My Take on the WordPress Themes & the GPL License
There’s a huge hype these days around WordPress and the (infamous?) GPL license. Out of the “big guys”, first Brian Gardner of StudioPress (ex-Revolution) decided to distribute his themes as GPL. Later, iThemes followed, and now it’s time for WooThemes to adopt the license.
The discussion around this always seems to evolve into “open source” versus “author protection”. As Alex King pointed out in one of his posts, theme authors should be aware of what the GPL license exposes them too, while it provides freedom for basically everyone else.
I’m not by any means against freedom and open source. I’ve been preaching about the power of WordPress and the wonder that it is, but what I love more is to see a protection system for those authors that make a living out of releasing quality themes and plugins for WordPress. Somewhere along the way, in our quest for “freedom” we forgot how hard it is to earn our living, how hard it is to learn the things we now use to feed our families.
With all the respect I have for Brian, Adii and Alex who have been more than an inspiration for so many people and their contributions to the world of WordPress changed our lives, I fail to see how this sudden change of heart (or maybe “dictated” by Matt Mullenweg’s recent reactions) will help other developers.
The problem does not reside in the GPL license, but rather in the fact that by using WordPress you have to also release your “products” under this license. In theory the GPL license is an amazing thing that allows people to improve and build upon other people’s work, and thus contributing to the development of a bigger, better product, free or paid.
Click here to read the full blog post!
Use Any Font on Your WordPress Blog with AnyFont WordPress Plugin
Recently I came across a relatively young WordPress plugin that allow WordPress users and designers to use basically any TrueType font you have on your computer on your WordPress blog, replacing post titles, widget titles, links and so on with automatically generated SEO-smart images using your desired font. The plugin is called AnyFont and it has been developed by Ryan Peel
The generated images have a very good level of clarity, way better than the classic SWF replacement and the plugin is really easy to administrate and customize.
Click here to read the full blog post!
New WordPress Plugins You Might Want to Try
While working on a couple of WordPress projects these days, I’ve been on the look out for some new WordPress plugins. During my searches I’ve come across some really cool and useful plugins that you might want to check out too.
Manual Related Links
Tired of the old and sometimes irrelevant automated “Related posts”. This new WordPress plugin allows you to hand pick the links to be displayed at the end of your posts. Also works with off site links. Some might think that it’s a waste of time, other like me will see the value in giving the reader really relevant, hand-picked links.
Download hereWP Version: 2.7+
Author: Aaron D. Campbell
WP htaccess Control
No need to access the FTP or the cPanel anymore to add rules to your .htaccess file. With WP htaccess Control you get to do that from the comfort of your WP Admin screen.
Download hereWP Version: 2.7+
Author: António Andrade aka Dardna
Click here to read the full blog post!
I Need Your Translation Skills!
Hey friends, as you might have noticed, yesterday I’ve released the 1.2 version of the Latest Posts by Category WP Plugin. As the time was short and the update was needed, I decided to leave the localization of the plugin for the next update.
As I’m typing this, the plugin is set to English as default, and I’ve already created the Romanian translation file.
How can you help?
If you’re proficient in any other languages than English and Romanian – like Spanish, French, German – and you’re willing to give me a helping hand in translating 19 short phrases, contact me via email. Tell me which language are you willing to help with and I’ll send you a text file with the required translations.
Not to be picky, but native speakers would be preferred, as each language has its own little tricks.
Each translator will receive a link to his/her website on the plugin download page and in the info files in the download package.
Already in the works: Croatian, German, Spanish, French, Bulgarian.
Thank you!
Things You Can Do To Help WordPress Developers
Today I’ve exchanged a few emails with one of Simple Balance’s users which made me think about several things that users could do to help out WordPress themes and plugins developers.
This article is written purely for the purpose of giving you an idea on how to give back to those that invest time and knowledge to give your free quality WordPress resources.
So, here are a few things you can do to help them out:
Offer to test out their themes and plugins
If their project is still in Beta stage, ask to join the testing group or register we’re this is permitted. Test out the product in whatever environment you have available and report bugs and unusual behavior to the designer / developer. They are only humans and most of the time work on too many project and might miss out things, being so closely involved in the project. An outsider could observe things that they can not.
