Archive for support forums
Contributing To The Theme Review Team
Posted by: | CommentsContributing To The Theme Review Team
Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to not only interview Chip Bennett regarding the new WordPress Theme Review team but I also had a chance to speak with Edward Caissie who is a member of the team. You can listen to the full interview and associated discussion on episode 106 of WordPress Weekly. However, one of the things that came out of that show was the need for community volunteers to help out in the reviewing process. After speaking with Edward, he accepted my request to write a guest blog post explaining how people can contribute to the theme review team.
The following was written by Edward Caissie, member of the newly established theme review team.
How do I get involved with the WordPress Theme Review Team (WPTRT)?
It’s really rather simple. Just follow these steps below.
- Subscribe to the Theme Review mailing list.
- Make sure you have a WordPress.org username.
- Send a message to the mailing list expressing your interest in helping out with Theme Reviews.
- A current WPTRT member will contact you (generally via a reply to your message). If you are ready they will assign you a ticket in the Theme trac and you will be on your way to becoming a Theme reviewer.
Of course, there is more to reviewing Themes as part of the WPTRT, the above is just how you get started.
Let’s have a quick look through these steps.
- Subscribing to the mailing list gets you involved in one of the main discussion areas of the WPTRT. It is one of the places we discuss ideas about various items that may, or may not, affect how the Theme Review guidelines are interpreted or used when reviewing a submitted Theme.
- Your WordPress username is a common focal point for all of your WordPress activities. If you are a Theme author, or a plugin developer, you already have one and this is the one that will be used on the Theme trac system. It could also be the username you log into the WordPress Support forums with although current members generally use their “developer” username.
- We need to know you are interested, although you can also log into the #wordpress-themes channel on freenode.net and chat via IRC with one of the theme reviewers as well. The mailing list is generally the more common approach.
- We assign the first few tickets to new reviewers just to help with the learning process. Once you have shown you understand the process we’ll make a few changes behind the scenes and you will be able to assign yourself your own tickets in trac and carry on reviewing Themes.
We expect that sometime during this process you have thoroughly familiarized yourself with the Theme Review guidelines as well as a few other relevant pages in the codex. Here are the links to the pages I always recommend reading:
- Theme Development – http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development
- Theme Unit Test – http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Unit_Test
- Theme Review – http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Review
NB: Just in case, I would suggest reading these pages at least once a week, although generally our intent is to not have them change very often.
Also, you should create yourself a test-bed installation; import the Theme Unit Test data (from the link above); and, install the following few very useful plugins:
- Log Deprecated Notices by Andrew Nacin aka nacin
- DeBogger and Theme-Check by Simon Prosser aka Pross
I also suggest installing a plugin that writes viewable text to ‘wp_footer()‘ for testing as well, if you do not have your own preference you are welcome to download and install my BNS Login plugin.
Now, you might be asking why would I want to join the WPTRT?
There are many reasons and many ways to get involved with the WordPress community. This one will offer you: insight into how the Theme submission process works; the opportunity to influence positive change in the Theme Review guidelines; a wealth of new ideas and code possibilities; and, interactions with some of the best and the brightest current Theme authors involved with the WordPress Themes repository.
WordPress 3.1 Beta Released
Posted by: | CommentsWordPress 3.1 Beta Released
The WordPress 3.1 Beta has been released for your weekend testing enjoyment.
This first beta release is certainly more stable than the alpha releases, but you might want to avoid using it on a regular live site at this time.
If you’re itching to try 3.1, be sure to check out all the new features, including Post Formats.
If you’re upgrading an existing blog, please backup your files and database first, for when you need to make a hasty retreat.
Stop by the Alpha/Beta section of the support forums for help with any problems that you meet.
Have you tried the WordPress 3.1 Beta yet? What do you think so far?
Tags: alpha beta, new features, support forums, beta release, Beta Released, alpha releases, hasty retreat, beta section
Celebrating One Year of Nacin
Posted by: | CommentsCelebrating One Year of Nacin
Yesterday, Andrew Nacin celebrated his first full year of WordPress contributions. To quote Nacin, “It’s been one hell of a ride, and I don’t intend to slow down.”
Nacin’s WordPress career began on November 16th of 2009 with an almost insignificant twelve-character patch. Just three months and about a hundred patches later, Nacin was asked to become a WordPress core developer. Fast-forward to today, Nacin is one of the most recognized core developers with about seven hundred contributions and six WordCamp presentations under his name.
When not contributing to WordPress, Nacin can often be found blogging about WordPress, tweeting about WordPress, publicly speaking about WordPress, supporting WordPress, editing a book on WordPress plugin development, working on the WordPress Core Contributor Handbook, and dodging a humorous onslaught of #blamenacin tweets.
So, how did Nacin learn to contribute to WordPress?
