A few years ago, my thinking shifted in how WordPress plugins should be developed. Let me explain.

WordPress has evolved into a platform. You can build a site with just a blog or a project management system using the plugin API. The ways WordPress can be extended is the main reason I started using it and developing for it.

When a new feature gets added in WordPress, the core developers take into very careful consideration how both plugin developers and theme authors will want to extend it and then make it very easy to do so. They often add new hooks and filters for features that have already been in place. In short, they want the platform to be extended and make it easy to do so.

Even themes have been moving to a parent/child relationship. Many theme frameworks have been developed that at first glance are very plain. But after looking at code, you can see many hooks and filters added to make creating a child theme so much easier.

As a plugin developer, I think plugins could learn from this.

There are so many plugins for WordPress. Many are available for free download on the WordPress.org plugins site. A lot of these plugins were written by the author for a specific purpose. I think it is great that these people have released their plugins for others to use.

It is safe to say that most of these plugins were not written as a framework. Many of them shouldn’t be. Doing so would make WordPress an even more powerful framework.

Instead of blueprints, we should be providing ways to extend the plugins. We should provide ways to override the options panels. We should provide ways to change the behavior of a plugin. We should keep in mind that while developing plugins for a certain purpose, we can add a few more lines of code and let other developers change the plugin to do what they want.

There are various ways this can be done. Let me give some examples:

• There are so many Twitter clients. How many of these clients have provided actions and hooks for plugin developers to quickly add custom functionality for a client?
• I have used some plugins with many pages of options. Have you ever configured a plugin on a test site and then had to manually copy over the options to the production site? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to provide a way to disable to the options panels and configure in a ‘child’ plugin?

There are many more examples. Can you think of any?

Some plugins are doing a great job of this. Personally, I know I need to revisit some plugins and do better at this. More than anything, it requires a shift in how we are thinking of plugins.

Let’s make plugins frameworks instead of blueprints.

Here is a list of the changes that were made:

• add localization support – the admin pages to manage approving and denying users can now be localized. If you would like to work with me on getting it localized, let me know. Either leave a comment or contact me.
• add a changelog to readme.txt – now you can see the changelog from the page on wordpress.org. Also a screenshot has been added and an FAQ finally started.
• remove plugin constants that have been defined since 2.6 – constants that were defined to support older versions have been removed. If this breaks your site, please upgrade to the latest version of WordPress.
• correct the use of db prepare statements/use prepare on all SQL statements – this should have been done in the first place. This improves the security of the plugin.
• add wp_enqueue_style for the admin style sheet – a style sheet is required for the admin page. I thought it would be better to use the function provided by WordPress to include this stylesheet.

The next version I will be adding an options page to customize the messages. I will also make it possible to change the messages from a plugin or a customized theme.

Please let me know if you would like additional features added or if you have any problems with version 1.2.

Last month, after calling what seemed like hundreds of venues, we found a place to have WordCamp Seattle. Adobe has offered to let us use their campus in Fremont. I have been there one time before and it should be a great venue.

Anyway, I wanted to write this post to say that organizing the conference is one thing I’ll be working hard at over the next few months. The event will take place on September 26. I expect a log of hard work and long hours. I don’t think I really knew what I was getting myself into.

Please let me know if you are interested in helping out. We need more volunteers.

I didn’t realize the amount of work it would create to maintain it.

The thing is, there are many plugin developers donating their time for plugins that I am using. So I don’t mind doing it.

In fact, releasing the plugin was actually the best thing I could do. A few users found bugs and even sent a patch to fix the bug. That’s how it should be.

Anyway, the first update to the New User Approve Plugin was released last night. No new features. Just some bug fixes and code cleanup. Here are the details.

• correctly display error message if registration is empty
• clean up code
• style updates
• if a user is created through the admin interface, set the status as approved instead of pending
• add avatars to user management admin page
• improvements to SQL
• verify the user does not already exist before the process is started
• add nonces to approve and deny actions
• temporary fix for pagination bug if more the 50 users are present in the WP database

If you are a user of the plugin, please let me know if you find any more issues or your thoughts in general on the plugin. And don’t forget to donate if you find this plugin useful.

Here were my requirements going into this:

1. Limit the search to the sites I want. I give them a list and it only searches those sites. The list would need to be updated dynamically or via an API.
2. Allows me to modify the search results in any order I want or mixing it with other data.
3. Allows me to format the search results how I please.
4. I want the results in a multiple formats to allow for flexibility when and where the results are displayed.
5. I would love to try to monetize the search engine however I want.

Searching for what I needed led me to discover many cool technologies.

