE PLUGIN OR THE UPGRADE TAB IF YOU ARE UPGRADING THE PLUGIN.

I want to emphasis this because the plugins underwent a change of installation path.

PLEASE POST ALL SUPPORT QUESTIONS IN THE SUPPORT FORUMS - http://forums.lesterchan.net

For some reasons, the core permalink structure of WordPress 2.5 has been changed just before it is being released (the problem is not there with WordPress 2.5 RC1).

If you get a 404 on WP-Email and WP-Print posts/pages, you need to get the latest development version of the respective plugins. Refer to the post above this.

I also wished I have more time to spend updating my plugins, but as my school is nearing the semester end, all my projects deadline are also coming and so are the end of semester exams. I can’t fork out any valuable time to update all my plugins for WP 2.5 and hence, 1st June 2008 should be the day I will roll out the updates to my plugins as my last paper is on 6th May 2008.

But in the mean time, I will try my best to address all issues related with my plugins and WordPress 2.5.

WordPress 2.5 has been released and WordPress.org has a refreshed look based on WordPress 2.5 new redesigned administration backend.

New User Features in WordPress 2.5

• Cleaner, faster, less cluttered dashboard
• Dashboard Widgets
• Multi-file upload with progress bar
• Bonus: EXIF extraction
• Search posts and pages
• Tag management
• Password strength meter
• Concurrent editing protection
• Few-click plugin upgrades
• Friendlier visual post editor
• Built-in galleries

New Developer Features in WordPress 2.5

• Salted passwords
• Secure cookies
• Easy taxonomy and URL creation
• Inline documentation
• Database optimization
• $wpdb->prepare()
• Media buttons
• Shortcode API

Download: WordPress 2.5

I have upgraded this site to WordPress 2.5.

WordPress 2.5 RC 2 has been released alongside with a short screencast covering the new dashboard and uploader and Release Candidate 2.

I will be holding on to the upgrade to RC2 as the gold version will be out before end of this week.

Download: WordPress 2.5 Release Candidate 2

The current version of all my plugins will work on WordPress 2.5 PROVIDED you have upgraded your WordPress blog from WP 2.x to WP 2.5.

If you are using a fresh copy of WordPress 2.5 together with my plugins, it WILL NOT work as WordPress 2.5 changes the Activation Global Scope Of The Plugins. In simpler terms, it means that upon activation of my plugins in WP-Admin, it will not create the tables needed by the respective plugins.

To solve this problem temporary, do the following in polls.php (I am using WP-Polls as an example):

Find:

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$wpdb->pollsq = $table_prefix.'pollsq';
$wpdb->pollsa = $table_prefix.'pollsa';
$wpdb->pollsip = $table_prefix.'pollsip';

Replace:

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global $wpdb;
$wpdb->pollsq = $wpdb->prefix.'pollsq';
$wpdb->pollsa = $wpdb->prefix.'pollsa';
$wpdb->pollsip = $wpdb->prefix.'pollsip';

Note the addition of the “global $wpdb;” and the replacement of “$table_prefix” with “$wpdb->prefix“.

I have updated WP-Polls, WP-ServerInfo, WP-Sticky and WP-UserOnline to work with WordPress 2.5. You can get them here at my downloads page (do note that they are still in beta). Those plugins that end with a “Beta 2″ means it will work for WordPress 2.5.

Some of the updates are:

• Making sure that the styling, alignment and color of the plugin matches WordPress 2.5
• Fixes the “Activation Global Scope” issue
• Updated WP-Polls TinyMCE plugin to work with TinyMCE 3.0
• Added a summary of WP-ServerInfo as a Dashboard Widget
• Added a summary of WP-UserOnline in the Right Now Dashboard Widget

WordPress 2.5 has the ability to customize your administration dashboard with the help of widgets.

After poking around WordPress 2.5 codes, I have come out with this Dashboard Widget Sample Plugin. BUT do note that this plugin does not include Dashboard Widget Controls. If I have the time, I will add that in or perhaps I will create another plugin called “Dashboard Widget (With Controls) Sample Plugin”.

To get a clearer picture of what this sample plugin does, here is a screenshot of the Dashboard Widget (Without Controls) Sample in action.

Here comes the code:

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<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Dashboard Widget (Without Controls) Sample
Plugin URI: http://lesterchan.net
Description: A sample on how to add widgets on your dashboard easily.
Version: 0.01
Author: Lester 'GaMerZ' Chan
Author URI: http://lesterchan.net
*/
 
/*
 
Replace all instances of PLUGINNAME with your nice plugin name something like "polls" or "ratings (without the quotes)
 
*/
 
### Function: Register Dashboard Widget
add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'PLUGINNAME_register_dashboard_widget');
function PLUGINNAME_register_dashboard_widget() {
	wp_register_sidebar_widget('dashboard_PLUGINNAME', __('Sample Dashboard Widget', 'PLUGINNAME'), 'dashboard_PLUGINNAME',
		array(
		'all_link' => 'Full URL For "See All" link', // Example: 'index.php?page=wp-useronline/wp-useronline.php'
		'feed_link' => 'Full URL For "RSS" link', // Example: 'index.php?page=wp-useronline/wp-useronline-rss.php'
		'width' => 'half', // OR 'fourth', 'third', 'half', 'full' (Default: 'half')
		'height' => 'single', // OR 'single', 'double' (Default: 'single')
		)
	);
}
 
### Function: Add Dashboard Widget
add_filter('wp_dashboard_widgets', 'PLUGINNAME_add_dashboard_widget');
function PLUGINNAME_add_dashboard_widget($widgets) {
	global $wp_registered_widgets;
	if (!isset($wp_registered_widgets['dashboard_PLUGINNAME'])) {
		return $widgets;
	}
	array_splice($widgets, sizeof($widgets)-1, 0, 'dashboard_PLUGINNAME');
	return $widgets;
}
 
### Function: Print Dashboard Widget
function dashboard_PLUGINNAME($sidebar_args) {
	global $wpdb;
	extract($sidebar_args, EXTR_SKIP);
	echo $before_widget;
	echo $before_title;
	echo $widget_name;
	echo $after_title;
	echo 'YOUR CONTENT GOES IN HERE';
	echo $after_widget;
}
?>

You can also download the file by clicking the link below:

  Dashboard Widget (Without_Controls) Sample Plugin (873 bytes, 250 hits)

Hope this helps some of you guys. =)

The time I have been waiting for to test my plugins on WP 2.5 is finally here.

Some features in WordPress 2.5 taken from WordPress.org:

A customizable dashboard, multi-file upload, built-in galleries, one-click plugin upgrades, tag management, built-in Gravatars, full text feeds, and faster load times.

Do take a look at WordPress.org’s blog - Sneak Peak on WordPress 2.5.

Download: WordPress 2.5 Release Candidate 1

*UPDATE* Just updated this site to WordPress 2.5 RC1, apparently all my plugins seems to be working fine. Just that some alignment and colour scheme maybe a little off. I will try to fix it latest during my summer holidays.