Use Google Libraries 1.1.2

A new version of my Use Google Libraries WordPress Plugin is available, adding support for the upcoming WordPress 3.1.

A new version of my Use Google Libraries WordPress Plugin is available for download from the Plugin Directory, along with the full documentation and support forum.  It mainly improves support for the upcoming WordPress 3.1 ((tested against RC1 and a recent SVN snapshot)) but it is still compatible with WordPress 3.0.

It seems that this is a popular plugin, as I’ve managed to end up listed as #517 in the WP Top 1000.  I’m glad so many people have found it useful.  If  you’d like to support the development of the plugin I sure would appreciate it.

ProgPress 1.1: Now with NaNoWriMo support

ProgPress 1.1 is now available. Now integrates with the NaNoWriMo Word Count API!

ProgPress 1.1 is available now.  There are a number of internal changes, with the goal of making it easier to create “add-on” plugins for ProgPress.  The biggest new feature is the first one of the add-on plugins allowing you to use ProgPress to integrate into the NaNoWriMo Word Count API.

ProgPress -- NaNoWriMo Support in the Plugin AdminTo enable this feature you have to first activate the ProgPress — NaNoWriMo Support plugin (automatically installed with ProgPress 1.1).  Once that’s done, you can use the nanowrimo attribute on the [[progpress]] shortcode to pass in your NaNoWriMo user id.  This overrides the goal, current, and previous attributes.

Example shortcode:

[[progpress nanowrimo="136732" title="NaNoWriMo 2010" label="words"]]

Example output:

[progpress nanowrimo=”136732″ title=”NaNoWriMo 2010″ label=”words”]

Helpful Hackery

Using my hacker knowledge for the good of others. Plugin Progress, cmdln’s Chapters, and Patching Portfiles.

Plugin Progress

I recently updated ProgPress, my progress meter plugin for WordPress, based on some outstanding requests for functionality and better documentation.  It now has (hopefully) useful documentation, new options, and works as a shortcode.  If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog, and you want to track progress towards a goal, you should check it out.

cmdln’s Chapters

My friend Thomas “cmdln” Gideon mentioned that chapter marks in the AAC version of his amazing podcast were going away, a casualty of his switch from Mac OS X to Linux.  I’ve spent a lot of time messing with this very thing, and I was glad to share this useless information specialized knowledge, and give Thomas a pointer to the mp4v2 project, which has a utility for just that purpose.  After an email explaining how the tool worked Thomas announced that chapter marks would be staying, and he was able to automate the process.

Patching Portfiles

I was happy to see that epubcheck added to MacPorts.  I was less happy when the wrapper script it installed didn’t work for me.  Luckily it was easy to fix, so I submitted a patch.  My automated MacPorts update installed it this morning.

“Now Reading” plugin and WordPress 2.8

A fix for the issues the “Now Reading” plugin was causing with my WordPress 2.8 upgrade.

Overall my WordPress 2.8 upgrade went fairly well, at least as far as any site visitors would see. The admin was a different story. ((If you’ve ever used the Google Gears/Turbo Mode stuff in the WordPress Admin, I advise you to do the upgrade in a different browser because it seems to be responsible for a lot of problems folks are having with the automated upgrade)) After some poking around ((and upgrading one of my own plugins)) I was surprised to find out it was Rob Miller‘s fabulous Now Reading WordPress plugin ((It powers the library pages here on the site.)) preventing me from editing posts.

I’m not sure exactly what changed in WordPress to trigger the issue, but after some poking I tracked down the problem, and I think I found a solution other than removing the plugin.

In the file wp-content/plugins/now-reading/url.php, look for the following:

function is_now_reading_page() {
global $wp;
$wp->parse_request();

I commented out the call to $wp->parse_request(); and it fixed the problems I was having with the site admin, and so far it seems Now Reading is unaffected by this change.

Use Google Libraries 1.0.6

Important upgrade to “Use Google Libraries” for WordPress 2.8

Required Upgrade for Users of WordPress 2.8

I’ve updated my Use Google Libraries plugin to support WordPress 2.8.

