Isobar Create 48. Invent Something. Change Everything.

Isobar is hosting a 3 day non-stop event starting September 13th called Isobar Create 48. This is the first DevCon of its kind to explore the NFC chip inside the Google Nexus S. Essentially, it's going to be a 48 hour hackathon that everyone is invited to and encouraged to bring anyone they like with them.

Near Field Communication (NFC) technology will let us make transactions, exchange digital content, and connect electronic devices like never before. Your phone will be your credit card, boarding pass, hotel room key, coupons at the supermarket. You’ll buy only the 3 minutes you need on the parking meter.

If you're interested in checking this out, you can get all the details here. Don't worry if you don't have a team, you will be able to jump in with any team, or go here to organize with others who need a team too.

This is sure to be an event you don't want to miss!

Now For An Update

This year started out with a bang really, at least for me. It was kinda not so great the first couple weeks of the year but, then I started a job working as a Front-end Developer at Isobar, which to say the least, has been really great. My first day I was working on adidas.com, which after my third week there, was suddenly the main front-end developer working on that project. It was crazy intense and a very quick learning experience, but a really awesome one for sure.

The sites I've worked on for adidas are under the Sports Performance part of their site. Some of these I worked on more than others, and some way more than others.

• Basketball
• Football/Soccer
• Running
• Tennis
• Men's Training
• Women's Training
• Outdoors

I've been extremely busy working for some really high-profile clients and doing a ton of really cool stuff on the front-end. Also, I helped re-develop and design the Isobar Front-end Code Standards & Best Practices page making it HTML5, I wrote the web typography section as a new addition as well as some various other minor edits and additions to the page content too, and I also added in some really cool easter eggs that change the logo to a canvas animation I made and make #plaidirish all over the place which is pretty baller. :)

We put the doc up on Github and welcome everyone to come give their feedback, open issues for any edits or additions you'd like to see added, and of course, fork us!!

I've also been doing some really cool stuff with HTML5 and Canvas on Anti-code, one of my new sites, so check that out. Plus some even cooler stuff for Samsung's Olympic Genome Project using HTML5 and Canvas too. It's going to be a Facebook app that will be released in the somewhat near future, so be on the lookout for that it's going to be amazing.

You like ovals?

As you can see I haven't been doing all that much with my time. But really I have barely had the time to sleep let alone write a new post here. Apologies for disappearing like that. Maybe leaving you with this little snippet will make up for it?

// here's a helper function for drawing ovals with bezier curves in canvas
function ovalMaker(centerX, centerY, width, height) {
	con.beginPath();
	con.moveTo(centerX, centerY - height / 2);

	con.bezierCurveTo(
		centerX + width / 2, centerY - height / 2,
		centerX + width / 2, centerY + height / 2,
		centerX, centerY + height / 2
	);
	con.bezierCurveTo(
		centerX - width / 2, centerY + height / 2,
		centerX - width / 2, centerY - height / 2,
		centerX, centerY - height / 2
	);

	con.fill();
	con.closePath();
}

This function is useful in Canvas to draw oval shapes, or circles that aren't perfectly round....ovals. How do you use it? Simple.

// USAGE

// vertical skinnier oval
bezierCurve(x + 60, y + 75, 80, 130);

// vertical fatter oval
bezierCurve(x + 150, y + 75, 100, 120);

// small oval
bezierCurve(x + 125, y + 175, 20, 30);

// horizontal oval
bezierCurve(x + 105, y + 225, 200, 50);

Well, that's all I have time for today. I have to get back to working on work work, work. I work on work when not at work, until I leave for work to work on work work.

That^ pretty much sums up these past months for me right there. All I gotta say is love what you do, it's awesome.

I recently had the pleasure of being able to review some of the premium products from Dev4Press one of which was their WordPress plugin GD Press Tools, and I was blown away by it. I mean literally in total awe for the 3 hours it took for me to get through playing with all of it's features, options and tools which made my jaw drop on more than occasion. It is the single most useful plugin and most advanced one I have seen to this date. I really can't stress that enough.

