Smashing Magazine has a very lengthy article they published recently called WordPress Developer’s Toolbox and it’s pretty impressive as well as exhaustive. I’m probably going to pull all the resources apart and sling them into a set of toolbox pages with additional information as I can provide here. I’d really like to see the thing pulled apart and repurposed as a PDF but it’s a lot of resources.
I’ve got a whole lot on my plate and development efforts for Lightbox Plus, FLIR for WordPress and Actionable are going to have to go on hold for a bit. I’m going to try to push out another release of Lightbox Plus either tonight or tomorrow then after that I probably won’t even be able to provide much in the way of support for about a week and a half. I’ve got to literally cram a 3-4 week project into 3-4 days. I’m not looking forward to it. Then I’m going out of town for about five days for a much needed escape.
To get the project I need to finish out done by Thursday of next week I’m looking at some frameworks for PHP though I’m not sure they wouldn’t just slow me down. Ideally they shouldn’t and right now I’m trying to decide between CakePHP and Symfony. Both are good but it’s pretty much going to be whichever I can pick up on quickest tomorrow or Sunday night.
After I get back from being away I will still have more to do on the project but I should hopefully be able to put some time into the plugins - at the very least I should be able to do some support. I hope everything doesn’t go to hell in a handbasket while I’m gone.
Not long ago I ran across some a set of scripts (JavaScript/PHP) called Facelift which is an alternative to sIFR and I thought this needs WordPress plugin to make it easy for people to use with WordPress.
So I downloaded it and created a plugin from it. Since then - Sunday - it’s proven extremely popular.
A lot of people seem to be having some issues with it and I think the bulk of them come down to two things:
First you need to have the GD Graphics Library built into your PHP installation. This is probably the main contributor to the problem. The second issue is probably not having your cache folder for the plugin be writable. I’ll be glad to help anyone - within reason - get these issues resolved.
I am pretty much constantly trying to work on this plugin to get it up to version 1.0.0 - it currently sits at 0.5.5 and as such is functional but incomplete.
You can get it from Facelift Image Replacement and you can get support at Mawhorter.net Forums or via commenting on the plugin page.
As a freelance web developer, time is money. I use many different tricks to increase my productivity and these are my top selections for saving time. Please make you own suggestions for other time savers in the comments.
Drop Down Menus
All Web Menus (http://www.likno.com/allwebmenusinfo.html )
Whenever I need to add a complex drop-down menu to a site, I turn to All Web Menus. This program styles a complex multi level menu in less time then it takes to type the text. All websites need menus and for detailed menus, you should try All Web Menus.Time saved: 1 Hour per menu.
Image Capture
Gadwin Printscreen (http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/)
Gadwin Printscreen utility replaces windows standard printscreen keyboard button with more options and flexibility. It loads on windows startup and runs silently in the background without consuming system resources but it’s always there when you need it. Instead of just capturing the entire screen view, Gadwin allows you to select a rectangular area very precisely with the help of a built in magnifying window. This tool is invaluable to my work. I often use it to grab different pieces to mock up a design.Time saved: 2 Minutes per screen capture.
Read More at [Re]Encoded dot Com » 10 Ways to Save Time While Building a Website
PHP Logo
Today is 8/8/8, which is interesting for a few reasons, one of which is that it marks the end of PHP 4. What does this mean? It means yesterday’s release of 4.4.9 is the final release of PHP 4. More information can be gleaned from the mailing list archives, beginning with Derick’s request to drop support:
I am trying to gauge what people feel about dropping support for PHP 4 at the end of this year.
Derick caveated his suggestion with the idea of continuing to publish new releases that address security vulnerabilities. Rasmus didn’t see the point:
I don’t really understand what dropping support means if we will still release security fixes. That’s the mode we have been in for at least a year, so what would change at the end of the year?
He suggested a stronger stance:
I’d be more in favour of a statement that put a final death date on it which means no new releases of any sort. We could still say security-fixes only by the end of the year and then death by 08/08/08 or something like that.
So, here we are. PHP 4 is dead. Long live PHP.