I learn first by reading, and second by doing. If you want to contribute, I strongly encourage it. More important is when you submit that first bug report or patch, not necessarily when it makes it into WordPress — it’s a community effort, and that first step is important.
Do you want to be the next Andrew Nacin? All you need to do is start contributing to WordPress. Even if you don’t know how to work with the code, the community could always use your help with the Support Forums and documentation.
Happy WordPress birthday, Andrew Nacin! We really appreciate everything you do for this awesome blogging platform!
Tags: Andrew Nacin, bug report, community effort, three months, plugin development
The WordPress Plugin Repository
Posted by: | CommentsThe WordPress Plugin Repository
WordPress is a great open-development community that encourages its users to innovate. But a few years ago, it started getting hard to keep up with those innovations. That’s when the WordPress Plugin Repository was born (currently hosted at http://WP-plugins.org).
The repository is a place where all WordPress plugins are pulled together and shared with the community of users. But more than that, it’s a place where developers can go to see what’s already out there, what they can base their new work on, and what needs to be improved. In addition to end-user utilities that anyone can download for their WordPress needs, there are plenty of development tools, including wiki-based version control and a bug tracker, that the WordPress development community is welcomed to use. Everything is licensed under GPL unless noted in the source, so almost everything is open.
If you’re new to the WordPress plugin repository but not to the WordPress support forums, you should login with your forum username and password; they are currently synced. If you have any problems, you should email the forum webmaster to ask what’s going on. Only logged-in users may edit on the Repository, though everyone is welcome to view what’s going on.
What’s Available on the WordPress Plugin Repository?
The Repository is designed to be a complete, organized, efficient method of seeing what’s in development and what has been developed for WordPress. As such, the core offerings here are the plugin directory and a robust version control mechanism. You can also use a special interface, downloadable for free, to work with the Repository more easily. The Repository is powered by Trac, a source control management and project management tool. Subversion is a wiki tool providing version control, and is also the source management tool WordPress is using today.
Developers using this directory can host all their WordPress developments for free, even organizing teamwork through the WordPress Plugin Repository. By hosting here, they have high visibility, can easily manage their code and track bugs, and develop wiki-based documentation with end users more easily than they could ever do it by themselves.
But developers without users are like stores without customers. WordPress users, too, are welcome to download plugins that are in alpha or beta form, or to download and use the plugins that are fully-functional but not integrated into WordPress yet. There are tools available for users to:
• Browse plugins and themes available at the Repository
• Download all desired plugins and themes from one stable location
• Give their own feedback and suggestions to developers by using the tracker.
• Help develop documentation and improvements by using the plugin’s wiki page.
• Know what’s going on at all times by using RSS feeds.
Anyone developing or looking for WordPress plugins and themes is encouraged to use this resource. An email will get you the hosting you need for your project, and just coming and looking around will tell you a lot about what’s going on in the WordPress development world.
What Plugins Are Available Right Now?
While plugins are changing fast, a few core plugins are available and certainly worth the time they’ll take to check out. The best ones right now include:
Main Categories for WordPress allows you select “main” categories on your blog’s navigation bar. This allows you to highlight the parts of your blog you find most important, while still displaying everything else.
The WordPress DBManager manages your WordPress database so you don’t have to. Instead of worrying about lost data, you can use this manager to optimize, back up, restore, delete backed up databases, and even run queries for specific data.
WordPress Email allow you to send your blog entries to friends, enemies, or anyone you choose.
WordPress PageNavi gives you advanced page navigation.
WordPress Polls allows you to run the ever-popular polls and make the results public when you’re ready.
WordPress PostRatings allows you to have rating systems for your blog posts.
WordPress PostViews lets you display for users and for yourself how many times a post has been viewed.
WordPress Print will display for the user a printable version of any given WordPress blog post.
WordPress RelativeDate displays a relative date beside your post or comment actual date.
WordPress Stats displays WordPress statistics you want to brag about.
WordPress UserOnline allows you to note which users are currently browsing your blogs
WordPress Wap allows you to use a Wap-enabled cell phone to brows your WordPress blog entries from anywhere.
Other projects that are in development include:
• Joystick controls
• RPMView
• A WordPress XHTML validator
• Tons of tools for Python, including MySQL tools
• Recording level monitor
• An admin themer
• A post editor enhancement
• Fix broken links
• Palm usage manager
There are always new things in development in the repository, like new themes and small fixes such as a way to make WordPress allow dashes.
Even if you’re not a developer or interested in expanding your blog beyond what it has now, it is a good idea to check out the Repository. It’s certain that many of the plugins provided or in development today will eventually be incorporated into the newer upgrades of WordPress. By keeping an eye on the Repository, you’ll know what new developments are around the corner – and by logging in and discussing them on the wiki logs, you’ll be able to give your own input regarding how things ought to be done. While there are other places to find WordPress plugins, it’s to be hoped that most people will use the Repository in the future, making life easier for everyone.
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