coderchris.com

I noticed today that my blog wasn't included in Google blog search, so I set out to find out why.

The reason was google didn't know about it, so I added it to my list of update notification services as this blogcarta post explains how to do: http://www.blogcarta.com/2006/10/17/how-to-ping-google-blog-search/

Oddly enough, though I know what pinging is, how it works, etc. I'd not really thought about/researched wordpress pinging to any great extent, and found out that I was missing a lot!

Firstly, I have a feed burner account (http://www.feedburner.com) and can automate a massive amount of the pinging from there so I turned all that on (see the PingShot option under the Publicize tab).

Secondly this got me thinking about what may be missed as feedburner wasn't pinging them, so I turned to the codex list of ping service (which oddly enough I had been to a number of times before but never used): http://codex.wordpress.org/Update_Services and I added all of these to my list too.

Next I saw the Smart Update Pinger on the codex and downloaded and installed that - It basically improves the pinging wordpress does by default by only pinging services when a new post is published and logging the responses.

And then I started looking at all the other posts that existed about pinging services and who should be pinged when and how. And as I'm tired my head started swimming.

So ultimately, what's needed here? Yes, you've guessed it, another improved plugin.

I shall be writing my own plugin to improve the pinging functionality in wordpress. It will be based on previous work, namely Smart Update Pinger but improve the existing functionality of that by including the following features:

1. Central list of sites to ping automatically updated via webservice, so you're always on top of the game (would be so nice if this wasn't necessary, but hey ho!)
2. Re-ping feature to notify ping services that are temporarily down about your post once they're back up
3. Centralized logging to determine when a service goes off-line for extended periods of time or for good

All of the options will be turned on/off-able for users concerned about privacy.

If the guys who write Smart Update Pinger want to add this functionality in themselves, then fine, please go ahead but please let me know first. otherwise I'll be coding this up in a few days time.

If you want to be informed when the first release of my pinging plugin is made then either subscribe to my feed or leave me a comment

Popularity: 35% [?]

When I write plugins for wordpress I like to do it on a test blog in a live environment.

Maybe not the best idea, but it's how I like to do it, and it also flags up any weird and wonderful restrictions to the development of the plugin as a result of my hosting company's security policy.

For a while now I've worked with just the plain old plugin editor that comes with wordpress, but this is cumbersome to say the least and as such I went looking for a syntax highlighting editor which I could (if necessary) convert into a plugin to (ironically enough) improve the plugin editor.

Turns out that there's quite a few good syntax highlighting online code editors available (list at the end of this post) and at least one neat one (CodePress)  has been converted to a wordpress plugin for theme editing and plugin editing.

This is a really great start, but there's a couple of things I'd really like to see to progress this work - If I have the time I'll do it myself, otherwise someone else reading this post may like to take it up!

Basically the current Codepress for wordpress plugin is missing (in my opinion) a few additional functions to create backups of the plugin or theme files you're working on, to an extent a rudimentary versioning system could and should be implemented within the editor.

There should be an option to package up the plugin you're editing and release it to the community/tie updates into the automatic plugin updater of 2.5

The current CodePress release is great but what would make it even greater would be code hinting when editing.

I don't know enough JavaScript to say whether or not this is possible but it would be cool for the editor to notice that you've just typed or started to type a PHP (or other language) function name, and provide you with a syntax hint for the function.

This would work (in my mind) by noticing the opening of ( and then checking what preceded it back to the last space or operator (*, ., /, etc.), then looking up this string from a function definition array and displaying a tooltip near where you are editing in the text area to remind you of the syntax - possibly with an autocomplete if you press enter.

I think the main problem with this is knowing where you are in the text area to display the div with the tool tip text in it in the right place. I know you can monitor where you are in a text area in terms of columns and rows, so surely if you know the location of the start of the text area and the size of the character in the text area and the co-ordinates of the cursor in the text area via row/column values you should be able to determine the optimal position for the <div>?

I think it would be really great to see that kind of functionality in any of the online code editors listed below on it's own let alone any other stuff such as versioning that I've already mentioned.

So there it is!

I probably will end up doing some work on the codepress plugin myself from a versioning point of view, but if any one else out there can figure out a way of doing the code hinting in JS that'd be fantastic!

Existing On line Code Editors:

• CodePress
• CodeMirror
• EditArea
• MarkItUp
• Helene

Autosuggest example (could be used to provide the tool tip if the positioning is worked out): http://gadgetopia.com/post/3773

Wordpress plugins:

• Codepress plugin for Wordpress: http://rulesplayer.890m.com/blog/?page_id=4
• Flash based code editor with wordpress plugin (dated solution IMO): http://www.flashtexteditor.com/ftf/

Popularity: 31% [?]

According to the paper today some experiments were done at Chicago university to see how people describe things without words.

This was more in the sense of gesticulating/sign language, so speakers of different languages trying to convey stuff to each other, or if you can't speak even in your native language, how do you get your point across.

Results were that all languages do it in a similar way i.e. description of the subject then object then verb - I suppose an example could be Fire -> wood -> light

If this is the case then it's more of an underlying human behaviour as opposed to a language or culture specific trait.

I don't know if a similar argument may also apply to conveying information on a web page, but it's an interesting thought to bare in mind, since it's still interactive non-verbal communication (in contrast to a magazine or a book for example)

Popularity: 7% [?]

Not everyone has, or wants to have a device that they can read rss feeds on.

A lot of people don't even know what rss feeds are.

A lot of people buy newspapers or magazines every day that only contain 20% of content they're actually interested in.

So, why not setup a service where people can choose feed based news sources in a very non-technical way, and then print them out in a newspaper or newsletter format (they choose a template for it) that they can read while commuting to work or similar.

Handheld feed readers may replace the newspaper in future for some, but if you're like me you'll know that it's still nicer to read articles away from any type of screen and as such a service like this may have some merit.

I don't know the ins and outs of modern printing, costs involved etc, but you could imagine a situation where local printers deliver a personalised daily paper to your door everyday as opposed to the current junk that comes through the letterbox!

Popularity: 7% [?]

I love the idea of springwidgets.com (http://www.springwidgets.com) but everything I'm seeing there takes sooo damn long to load.

If only someone would make a faster loading version - quickwidgets.com or something, then bloggers and site owners everywhere could add some really useful and powerful features to their sites easily and with little penalty on the loading front!

Oh well, another idea for the pot!

Popularity: 6% [?]