Spam Protection

While I was looking how my plugin works on different sites, I noticed that a lot of spam was coming through the default spam protection, build-in since version 1.1. (This means the default protection without captcha) Personally I hate those no-life spammers, throwing a whole lot of crap to your blog and from the beginning I use Akismet om my blog to protect myself, witch works pretty good. So I decided to build this great peace of spam-killing code into my plugin.
To accomplish this I used the Akismet PHP4 class, written by Bret Kuhns. Submissions will be marked as spam, just like comments, if Akismet finds a message to be spam. This way you can still approve submissions that aren’t spam, but are marked as if they are.

Image Uploading

Another new feature is the possibility to let submitters upload an image along with their submission. I received a request for this, and thought: “Hey that’s a good idea!”. The image field is not required, and therefor you could setup a default image that is used when people don’t upload one. You are also able to configure the maximum sizes for an image (width and height separated).
Note that it could happen that you have to create the upload folder manually. If so, the plugin let you know. Just create a new folder in your WordPress root folder called ‘wp-fvcn-images’, then chmod it to 755 and everything should work fine.

To add the images to your list of submissions, you could use the new %submission_image% tag. This tag will change into the location of the image, so to add a new image, in its img tag use something like this:

<img src="%submission_image%" alt="" />

Note that when people upload an image they can’t use AJAX, because JavaScript can’t access the image. Here is taken care of automatically.

My Submissions Page

Want to let submitters view their own submissions? Now that is possible with the new ‘My Submissions’ page. This is an optional page you could enable where registered users of your blog could view and submit their submissions.

Edit Submissions

I also received a request for this one. So from now on you can edit the submissions. Note that the ‘Edit Submissions’ page is already created with and for WordPress 2.7. If you are using the 2.7 nightly-builds you won’t notice, but else you will see that the box with the Save button looks a bit crapy. I have thought a while about this one, but since 2.7 will be released within a few weeks, I think it isn’t worth the effort to make it look good in 2.6 and 2.5.

Dashboard Widget

Another 2.7+ feature is a dashboard widget. It looks almost the same as the comments widget and also has the same features. You could simply Approve, Unapprove, Spam or Delete a submission with one single click while your at the dashboard page.

Other Fixes

More little bug-fixes have been applied. A small list:

• The AJAX didn’t work when there was a ? in the URL, now it does work.
• The settings page is separated in different tabs for a better usability.
• Some problems with the function that shortens up the submission text are fixed.
• You can now add a description if using the widgets.
• The number of unmoderated submissions is added to the admin menu.
• Link actions are added.
• Some problems occurred when you have modified the location of your wp-content folder, this is fixed.
• The ‘Post URL’ field isn’t required anymore. (Had a request for this)
• You now can override the template settings in your theme pages, instead of vice versa.
• Some fixes are applied to the RSS feed.
• Problems with the admin menu are fixed.
• The reloading of the captcha is improved.

That’s about it
Any suggestions? Please leave a comment.

• The submission moderation panel is improved and some bugs are fixed.
• The option that users must be logged in is added.
• The form is already filled in in parts for users who are logged in
• The captcha could be removed for users who are already logged in.
• The captcha image can now easily refreshed, using AJAX
• A nonce field is added to fight spam.
• I added an RSS 2.0 feed for the submissions.
• AJAX is now used to submit the form.

Note that all the JavaScript from this plugin uses the Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries, and if you already loaded jQuery in your page, the AJAX might not work.

On to version 1.2

There are already some suggestions for version 1.2:

• Allow people to upload photo’s.
• The ability to edit submissions.
• Tags to add Community News in a post or page.

These will be implemented as soon as possible
Have any other suggestions? Please leave a comment and I will take a look at it.

Well don’t worry I am busy to create that and it is almost finished. In the mean while, I wanted to share some stuff I learned while creating this RSS feed.

The Beginning

The first thing we need is a function that actually creates the RSS feed. This function doesn’t need any parameters and it also shouldn’t return anything.

<?php
function myGreatPluginRSSFeed() {
    // Function content goes here.
}
?>

This function must create the whole feed form the beginning to the end. So, you also have to include the xml/rss header. I ripped something from the default WordPress feed that should work for any blog.

<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/">
	<channel>
		<title><?php bloginfo_rss('name'); wp_title_rss(); ?></title>
		<link><?php bloginfo_rss('url') ?></link>
		<atom:link href="<?php self_link(); ?>" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
		<description><?php bloginfo_rss("description") ?></description>
		<language><?php echo get_option('rss_language'); ?></language>
		<sy:updatePeriod><?php echo apply_filters( 'rss_update_period', 'hourly' ); ?></sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency><?php echo apply_filters( 'rss_update_frequency', '1' ); ?></sy:updateFrequency>
		<item>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

Now, you could see the <item> and </item> tags, that is where we are going to add our feed items. From this moment I assume that all our RSS data is located in an array like this one.