I first looked at possibly the most obvious: Google Custom Search Engine. Google CSE is a cool product but it didn’t suit my needs at all. The terms of service don’t allow you to modify the results. I also looked at Google AJAX Search API. Again, doesn’t fit the requirements. I may find a need for the AJAX Search API in the near future though.

Other technologies deserved some attention as well. Products such as CouchDB and Lucene required too much so I didn’t spend much time looking into these.

I had looked at Yahoo BOSS (build your own search service). Initially, it didn’t look like it would suit my needs. After revisiting BOSS, looking at code samples and the API, it was exactly what I was looking for. Easy, fast, reliable. Fits exactly my requirements. Awesome.

Since the site I am building was based on WordPress (like all my sites), I decided to put my work it into a WordPress plugin to allow a WordPress site to easily add a real search engine to the site just by defining some simple options. The first version will be very limited in what can be done but I have a lot of features that I will be adding to it very soon.

I just need to get it ready to release. Soon I hope.

You must use SVN to make this happen. To upgrade all you have to do is change the version number. If you want to run trunk, all you have to do is update the library by running a simple command. You can also add your plugins and themes to update using SVN.

I actually had been trying to do this for a few months. The part I was missing was putting the WordPress software in it’s own directory. The detailed instructions can be found on Joseph Scott’s blog.

The changes that have been added:

• Threaded Comments
• Post Classes
• Sticky Posts

I also fixed a few minor bugs. Also, if your blog is using 2.7, you will automatically have your comments upgraded to use threaded comments. Otherwise, your blog will continue to have regular comments. I have seen some themes have an option to turn on threaded comments. If this is a wanted feature, I would be happy to add it.

Currently, I am working on a few projects and have been looking at a lot of themes. Not very many themes have added 2.7 support yet. I was surprised. Hopefully, theme developers can find time to add these features so that WordPress users can enjoy the new functionality.

Not yet having tried the software myself, I was very impressed after looking at the video on the site and the features provided. Very impressive. I think I’ll try it out real soon.

So far, I am impressed with how sites are designed. I have been actually working on a more simplistic version of a theme designer for WordPress. Progress is moving along slowly.

The bad thing about Squarespace. It’s not open source. I’ll stick with WordPress as my blogging platform of choice and continue to look for ways to make it easier for everybody to use by creating plugins and looking for other plugins created by the WordPress community.

I do love finding software like this. It forces the web to progress. Hopefully, in the future, I will try out the software and let you know what I think.

What is OpenID?

OpenID.net says it best:

OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.

You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to. And best of all, the OpenID technology is not proprietary and is completely free.

For businesses, this means a lower cost of password and account management, while drawing new web traffic. OpenID lowers user frustration by letting users have control of their login.

For geeks, OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity. OpenID takes advantage of already existing internet technology (URI, HTTP, SSL, Diffie-Hellman) and realizes that people are already creating identities for themselves whether it be at their blog, photostream, profile page, etc. With OpenID you can easily transform one of these existing URIs into an account which can be used at sites which support OpenID logins.

How I Did It

I first had to do some research on exactly what I needed to do to make this happen. I found a few sites that ultimately helped me.

• OpenID for Non-SuperUsers – Sam Ruby gets a little geeky in this simple how-to.
• claimID OpenID help – already having a profile on claimID made this a good reference.

After learning what I needed to do, I had to enable my blog by finding and adding the necessary plugins.

• WP-OpenID – lets users log in to a blog or leave comments using their OpenID.
• OpenID Delegate WordPress Plugin – add OpenID delegation abilities to your blog, thus allowing you to sign in to various OpenID supported sites using your blog’s URL.

Why I Did It

Now I can use my site to login to OpenID enabled sites. I have already started my identity/brand here on my blog and continue to add to it.

It’s part of my goal of owning my data.

And while I was OpenID enabling my site, I made it possible for others to use their OpenIDs.

Many people already have an Open ID and don’t know it. I know lots of people with Blogger accounts. Blogger is Open ID enabled. Many sites provide this service. I just wanted to do it from my own site.

For those who aren’t familiar with WordPress, it is the blogging software that is running my site. I am happy with the decision I made to use it.

One of the great things about WordPress is it allows other developers to customize their own installation via plugins and themes. In reality, the possibilities are endless with what you can accomplish.

Automattic, the company who created WordPress and runs wordpress.com, has recently started BuddyPress. BuddyPress allows you to transform WordPress MU into a social networking platform. They have already created some useful plugins.

Even though I think this is an awesome project, I have one thing that I would love to see. I want to add these social networking features to an individual WordPress blog or have one WordPress MU installation communicate with another. I think everybody that wants to should be able to participate in social networks but do so from the comfort of their own web site.

There is lots to be said on that topic. But it’s late. More later.