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Category Archives: Website Administration
The Gigcast: Webcomic news and running WordPress double whammy
Hey everyone, in another one of my posts outlining information on the webcomics scene, as well as sites using WordPress, I wanted to point you all to The Gigcast. They do a webcomic news podcast and also provide brief news snippets on their main page. The double whammy here is they are using WordPress also, and the podpress plugin, which makes it easy to do everything quickly. Yet another example of how WordPress is one of the best and easiest systems out there and allows a site admin to extend functionality in ways that would otherwise be difficult or coding intensive.
AWSOM Pixgallery 4.4.4 rc1 now available
Hi everyone, the release candidate for AWSOM Pixgallery 4.4.4 is now available from the AWSOM Pixgallery product page. This new version has the final features of the 4.4.4 release, which now includes the 1st version of the Automatic Watermarking system for Pixgallery. With this new watermarking system you no longer have to go to the trouble of photoshopping your images with your url or custom overlay image, Pixgallery will do it for you. For this first version it’s limited to the bottom right corner of your images, but you can choose the overlay color of the text (which will display your blog url) or you can provide a file called “watermark.png” in the awsompixgallery/images folder which will then be placed over your image (an example file is already there for you to view).
You can view all of the new features and bug fixes on the Beta information page. Please note that I believe this version of the plugin will be the “final” release, but since the new features have begun to grow in complexity, and with the wide range of webserver setups in existence, I’m hoping that people can give me feedback if they encounter any issues with this version before I certify it as official.
Also note that you need to delete your current cache files before the watermarking function will operate. This is also true if you want to switch watermark types. So go to your webserver and find the folder you set as your cache folder (in the Pixgallery settings page) and delete all of the files in that folder (if you are using the default one that Pixgallery creates it is located at wp-content/uploads/cache within your WordPress folder) Also make sure you go to your admin–>options–>pixgallery page and set the new setting to the way you want them otherwise your current galleries may not appear correctly until you do so.
Webcomics Using WordPress: PvPonline
In yet another example of high profile webcomics switching to WordPress, Scott Kurtz of PvPonline.com has just recently converted his site to use the Comicpress theme and WordPress. This is exactly the type of trend I’ve been hoping for since I started developing this site and the AWSOM series of plugins. The simplicity and speed that you can update and maintain your site while having the power to extend it in almost infinite ways is unparalleled. Now I have to see if I can get him to use some of my plugins :)
Sharing Revisited
I’ve chimed in on my take on the whole Social Networking linking issue here previously but I wanted to update things a bit. My major issue with the whole thing of asking visitors to submit links to your stuff was mostly based around the initial situation where 5 gazillion buttons were being added to people’s sites and cluttered up the look of things. It was pretty nasty and in many cases looked like there were more buttons appearing than actual text in the post entries they were attached to. This really turned me off. (in much the same way as a site that is literally crammed with Google ads and other flashing/floating ads)
However, with the usage of the Share This plugin, I’m no longer quite as upset by the whole thing–since the buttons are hidden unless a user wishes to actually access them. I’ve added in the classic version of the plugin to this site and will test out how it goes. I’d love to hear people’s comments on what they think about this whole trend toward adding social linking buttons to blogs–do you think it’s a natural addition and helps the site or do you think it’s an unnecessary and bad idea and makes things look cheap?
New Dojo Javascript toolkit for free
If you are anything like me you absolutely hate Javascript coding. It’s got to be the most annoying crap language ever designed, or at least in the top 5. So, it’s a good thing when other people have taken the bullet and created a toolkit that allows you to simply reference a command to cause a complex thing to happen. The Dojo toolkit may end up being a great free resource to anyone who wants to add complex Ajax/Javascript stuff to their site but can’t stand the annoyance of coding it up (or more likely, don’t know how to code it).