Announcements, WordPress »

I’m sorry to release updates to Smart Ads so close to each other! Smart Ads 1.1.2 fixes a bug that can cause Smart Ads to interfere with RSS feed content. The problem is fixed with this release. Please visit the offical plugin page to download.

Edit: If you use Feedburner to manage your RSS feed you may need to wait a little while for your feed to appear normal again. This is because Feedburner caches your feeds and updates the cache every 30 minutes. There are ways to make this go quicker. After upgrading your plugin to version 1.1.2 here is what to do:

In Feedburner click on your feed, then click “Troubleshootize”. Click on “try pinging feedburner”. This will…

WordPress »

I have been having a lot of fun with Smart Ads, my recently released WordPress plugin. I enjoy developing it, tweaking it, and getting feed back from people. I’m still giving it more features, but I’m ready to start thinking toward the next project. So here’s my question for you: what plugin does WordPress need? What ideas do you have for a plugin that would make your life easier?

Be realistic, and if you’re lucky, maybe I’ll take your idea on as a project! Leave your suggestions in the comments.

Announcements, WordPress »

My Smart Ads WordPress plugin just got smarter! Smart Ads has been upgraded to version 1.1.1, adding two requested features: the ability to disable all ads for logged in members and the ability to exclude ads from entire categories. Here’s the full list:

Smart Ads Plugin 1.1.1

• Show ads above and below post content automatically
• Only show ads on single.php or page.php, not homepage
• Limit ad visibility by post word count
• Limit ad visibility by post age
• Limit ad visibility by category NEW!
• Selectively disable ads on a post-by-post basis
• Disable all ads for registered blog members NEW!
• Add custom ads to posts or pages by typing <!-smartads-> in your post text
• Limit custom ads to be shown on only single post view or enable them on the…

Tutorial/How-To, WordPress »

Those writing plugins for WordPress 2.5 may be wondering how to update their plugin’s options menu to reflect the new style sheet. While writing my recently-released Smart Ads WordPress plugin I discovered a few new CSS class names that will help your plugin integrate into the options menu seamlessly. Here’s how to do it.

Styling the Options Page

The CSS styling names for the options menu has changed slightly since WordPress 2.3 and earlier. A lot of plugins have an options menu in the “Settings” area of the admin console (this occurs when the admin_menu action hook is used). The following code reflects the current CSS names.

Code:

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John's Plugins, Useful Tools, WordPress »

I’m happy to announce my newest plugin called Smart Ads, a plugin that let’s you automatically, yet intelligently place advertisements (like Google’s Adsense) into your posts. It’s a small plugin I whipped together over the last several days. Although there are a lot of “advertisement enhancing” plugins, none quite did what I wanted. So I made one that did. Here’s a list of it’s features:

Smart Ads v. 1.0.1

• show ads above and below post content automatically
• only show ads on single.php or page.php, not homepage
• limit ad visibility by post word count
• limit ad visibility by post age
• selectively disable ads on a post-by-post basis
• Add custom ads to posts or pages by typing <!-smartads-> in your post text
• Limit custom ads to…

Tech News, WordPress »

WordPress 2.5 was released to the public today in an announcement apparently made at WordCamp Dallas. Along with the public release comes face lift for WordPress.org. I’ve still got a little work to make sure all the plugins I’m using will work in 2.5, but I’ll be upgrading as soon as I can see what the damage is.

The new WordPress version sports a very customizable admin interface, improved security, image gallery options, and more. Have you upgraded yet?