Technology Tales

Take a great leap forward, then consolidate…

While I have been a user of WordPress since late 2006, I only began to start keeping tabs on its development following my hearing news of dramatic changes coming in what became 2.5. Since a pattern developing with bigger changes coming in 2.5 and 2.7 while both 2.6 and 2.8 didn’t add too much in the way of upheaval but rather evolved what was already there. With 2.8, theme and widget management got the once over while there were plenty of other tweaks that polished a well received forbear. The differences between 2.7 and 2.8 are discernible without breaking anything that shouldn’t be broken. In short, I rather like the result.

The reaction to 2.5 was mixed, to say the least, and that in part led to the dramatic changes in 2.7, especially with regard to the administration interface. I admit to having had doubts about these when I first saw them development and there was so much chopping and changing during development that stepping back until things settled down became a necessity. Even adding a ticket to the TRAC was problematical unless you had sight of what was happening behind the scenes because it became too easy to add an invalid ticket.

With the release of 2.8 into the wild, 2.9 is now on the horizon and I am inclined to suspect that we might see bigger changes again. For one thing, there was that interface poll a little while ago and who knows what impact that may have on what comes next. The structure of the administration screens may not alter that much but that still leaves changes to colours and icons with the aim of separating navigation from what else is on there, something that doesn’t trouble me at all. In fact, I don’t see very much wrong with how how things are right now and wonder if there’s any point in making too many changes at all. The forecasted incorporation of WPMU functionality is a bigger change that would mean the end of WordPress MU as a separate entity and would concern me more with the amount of under the bonnet re-engineering that would be needed. Add Google Summer of Code projects to this mix and 2.9 looks as if it could be a step change in the spirit of 2.5 and 2.7, if not in feel. Summer 2009 could be very interesting for WordPress and I only hope that it continues to work for me in the way that it does as we move from version to version.

Where’s WordPress 2.8?

It now seems that WordPress 2.7 has been an unqualified success. The major changes that were made to the administration screens have been well received and the grumblings that were extant about 2.5 and 2.6 seem to have dissipated too. Another observation is that security bugs have not being making their presence felt. All in all, it feels very much like assured progress and may explain why 2.8 has been taking its time in coming.

It’s now pencilled in for the end of this month and looks as if it will be a polishing of what already works well. It seems to me that most of the changes are behind the scenes but there is a new widgets interface that should be ever more user friendly together with an automated theme installation and upgrade facility that is based on what is already in place for plugins (speaking of which, that interface has been tidied too). Another rough edge that has been removed is the whole business of time zones and daylight saving time. In summary, it seems to be a sharpening of a package that already works well anyway. I have been running it on another site without a whimper of drama so that’s probably saying something. Saying that, quite how they are going to get anyone to upgrade is another matter. For one thing, Lorelle VanFossen’s overuse of the word “mandatory” cannot be likely to do it…

In a way, the subject of upgrade fatigue brings me to a recent poll run by Automattic’s Jane Wells. Quite a number want to stick with what works while others fancy a change. This split could be tricky to manage and might even encourage some not to upgrade at all and stick with what works for them. After all, there were two episodes of major upheaval last year and I cannot see everyone wanting to see that happen again. Continual evolutionary freshening would suit me better. Thankfully, any talk of changing the administration screens has been left for 2.9 now and there’s always the option of sticking with 2.8 if what is produced becomes a sufficient irritation. Well, it saves a leap to Habari or another alternative anyway…

A new feature request for Textpattern?

Having been doing some updates to articles in A Wanderer’s Miscellany, an idea that makes life easier when working in Textpattern with old articles has come to mind. Currently, there is no way to navigate through pages in the administration area other than using the search or previous/next functionality. I have gotten to thinking that being able to subset articles by section or category using drop down menus would be a good way forward. A search for a suitable plugin was set in train but it yielded nothing of immediate use (amazingly, no one has given it a go thus far), hence the thinking regarding a new feature request. There is a place on the Txp support forum for exactly this kind of thing and I am in the throes of plucking up the courage to go for it. Apparently, some code cutting of my own would grease the wheels for the progression of any such thing but I remain unsure as to how far I want to go down that route so a bare request might be what they get. Moving to an alternative platform might be an alternative proposition but I see little reason in doing so when what I have otherwise works well for what I want it to do. That Textpattern feature request might just come into being…

Suffering from neglect?

