FiddyP

The web awards voting has started!

Please consider giving commentluv a vote for the blog plugins category

I like the feature of being able to automatically tweet about it with a link after you’re done.

The new version of CommentLuv has been going since September 1st and has been written about on:

1. My Forum
2. The plugin page on my blog
3. The CommentLuv site
4. The wordpress codex
5. The WordPress MU Site
6. Every registered member
7. Through visiting every site I get notified about in Google Alerts that is using the old version.
8. Running a massive contest encouraging people to upgrade to the latest version

The old version is responsible for about 50,000 unnecessary hits to my server every day from automated spam bots that post direct to the wordpress comment post file, sometimes the server would fold from a busy spam day (it once had 1 million spam hits in a few hours!) so I had to find another way to let the people know that their version needs updating (just in case they didn’t see any of the above places).

Not to mention all the people complaining that their latest post wasn’t shown on some blogs, this is down to Feedburner not passing back fresh feeds to scripts unless they have cache enabled. The new version does this but the old one doesn’t. (feedburners fault, not mine!)

So, I put in a small message to be sent back instead of the last blog post if it was requested in the first 10 minutes of each hour;

CommentLuv needs updating on this site. Please download the latest version and install it on your site. This message will apear during the first 10 minutes of each hour. This remote script will cease returning posts in 7 days.

Is that so bad?

The alternative is just delete the remote scripts and everyone using the old version will be left with nothing happening instead.

What do you think? should I keep with the message or just delete the remote scripts so nothing gets sent back to the people that don’t upgrade or view their plugins page?

I’ve only seen one site complain but it was an un-ranked, 0.4 average comments per post site written anonymously who posted to their site instead of contacting me direct via the squillion ways possible (my email, forum, site, phone, skype, yahoo, gmail……) but, ever the conscientious coder, I don’t want to offend anyone by daring to ask them to upgrade a plugin because their old one can affect the performance of my server and subsequently, the 100-200K last blog posts that get sent back to the users who DID upgrade. :-/

If you see the message above when someone comments, it means the blog being commented on needs to upgrade the plugin for the good of everyone who uses the proper version (in fact, for the good of the whole universe!) I have a support ticket function open at CommentLuv so if anyone needs help updating or even if you want to shout at me, you just need to click… (surely that is more efficient and quicker than writing a whole post about it?)

Someone sent me a message saying that the options page doesn’t update on CommentLuv for WP2.7b3 and it’s set off a small chain reaction in my head.

I checked another plugin that does work for the options update in 2.7b3 and compared it to my code and that’s where the kerbumph happened in my head…

My wordpress plugin code needs a complete overhaul! you see, it has grown organically (as in like wild weed beds) since it’s inception as a simple one file plugin to what it is now which is a large bit of code with functions calling functions and some (I admit) messy solutions to problems.

Not my fault though! These messy solutions were made at a time when my coding knowledge was expanding (which is always). My coding knowledge is pretty much down to writing this plugin and it’s support site so it’s only natural that code I wrote just 2 months ago could have benefited from my brain of now.

Not a problem… this just means I need to rewrite the whole plugin and add some things I have wanted to do for a long time but I didn’t know how!

Here’s a list of things I have in my mind for it (more for my own sake when I come back and stare at old posts for inspiration)..

• Move the options page to a separate file
  This will make it easier to update options and be compatible with 2.7
• Fix so no config for form fields required (done)
  This came to me while thinking about eggs. go figure!
• Use external javascript file for CommentLuv and heart box
  I wanted to do this a long time ago but didn’t know if my server could handle it, turns out it can and it has the advantage of me being able to change the way commentluv functions at one place and everyone that uses it gets the update immediately. no more relying on people to update their plugin!
• put a refresh image next to the last blog post so someone can refresh their link
  This is so I can simplify the code of the javascript for speedier running and compatibility
• add alert function so remote script can send back an alert to the user if they’re commenting too fast
• make all platform versions look the same (blogger done)
• retrieve commentluv member id from options page via ajax
• automatically detect if blog is using ID commenting and take appropriate action so commentluv still works

There’s a lot more I imagine but the most important thing for me is the options page and remote javascript instead of included.

The house will be busy this week and the contest is going mad so when all that’s over, I’ll see if I can go to a quiet place and be out of contact for a week while I make the changes. oh gwd, I see a large growth of chin whiskers happening…

WordPress Theme Design – Tessa Blakeley Silver
PacktPublishing
Price 35.99 USD (ebook $27.19)

I bought a book recently after seeing it mentioned in the WP dashboard news items, it’s called WordPress Theme Design by Tessa Blakeley Silver and although a lot of the information regarding the functions of wordpress can be found at the codex, the book gives you so much more like the process gone through to design a theme from scratch.

I do quite a lot of sites in wordpress now and find it much easier to provide a client with a website that can be updated so easily, a few plugins here and there and you can provide a website that does all and more that’s needed.

Usually I get a standard theme and cut it up a bit and change the css to give me my site, or create in photoshop and send off for wordpressing but lately due to some more custom design requests I’ve received and the always dependable mistakes that freelancers can make I have wanted to do the whole thing myself from scratch..

I’ve downloaded a tutorial before about WP theme design from small potato before it was taken over and that was pretty darn useful but was made a little while ago so it wasn’t 2.5 specific.

