for writers using wordpress
31 May 2009 02:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouPlugin is done, and has the dorkiest name ever because it was really late by the time I got to this point and I was tired and couldn't think of anything better so I came up with... well, yeah.. BUT ANYWAY.
It's called Squee*, and it rotates through a fade-in-fade-out of whatever quotes or reviews or excerpts you want. The quote can have an attribution attached, which can either link to a specific post, or to an author (if you've got a multi-author blog), or not link at all. Or it can link to an external address, like to someone else's review of your work. Or it can just have a simple text line after the quote, like if you've got quotes about writing and don't need them to link anywhere but still want to include who-said-it. Or it can just be the quote.
The optional text-only line can also be offset, style-wise, if you want an extra line to appear under the attribution for a quote, meaning you can make it small-font, bold, italic, or blockquote. And while I was at it, I also put in options for what to go between post-title and post-author ("posted by", black square, circle, arrow, etc).
Which generally means you can mix and match until you find a presentation you like, although any presentation you pick will apply to all quotes, so choose wisely. And so on.
Also includes capabilities to set the fade-script, specifically: length of time to show a quote, speed of shift from one quote to the next, and several options for the way the quotes rotate (random, random-start, sequence).
Possibly the craziest part is that it will do a sort of tag-cloud like effect, where it will calculate the font size for you, so no matter how many (or few) words/characters are in a quote, the quote will continue to take up roughly the same amount of space (though you have to figure out what to set the "height" value as, in the script's settings, and fiddle to make sure your maximum & minimum fonts sizes don't go outside that box). If you don't want a variety of font sizes, then set the maximum font size and minimum font size to the same size, and then all quotes will be that size. (In pixels, btw; the math for ems was wayyyy too messy.)
The zip-file contains everything the plugin uses; download, unzip, and upload to your wp-content/plugin folder, then activate in the plugins menu. You'll then see the new menu option for Squee in the Settings menu, and there are instructions at the top of that page on how to get Squee to appear where you want, and lines to copy/paste into your header.php file and your style.css file. I may simplify that further (that is, make those automatic) at some point, but for now, it's definitely beta-version, so let me know if anything breaks. I tested it on three different sites and layouts, but all of those were 2.7.1, so I've no idea if it'll work in older versions.
I didn't think it'd be useful for much of anyone, then I realized that having a clickable fade-in-out quote might be good if (with author-cap on) I wanted to direct readers to reviews about my stuff. Or maybe have a selection of inspirational quotes. Or just quotes from posts I've done (or from guest authors). For that matter, the quotes could be any/all of the above. (However, right now if you select internal links, meaning it links to your own posts, it will disregard external links -- I need to fuss with that a bit more, if someone tells me they'd find themselves using both options.)
http://www.karinoyo.com/media/squee-quote-rotater.zip
I need to convert this over to a post on my main WP install, just so the plugin has a consistent home. I'm not sure I'll deal with subversion and apply it to the WP Plugin library -- mostly because I'm not sure it's something a huge number of folks would want, and besides, it's using a jquery script I didn't write, and I do think I should drop a line to that author to let him know I've tailored his script to fit WP. It's all GPL, anyway.
So, if you're curious and willing to give it a shot and have WP2.7.1, let me know if it works for you. Or doesn't. Although I hope it does. I think it does. It should. OH. Righto, example currently installed at http://www.scimitarsmile.com, just on the main page. (If someone wants to know how to make it appear only on one page -- like the front page, or on a search page, or at the top of posts, etc, let me know and I'll explain that bit in more detail.)
*It's actually an acronym. That's the dorky raised-military part.
It's called Squee*, and it rotates through a fade-in-fade-out of whatever quotes or reviews or excerpts you want. The quote can have an attribution attached, which can either link to a specific post, or to an author (if you've got a multi-author blog), or not link at all. Or it can link to an external address, like to someone else's review of your work. Or it can just have a simple text line after the quote, like if you've got quotes about writing and don't need them to link anywhere but still want to include who-said-it. Or it can just be the quote.
The optional text-only line can also be offset, style-wise, if you want an extra line to appear under the attribution for a quote, meaning you can make it small-font, bold, italic, or blockquote. And while I was at it, I also put in options for what to go between post-title and post-author ("posted by", black square, circle, arrow, etc).
Which generally means you can mix and match until you find a presentation you like, although any presentation you pick will apply to all quotes, so choose wisely. And so on.
Also includes capabilities to set the fade-script, specifically: length of time to show a quote, speed of shift from one quote to the next, and several options for the way the quotes rotate (random, random-start, sequence).
Possibly the craziest part is that it will do a sort of tag-cloud like effect, where it will calculate the font size for you, so no matter how many (or few) words/characters are in a quote, the quote will continue to take up roughly the same amount of space (though you have to figure out what to set the "height" value as, in the script's settings, and fiddle to make sure your maximum & minimum fonts sizes don't go outside that box). If you don't want a variety of font sizes, then set the maximum font size and minimum font size to the same size, and then all quotes will be that size. (In pixels, btw; the math for ems was wayyyy too messy.)