How many plugins (or functions you've custom coded into your theme if you're like me) do you use for things that you consider an essential feature or enhancement to the WP dashboard? Maybe a handful or more, right? And how many plugins would you install if not for the fact you don't want 1001 plugins installed just to do one thing here, two things there, etc.? Probably more than a handful, and possibly much more. I know because I would just from the number of custom code functions I wrote or use as common include for every site I make. The dashboard is good, but it can be so much better mostly in little ways depending on your personal preferences.

Now think about how keeping these things all up to date and otherwise regularly maintained and working properly....

Let's say you have 5 plugins installed for enhancing the admin some how in some way, all created by different people. It's not guaranteed that they all will be maintained and/or updated as needed or even at all in some cases. You have to rely on the developers of each plugin to release updates. Plus, let's say even if all 5 of them DID update their plugins regularly, that still means you have 5 things to install updates for. Not to mention options for these things might be non-intuitively implemented like in a section or existing options page you wouldn't expect, or just entirely non-existent. I can think of many more things I have disliked about plugins, leading me to just start coding my own things into my themes and reducing the need to install plugins by a lot.

One Plugin + One Place + One Update = Win

"The idea is to include as many admin related features as I can, and eliminate need for many different plugins that will potentially break with WordPress updates because their authors didn't update them. So, I am adding all the things I need, and as this is premium plugin, it will be updated to be compatible with latest versions of WP minimizing problems to users when switching to new version."

- Milan Petrovic

There are far too many features available in GD Press Tools to list here, but they are organized under the following:

WOW!!! Even as I made that list I said to myself holy S***! I'm serious. And these are just the sections, which each include sub-sections. Basically, picture something like 2 dozen separate things that are like multiple common little plugins your using on your site right now, all packed into one plugin and organized nicely and with more options than those you have installed all have if they were combined into one.

Take a look at the screen shots of just a few of the options pages to see what kinds of settings and features you can customize to get a better idea what I'm talking about.

Options Front Page

Backup Panel

Database Backup

Unserializer Tool

User Management Panel

Meta Tags

Maintenance Mode

Database Table Tools

There really wasn't anything I found wrong or negative about it. I even said to Antonio how amazed I was with how optimized it was based on the performance and speed of the site. I would think such a plugin would use a lot of memory and slow down your site since I have seen tiny plugins use more memory, but surprisingly, there was no difference at all in speed that I noticed.

The plugin is constantly in development with many new options added with every major update. GD Press Tools 4.0 Pro Beta 1 is coming out on Tuesday, which includes many rewritten or massively improved plugin parts, plus tons of newly added features!! After I heard this, I couldn't even think what else there could even be left to add so I can't wait to see what's new. The official version of 4.0 is set to be released at the end of this month.

On top of regular improvements and additional features it is always kept up to date with latest WordPress core development. It's tested with WordPress 2.8 and newer, including WordPress 3.0 even in multi site mode with additional global settings for the site administrator. Yes there are options pages and settings which allow you to control the multi site features in 3.0 which is wicked awesome.

There are 3 editions of GD Press Tools available. The Free Edition is the Lite version, which has less options and features and doesn't include other really good things like documentation, support, and tutorials. The Standard Membership is the Pro version, and includes everything. The Developer Membership is the same as Standard but with email support, SVN and TRAC access included as well.

Special Offer For Our Readers

As an added bonus to readers of this site, use the coupon code NEW2WP when purchasing this plugin and you will receive a 20% discount (on initial product purchase payment). This promo coupon is good for the next year.

I did the math for you too (I really hate math just so you know):
Using Coupon: NEW2WP
You pay only: €48 or $65 first year (€24 or $32.50 after that)

That's a pretty good deal, and even more worth it, as if the number of plugins this one plugin could replace, and/or improve or add on your site wasn't enough already.

Go check out the huge list of features.

I personally think it should've won the 2010 WPHonors Commercial Plugins if only more people had an idea of what it is capable of.

If anyone has used this plugin before, what did you think about it? Post a comment with your experience of it, and let us know.

Okay maybe not everyone, but anyone who wants some can try using this jQuery plugin I developed. It's called $.TipItUp(), and it uses event delegation in generating the tooltips. Along with the JavaScript events mouseOver, mouseOut and mouseMove.

