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Category Archives: Wordpress Plugins
WordPress 2.3 Upcoming Issues
The release of WordPress 2.3 is coming soon (at this time it’s scheduled for late September 2007), and you can expect trouble. While the transition of WordPress 2.0 to 2.1 had issues, and many thought the change from 2.1 to 2.2 was traumatic–that will be nothing compared to the change to 2.3. It turns out that the developers have decided to make some drastic changes to the structure of the database of WordPress, so many older plugins (like ones developed even this week) will probably fail. If a plugin has anything to do with categories it will almost certainly fail, since this area seems to have been hit the hardest with the change.
In their blog the developers have essentially said “if we’re going to make a change, we decided we might as well go for broke”. I don’t doubt that there are good reasons fro the changes, but they have essentially said that they expect things to break and have an “oh well, what to do?” attitude about it. Since most USERS of WordPress don’t follow along on developers discussions, there’s a good shot most of you guys will get caught totally unaware if you upgrade–and half your site stops working. So be careful and test your site offline first if you plan to upgrade to 2.3 when it’s released.
My plugins are mostly unaffected by the changes that are occurring, but I will be releasing an update to the AWSOM Drop Down Archive plugin soon to bring it more into compatibility with some other changes that have occurred.
Memory Outage Errors in WordPress
Many people on the WordPress.org forums have experienced an issue where they see errors on their site that say something like “memory exhausted” when they try to use a video or image plugin on their site (however, it can occur for other reasons also). In most cases this is not a coding issue with the actual plugin they are trying to use, it is an issue with their server.
Typically this error shows up on sites that are hosted as part of a shared server. In PHP there is a setting that allows the server admin to set exactly how much memory PHP can utilize for any one process. This is designed to make it difficult for one site on a shared server to overwhelm the entire server’s resources, and therefore make all of the other sites inaccessible. When it comes to image or video processing though, memory is very necessary to allow resizing or other effects to properly allow the presentation of the file. In cases where this memory issue continually occurs you will need to contact your server admin and request that they boost your memory limit enough to prevent the error from occurring. It may also be time to think about moving to your own server (especially if you are getting very popular).
If you get these memory errors using AWSOM Pixgallery, you do have some other options. In some cases reducing the number of images per gallery page may help out the situation–Do this by making the Rows and Columns setting for Thumbnails (in the Pixgallery options area) smaller so as to extend your Gallery onto multiple pages when showing your gallery. Another option is to reduce in file size the size of the images you are using in your gallery. You may not have noticed that your images were large in filesize, and lowering their size (not necessarily resolution, but re-encoding maybe at a lower .jpg quality setting) may help reduce your overall PHP memory usage (and lower your bandwidth transmission also). In many cases the memory error will only occur the first time a gallery is viewed (the first viewing of a gallery initiates the auto-thumbnail creation). If all else fails, you can contact me and I might be able to give you a few more advanced tips specific to your situation.
In any case, now you know why this mysterious error occurs and how you can work to resolve it.
Upcoming Development
I’m currently knee deep in work on my plugins. The AWSOM Drop Down Archive will be getting new options for archive types, as well as CSS theme options. AWSOM Pixgallery will be getting a new absolute linking system option (to allow easier access to your images through RSS feeds and to help with complicated WordPress installs), a new custom image system for folders, an automatic gallery/image caption cataloging system, and other interface upgrades.
Most of the new features are from feedback from users of the plugins, so if you are using one of the plugins and want to see something new added please contact me. You can also get added to the “People Using AWSOM ideas” box too!
I’m also investigating some new ideas for plugins, but it’s too early to talk about them. But, I’ve found that the best plugins are for things that people routinely need to do or want to see in their site, but just doesn’t exist currently, or is clunky to get done. If you have anything like that that you feel might be a good idea for a plugin, especially if it is art or webcomic related, please contact me and it might just turn into the next AWSOM plugin (and you will get credited in my plugin notes).
How To: Add an Audio Player To Your WordPress Site
I recently received a request from a user of my AWSOM News Announcement plugin for WordPress to add the ability to have an audio player be a part of the News Announcement area. This turned out to be the spark of designing a new version of my plugin that supported using php code in the news box. Of course I needed to do some research on how to get an audio player to run, so I went looking for one to use. I found the XSPF Player for WordPress, and it is absolutely excellent. It is easy to use and allows you to play one or many different mp3 files from your site, all defined in your admin interface. It has a few different player types that you can use, and has some basic CSS formatting you can set. XSPF + AWSOM News means you can always have your most recent podcast waiting for your visitors at the top of your site.
AWSOM News Announcement 1.3.0 released
The new version of the AWSOM News Announcement plugin 1.3.0 is now available for download. The new version features the ability to run php code in the news block, so you can have any plugin that uses php code (like most audio or video players) run within the news block. You can download the new version from it’s product page.