There have been several recorded instances of Google acquiring something and then not developing it to its full potential. FeedBurner is yet another acquisition where this sort of thing has been suspected. Changeovers by monolithic edict and lack of responsiveness from support fora are the sorts of things that breed resentment in some that share opinions on the web. Within the last month, I found that my FeedBurner feeds were not being updated as they should have been and it would not accept a new blog feed when I tried adding it. The result of both these was that I got to deactivating the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin to take FeedBurner out of the way for my feed subscribers; those regulars on my hillwalking blog were greeted by a splurge of activity following something of a hiatus. There are alternatives such as RapidFeed and Pheedo but I will stay away from the likes of these for a little while and take advantage of the newly added FeedStats plugin to keep tabs on how many come to see the feeds. The downside to this is that IE6 users will see the pure XML rather than a version with a more friendly formatting.

A radical new look on the way for WordPress’ administration area

One thing that you can never say about Automattic is that it stands still for very long. That may generate adverse commentary from some but it’s bad to leave things stagnate too. In fact, resting on laurels also generates flak so you can’t please everyone all the time.

Earlier on this year, the WordPress administration screens went through something of an overall for version 2.5. In hindsight, it wasn’t terribly dramatic, but the prospect had me checking out what was happening with the development version and contributing to the project in my own small way. Now, it seems that a bigger upheaval is in prospect with wireframes and what not being brought into play on the design side.

The first change that anyone will notice is that the navigation has moved from the top to the side and that some things have been moved around and renamed. Another thing that you’ll see soon enough is that there is a QuickPress section added to the dashboard screen for those really quick and short postings. Sticking with the subject of content creation, alterations to post and page editing screens and the link creation screen are obvious too. What really comes to mind here is the level of customisation on offer so you can make yourself feel right at home: some of the screen furniture can be moved about and you can remove what you feel is nothing but useless clutter. Content generates comments, so the addition of keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation should be a boon for those with very active readers.

Some functionality currently added by plugins is getting incorporated in the main application. An example is automatic upgrades of WordPress itself. In the development version, it installs the latest nightly build but I am certain that it can be made to point to the latest stable release. That makes it more convenient for keeping a backseat eye on things rather than getting stuck into the hurly-burly of checking on what’s in Subversion.

There are some pieces that remain incompletely functional at present, such as the Inbox and Media added to this post pieces, but I have seen nothing that used to work to be broken. So, while the development version of WordPress is more of a work in progress than I have seen for a while, it will do what you need it to do. You always need to be cautious and I’d advise you to keep away until it’s ready for the big time until you have the knowledge to put things back should the undesirable befall your blog. I had an automatic WordPress update kick in maintenance mode without turning it off again. Nothing happened to the database, so a manual re-installation was all that was required to restore order. Otherwise, the development installation remains relatively stable though there are display problems in IE6 that do not afflict either Firefox, Opera or even IE8 Beta2.

All in all, these changes will make the next major WordPress a very big one and I have little doubt that the new administration interface will make for many comments. I must admit that I wasn’t too taken with it when I first glimpsed it in the crazyhorse branch but it now seems to be growing on me. The biggest change on the aesthetic front is that there’s a lot less whitespace about which may or may not float your boat. In any event, you can always change the colours like I have to make things more amenable. Even so, I reckon that WordPress 2.7 will be a major step forward when it comes and I think that I could like it. Saying that, I reckon that the release date is a good while away yet and the fact that 2.6.2 is being readied for release is telling in itself. Leaving plenty of time to remove any roughness is never a bad thing and especially so when you see the changes that are being made. In the meantime, I am certain that most people can wait.

WordPress plugin for removing post revisions from database

WordPress 2.6 added post revisions as a new feature that is turned on by default. In an earlier post, I described how you could control this by editing wp-config.php and there are a number of plugins that purport to provide the same level of control through the administration screens. Even so, I decided to look at things from the housekeeping side of things and create my own plugin for clearing the database of revisions at one swoop. Currently, it takes out all revisions but I am thinking of adding the facility for selecting which revision to keep and which to delete. It goes without saying that you should back up your database first in case anything might go wrong.

Download Remove Revisions 1.0

Controlling the post revision feature in WordPress 2.6

This may seem esoteric for some but I like to be in control of the technology that I use. So, when Automattic included post revision retention to WordPress 2.6, I had my reservations about how much it would clutter my database with things that I didn’t need. Thankfully, there is a way to control the feature, but you won’t find the option in the administration screens (they seem to view this as an advanced setting and so don’t want to be adding clutter to the interface for the sake of something that only a few might ever use); you have to edit wp-config.php yourself to add it. Here are the lines that can be added and the effects that they have:

Code: define('WP_POST_REVISIONS','0');

Effect: turns off post revision retention

Code: define('WP_POST_REVISIONS','-1');

Effect: turns it on (the default setting)

Code: define('WP_POST_REVISIONS','2');

Effect: only retains two previous versions of a post (the number can be whatever you want so long as it’s an integer with a value more than zero).

