sjdalf Blog

I have just come across this neat Wordpress plugin called Structured Blogging, which I think is so cool that I needed to post about it.

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Today I was working on my band’s website, which is based on Wordpress. The site contains two different sidebars, 1 and 2. I encountered a problem when after I added the Search sidebar widget to sidebar 1, it was ‘used up’ and I could not add it to sidebar 2 also. After some brief searching and thinking, I realised what I could do.

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I was recently asked to set up a basic forum system for a client. They were using Simple Machines Forums, but it wasn’t working smoothly. Rather than trying to address the issue, I opted to try out the bbPress forum software based on Wordpress. The two main reasons were: (1) its simplicity (2) the fact that it is based on Wordpress, which my client’s are already familiar with. So I installed it and liked the simplicity and elegance of the system. However, one problem with bbPress relative to my client’s needs, was that there is no way to upload images and insert them into posts.

Now, knowing that Wordpress has a nice little WYSIWYG editor with an associated image uploading and insertion feature, my first thought was to try and hack bbPress by migrating in the Wordpress editor. I spent a small amount of time trying to achieve this with little apparent success. Instead of continuing down this path, I started to think about the possibility of making a few modifications to Wordpress to get it to act more like a forum. Fortunately, a quick Google search later and I found that someone had already created a theme and plugin combination for Wordpress which does this very thing.

The theme (TDO Forum Wordpress Theme) can be found at http://thedeadone.net/software/tdo-forum-wordpress-theme/ and the plugin (TDO Mini Forms Wordpress Plugin) can be found at http://thedeadone.net/software/tdo-mini-forms-wordpress-plugin/.

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One of Wordpress’ greatest features, which has undoubtedly contributed to its great success, is the plugin system. Plugin developers use the action and filter hooks offered by the plugin API to tap into the Wordpress system, without the need to hack the core code.

Whilst the list of action and filter hooks offered is substantial and affords much modification freedom, there are going to be times when there is no action or filter to do the job. I was recently asked to develop a plugin that added a few small things to the Wordpress administration backend. A quick browse of the plugin API led me to conclude that there was no plugin hook available which would directly enable me to modify the area in question. So I was about to edit the relevant core Wordpress files when I realised that I could end up indirectly using a plugin hook after all.

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