“Awesome Features”

CommentLuv Premium allows you to unlock advanced backlink features on 10′s of thousands of blogs. It has been shown to increase comments and traffic to blogs that install it and helps to make your posts go viral by integrating with twitter, facebook and google plus.

It combines 8 plugins in to 1 which all work in harmony to reduce spam, provide stats of where your links are being clicked, deny trackbacks from spammers, allow users to use keywords in their name, leave their twitter name in the comments, showcase your top commenters and more.

The plugin has many new features :

• Integrated anti spam measures that prevent almost 100% of botspam
• Dofollow readers links with advanced rules so you look after your most loyal readers
• Unique social enticements which helps your posts to go viral on Twitter, facebook and Google+
• Integrated twitterlink functions to allow readers to leave their twitter names on comments
• Improved version of Keywordluv with much tighter control over who gets to use keywords
• Integrates trackback validation with improved heuristics
• Exclusive top commentators widget with advanced display control
• Dashboard and advanced stats that show you where your links are getting clicked
• Free updates for life using the easy one click automatic update system
• more being added all the time!

You can find out more about CommentLuv Premium at CommentLuv.com

Weekend Warrior!

I’ve been working feverishly to get premium commentluv ready for beta testing over the past 3 weeks and to give me a break on the weekends, I’ve been working on another premium plugin that I’ll be launching to the warrior forums with my JV partner before releasing it to the wild.

What is it called?

It’s got a working title of WP Aweber Gate

What does it do?

It allows you to protect post and page content from being viewed and downloads from being accessed by readers unless they are on your Aweber list.

Why would I want that?

• Run a membership site without all the trouble of having members register to your site
• Offer ethical bribes to people to join your list and know that only people that have subscribed can access the bribe
• Prevent your premium content from being shared with non subscribers
• Add bonus materiel to your site for your list subscribers only
• No need to change your theme to a membership theme just to have subscribers only content
• No need to buy expensive plugins like wishlist or DAP (this plugin will be MUCH cheaper!)
• There’s probably a lot more reasons that I haven’t thought of!

How does it work?

Just 4 easy steps to get your subscribers only gateway working:

Upload, activate, authorize, configure.

1. Upload
   Upload to your plugins directory or use the plugins page link in your dashboard
2. Activate
   Ummm, click activate!
3. Authorize
   Click the link to authorize the plugin to access your Aweber account
4. Configure
   Choose your desired list (or set to check all) and what you want to happen to non subscribers (off with their heads!).
   • You can show them a message which can contain HTML
   • You can automatically send a subscription to your desired list
   • You can forward them to any page on your site
   • You can forward them to any URL on the web

Let me see!

Here’s a set of video instructions on how to rebrand my recent premium plugin called WP Mail Ads, you can also download a free bonus plugin for commentluv users called The Dashboard Luvver Widget which shows a list of last blog posts from the people that have commented on your blog so you’ve always got somewhere to go and visit to get some luv!

You can only access the videos and downloads if you’re an email subscriber to one of my lists. Chances are that if you have downloaded the commentluv plugin or seen some of my videos you are already so all you need to do is enter your email address in the box and click the button, if you are on my list it’ll show you the content and cookie you so you can access all the locked content and downloads, if you’re not on one of my lists then it’ll auto subscribe you and then you just need to click the authorization link that arrives in your inbox. Sweet huh?

When can I get it?

I’ll be releasing it in a week or two once all the sales bumpf and bonuses have been put together! watch out for it!

btw… I have installed premium commentluv to comluv.com. You can read about it here. Premium CommentLuv Beta Testing

hows that for a descriptive title eh? haha, that’s the exact term I used when I ran into trouble with some wordpress meta boxes on a custom admin page I was making for the new CommentLuv. I am using the WordPress functions for add_meta_box to add, you guessed it, meta boxes to a settings page.

Draggable killed the radio bar

ok, lame Queen song title parody I know but it’s true. I had a bar of radio buttons in one of those meta boxes and if I dragged and dropped the box to a new place, it lost it’s radio button dots!

When I dropped the sortable meta box, the happy little dot in the radio input would disappear which messed things up when I saved the settings because the form would not have a radio input with a status of checked any more.

jQuery rescues jQuery!

jQuery is frickin awesome and I love it. It’s the sole reason CommentLuv was able to become the plugin it is today. It’s also sometimes a little finicky and it does things in a particular way which causes some mild issues. This is one of them, it’s all due to jQuery cloning the contents of the sortable box when you drag it and then when you drop it, the radio button loses it’s happy little dot.

I did a mammoth amount of searching and could only find 2 instances of it happening elsewhere (here and here) and both instances said it was a bug/feature and didn’t provide a solution.

Geek me up, I’m goin in!

As a means to procrastinate, an unhealthily strong stubbornness bone and a burning sensation in my pants whenever I can’t do something that I want to do, I set about trying some code to re click the radio buttons after the meta box had been dropped after dragging.