That’s why I like what Tessa has put her book, it takes you step by step through the process of creating a non-blog wordpress blog, from sketch to WP core code. It’s made a big difference to my initial prototyping of concept sites and has really opened my eyes to what you can do with a bit of manipulation of the wordpress template tags. I’m even working on a magazine style front page for here so I can have a featured post for contests that stays up while it’s open for entries as well as excerpts to the regular posts..

You can buy the book printed or get it as pdf for a bit cheaper (I printed mine out from pdf on someone elses printer lol!) at packet publishing

Packtpublishing is sending me a new book about WordPress For Business Bloggers , they’re offering a deal if you get both books together. Stay tuned for the review of the new book!

Ever had this error when you’re running a jQuery script?

this.parentNode has no properties jQuery

This innocuous error, in my experience comes down to two things:

1. You are trying to get the ID of a parent object. Like if you want the form ID from knowing the name field. jQuery(“#name”).parents(“form”).attr(“id”); and the form doesn’t have the attribute of ID set.
2. Scriptaculous , more specifically effects.js . If the effects.js is being used on the same page then this error happens. The solution is to download the latest version (1.8.1) and use that instead. You can overwrite just the effects.js from the package and you wont get the error any more!

Exciting? yes because no matter how many searches I made I couldn’t find the answer. Google groups and forums all talked about something else causing it like noConflict() or loading scriptaculous first.

Now you know. Use the latest version of Scriptaculous (if you must use it at all) with jQuery.

The great CommentLuv contest is going well, 67 people have registered their sites to take part so far! I had to rewrite the contest page at commentluv so it doesn’t load them all until the user presses a button.

There are an ever increasing amount of comments being made every day, amazing to think it’s only been live for 4 days now!

3 people have won (1 person won twice!) already and there are going to be at least another 10 prizes to go out before 22nd Nov

I want to see if the contest page or a new one showing the current prize can attract some prize sponsors.. I put a link to buy any of the gadgets that I stock in my ebay store under each prize in the prize list and they are getting some pretty good clicks. I’ve sold more than the usual amount of memory cards in the past week and I’m sure it’s the contest doing it.

My idea is to code a widget that shows the current prize and who has donated it that can be displayed on the commentluv blogs that want to be part of the contest. I link it to a page on CommentLuv.com for the prize details including links to purchase the product at the sponsors site.

Given enough time for the contest to run, it could generate some good traffic and maybe more sales…

Maybe I can convince one of my suppliers to go with the idea and make a really good prize donation like an Asus eee PC or other fancy electronic gadget?

What do you think? I’d love to hear your opinion

Just spent a couple of hours playing with the Intense Debate plugin after getting my invitation code this morning and I’m really happy to report that it will be compatible with CommentLuv. Well, it will be compatible with the new version of CommentLuv.

[edit 11 Nov 09] CommentLuv is now an official plugin of Intense Debate! just visit your ID dashboard and select it from the list of plugins available.

Intense debate isn’t working fully with OpenID yet but I made some test comments as a non-logged in user and it was able to add the last blog post so I’m confident that I can get it working with someone logged in to IntenseDebate.

By adding a small bit to the commentluv script that allows users to enter their IntenseDebate username to their profile it will work when they comment on IntenseDebate blogs when they’re logged in.

Ironically, it was what I learned making the JS-kit commentluv that got IDcommentluv working in such a short time (I got the invitation code at 8.45am and had commentluv working on it by 10:45am <- the same day! lol)
I’ve deactivated it now, I prefer the wordpress comments system at the moment because ID still isn’t able to handle openID well enough.

When ID goes public and enough people use it then I will finalize the code for commentluvID and release it. Nice to know it wont be too hard (oh god why did I say that?!)

The Contest did start and after my host managed to kill a nasty process eating thingy on the server, we have our first winner!

Witchypoo not content with winning the sneaky quick contest has continued rampaging through the contest blogs and leaving great comments, she ends up back here and wins again!

Look how the win appears in the comment.

The next prize will be available tomorrow but don’t rest your keyboard yet! the more comments you make on the day before the prize is available then the more chance you have of winning!

claim instructions are sent by the system to the email address registered at commentluv.com so now is a good time to make sure that you can receive emails from commentluv.com. You can do a lost password routine and not click the link sent to you to make sure you can receive emails from my server.

I see a lot of bounces come back from peoples mail boxes saying that it’s full, if the claim email doesn’t get through to you then you can’t claim. Check it today!

I spent the entire day (minus a 2 hour trip to the haberdashery <- don’t ask!) coding the final pages and scripts for the contest. I have the prizes up and descriptions entered. I was originally going to do 1 gadget per day for a whole month but I neglected to work in how much it would be to post them all!
(continue reading…)

I’m doing some testing with live data for the CommentLuv contest, there may be some extra bits added on the end of the pull down box for debug info for qualified commenters (those with a CommentLuv account and profile entered).

While it’s doing it’s thing so I can see the stats of how many and where etc, it will be doing a dry run for the winners. This little dress rehearsal will choose the winner in the same way it will be done when the contest goes live but instead of returning the notification, it will prepend a dot (.) to the post title.

There are 2 dots to be found and they only appear on the last blog posts of a winner who is qualified and commenting on a blog that is registered for the contest. If you have a last blog post that gets ‘chosen’ for this dry run then CONGRATULATIONS! you win a $20 Amazon gift certificate. You need to contact me so I can arrange to send you the prize (after I confirm the data in the database).

You can see a list of blogs who have registered for the contest here

it’s only for today so there’s not much time left!! get commenting!