Clearskys.net Blog

REST api interface plugin - PHP4 or PHP5?

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This is just a short post to ask for some advice and/or opinions.

I am working on the generic XML and JSON generating functions as part of the REST interface plugin that is currently in development.

I have started using the plugin in-house with good results and performance, but as we are running PHP5 pretty much exclusively here - it makes use of the native PHP5 XML and JSON functionality.

My question is - is it worth me providing a PHP4 version which uses external libraries? Or, more to the point - how many people out there are still running on PHP4 based servers?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

MyDashboard - something for the weekend

Well the weekend is upon us once more, and yet again I have managed to get through less than half of the tasks on my ever expanding to do list.

So to keep you entertained, I thought I would post a couple of screen shots showing some of the things I have been working on over the past week.

MyDashboard is moving steadily towards the version 0.5 release and I now have some of the new functionality and API up and running. There is quite a bit of work to go before a beta release yet but things seem to be moving along with few hiccups.

Have a look at the two gadget screen captures below and see if you can work out what they are (other than a Weather gadget and a calculator gadget…).

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Spotmilk administration theme - mirror

Update: As per Sungwha’s comment further down - I have redirected the links to point back to the new resurrected site. I also notice that version 2.2.2 of Spotmilk is now available, so go grab it.

It appears that Sungwha Park, the author of the fabulous Spotmilk admin theme I mentioned back in July, has disappeared. Well the website and download for the Spotmilk theme have anyway.

I do hope everything is alright, but in the meantime I have made available the latest version of the theme that I have access to (v2.2.1). You can download it from this link (mirror).

If anyone has access to a newer version then please pass it along and I will make it available as well.

Sungwha: As soon as you get back online, please drop me a line and I will redirect this link to your site.

Plugin sponsorship redux

I have been going backwards and forwards regarding my initial thoughts on Plugin sponsorship back in early September. In fact the sponsorship form and details have made it live on the site a number of times before being removed again for editing (the most recent of which was only last week).

I have decided, in the end, to take an entirely different approach.

I will be offering advertising on the side bar of this site (underneath the Featured Sites over on the right). There will be the option of Home page or Full site advertising and the option of a text link or a 125×125 advertising box.

To test the advertising out, I will initially be offering rock bottom prices.

• Home page only - $10 per month.
• Full site - $15 per month.

If you would like to advertise, please use the contact form on our About page until I re-edit the Sponsors page text.

The main reason for dropping the sponsored plugin plan is the introduction of our new plugin development service, the Plugin Factory.

Noticing the ever increasing number of fixed price "PSD to XHTML" services, it was becoming obvious that whilst the design and style of a web-site was being catered for, the programming and functionality side of the equation was left wanting.

Hopefully we can address the balance by providing a fixed price plugin development service. If you have always dreamed of having a specific piece of functionality on your web site or blog but couldn’t find a plugin that accomplished it then maybe we can help.

Whilst we are more than happy to develop private plugins just for your use, we have added a special option for those community minded individuals who want to share their plugin with the rest of the world.

Take a look at the Plugin Factory page for more information. The details are still in the early stages so we welcome any feedback you may have.

Fixing MyDashboard 0.3.1 Fatal errors

This will (hopefully) affect very few of you. Though it all depends on how you (or your web host) have setup the configuration of PHP for your site.

If you get a "Fatal Error" report when you try to activate the MyDashboard plugin in WordPress, then you will need to download the following file: mydashboard.php and use it to replace your existing copy in the mydashboard directory.

For the technically minded, I used the PHP short tag (<?) in one of the functions instead of the safer (<?php) this new version replaces the short tag with the longer version. More details on PHP short tags and other PHP.INI settings can be found here.

This fix will be in all future versions of the MyDashboard plugin, as I have had few reports of problems so far I thought it easier to highlight the fix rather than build a new release around the change of a single line of code.

The First Santa run in Spain

On the morning of Sunday 2nd December 2007, the peace of the Spanish sea side town of Torrevieja will be disturbed by the ringing of bells and the shouts of “Ho Ho Ho” as 200+ Santa Clauses take part in a 5km fun run in aid of the A.E.C.C. (The main Cancer charity in Spain).