Here it is, I hope you find it useful! (change the two instances of .wrap to whatever container your sortables are in)

// global script for commentluv premium settings pages
// workaround for bug that causes radio inputs to lose settings when meta box is dragged.
// http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/16972
jQuery(document).ready(function(){
    // listen for drag drop of metaboxes , bind mousedown to .hndle so it only fires when starting to drag
    jQuery('.hndle').mousedown(function(){
        // set event listener for mouse up on the content .wrap and wait a tick to give the dragged div time to settle before firing the reclick function
        jQuery('.wrap').mouseup(function(){store_radio(); setTimeout('reclick_radio();',50);});
    })
});
/**
* stores object of all radio buttons that are checked for entire form
*/
function store_radio(){
    var radioshack = {};
    jQuery('input[type="radio"]').each(function(){
        if(jQuery(this).is(':checked')){
            radioshack[jQuery(this).attr('name')] = jQuery(this).val();
        }
        jQuery(document).data('radioshack',radioshack);
    });
}
/**
* detect mouseup and restore all radio buttons that were checked
*/
function reclick_radio(){
    // get object of checked radio button names and values
    var radios = jQuery(document).data('radioshack');
    //step thru each object element and trigger a click on it's corresponding radio button
    for(key in radios){
        jQuery('input[name="'+key+'"]').filter('[value="'+radios[key]+'"]').trigger('click');
    }
    // unbind the event listener on .wrap  (prevents clicks on inputs from triggering function)
    jQuery('.wrap').unbind('mouseup');
}

I’ve had a blast launching the new free version of CommentLuv and it occurred to me that I haven’t actually put a feature list out there so people know what’s changed in this new version.

So, here’s what’s new :

phew! that took a while…

just you wait until you see what’s coming in CommentLuv premium!

You can Download CommentLuv here

Announcing the release of a new plugin for WordPress (single and multisite) that will allow you to use your purchase of aMemberto protect your posts and/or pages very simply, easily and best of all – do it for FREE!

Download the plugin at the wordpress site here

Download aMember 30 day trial here

How to install

• Download the file from the official WordPress page or visit your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins/Add New and search for “easy amember protect lite”.
• If you downloaded it, extract the folder from the zip file and upload the whole folder to your wp-content/plugins/ directory using FTP
• Activate the plugin

How to configure

The plugin assumes that your amember installation resides in a folder called amember in the root of your wordpress install. If your installation uses a different folder name or is in a different location you will need to set the correct location in the settings page.

How it Works

You should already have some products in your aMember setup and the PHP_Include plugin activated (it should be anyway).

The plugin will use the product ID number from your aMember setup as the value of the custom field you add to the posts or pages that you want to protect.

The aMember product you want to allow access to

Once you know your product ID, add the custom field to the post you want to protect.

If you want to allow access to more than one product, add a new custom field for each product.

Format your post with –more

If your blog shows the whole post in the archive view or blog post list, you need to use the < !--more--> tag after the text you want everyone to see. Once someone clicks on the title of the post or the link to read more, they will get redirected to the amember login page (if they aren’t already logged in).

the more tag in HTML mode

The more tag in wysiwyg mode

Have fun!

With a bit of imagination and time on the amember forums, you should be able to get your own premium content membership on WordPress site up and running in next to no time!

Notes

This plugin is not a replacement for the official amember wordpress plugin, it wont create a new user on WordPress or allow you to log in to both sites. It simply allows you to protect a single page or post from being seen by someone unless they have an active subscription to one of your amember products.

This plugin is provided ‘as is’ and is free for you to use any way you wish.

Hire me to do your dirty work!

If you want support, modifications and/or custom code then you can contact me on the amember forum (my username there is Andyb) with the details of what you want and request a quote. Prices range from 20$ for telephone support, 50$ for a simple mod, 100$ for custom coding additions and up to and over 250$ for more complex requests. (quotes are free and it costs nothing to ask!)

If you want to try out aMember before you buy, you can download a fully functional 30 day trial for free here. I recommend it if you need a quick solution to add a paywall to your site or you want to charge people to download an ebook, zip or other file.

I’m having some issues with trying to put the WP-Twitip-ID plugin into the final version.

Right now, the beta version stores the twitter ID in the post meta for each post but that’s not really ideal because it can only show the twitter id on the comments of the post that the user has already commented on. New post comments require the user to add their twitter id again. Not too much trouble because if they have entered a twitter id in a previous comment then the plugin sets a cookie on their machine and adds it to the field when they comment again.

What I’d rather do is store the twitter id in the database so it’s accessible outside the post meta. I could store the id’s in wp_options but that would probably cause loading time issues because wp_options values get loaded automatically and considering the amount of comments a blog gets, it would bloat it out massively.

My solution is to create a new table on the database and add the twitter id and email address in there, that way I only have to update the db once when a new twitter id is entered.