  • Disables script concatenation in WordPress 2.8, since it seems to have issues when some of the dependencies are outside of the concatenation.
  • Persists flag to load scripts in the footer in WordPress 2.8

If you’re using WordPress 2.8, you’ll want to upgrade ASAP.  Download it from the Plugin Directory (or use the auto-update feature). If you find it useful, feel free to leave a tip.

Use Google Libraries 1.0.5

I’ve updated he “Use Google Libraries” WordPress plugin for better performance and compatibility.

Updated WordPress Plugin

I’ve updated my Use Google Libraries plugin. This version implements a pair of suggestions from Peter Wilson.

  • Use Google Libraries should detect when a page is loaded over https and load the libraries over https accordingly
  • Use Google Libraries no longer drops the micro version number from the URL. The reasons for this are twofold:
    • It ensures the version requested is the version received.
    • Google’s servers set the expires header for 12 months for these urls, as opposed to 1 hour. This allows clients to cache the file for up to a year without needing to retrieve it again from Google’s servers. If the version requested by your WordPress install changes, so will the URL so there’s no worry that you’ll keep loading an old version.

What are you waiting for? Download it from the Plugin Directory (or use the auto-update feature in WordPress 2.7+). If you find it useful, feel free to leave a tip.

Links of Interest (February 5th 2009 through February 24th 2009)

Plugin Authors, Are you making the best of Readme.txt?
A comprehensive guide to where the WordPress Plugin Directory pulls the data it displays. A must read for plugin developers. Especially important with the recent changes to the directory's search capabilities.

Cross-Browser Inline-Block
If you've ever tried to create a flexible gallery style layout of elements of varying heights, then this is for you.

HTML5 Canvas Cheat Sheet
A compact reference for HTML5 canvas element.

Dalek War Boxset
This Doctor Who Restoration Team article detais the process of restoring color to "Planet of the Daleks" episode 3. It was theorized some years ago that interference on the surviving 16mm B&W telerecording (made by essentially pointing a film camera at a TV) might contain some valid PAL color subcarrier information. Unable to get funding to investigate the idea (which sounds a bit more far fetched than Dalek's to me), the informal Colour Recovery Working Group was started up online. The group succeeded in recovering color information from the telerecording. Meanwhile the Restoration Team commissioned Legend Films to colorize the episode (a process that's come a long way since Turner, but can still look a bit flat in the end). The finished version blends these two sources together, then processes them via VidFIRE (the process of restoring the original 50 field per second interlaced image from a telecline, another process developed during restoration of Doctor Who episodes).

Bacon Stupidity
For the month of February, Michael J. Nelson (MST3k, Rifftrax) has pledged to eat nothing but bacon. Yup, bacon. All month. Just bacon.

New WordPress Plugin: Use Google Libraries 1.0

Speed Up WordPress Using Google’s AJAX Libraries API

I’m happy to announce my new WordPress Plugin Use Google Libraries. This plugin loads a number of standard Javascript libraries used by WordPress from Google’s AJAX Libraries API CDN. What’s that?

The AJAX Libraries API is a content distribution network and loading architecture for the most popular, open source JavaScript libraries. […] Google works directly with the key stake holders for each library effort and accepts the latest stable versions as they are released. Once we host a release of a given library, we are committed to hosting that release indefinitely. […] We take the pain out of hosting the libraries, correctly setting cache headers, staying up to date with the most recent bug fixes, etc.

Or, in plain English, it should make your site load faster. It could also make other people’s sites load faster too, if they’re also using this plugin.

Supported Libraries

Any WordPress themes or plugins that load any of these libraries via enqueue_script() should automatically take advantage of Use Google Libraries.

Why not give it a try?

There’s nothing earth shattering here, but my goal was do one thing and do it well. You can read the documentation and download the plugin from the Use Google Libraries page in the WordPress Plugin Directory.