$rssItems = array(
	'item_1'=>array(
		'Title',
		'Link',
		'Author',
		'Date',
		'Description',
		'Content'
		),
	'item_2'=>array(
		'Title',
		'Link',
		'Author',
		'Date',
		'Description',
		'Content'
		)
	);

And so on. For adding the items to our feed, we simply use a foreach loop.

foreach ($rssItems as $item) {
	echo '<item>';
	echo '<title>' . $item['Title'] . '</title>';
	echo '<link>' . $item['Link'] . '</link>';
	echo '<dc:creator>' . $item['Author'] . '</dc:creator>';
	echo '<pubDate>' . mysql2date('D, d M Y H:i:s +0000', $item['Date']) . '</pubDate>';
	echo '<description>' . $item['Description'] . '</description>';
	echo '<content:encoded><![CDATA[' . $item['Content'] . ']]></content:encoded>';
	echo '</item>';
}

The mysql2date function is a WordPress function that converts our date to the format we want for our feed. The input should be the date in the following format: d-m-Y H:i:s. See php.net for more information about the date formatting.

Now we have finished our function, we have only one thing to do.

Adding the RSS Feed to WordPress

To add the feed, we could use one simple function, build-in in WordPress since version 2.1.0. This is the add_feed function. This function has two parameters.

• $feedname; The name of your feed.
• $function; The function that creates the feed. (The one we created above)

So lets say we name our feed: ‘guestbook’, then we should call the add_feed function this way:

<?php
// Add our new RSS feed.
add_feed('guestbook', 'myGreatPluginRSSFeed');
?>

Now our feed is added and working! One thing you might be asking yourself is: Where could I find my feed? Well, that’s simple.
If you are using permalinks on your blog (could be checked this way: $wp_rewrite->using_permalinks()), then your feed is located at: http://your.website.com/[feedname].
If you don’t use permalinks, your feed is located at: http://your.website.com/?feed=[feedname].

Done!

After all our hard work, we have created one beautiful RSS 2.0 feed, working with WordPress. Any questions? Please leave a comment.

Features

Currently, the Community News plugin has the following features:

• Widget Ready (Different form/results widget)
• Moderation panel (with email option) - Make sure you approve the right articles
• Edit Submissions
• `My Submissions` Page
• Customizable templates
• Captcha Spam protection (on/off)
• Akismet Spam protection (API key required)
• Build-in RSS 2.0 Feed
• Image Uploading
• Settings

How To Install & Use

1. Download the files
2. Upload the files to /wp-content/plugins
3. Activate the plugin (WP-admin > Plugins > FV Community News)
4. Browse Community News > Settings to select the settings you prefer.
5. Go to Design > Widgets to add the Community News widgets to your sidebar.

You can also show your Community News plugin on a static page. You can do that by placing the following codes on a page that does support PHP:

Add Form

<?php if (function_exists('fvCommunityNewsForm'))

    fvCommunityNewsForm(); ?>

Latest Submissions

<?php if (function_exists('fvCommunityNewsGetSubmissions'))
    echo fvCommunityNewsGetSubmissions(Number, Template); ?>

• Number - Insert number of items you would like to show here
• Template - Structure per item. You can use these tags:
  
  • %submission_author%
  • %submission_author_email%
  • %submission_title%
  • %submission_url%
  • %submission_description%
  • %submission_date%
  • %submission_image%

By default the Template is: ‘<li><h3><a href="%submission_url%" title="%submission_title%">%submission_title%</a></h3><p>%submission_description%</p><small>%submission_date%</small></li>‘. <ul> </ul> tags are automatically added.

Example

Take a look at the sidebar, you could see the plugin in action right there. Also my friend uses Community News on his blog, so you can see a working example on DivitoDesign.

The FV Community News settings page.

Bugs & Questions

If you find any bug in the latest version of this plugin, I hope you’d be so kind to tell me about it. This will only improve the plugin, which is better for the users! When you have anything else to say (appreciated!), please comment!

Plugin Info

AUTHOR: Frank Verhoeven
AUTHOR URL: http://www.frank-verhoeven.com/
WORDPRESS VERSION: 2.5+
TESTED UP TO: 2.7
CURRENT VERSION: 1.2.3

Change log

Version 1.1
Version 1.2

Download

DOWNLOAD: FV Community News

Donate

Like this plugin? Please consider making a small donation.

Or help promoting it by adding a link to this page, definitely appreciated !

Also the admin panel is improved for better usability, see the screenshot below.

FV Code Highlighter - New Admin Interface

Furthermore, a security issue, which makes it possible for every subscriber of your blog to change the code display settings, is solved. And a few little bugs have been fixed.

For details on how to use this plugin, please visit original post.

Download here: FV Code Highlighter, Mirror

I searched the whole source code of this great piece of blogging software, and not on one single line I found even one session. Also the session_start() function is not called, but I still needed my sessions to work .

So I started searching Google for a fix of my problem. I found a lot of people asking the same question: “Why don’t sessions work in WordPress?” Finally I found a solution to fix this little issue and guess what, it is a simple one.

The Solution

The only thing you have to do is call session_start(); before any output is send to the client. Now you might think: Nice, but what happens when I upgrade my WordPress installation to the latest version? Well, yes, your changes will be lost. That is the reason why we first should think of where to add these changes..

