Archive for September, 2008

New plugin to add snazziness to commentluv links

I had a eureka! moment this morning as I was fighting to stay asleep even though I was busting for a pee, those moments in semi-dream state where if you’re careful you can ‘watch’ the dream happen before you piss your pants.

I get this quite a lot but people I tell don’t seem to (I’m sure witchypoo would know someone) so maybe I’m as nutty as the floor on a pistachio eating contest.

but back to eureka!… I saw a tooltip thing on someones name at a German blog last night, I couldn’t understand it but it must have stuck in my head because this morning I was dreaming of a big floaty tooltip with a spinning Gravatar in it and I couldn’t get it back in the net which, in the way that dreams like to play things, was representative of a folder of old code.

Now, a whole load more boring stuff happened too but, that was the bit that (with hindsight) got me tinkering with a jquery plugin called Jtip as soon as the coco-pops had been finished. I failed miserably and in desperation opened up Dreamweaver to try some javascript things only to find that the last file I had opened in the big D was a page I made that used Jtip! haha, I normally do all my coding in ZendStudio. I don’t know why I used Dreamweaver this time.. woooOHHHHoooo :shock:

Anyhooo, You can see the result of staying up too late doing code for too long and then getting psychotic with weird dreams where you’re a purple triangle and trying to turn it into a plugin….

When you hover over the little heart on the CommentLuv last blog posts, you get to see the members Gravatar and profile at commentluv.com if they’re a member and see how many times that link has been clicked before.

If the link owner isn’t a member of commentluv.com, they get how many times that link has been clicked and a message about commentluv.com

leave a comment and try it below!

Please note
If you use feedburner and your links point to your feedburner link then it wont be able to know who you are. See this post to switch off feedburner redirects.

Will be integrated to CommentLuv as an option
This should take about a day but I think it’s better to combine the two and have the little hearts as an option to be switched on by the user (not everyone likes tooltips!)


Beta testers contest winner

Congratulations to Yan from thoushallblog.com for winning the 100$ contest for the beta testers!!

He qualified by being a beta tester who provided feedback on the new version when it came out and leaving a comment on the contest post. He was allocated some numbers and if one of them matched the bonus number drawn on the UK lottery today he would get the prize.

here’s his comment allocation

Congratulations Yan, your allocated number 2 came up as the bonus number and you win the 100$.

Let me know you know on this post and I’ll wing your money off to you!

and the results of the national lottery

More contests on the way!

Stay tuned for more contests to do with commentluv where just being a registered member and commenting on an ACL blog could win you a prize.


Some important things to note for WordPress plugin Authors

I have learned a gadoodle of information over the past 3 weeks of coding the update to CommentLuv and it would have gone a lot smoother had I known these 2 things.

Including jQuery with wp_enqueue_script

This seems to be simple at first but there is an important caveat to note.

You can include the jQuery library manually by echoing out a <script src=”… in your plugin code which works but could cause a problem if a user has changed their wp-content location or there are other plugins including jquery which would mean it gets loaded twice or more which isn’t ideal.

The solution is to use wp_enqueue_script but, it needs to be put in the right place!

If you use the wp_head action to call a function that has wp_enqueue_script in it then the library wont be included, using wp_head is too late in the render process for WP to put in the include.

Instead, I put wp_enqueue_script(‘jquery’); under the actions and hooks commands so it is run as early as possible in the execution of the plugin.

The plugins directory constant wp_plugin_dir

This has always tripped me up for some reason but it all became clear recently.

If you want to reference an image or js file in your plugins directory it is a lot better to use a constant than to put in an absolute url. I thought I had solved everything by using the constant WP_PLUGIN_DIR which works with WP2.6 and up but doesn’t work with WP2.5.1 :-(

What if you want to make it compatible with wp2.5? simple!, use this code in your plugin and you can use all the constants for WP2.6

if ( ! defined( 'WP_CONTENT_URL' ) )
define( 'WP_CONTENT_URL', get_option( 'siteurl' ) . '/wp-content' );
if ( ! defined( 'WP_CONTENT_DIR' ) )
define( 'WP_CONTENT_DIR', ABSPATH . 'wp-content' );
if ( ! defined( 'WP_PLUGIN_URL' ) )
define( 'WP_PLUGIN_URL', WP_CONTENT_URL. '/plugins' );
if ( ! defined( 'WP_PLUGIN_DIR' ) )
define( 'WP_PLUGIN_DIR', WP_CONTENT_DIR . '/plugins' );


invalid? INVALID? what do you mean??? oh, yeah I see now

I AM A BIG DOPE

I’m so sorry everyone for doing 3 codex updates in the past few hours.