The zip-file contains everything the plugin uses; download, unzip, and upload to your wp-content/plugin folder, then activate in the plugins menu. You'll then see the new menu option for Squee in the Settings menu, and there are instructions at the top of that page on how to get Squee to appear where you want, and lines to copy/paste into your header.php file and your style.css file. I may simplify that further (that is, make those automatic) at some point, but for now, it's definitely beta-version, so let me know if anything breaks. I tested it on three different sites and layouts, but all of those were 2.7.1, so I've no idea if it'll work in older versions.
I didn't think it'd be useful for much of anyone, then I realized that having a clickable fade-in-out quote might be good if (with author-cap on) I wanted to direct readers to reviews about my stuff. Or maybe have a selection of inspirational quotes. Or just quotes from posts I've done (or from guest authors). For that matter, the quotes could be any/all of the above. (However, right now if you select internal links, meaning it links to your own posts, it will disregard external links -- I need to fuss with that a bit more, if someone tells me they'd find themselves using both options.)
http://www.karinoyo.com/media/squee-quote-rotater.zip
I need to convert this over to a post on my main WP install, just so the plugin has a consistent home. I'm not sure I'll deal with subversion and apply it to the WP Plugin library -- mostly because I'm not sure it's something a huge number of folks would want, and besides, it's using a jquery script I didn't write, and I do think I should drop a line to that author to let him know I've tailored his script to fit WP. It's all GPL, anyway.
So, if you're curious and willing to give it a shot and have WP2.7.1, let me know if it works for you. Or doesn't. Although I hope it does. I think it does. It should. OH. Righto, example currently installed at http://www.scimitarsmile.com, just on the main page. (If someone wants to know how to make it appear only on one page -- like the front page, or on a search page, or at the top of posts, etc, let me know and I'll explain that bit in more detail.)
*It's actually an acronym. That's the dorky raised-military part.
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no subject
Date: 1 Jun 2009 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 Jun 2009 03:37 pm (UTC)If you have questions, just email me with them, and I'll try to help you through it. Been thinking that maybe instead of offering so many differing options, I should just do examples -- like "which do you want it to look like?", and let people pick the image that corresponds, rather than make them puzzle out what it means to say yes here and no there.
But, like I said, still in beta. Eventually it will be finished -- and on the plus side, I'm learning tons, and that will really help with the long-sidelined (too long, maybe) story database project I told you about a few months ago.
no subject
Date: 29 Jun 2009 09:23 pm (UTC)I think I am trying to do with WP the same thing you are trying to do with WP. I know this because I saw where you asked a question about the 'series' plugin... I've just left one there myself. XD
Where are you at, with your attempt? I'd love to get together with you.
no subject
Date: 30 Jun 2009 12:09 am (UTC)Most everything is set up, though I need to straighten out the function.php, functions-gui.php, and the CusTax plugin so taxonomy functions are housed in the plugin and style/site functions are on the site's theme; right now they're all over the place.
The one part that's still giving me hassles is setting up auto-numbering for the non-native taxes (series, collaborations, and books). The one thing CusTax does that OrgSeries didn't do is add the actual taxonomy to the term/taxonomy tables, which allows for easier function/al adaptability, but it also means the new taxonomies get added like they're native -- along with category, post_tag, etc. Which is a long-winded way to say that on the Add-New page, it's a lot harder to manipulate the added taxonomies for things like numbering schemes. Mostly I've been reduced to faking it, but I've got a bug somewhere in the logic and sometimes it won't 'take' when I attach a book or series title.
Not sure how much that'd help you, but I've been planning to post the code on my blog (not here, that is), for others to follow along. Which means not just making sure it's working but also some kind of basic comments, just to be polite.
I'm not sure where you're at with it, so I'm not sure to what extent you'd be interested in code, or if you'd only need to be pointed in a certain direction. Basically, I did massive amounts of customization, though I tried to lean towards generic (ie wpdb->prefix_table kinds of things) whenever I could.
no subject
Date: 30 Jun 2009 12:48 am (UTC)The site I'm working on has four storylines, all happening concurrently, that meet up with each other in various climaxes. I thought OrgSeries would do it, except that of course, I can link a story into only one series...
The thing you've done here, is create the functionality of something like efiction, but with the very lean engine of WP running it. efiction drove me nutso.
If you were willing to share the code... omgawd! You can have my firstborn! (please, take her off my hands...)
no subject
Date: 30 Jun 2009 01:26 am (UTC)But at least it gives you something to peruse in the meantime.
no subject
Date: 30 Jun 2009 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Jun 2009 02:02 am (UTC)One thing, if you've not figured this out yet: there is a MAJOR bug in WP, due to Ajax-conflicts in the Edit-Posts page. If you do a Quick Edit on a post, you will lost all but your native taxonomies -- all other taxonomies, custom fields, co-authors, and all that jazz... goes bye-bye. I've yet to hear if it's been solved in WP2.8, but I doubt it, since the issue is deepdown in the core, from what I've been able to tell. Just FYI.
no subject
Date: 30 Jun 2009 02:11 am (UTC)So we'll see...