Then, I stomped that bug.

That bug is dead.

Get Tango Smileys Extended here, and get more information about it here.

I think my next goal will be to have additional smiley packages available, still using the Tango style. Maybe plugins for Tango Smileys Extended, so they would be a separate download but simple to install and activate.

As usual, you can get Tango Smileys Extended here, and you can get more information on the Tango Smileys Extended page here.

Iconified Taxonomies takes the standard taxonomies provided by the WordPress core — categories and tags — and adds icons to them. When a post is displayed, instead of having a basic list of categories and tags for the post, why not have icons that make each tag or category stand out?

A few things are required to complete the installation of Iconified Taxonomies. For starters, you must be comfortable editing your theme. If you don’t feel comfortable editing your theme, then you should avoid this plugin. The edits are not hard, as it only involves adding one line of code for categories and a second line for tags, but if you are not comfortable editing your theme, please do not download this plugin. Next, you must be familiar with uploading files to your WordPress installation folder. It doesn’t matter if it is via FTP or a web interface, but there is no built-in interface (yet) for uploading.

Full instructions are provided on the official Iconified Taxonomies page here, and a live demonstration is available anywhere on this site! Just look at any post and the categories will have icons associated with them. I’m still working on uploading all of my icons for tags, but the result will be the same as the categories.

You can download Iconified Taxonomies below, or by visiting the official Iconified Taxonomies page.

Iconified Taxonomies (Version 1.0) - 236 Hits

As it stands right now, here’s what I’m going to be releasing:

WordPress

• Iconified Taxonomies: Adds icons to a post’s list of tags and categories.
• Demarcation Navigation: Simple and efficient navigation for pages of posts. Have you ever noticed the WordPress option “Blog pages show at most x posts” and wanted to be able to allow readers to do more than just go to the next or previous page of posts when navigating a WordPress blog? This addresses that issue.

bbPress

• bbCode Ultra: bbcode is not a core function of bbPress, and this plugin fixes that. Comes complete with button toolbar for fast posting.
• Faviconize: Adds favicons to bbPress, the same way its sister plugin adds favicons to WordPress.

COMING SOON!!!

The 24px smileys, which were previously available by download-and-replace only, are now included standard. To use the new 24px smileys, just select the option on the TSE Options page. I also updated the tinyMCE popup so it would automatically keep up-to-date with new smiley additions. A couple of bugs were also fixed in this update.

For full details on Tango Smileys Extended you can go here, and if you want to download your own copy you can get that here.

AND… WP Super Cache seems to be working very well since I installed it 3 minutes ago.

SWEET!

1. The newly revamped options page is now significantly faster and more secure.
2. TSE can now be cleanly uninstalled (all options are removed from the database).
3. Smileys now have tooltips!

As always, you can get more information on Tango Smileys Extended 2.6.0.1 here, and you can download your own copy here.

Below, you’ll find a couple of the new plugins that I’ve uploaded to this site, along with links to documentation and downloads. If you have any issues using any of the plugins, please leave a comment on the appropriate pages.

1. Faviconize: Add favicons to the WordPress frontend (user view) and backend (admin).
2. Simple Bot Registration Protection: Protect your WordPress installation from most invalid user registrations – usually created by bots.

And, of course, you can also find my widely available plugin Tango Smileys Extended, and my previously made available plugin Gravatar Enhanced Recent Comments.

I still have a few plugins to release, so check back soon for more goodies!

There have been a million times I have had plenty of time  to work on a plugin, like Tango Smileys Extended, but I wasn’t able to because I didn’t have access to a computer. As great as a Pocket PC is, I was never able to type out a chunk of code before I forgot what I was even trying to do!  It has become especially difficult now that I’ve switched to the Samsung Omnia, since the Omnia does not have a keyboard like my old Apache, and typing by tapping a screen is pretty slow going since you’re never sure you actually hit the right letter until you see it come up wrong on the screen. It sucks, and it’s time to do something about it.

However… I need your help.

I don’t make a lot of money but I do have plenty of bills. It makes it very difficult to save for something like a netbook. The only way I’m going to be able to afford to get a netbook (without saving for months) is to beg for donations.

Please, if you use any of my plugins or find any information I provide on this site helpful in any way, consider donating to my cause. Every little helps, and it would be greatly appreciated.

If anyone is interested in which netbook I’m trying to get, it’s an Acer Aspire AS1410-???? found on newegg. I’m not sure which AS1410 I’m going to get, because the price keeps changing so I may get a different color just because it’s cheaper. It’s nothing fancy – it’s just what I need to continue active development of my plugins and other projects.