It’s all my fault, feel free to stick another pin in the voodoo doll.

version 2.1.5 is now the proper, final, it should bloody work on all sites now release.

You can download here
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/commentluv/


Maybe a day off or two is deserved

I just checked the changelog of commentluv and I realized that I’ve been coding just about every day and night since the 1st of this month!!

OMG. I had to learn all sorts of crapperoo for mysql and jquery for the CommentLuv.com site but boy-o-boy it’s been worth it!!

I have a recent luv working on the site and the click tracking seems to be going ok.

I have just added the top 20 sites using CommentLuv in the past 24 hours based on comments received.

and now, I am so in need of a day off or two that it’s killing me!! I’ll try to keep on top of things but I’ve received over 100 comments in the past 24 hours and made a lot more trying to get as many sites as possible that had small issues with not knowing their ID values or sorting out styling so I think I need to rest a bit…. until…I can put in some code that will allow users to use the traditional style of commentluv rather than the AJAX version. hehe LOL I am a gluten for punishment!

I think I have a solution to the spam problem with the old version, the remote script gets hit every time a comment is submitted on any blog running the old version and that includes all the autobot spam which is a bit of a pisser for my hosting so I think I can add something to the code that will do the ajax bit invisibly and if it didn’t work, do the fetch after the comment is submitted but before it gets saved to the database only if some javascript hidden value is set in the form which might make the comments received stats a lot more accurate.

anyhooo, I’m literally falling asleep at the keyboard and I have muchos to do that has nothing to do with chips or databases or comments or even a computer.. oh the bliss…


CommentLuv Update by popular demand!

Right on the back of the final version 2.1 I have decided to release 2.15 which addresses some things that people have been emailing me about since they upgraded. If you’re not good at upgrading plugins, don’t worry! if your commentluv works for you then you don’t need to update if you don’t want to.

The updates…

  1. You can choose no image to be displayed below the comment form
  2. You can use text instead of an image to be displayed below the comment form
  3. A reset to default settings box in case you mess up the values and can’t remember what they were!
  4. Updated jQuery code to make it more compatible with other javascripts running on the page

Watch out in your dashboard for the update notice! Or use this link to get the latest 2.1.5 version
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/commentluv/

thanks to Jacob from http://justcreativedesign.com/ for the feedback and Joe from http://imwithjoe.com for creating a mystery suitable for the Scooby Doo gang and the others who are deep in my history page and cannot be found (I must have browsed through hundreds of sites since I saw your feedback so I can’t find your urls to show)

I didn’t really want to update the plugin so soon but since imwithjoe.com and johncow.com have updated there have been a lot of commentluv.com registrations and oodles of downloads so I think I should address this asap. oh, CommentLuv has just gone over 20,000 downloads from the WP Codex ! yey.


The beta testers thanks!

CommentLuv is now released to the Codex and is officially at final version 2.1. All beta testers need to upgrade their beta plugins because the remote files have changed…

Here’s a list of all the beta testers who helped get CommentLuv to version 2.1 and their allocated numbers for entry into the contest to win the 100$ … if any of their first 3 numbers match the bonus number drawn this Saturday 27th September on the UK Saturday Lotto Draw then they win 100$!

Here’s the twist for all you testers, you have all got 1 number shared with one other person and if it’s that number that wins, you both win 100$ each!!! OMG!!

Good luck everyone and thanks so much for the feedback and help…

You will need to make sure you have CommentLuv version 2.1 running and working on your blog by the draw date to qualify for the prize!

Yan from
http://thoushallblog.com/ was talking about 10 plugins to install
has 1,2,3 and 43 as extra

Sunil from
http://www.bloggerslab.com/ was talking about Great plugins to build a community
has 4,5,6 and 43 as extra

Suzanne from
http://dotcommogul.net/ was talking about flipping out
has 7,8,9 and 44 as extra

David from http://www.yogamatsclothesdvds.com/ was talking about Listening to yoga music
has 10,11,12 and 44 as extra

Dragon Blogger from
http://www.dragonblogger.com/ was talking about how to fix your blogs 404 page
has 13,14,15 and 45 as extra

Lyman Reed from
http://freepdmaterial.com/ was talking about A free PDF for Self Empowerment
has 16,17,18 and 45 as extra

Larry from
http://www.larryhnetka.com/wordpress/ was talking about being On the Road again
has 19,20,21 and 46 as extra