Fork and download it from the Github repository. I had a demo page and had written a blog post about it be recently lost the entire site because I forgot to back it up when switching hosts, and I haven't had time to recreate the site or the post.

Although, I just realized that my host screwed up the configuration of my nameservers for the domain, and I no longer own New2jQuery.com because of it. That's just great news. So I am sorry, but currently the only place this plugin is available is on the Github repository.

I created a plugin for Textmate and Coda to help speed up development for WordPress, and to make my life easier really. It makes adding commonly used WP snippets of code to a document I'm working on extremely easy. Currently this only exists for Textmate and Coda on Mac. Depending on the demand, there may be support for other applications in the future.

The Textmate WP Starter Plugin and The Coda WP Starter Plugin have two modes:

• WP Quick: Which is a folder and file skeleton.
• WP Full: Which is a full theme structure markup and base styling.

NOTE: These plugins are still in beta, i am sure there are errors. Let me know ( and BE NICE!) and i will fix them immediatly

My post shows a simplified method for developing a basic post form, without the need for any plugins or additional things, which you can embed in a custom page template or anything else you might want to do on your site with a custom post form.

Great for user generated content sites where your users can submit new posts from the front-end of the site, kind of like Twitter or Facebook.

It works for posting custom post type posts, as well as, for using custom taxonomies if you want, too.

As my first guest post anywhere by my own personal sites, I wanted to write something that was unique and not posted a million times slightly different. Not one of the 12 most posted WordPress post topics. Given that, it might possibly show you something you haven't seen already.

Click Here To Go To The Tutorial

Feel free to comment with any questions, either here or on WPShout. I'm curious what people think of my first guest post.

This was Michael Susz's presentation slides on creating short codes at Wordcamp Boston. I found it to be a great help in understanding the code behind short codes, even though I missed the actual session since I was a volunteer, and very busy helping out that day.

I will try to do a follow up post and explain more in-depth how to create WordPress shortcodes, and how to do some of the various things that are possible with them when I have more time to.

Hope this has helped you understand them better like it did for me.

While I was working on developing a theme today I stumbled onto a really annoying thing that involves taxonomies and the new WordPress nav menu system. It's likely it would also happen with custom post types too but that I have not tested to know for sure or not. I have submitted a ticket #14181 for it, but it apparently was already reported here #13958.

So here's the deal...

I set up a custom taxonomy to add to the 'posts' post type. I then post a new sample post, which I created the hierarchy of terms for the custom tax I made, all of which I checked off to apply them to my sample post. That way there would be none that had an empty value.

I then created a new wp_nav_menu(), which I was planning to used as a drop menu for only displaying the terms of the custom tax I made. I set the menu up with the parent terms and each child term beneath them. The menu worked great, dropped down nicely, and was just fine and exactly what I was trying to do.

But then...

Naturally once I got it all working and doing what I wanted, I have to go and break that which is perfectly fine and completed. I decided that I needed to change the taxonomy's name, slug, query_var, etc. Basically I re-created the custom taxonomy using a different word for what it was called.

First let me explain why I not only did this, but I did it two times, and each time learned why it was a bad idea for me to do. The reason for changing the name of it the first time was because the original taxonomy I made was really just a generic thing, quickly done just to get it set up. The second time I re-named it was because I then needed to create a second custom taxonomy so I could use the two taxonomies as sort of the top level 'parent term' of the child terms. Only they were not terms, but more like separate containers that just needed to hold the child terms.

Update! - I jut awesomely did it for a 3rd time. I now know that it can happen even more likely to those less-savvy WordPress users. If you have a custom taxonomy and include terms of it in a nav menu, then you then decide to change your site theme to use a different one sort like how I just did, without removing the terms of the custom taxonomy first before changing themes. Yeah well, you're screwed then..

Taxonomy->Terms->Menu->Taxonomy Remake

This is a big No No...

Basically what I did was create something, add a whole bunch of things which use that something. Then took that whole bunch of things and added them to another thing which, is then dependent on that something as well. Then I destroyed that something and made a new thing, leaving those other things that were dependent on my somethings existence up the creek without a paddle. They were killed on impact.

