Announcements, Useful Tools, WordPress »

I’ve just released version 1.2 of Smart Ads, a WordPress plugin that allows users to automatically (yet intelligently!) insert advertisments like Adsense before and after their posts. This version brings three new features to the plugin.

First, users can chose to hide the advertisment that is placed before the post content if their content begins with an image. This helps save the formatting of their posts.

Second, custom ads can be inserted by placing <!-smartads-> or {smartads} into the post or page content based on the users settings in the Options menu. This allows users who use the visual editor to bypass WordPress’s default “I hate HTML” mentality by using something other then an HTML comment.

Finally, the…

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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Useful Tools »

I installed a new WordPress plugin today that I’m very happy with. It’s called WP-Syntax. As the name suggests, it lets you easly apply common syntax highlighting to many different code languages on your WordPress blog. Common languages that it support include html4strict, PHP, javascript, java, CSS, XML, perl, and many others.

Usage is very easy. Simply enclose your code in the following: <pre lang="LANGUAGE" line="X">Your Code Here</pre>. Replace LANGUAGE with the name of the language your code is in (CSS, PHP, etc) and replace the line="X" with the line number that you want the code box to begin with. Installation was a breeze, and after adding the suggested CSS values to my theme’s stylesheet it worked…