Sire from
http://wassupblog.com/ was talking about Joining the F Group
has 22,23,24 and 46 as extra

Anti Scams Product Reviews from
http://www.antiscams.info/ was talking about the Mona Vie Scam
has 25,26,27 and 47 as extra

Witchypoo from
http://psychicgeek.com/ was talking about Anxiety
has 28,29,30 and 47 as extra

Minadin from
http://www.wheresmydrink.com/ was talking about Sniper in the left tower!
has 31,32,33 and 48 as extra

Chas from
http://www.creative-lifestyles.com/ was talking about Fear of Food
has 34,35,36 and 48 as extra

Rhys from
http://biznz.org/ was talking about Hosting from Hell
has 37,38,39 and 49 as extra

Tata from
http://www.imnotbeautifullikeyou.com/ was talking about Work and Play
has 40,41,42 and 49 as extra


You will be able to see the result here on Saturday at around 9pm (GMT)

You can download the very latest version at the WordPress Plugin Repository for CommentLuv

On the off chance that the winner doesn’t qualify for the prize because they haven’t got version 2.1 installed and working at the time of the draw then their extra number partner gets their numbers too (so you could potentially win 200$)

You have 4 days to get version 2.1 installed and working, please let me know if you need help to get it working. It should go through ok once you check your settings page after install.


CommentLuv WordPress Plugin

The CommentLuv WordPress plugin has been updated to version 2.7 and combined with a new WordPress network. Click below to get the latest copy of CommentLuv or visit the site to create your own WP2.92 blog with CommentLuv already installed.

The ComLuv Network

:)


Ooh a new blog just like a friends baby

I like kids, I couldn’t eat a whole one but they are cute and fun to play with and it is possible to be this way with all kids and me only because I give them back to their parents.

It’s kind of like that with another blog. It’s great fun to try and put different posts up but tedious after a while. It’d be nice to do the fun bits (for me as a geek) and leave the telling the stories to someone who is experiencing them. I tried having two blogs and more but all would suffer from me being stretched between them all but, it’s nice to build a site and get it traffic and commenters and be able to share something with someone, anyone, it doesn’t matter! but, it gets hard to constantly come up with one blogs posts let alone 3!

Luckily, my best mate Diego has been pressganged into serving on the Royal Caribbean Cruise liner, “The Brilliance” and will be out of my hair has decided he wants to start a blog about his adventures around the Mediterranean Sea and I thought, “Great! makey makey, codey codey and I don’t have to worry about the updates to the posts!”

I’m probably going to have to train him by video step by step on how to do it the WordPress way so what better way of doing than sharing it all here over this blog? In a couple of weeks, there’ll be some tutorial videos made mainly for my mate of spanish blood but also good enough for your average newb to learn how to setup and create a blog.

He’s already written the first two posts and sent them to me ready to load up on the new site, they’re good reading and I think with a healthy supply of photos taken from all the major tourist ports of Europe and surrounding coastlines it’ll be a great place to see nice things and funky places to go if you’re ever in a city like Palermo or Venice or the South of France.

Funky passive advertising opportunity on the horizon!! toot toot!


CommentLuv beta release 12 13 now out. Please update

Thanks to all the beta testers of CommentLuv, release 13 is the most stable and compatible version yet. I don’t wanna tempt fate but if everything works as well ‘out there’ as it does on my test machines and servers then it will be updated on the codex so everyone will get notified of the new version and we can all start seeing it spread to the existing v1.99 blogs.

I’ve been deep in code and frantically checking each and every site that has activated the beta version and in nearly all cases have managed to see the plugin working on those who’ve tried it.

I have a small tradition I like to do when I’m deep in a project and that’s to not shave from when I start it to when I feel comfortable that there’s only cosmetic changes to come.

here’s me before I started coding this new version and site

and this is me after using my awesome Wilkinson Sword quatro with beard trimmer (6th week without changing a blade and beard trimming twice a week) that cost a measly 3.50GBP best.razor.ever!

and another looking more serious…

hurray, smooth skin means success in something. I must admit that I like the bristles, they give me something other than a cigarette to fiddle with while I’m thinking. My missus likes them too ;-)

There have been a couple of sites that required me to change the plugin code but mostly this was to make it compatible with other not-so-well-behaving ajax scripts and wotnot. This new version takes out the onsubmit event altogether which makes things much less prone to being tripped up by other scripts that listen to the comment form (ajax preview, threaded comments). You can download it in the usual place or click here

Happy commenting, please give it a test here. I tried every combination of error, not found, blank result, resubmitted comment and mess up I could and it seemed ok.



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