I write a lot of the plugins I use on this site, but I don’t really make them public. I decided that even if I didn’t add them to the WordPress.org plugin repository, it would be selfish of me to not share them here, so I decided to start releasing these custom plugins for public consumption.

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!

While working on my theme, I started picking at widgets to see what I could change. I decided that I liked having a Recent Comments widget, but I didn’t like that it was so boring. I decided that I needed something extra for recent comments. I decided the Recent Comments widget needed gravatar support.

So, I wrote some code and came up with an embeded widget – one that was not selectable in the widgets menu – but I didn’t like that it would be stuck in one spot until I edited the template files and moved it. I knew it was going to iritate me one day, so I worked out a legitimate widget. One which could be selected in the widgets menu and moved from one sidebar to another, or moved to another theme if I ever changed themes.

Gravatar Enhanced Recent Comments (GERC) was born.

You can see the widget in action at the bottom right of the page. It’s the orange box!

I’m not going to publish this plugin on WordPress.org right now, but I have made it available to download.

Gravatar Enhanced Recent Comments (Version 1.1) - 729 Hits

Full documentation on the plugin can be found here.