If you find yourself in need of a better PHP editor, especially if you’re working on WordPress plugins, I recommend you give phpDesigner 7 a try. It has helped me immensely with every issue I’ve had in creating and editing a WordPress plugin. Here’s how you can get it to help you:

Install phpDesigner 7

You can get a full featured trial version here. I don’t know if the core version has everything needed to follow this instructional, so I recommend getting the full version. The OS requirement is XP, Vista, or Windows 7, and I’ve found that it runs reliably on 64-bit versions. It may only be an issue with 64-bit versions, but I have found that the editor will lose focus after using code completion unless the program is run as Administrator. If you are running 32-bit versions of Windows Vista or Windows 7 and you find that code completion or auto completion causes phpDesigner to lose focus, just run it as Administrator and please leave a comment so I can update this post.

Create a New Project

Start Screen

Before you get started, you should make sure you download the version of WordPress for which you want to develop. I know WordPress 2.8.5 was just released, but for this instructional we will be using WordPress 2.8.4. You can get the current version (2.8.5) here. Once you have WordPress downloaded, extract the zip to an easy to remember location. I’ve chosen to use my desktop, but we’ll get into the reason for this later.

With a fresh copy of WordPress ready, launch phpDesigner and take a look at the start screen. If this is your first time launching phpDesigner, you’ll notice most of the window is blank. From here, we’re going to create a new project. In the menu bar, click Project → Project Manager or press F11. The Project Manager will open and give you several options. By clicking New, the New Project Wizard will open and guide you through the creation of a new project.

Project Manager

General

The New Project Wizard opens with a General options dialogue. Here, you should give your project a title — I recommend using the name of the plugin you are creating or editing — and provide a description of the project. The description is not required, but I find it helps to remember what the plugins is supposed to do when you haven’t edited it for a while. This should help you keep track of which plugins are updated, as you can later edit the description and add a reminder such as Edited On: , which can be useful when you have authored multiple plugins.

Project Root

Clicking Next will take you to the Project Root dialogue. You should consider choosing a location and creating a new folder to become the home of your new plugin, unless you are editing an existing plugin — in which case, you should simply select that folder. Any files later added to the selected folder will be automatically included in your project.

Libraries

Clicking Next takes you to the Libraries dialogue. Libraries are your friend here, as they allow you to access the functions, classes, and objects defined by other source code, such as the fresh copy of WordPress you just downloaded. Click the Add button and select the folder containing the WordPress files you extracted earlier. If you have other plugins or source files you want to be able to interact with, you can also add the folders containing those files and you’ll have access to those functions, classes, and objects as well. Once you’re done adding libraries, click Next.

FTP Accounts

The FTP Accounts dialogue will allow you to add the information needed for phpDesigner to access an FTP server and quickly update files. Since this isn’t important to what we’re doing right now, I’ve skipped this part. I recommend exploring this option later, since it will prove to be the fastest way to update, upload, and replace existing files on your host server.

Filters

The Next button takes you to the Filters dialogue. Filters let you select and/or exclude files that will be analyzed during the parsing of files. The parsed files include those added on the Libraries dialogue, as well as any existing files in the selected folder from the Project Root dialogue. I recommend keeping the default settings. Keep in mind, filters only affect which files are parsed, NOT which files are available to your project. Just because there are no image extensions listed doesn’t mean they won’t be accessible, it just means images won’t be analyzed for useful programming data.

Summary

Finally, clicking the Next button will lead you to the Summary dialogue. This will show you a breakdown of all files and libraries included in your new project. You’ll notice the top level item Test Project has two subfolders, Test Project and Libraries, with Libraries having a subfolder of wordpress-2.8.4. If the root folder for the project had contained any files to start with, they would be nested inside the Test Project folder. Clicking Finish will take you to the Edit Project dialogue, which is not important right now, so you can just click Ok and continue with the Project Manager.

Open Your New Project and Start Writing

The Project Manager dialogue now has a new Open button available. Select your new project and click Open to begin working on your new project. You’ll be returned to the start screen, with a few differences. To start with, you will be able to see the name of your opened project at the center of the phpDesigner status bar. Also, if it isn’t already visible, if you click the tab on the right pane labeled with a P, you’ll access the Project pane which should look just like the Summary dialogue from earlier. On the left, you can see a New File header and a list of file types you can create. By double-clicking on PHP, you’ll start a new PHP document which will serve as the base to your plugin. I’m not going to go into detail on how to write a plugin, but I’ll give you some insight as to what you can expect phpDesigner to do for you.

Code Completion

Variables

Functions

WordPress Functions

Error Highlighting and Function Insight

Error Highlighting

Function Insight

Function Insight: WordPress

The Final Product

Once you’re done writing your new plugin, save the file in your project root folder. The example below is what my Test Project looks like after I’ve finished.

Test Project: Saved

With any luck, you’ll get just as much use out of phpDesigner as I have, and you’ll have an easier time creating WordPress plugins — or programming any PHP — because of it.