Update (2008-07-23):

There is now a plugin from Dion Hulse that does the above for you and more.

Technical considerations regarding the discussion aspect of blogging

When making a start in the world of blogging, there are so many things to consider that you almost need a trial run first to learn the lingo. In fact, getting up to speed by using a service like that offered by Blogger or WordPress.com seems a very sensible starting point. Even so, the business is like building a house in that you only really know what you are doing after you have done the deed and made all the mistakes. That is particularly true when you go down the self-administered blog route. For starters, it’s so easy to pick the wrong domain name or hosting provider. Selecting your blogging software is the next step, but that may not be so tricky; WordPress does a reasonable job and there’s always Movable Type, Expression Engine, Drupal (yes, really) or Habari.

That mention of blogging software brings me to something that I encountered recently: commenting functionality. I am coming around to the idea that this is probably something that needs to be considered up front because of the nature of blogging. After all, anyone who reads The Blog Herald regularly should be familiar with the idea of blogging conversations and that means that the technology to make it happen should be easy for visitors to use and easy for bloggers to administer. However, the two can collide. For one thing, there are a myriad of choices available to the blogger and the blight of comment spam is ever pervasive and growing.

When it comes to comment spam, it is best to realise that there are two sources of responses to a blog post: visitor comments or trackbacks (pingbacks?) from other blogs. I reckon that the latter is probably the channel where most of the detritus travels and various anti-spam solutions are on offer to curb its spread. Names from the WordPress world like Akismet, Spam Karma, Simple Trackback Validation and Bad Behaviour come to mind. The former can also be used, particularly when the unscrupulous make use of low-cost labour in low-cost countries, and that’s when the thorny questions of user registration and CAPTCHA‘s arise. There is something to be said for not going to extremes with these and just sticking with less onerous rules and filtering on the server side.

I must admit to having staggering into forcing visitors to register prior to adding a comment and then making them log in thereafter. I think that it’s for security reasons, but WordPress creates a password and then sends it to the person who is registering rather than displaying on a web page. That can create another problem: what happens if the email fails to arrive? In the last week, this has happened with a visitor to my hillwalking blog and there could be a number of reasons for the non-arrival of the relevant email. One is ironic: being an automated email, it gets stuck in the spam filters of the recipient’s mailbox and so never gets to them. It could also be a bug with WordPress itself (I have raised a ticket and I am awaiting what Automattic might have to say to it) or a consequence of some setting made by a hosting provider. All of that makes it hard to track down the cause of the issue but it kicks off other thoughts as to its resolution. One is to remove the needed for registration and logging in the first place, but there are third-party services that may help too. The former has turned out to be the case for this blog and it seems to be performing well enough so it is an acceptable option.

When it comes to using third-party comment handling systems, what needs to be considered is how well they work with your blog. For instance, I gave Disqus a quick whirl and soon realised that I needed to update the themes for my WordPress blogs if I were to use it on an ongoing basis. Otherwise, it worked fine but I was left wondering if it would have been better to have brought it in when I started a blog rather than part way through and with comments made using the existing WordPress functionality. There’s also Intense Debate and I am almost certain that there are more like it but I’ll be sticking with what WordPress offers for now. The theme for my hillwalking blog has been modified to allow prospective commenters to get in touch with me if they are having problems. That is only an interim approach while I consider what the way forward will be.

New version of my Countrytones plugin

Now that WordPress 2.6 is out, it is time to introduce a new version of Countrytones to the public. A few CSS tweaks have been needed to the original version after the changes that have been made to the administration interface for 2.6. Those screens still look largely the same with this release as they did before but for the styling of things like the bubble that alerts you to the availability of plugin upgrades, among other things.

Download Countrytones 1.0.1

WordPress 2.6 out in the wild

There was a time when I tested out a new WordPress release when it made its appearance but I now now keep tabs on development versions too. It helps me to be ready in ample time and avoid any ugly stuff appearing on either here or my hillwalking blog. On the surface, the changes made don’t seem so dramatic after the revamp of the administration interface that came with 2.5. Under the bonnet, a lot of bugs have been fixed and many behind the scenes features have been included for the first time. I’ll leave it for you to go to Planet WordPress or check out the relevant entry on the WordPress Development blog. You’ll find a Flash video tour of the latest version from Automattic below.

Of course, WordPress development doesn’t stop here and there are some considerable changes to the administration interface to come at some point if they ever make out into the mainstream from the crazyhorse branch. I’ll be continuing to keep an eye on how things go from here so as to be ready for whatever might be in the offing. For now, enjoy 2.6 but it’ll interesting to see where it all goes from here.