In other words, when you add a bunch of terms for a custom taxonomy to a menu using the wp_nav, and then go and change, or re-create, re-structure, the taxonomy which the terms in the menu use. What is the result???

BOOM!!!

When I did this the first time I spent hours completely baffled as to what the hell could've happened, and searched and searched for some sort of answer. I read though some WordPress source files, and all kinds of possible explanations, only there was nothing helpful were to be found that involved my problem.

The Php error I was getting on my (now horribly broken page that was working perfectly before) was this:

Catchable fatal error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in C:\wamp\www\wp-includes\formatting.php on line 2829

On a side note: If you go and view line 2829 in this file, like I did, You will notice that the line the error occurred on is extremely unhelpful for figuring out what's broken, but it is humorous what the function this line falls on though.

So Yeah, This Bug Bites

Not only did I get the error above on my pages where the wp_nav_menu() function was called, in my dashboard on the menu management page this error was displayed, on a very broken and almost blank white page:

Catchable fatal error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in C:\wamp\www\new2wp\wp-includes\formatting.php on line 433

I am still not entirely sure about whether or not this is a bug, or some other type of thing I don't know about. After all, it was something that I only experience two times, and as far as I could find, those are the only two times it's happened. WordPress 3.0 is still extremely new, so I would imagine since I did it twice in one day, there are likely to be more people that it will happen to in the future if something isn't done to fix it.

I don't really even know what the hell is the problem, but it obviously has to do with taxonomies and the use of terms as links in a WP nav menu. There is some obvious reasons why something is bound to break when you have two things on a table and tie them together, only to kick out the legs that support them.

In my research on the possible reason this is able to break is there is most likely nothing in the wp_nav_menu code anywhere, where ever it would be needed, which does a check to see if a taxonomy exists, and if yes, are there terms which the menu has added.

I would imagine such a thing as this was done in the code. Since it is able to recognize custom taxonomies and post types, and allows for them to be used in the menus, there is definitely a check for taxonomy done somewhere at least. However, it may just be lacking that fallback function which provides some kind of emergency plan for when the shit hits the fan, and a once existing taxonomy or post type being used by the nav menu no long exists, and the world was about to end.

Why This Bug NEEDs Fixing

So this may not seem like too big a deal so far. However, I have found this bug/thing to be a bit more of a serious issue given the fact that once you have gone and changed your taxonomy and initiated the error, there is no going back.

What I Tried and Learned Is Not A Fix For It

• Remaking the taxonomy which was changed causing it to break. Even the previously used tax being made again had no effect in fixing the errors.
• several different queries
• rewriting the codes
• rebuilding each item from scratch again (taxonomy, terms, nav menu hierarchy of terms
• physically deleting each mention of the taxonomy, terms of it from within phpmyadmin
• among other things...

I did spend about 6 hours or so of the day trying to figure out what the hell I could've done to f*ck it all up. I didn't see the obvious reason it happened in the first place. As usual, it was my super-human doing that caused it all by removing an apparently more crucial thing that I had thought.

Forced To Reset WordPress To Defaults To Fix

I couldn't find any other way that didn't require such drastic actions as completely resetting the site. I wish I could've, too. I mean, I had do reset everything back up TWICE! That was like 20 minutes wasted each time just doing that whole process both times.

Has this happened to you yet

I'd like to know whether I'm the only awesomely sexy and lucky person who has had the joy of stressing out to the wonders this creates, breaking your site. Have you ever had anything in WordPress 3.0 break that was as major as the entire menu system? Post comments!!

UPDATE: I've broken my WAMP WordPress menu system for a third time. Meaning I now have to reset the whole thing AGAIN :(

This is a basic function you can paste into your functions.php, and easily add custom content to your RSS feed when using WordPress. What this does is first check to see if it is the feed is_feed(), and if it is the feed, then it creates a variable called $content.

This variable is where you can add your custom text, images, or anything at all, as long as somewhere within it is the function call to the_content() like I have here after the logo image for New2WP. Notice that I use the single quote period before and after the function: ( ' . the_content() . ' ). This is to properly concatenate the variable since the function is Php.