The problem I am having is creating the table! for some reason, it’s not adding it. I’ve even copied and pasted another plugins code to do it and it still wont work!

here’s my code :

function atf_install() {
global $wpdb;
global $atf_db_version;
add_option("atf_db_version", $atf_db_version);

$table_name = $wpdb->prefix . "wptwitipid";
if($wpdb->get_var("show tables like '$table_name'") != $table_name) {
$sql = "CREATE TABLE " . $table_name . " (
id mediumint(9) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
email varchar(120) NOT NULL,
twitid varchar(120) NOT NULL,
KEY email (email)
);";
require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php');
dbDelta($sql);
}
}
$atf_db_version = "1.0";
register_activation_hook(__FILE__, 'atf_install');


There’s a problem with the $atf_db_version too. It adds an option to wp_options for the key of “atf_db_version” but no value and it’s really starting to piss me off!

anyone out there in geek land that can help me here?

Fixed!!

A massive thanks to @clearskynet who answered and solved the problem within minutes of me posting this.

hurray!!

The nice folks at PacktPub sent me a pretty good book called “WordPress For Business Bloggers” by Paul Thewlis. I’ve been reading it for a couple of weeks and it turned out to be an excellent read.

Who is it for?

It makes it clear in the beginning of the book that you should at least be familiar with WordPress as a blogging platform. It doesn’t expect you to know any HTML or PHP skills, just a working knowledge of the WP interface for adding posts and pages, activating plugins and general use.

The book says it is aimed at anyone running or starting a business blog using WordPress. It can be for PR, marketing, profit or driving traffic. Whatever you use it for, if it’s for a business then this book is for you.

My own addition to this is that it will be perfect for someone who runs their own personal blog and is used to people asking them blogging questions. Why? because with this book, you could move from doing minor updates to personal blogs to heading up a business blog for your workplace or local businesses. You will see why below…

The Plan

One of the things that really impressed me with this book was how Paul gives good examples of specifics, what makes a great blog is the first question covered in the book. It doesn’t try to explain from the beginning what a blog is which would take a whole book but instead, it gives an example of different blogs that are aimed at;

• Increasing sales
• Adding value
• A dialog with your customers
• Raising awareness
• Showing expertise
• Customer Service
• Public relations
• Driving Traffic

The first chapter will give you an excellent summary of what you will learn from reading the rest of the book including, monetization, promotion and statistics.

The Case Study

This is where the real value of the book comes into play. So many “how to blog” books and blogs don’t go into specifics. They go on about how you should do this and that but not exactly how to go about doing this and that!.

The WordPress for business bloggers book has it’s own case study site to take you from planning (including strategic goals, tactical goals and implementation) all the way through from Chapter 3 – Designing your blog, how to install to your local machine so you can develop a blog before it goes live to blog design principles, layout, typography, colors.

Images, video and content are all covered in chapters 4 and 5. I was really impressed by the content of these chapters, every sub heading had a gold mine of information associated with it and was able to cover a large amount of the whole blogging for business idea without getting too wordy or cluttered with random information. It’s quite clear that Paul knows an awful lot about blogging and WordPress!

Through each chapter you get to work on the case study and see it grow as you complete each chapter and learn how each new bit of information gets applied to a real blog.

Why would you buy it?

Far from being just for business bloggers, I think this book would be an excellent resource for anyone wanting to know a bit more about blogging. All the information and guidelines would be applicable to any new blog.

You could even use this book as a self study course, work through each chapter and follow the case study and by the end, you will not only know how to make a full site but, you will know why you put headings here, how you should respond to comments, what to do with SEO and how to apply it and much more.

The case study site is quite simple and will give you a good ‘heads up’ on how to add and remove items from an existing theme so you could adapt a regular theme to word specifically for your business.
The code is available to download from the packtpub website.

If you’re working for your company and they don’t have a blog, just the information in Chapter 1 and 2 about mapping out a strategic plan and how to implement solutions would arm you with enough ‘know-how’ to talk your boss into getting your company into blogging. And wouldn’t it be nice if you knew just how to start?

Click here for WordPress For Business Bloggers

Get ANY book from PacktPub for FREE

Being the nice folks that they are, Packtpub has offered up 2 books from their vast collection as ebook downloads. My first packtpub book was an ebook and from it, I learned all that I needed to know about wordpress design so I really recommend that you enter this contest!

Requirements

1. Visit the PacktPub website and browse their collection and leave a comment here with what book you would like to win.
   (link to the books page at packtpub if you like)
2. Write about this contest on your own blog and link to this post.
   (it doesn’t have to be a whole post, it can be included as part of a new post but mention “wordpress for business bloggers” or “packtpub” in the paragraph and link directly to this post)

Details
Contest will run until Jan 16th 2009.
Winners will be chosen by a magic script at Random.org
Please use an email address that you can be contacted on when you comment, this email address will be used to receive the ebook

After deciding to take the day off, I managed to play a Jedi mind trick on myself. With all the pressure off for creating, my juices started flowing!

I have now updated the CommentLuv WordPress plugin to work with WP2.7rc1

It was working before but not if you wanted to change the settings. I’ve fixed that now and added some extra checks to the javascript so it shouldn’t need any more editing of the settings other than to enter the commentluv member id number.

You can download the very latest version of CommentLuv 2.6 here

It’s a beta version so you only need to download this one if you have 2.7 WordPress and you need to change the settings. Otherwise, wait for the big update to 2.7 when it happens in the new year!

Back to my off time!

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!

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' );