Normally upgrading your installation will replace all files, except one. Yes, it is the wp-config.php file. And even better, there isn’t send any output to a client yet, when this file is loaded.

So, we add the next lines of code to our wp-config.php file:

// Make the use of sessions possible.
>if (!session_id())
session_start();

And sessions are enabled on your blog!
I think the best place to add these lines is at the top of the config file, so immediately after the php starting tag (<?php).

I hope this will help you out when facing the same problem.

As you could have read here, the current release of my code highlighter has some trouble with highlighting PHP on servers running PHP version 4. I told you I should try to fix the problem and include a better PHP highlighter in the next release.

I worked very hard this morning to get PHP fixed, and I’m proud to announce that PHP is almost working the way it should. That means: including servers running PHP4.

You want an example? Sure, here it is:

PHP Code Like It Should

<?php
mysql_connect ($host, $user, $password);
$result = mysql_db_query ('Database', 'select * from table');

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc ($result))
{
	echo $row['user_id'];
	echo $row['fullname'];
}
mysql_free_result ($result);
?>

So, What’s Next?

After this highlighter is finished, I create one for JavaScript and properly one for Java. As soon as they all work the way it should, I will release version 1.1.

See you.

$var = [condition] ? [true] : [false];

1. Condition = The condition which must be met.
2. True = Executed if the condition is met.
3. False = Executed if the condition failes.

Thus, the above statement means the same as this enlarged structure:

<?php

if (condition) {
    $var = [true];
} else {
    $var = [false];
}
?>

Examples

Let’s take a look at some example.

Filled in a name?

<?php
$name = isset($_POST['name'])?$_POST['name']:'Unknown';
// If $_POST['name'] exists, we use that for the name, else we use Unknown.
?>

We can also use it to easily echo stuff:

<?php
$fruit = 'apple';
echo ('pear' == $fruit)?'pear':'apple';
// Will echo apple
?>

It is even possible to use php-functions inside it:

<?php
$input = 'Just a string to be hashed';
$hashMethod = 'sha1';
$hash = ('sha1' == $hashMethod)?sha1($input):md5($input);
// $hash will contain an sha1 hash of $input
?>

Conclusion

The short if-else structure is a good way to keep your code organized. However, it is not possible to use such a thing as: ‘elseif’.
I use it all the time to assign values to variables, with just one rule of code, I’m sure my vars have a proper value. Especially when using forms, this is a very useful function of PHP.

FV Code Highlight Example

I thought maybe more people were looking for a plugin that simply publish codes that looks great. I started to write my own, and the FV Code Highlight plugin was born and now open for the public. The features are plain and simple, read on.

Description

This plugin supports the highlighting of PHP, HTML, CSS and XML. The default tag-highlighter color scheme uses the same colors Adobe’s Dreamweaver is using. This makes it easy for your visitors to recognize what type of codes you wrote. These colors can be changed to your liking in the WPadmin section of your blog.

Features

• Easy to use
• Renders XHTML, CSS, XML and PHP (in parts)
• Default look: Dreamweaver style
• Customizable look of codes and code box

How to use this plugin?

1. Upload the folder `fv-code-highlighter` to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. Place in your pages to use the highlighter

Example

CSS Code

/* Comment */
@import url("main.css");
h2, .head2 {
    font-family: "Sans-Serif";
    font-weight: bold;
    color: #336699 !important;
}
@media screen, print {
    pre { margin: 0px 10px 10px; }
    h1 { font-size: 14px; padding-top: 10px; }
}

(x)HTML Code

<style type="text/css">  headline {font-size: 24pt;}  </style>
<!-- Comment -->
<td><a href="link">Plain Text &nbsp;</a>
<img src="image" alt="" width="15" />
<form action="action.pl"> <input type="submit" value="Press Me" />
</form>Text</td>

Plugin Info

AUTHOR: Frank Verhoeven
AUTHOR URL: http://www.frank-verhoeven.com/
WORDPRESS VERSION: 2.5+
TESTED UP TO: 2.6.2
CURRENT VERSION: 1.0

Download

DEMO: Live Demo
DOWNLOAD: FV Code Highlighter, Mirror

CSS Code

/* Comment */
@import url("main.css");
h2, .head2 {
    font-family: "Sans-Serif";
    font-weight: bold;
    color: #336699 !important;
}
@media screen, print {
    pre { margin: 0px 10px 10px; }
    h1 { font-size: 14px; padding-top: 10px; }
}

(x)HTML Code

<style> headline {font-size: 24pt;} </style>
<!-- Comment -->
<td><p><a href="link">Plain Text  </a>
<img src="image" width="15" />
</p><form action="action.pl">
<input type="submit" value="Press Me" />
</form>Text</td>

XML Code

<scheme name="XML" doctypes="XML" priority="50">
<ignoreCase>Yes</ignoreCase>
<defaultText MMString:name="Text/scheme/name" />
<defaultAttribute name="Attribute" />
</scheme>