After this variable it will return it, thereby displaying it in your feed as the_content() which should be shown.

function insertRss($content) {
	if( is_feed()) {
		$content = '<a href="http://new2wp.com"><img src="http://new2wp.com/wp-content/themes/New2WP/images/new2wp-logo.png" alt="New2WP - A Resource for WordPress Tutorials, Tips, Tricks and More!" /></a><br /><br />
		TEXT BEFORE CONTENT' . $content . '<a href="http://new2wp.com"><img src="http://new2wp.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/new2wp-468x60px.png" alt="New2WP - A Resource for WordPress Tutorials, Tips, Tricks and More!" /></a>';
	}
	return $content;
}

There's several ways you could do this differently

For example, you could set the_content() as the value of a variable prior to this, say $thecontent = the_content();, and then when you create the $content you can use double quotes around your content like:
$content = "THIS IS CUSTOM STUFF BEFORE $thecontent THIS IS CUSTOM STUFF AFTER";

This will work the same way since variables within double quotes in Php will parse the value that they are equal to. Using single quotes here, however, will just display the text $thecontent, since single quotes parse the literal variable and not what the variable equals.

Don't forget to add the filter

add_filter( 'the_content', 'insertRss' );

Finally, to make this complete and properly display your custom content in your feed, you need to add the hook to WordPress that makes it work and run as it should. So make sure to add the above filter to your functions.php file along with the function.

That's all there is to it. If you have any questions let me know in the comments.
To take this even further, learn how to add post thumbnails to your feeds, to add even more customization.

If you haven't already heard about the Php Cross Reference for the WordPress source code, or even used it and didn't realize like I had many times before understanding what it was all about, it's an amazing tool provided by Yoast using PHPXref.

Trunk versions of WordPress are updated from SVN every 30 minutes,
In the video below, Joost de Valk, talks about what it can do and how to use and cross reference things in the WordPress source code.

Install the plugins

To make it even easier for you, there are plugins you can install to make searching through code even more convenient for you. There's one for each of the following:

• WordPress Trunk Install Search Plugin
• WordPress 2.9.2 Install Search Plugin
• WordPress MU Trunk Install Search Plugin
• BBPress Trunk Install Search Plugin

Also, if you find this to be a greatly useful tool and have a little extra change laying around, or if you use this tool to make money yourself, you can/should make a donation via Paypal and show your support for this great free service.

That is all for now

Hope this helps you out, and motivates you to kick start your longing desires to learn the WP core once and for all. I know it is something that many people would like to do, but put it off, understandably, as can be a lot to try and take in.

Have fun!

Here is a list of the social bookmarks links this will show how to make. It's basically the same one's as you see in the bar above here.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Digg
• Delicious
• StumbleUpon
• RSS Feed
• RSS Feed Mail

Make A Function

It's real simple, just create a function that you can drop into your functions.php file like this.

// Create the Social bookmark bar
function my_socialbar() { ?>
	<div class="socialbar">
		<a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=<?php the_title(); ?> <?php echo get_permalink(); ?>" target="_blank" class="twitter" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a>
		<a href="http://facebook.com/share.php?u=<?php echo get_permalink(); ?>&title=<?php the_title(); ?>" target="_blank" class="facebook" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a>
		<a href="http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=<?php echo get_permalink() ?>&title=<?php the_title(); ?>" target="_blank" class="digg" rel="nofollow">Digg</a>
		<a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=<?php echo get_permalink() ?>&title=<?php the_title(); ?>" target="_blank" class="delicious" rel="nofollow">Delicious</a>
		<a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=<?php echo get_permalink() ?>&title=<?php the_title(); ?>" target="_blank" class="stumble" rel="nofollow">Stumble</a>
		<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/New2WP" title="Get the RSS Feed" target="_blank" class="rss">RSS</a>
		<a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=New2WP" title="Get Email Updates Sent to Your Inbox" class="email">Email</a>
	</div>
	<!--socialbar-->
<?php } // end my_socialbar ?>

This contains all the HTML code you need to make the correct links for each social bookmarking link.

Call The Function

Here's how you call the function. Just add this to the theme template file you would like the links to show on.

<?php my_socialbar(); ?>

That's all! If you have any questions let me know in the comments below.