You can also test the projects after the official release. Help is welcome anytime.
Click here to read the full blog post!
Latest Posts by Category v1.2 – Major Update
The Latest Posts by Category Archive WordPress plugin has been updated to version 1.2.
This is a major update as from now on, the plugin is also available as a widget for your widget-ready areas and comes with new styling options dedicated to customize the output of the widget.
The styling options are well documented and the documentation can be found as PDF and HTML files in the download package.
Download the 1.2 plugin version from the original post.
Please report unusual behaviors or bugs via this posts comments section.
WP Plugin: Query Posts WordPress Widget
Justin Tadlock has recently released on cool little WordPress plugin that works miracles for those with little PHP knowledge. As the name says, the plugin is a visual reconstruction of the query_posts WordPress template tag.
So, what does the plugin do? It basically allows you to setup an infinite number of widgets in you widget-ready theme, widgets that will display posts from your blog, defined in the widget option area. You can display posts with a certain tag, posts from a certain category or published in a chosen month. You can display them in full, excerpt or under the form of a list, and many other really cool options.
Adam Warner has also released a video overview of this nifty plugin that you can view here or on WordPress.tv.
More info on this plugin you can find on Justin’s blog.
And you can download the plugin from WordPress.org.
Note: While PHP knowledge is not required in order to manipulate this plugin, a basic understanding of how the query_posts template tag works would turn out to help.
Latest Posts by Category Plugin v1.1 Update
By popular demand, the Latest Posts by Category Archive WordPress plugin has been updated to version 1.1 which currently includes the option to also display post dates, via hardcode or shortcodes.
Also, for WordPress 2.7+ users, a dashboard widget has been added that keeps track of the version in used and compares it to the most recent version available, for you to know when it’s time for a new update.
The updated plugin can be downloaded here.
WP Plugin: Latest Posts by Category Archive
After posting the Latest Posts by Category Archive tutorial, I’ve received requests to transform the code into a WordPress plugin.
Update: Version 1.2 has been released. Read about the changes below, in the “Version History” section.
The Features of ‘Latest Posts by Category Archive’ WP Plugin
Here’s the list of features currently available:
- Can be used via hard-coding inside page templates;
- Can be used as a widget in your widget-ready areas;
- Can be used via shortcodes inside pages’ or posts’ content;
- Can be used either inside or outside the loop;
- Can limit the archive to certain categories, or exclude certain categories;
- Can display or hide post dates;
- Can display or hide post excerpts and adjust their length in words;
- Can set the number of listed post from 1 to ‘all’.
Version history
Version 1.2
- The plugin is now available as a widget for your blog’s widget ready areas;
- The widget’s output can be easily customized using a few newly added CSS classes. Information about the widget is available in the plugin documentation, which is also included in the download package;
- Fixed the dashboard area that notifies WP 2.7+ users on the latest plugin version available.
Version 1.1
- Added option to display post dates;
- Added dashboard widget for plugin version tracking (Only available for WP 2.7+ users).
Documentation
The plugin documentation is available for download in PDF format: LPBC Documentation (864)
For further information and plugin updates, please refer to this page, as it will be edited with further improvements.
Click here to read the full blog post!
Online Shops with WordPress & WP e-Commerce Plugin
The flexibility of WordPress has always been its strong point. The fact that you can tweak and twist it to your own will with just a bit of knowledge and an extraordinary support from a large community of developers and blogger transformed what initially was a blogging tool into a powerful website CMS, may it be a blog, photoblog, portfolio or simple presentation website.
And since its flexibility is undisputed, the folks at Instinct, a New Zealand development company, took it a little further with their WP e-Commerce plugin.
Here’s what they have to say about their plugin:
The WordPress e-Commerce plugin is a state-of-the-art e-Commerce platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards and usability. It is both free and priceless at the same time.
Let’s see about that!
Click here to read the full blog post!
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