Why am I mentioning this? Well mainly because I will be one of those Santas who complete with red outfit, hat and fake beard will be attempting to make it from one end of Torrevieja sea front to the other and back again without causing myself too much damage.

If you are feeling particularly generous or charitable then please consider sponsoring my heroic attempt by clicking on the Donate button below (yes, I am aware that 5km isn’t a long distance, but attempting to get from my current sedentary lifestyle to finishing a 5km run in the space of 5 weeks is not something I am looking forward to ).

All generous sponsors will get a big thank you, and a mention and link on this post (unless they wish to remain anonymous). You can let me know what text and/or link and how much detail you would like in your entry by entering the details on the payment form. If you are particularly kind then please point the readers of your own blog here.
You can use this handy calculation device if you want to calculate what charges PayPal will take from your donation prior to sending it.

Sponsors so far

€25.00 - Anne Marie Gravil - PatronesMentales.com
€10.00 - From Zoe, Ryan and the crew at IndependentOwners.com

MyDashboard 0.3.1a on WordPress Extend

In our recent transfer of the the MyDashboard plugin to the WordPress extend site, it appears I missed a directory from the transfer.

This has now been fixed and the WordPress extend download should now work correctly.
In order to ensure that the change was picked up I changed the version to 0.3.1a. If you are currently running version 0.3.1 and downloaded it directly from our site then you do not need to upgrade as the WordPress extend 0.3.1a version is identical.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Thanks to Richie for spotting this mistake.

MyDashboard 0.3.1 available for download

The latest version of the MyDashboard plugin (version 0.3.1) is now available for download from the usual locations. Via our development site and the WordPress extend pages.

If you have already upgraded your blog to WordPress 2.3 then you will have a notification on the Plugins page of your WordPress administration site that will lead you straight to the download page.

Changes in this version include:

• Updated default gadgets to ensure WordPress 2.3 compatibility
• A new Google Blog search results gadget by Rick
• Bug fixes to a couple of the standard gadgets (thanks again to Rick and Gafeman).
• MyDashboard should now handle multi-user blogs a lot better (this is still beta)
• Tidied up a lot of code to enable a more advanced gadget API (more in this at a later date).

This version of MyDashboard has been tested on WordPress version 2.1 through to 2.3, though it you have any problems then please post them in the Forum.

Small Property plugin - sneaky look

This blog and support forum have been a little bit quiet over the past fortnight as I have been concentrating on the development of our new family of Property and booking management plugins.

I have decided to take a more radical approach with the latest versions and have scrapped a large amount of the existing plugin code. The new approach is based on an MVC model and should get rid of a lot of the complexity caused from developing each area as a separate plugin, and mean the entire system will function within a single, coherent interface.

This also means that a large portion of the code-base (namely the user-interface) is completely platform independent. I already have the currently developed code running on both the WordPress and MODx systems.

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Using Google Docs for Blogging

I’ve been using Google Docs quite a bit over the past few weeks. Mainly for writing upcoming blog posts and articles, not that you would know it from the lack of posts on this blog over the past week or so. It has been very handy to have a central location for all of my thoughts and ramblings that I could access if I didn’t have my laptop with me (which doesn’t happen often).

One of the things I had always thought Google Docs should have is an Export to Blog option, or something along those lines. Having to cut and paste my blog post and then re-format it in WordPress just didn’t appeal to me in the slightest.

Well, after a quick search, it turns out that it does have that functionality, hidden away on the Publish tab.

To send your completed document to your Blog, simply click on the Publish tab displayed in the top right hand corner of your document.

Towards the bottom of the Publish page you will see

If you have not posted to your Blog from within Google Docs before, then click on the set your blog site settings link and provide the requested details, then click on Post to blog and you’re done.

I can already see how this is going to streamline my current slow and tedious process, and who knows it could get me back in to the writing habit.

As a side note, apparently the English don’t blog. At least the word isn’t in the English(UK) Google Docs dictionary, our American cousins have no such problems though.