Author Archives: Stephen

Virtual Multiblog — how to use unique headers on blogs running the same theme

One of the most common questions I get regarding the Virtual Multiblog system for WordPress comes from people wanting to have multiple blogs running on the same theme, but with a different header for each blog. It can be done, and it’s fairly easy to do. Once you have it set up, you [...]

WordPress Constants

In the course of working on WordPress, and plugins and such for WordPress, I frequently find myself at a loss to remember the name of constants provided by the system. Hey, isn’t there a constant for such-and-such directory?
I did a bit of grepping and parsing just now, and in the hopes that it might [...]

Use Custom Actions in Your WordPress Plugins

If you’ve been using WordPress for any amount of time, you’ve probably come across a plugin that asks you to add something to your template. The instructions will say something like:
Insert the following into your theme files where you want the plugin’s widget to appear:
<?php my_plugin_widget() ?>

The slightly more intelligent instructions will understand that [...]

Quiz plugin v 1.1

There’s a new version of the Quiz plugin (a.k.a. “Comment Quiz”). The plugin requires commenters to answer a question before the comment is posted.
Significant improvements in 1.1, including a native meta box in the edit post/page screen, and the ability to have more than one acceptable answers to a question.
Check it out.

Log Deprecated Calls plugin 0.4

New version 0.4 of the Log Deprecated Calls plugin.
Now it has an option to toggle logging to the PHP Log, or a table in the database, or both. If logging to the database you can view the records on the admin page (under Plugins->Deprecated Calls. It also has a test function, and if [...]

More than a mere WordPress plugin — Automatic Timezone

Otto has released his Automatic Timezone Plugin as part of the current WordPress plugin competition. In addition to being a handy plugin, it comes with a significant bonus for plugin authors.
In addition to its basic function, the code is designed to serve as a tutorial of sorts, showing authors how to use some very [...]

New WordPress Plugin: Log Deprecated Calls

New plugin for Y’all. This one is of particular interest to plugin authors and theme designers (and… nobody else).
Activate it, and any time WordPress calls a function or file that has been deprecated, a message will be sent to your PHP log file that identifies exactly where the call came from and what to [...]

Use Classes in your WordPress plugins to increase code portability and reduce name conflicts

One of the most powerful features of WordPress is the huge community of developers making plugins that extend the software far beyond what the core application provides. It also allows people to add just what they want to use, rather than having a single bloated homogeneous download. There are drawbacks as well, of [...]