I’ve been a little pre-occupied over the last few days and so haven’t posted as much as I would have liked. This really is just a post to let you know that I haven’t gotten bored with the whole thing but have been working on some stuff which will be coming soon.
In the next day or so I will be releasing a new plugin. I think it is the most interesting one I have developed so far, but I will keep the details under my hat for the moment.
Following on from my request for code to create Zip files, which thanks to Janis I now have, I will be updating the Fun With Plugins wizzard to include a zip download with all the necessary files and folders.
I will be releasing my first theme. It is based on an idea, and a theme I have used before on one of my own blogs, but I will be rewriting it all, and giving it a few interesting twists. This should be of interest to minimalism fans.
I am working on a series of posts about using object oriented PHP to help develop large plugins.
And finally, I will be starting work on a new wizzard.for the Wordpress Plugin Framework, a framework designed to simplify the creation of WordPress plugins.
These are the things I have planned so far, but I would really like to know if you think there is anything else you would like to read about. I am open to any and all suggestions so let me know.
In the meantime, happy Winterval one and all.
I am quite looking forward to Wordpress 2.4, not because of any features but because of the promised redesigned admin interface.
I haven’t heard much more about it than that, so perhaps my enthusiasm is misplaced but I think it is about time for a core redesign of the admin section.
I am hoping for a simplification of the underlying HTML; I would love to see a minimalist (html wise) approach, using simple label-control pairs instead of multiple nested divs, fieldsets and legends, but that may be too much of a change given the number of plugins out there that may rely on the existing CSS.
I expect it will be a decorative change only, but I can hope.
Update It looks like we’ll have to wait a little longer for the admin update. 2.4 will be skipped, and 2.5 will be released around March 08.
If you have used my Fun With Plugins WordPress plugin generator tool recently you may have noticed that it now produces two different files if you want them both: The plugin file and the read me file.
You might also have noticed that instead of providing a nice handy downloadable ZIP file with folder structures that you just need to download you need to set up the folder structure yourself.
There is a reason for this.
Since I first started developing it I have been looking for a good PHP zip solution. Unfortunately no matter where I look I just can’t find one that will open natively in Windows XP. That’s fine if you use something else, but with 79% of site visitors using Windows I just can’t assume they are all using non-native applications.
That’s why I am writing this plea.
I really think that to take it further I need a good PHP ZIP solution that produces ZIP files purely dynamically, i.e. doesn’t rely on there being a physical file on the server but I have hit a dead end.
Any suggestions are welcome.
I’ve noticed a few sites recently using a tabbed box in the sidebar for some of their content. Fun with Sidebar Tabs is a plugin for adding these tabs to your website.
Adding tabs to a theme is a simple enough process; however, I wanted something that would work as a dynamic (widgetised) sidebar. That is what this plugin does.
It adds a new sidebar to the widgets panel and then displays the widgets as tabs, with the widget title as the tab name.
You can read more about fun with sidebar tabs here.