After covering WordPress and Drupal, its time for me to set my eyes on Joomla – the next major CMS software in the OSS field. Today, I’ll release my first ever Joomla plugin – the Export to WordPress plugin. This ‘component’(as Joomla users calls it), will create a XML dump of your sites contents. This XML file is readable and importable by wordpress. This plugin is important if you want to migrate from Joomla to WordPress. The XML dump will include all your posts, with categories and with all its comments.

Note: This is my first Joomla Plugin – so expect bugs. I am sure that my code is pretty horrific by professional Joomla plugin writers standards. So if you are migrating a site using this, please test the results thoroughly.

Download Export to WordPress Joomla Plugin

Installation

• Log into the Admin interface of Joomla.
• Go to Extensions > Install/Uninstall
• Enter this URL into the ‘Install URL’ field: ‘http://www.bin-co.com/tools/joomla/plugins/com_wordpressexport/com_wordpressexport.zip’
• Now go to Components > Export to WordPress to create a XML dump.
• You can import the created file into WordPress.

Plugin Week 2

This plugin is part of the Plugin Week 2 series. Plugin Week is a week when I publish a new plugin each day for an entire week. I have already one this one time – so this is Plugin Week 2. The plugins released so far…

• Weather Man
• MiniCart WordPress Plugin
• Gallifrey WordPress Plugin
• GIMP Plugin – Web 2.0 Shadows
• Drupal Plugin: Page Ad

If you want to get news about the upcoming plugin releases(remember, 1 per day), please subscribe to this site.

Gallifrey is an image gallery WordPress plugin based on the Galleriffic jQuery plugin. It will replace the standard wordpress gallery when you activate it. You don’t have to change the code of all the earlier galleries.

Download Gallifrey Image Gallery WordPress Plugin

Gallifrey Demo

Features

• Smart image preloading after the page is loaded
• Thumbnail navigation
• Support for bookmark-friendly URLs per-image
• Slideshow (with optional auto-updating url bookmarks)
• Events that allow for adding your own custom transition effects
• Graceful degradation when javascript is not available
• Same shortcode as WordPress Gallery – so previous galleries will be updated as well

Installation

• Download the zipped file.
• Extract and upload the contents of the folder to /wp-contents/plugins/ folder
• Enable the plugin from Wordpress admin area
• Add galleries into your post using the normal method

If you have any issues with the plugin, post a thread at the Gallifrey Plugin Forum.

Plugin Week

This plugin is part of the Plugin Week 2 series. Plugin Week is a week when I publish a new plugin each day for an entire week. I have already one this one time – so this is Plugin Week 2. This is the second plugin released this week. The first is Weather Man and the second one is MiniCart WordPress Plugin

If you want to get news about the upcoming plugin releases(remember, 1 per day), please subscribe to this site.

MiniCart will implement a mini-shopping-cart in your blog. You can add items from the admin side and embed the cart into posts. This can also be used as a donation plugin. By design, you can only show one item in a cart.

If you like this plugin, consider making a donation…

The above donate form is created using the MiniCart plugin. To see an actual cart in action, got the MiniCart Demo page.

Download MiniCart

Features

• Supports Paypal
• Easy to use interface
• You can also embed it directly into a post
• One item/cart restriction. This will force the users to focus on just one item.

Installation

1. Download the zipped file.
2. Extract and upload the contents of the folder to /wp-contents/plugins/ folder
3. Enable the plugin from Wordpress admin area
4. Go to Settings > Mini-Cart Setting page and set the paypal id(Make sure this is done).
5. Go to Tools > Cart Items and create items
6. Embed the cart in a post by using the code [MINICART item="ID_OF_ITEM"] anywhere in a post/page.
7. Alternatively, you can use the code [MINICART donate] to show a donation form.

If you have any issues with the plugin, post a thread at the MiniCart Plugin Forum.

Plugin Week

This plugin is part of the Plugin Week 2 series. Plugin Week is a week when I publish a new plugin each day for an entire week. I have already one this one time – so this is Plugin Week 2. This is the second plugin released this week. The first is Weather Man.

If you want to get news about the upcoming plugin releases(remember, 1 per day), please subscribe to this site.

Photo Credit

After the success of Plugin Week, I have decided to do it once again. So, without further ado, Welcome to Plugin Week 2. If you don’t know what a plugin week is, its a week when I publish one plugin per day – for an entire week.

There is one big difference between Plugin Week 1 and Plugin Week 2. In Plugin Week 1, only wordpress plugins where release(they are Eventr, Autofields, Pollin, Surveys, Quartz and Quizzin). This time around, I will not restrict myself to WordPress plugins – I’m going for other software too – expect Drupal plugins, jQuery plugins and more.

I’ll start off with a very simple plugin…

Weather Man WordPress Plugin

Weather Man shows the weather as a widget in the sidebar. You can add the widget using the Widget page under Appearance. Or you can add it in a post using the [weather-man] shortcode anywhere in the post. It uses Yahoo’s Weather API.

Download Plugin

Demo of Weather Man WordPress Plugin

Installation

• Download the zipped file.
• Extract and upload the contents of the folder to /wp-contents/plugins/ folder
• Go to the Plugin management page of WordPress admin section and enable the ‘Weather Man’ plugin
• Go to the Widget configuration(under Appearance) and add the Weather Man Widget into any sidebar.
• Alternatively, you can add the [weather-man] tag in any post and the Weather Man Widget will show up there.

Screenshots

Feedback

If you have any suggestions or notice any problems with the plugin, post it in the Weather Man Plugin forum.

About Me and Plugin Week

If you are new to this blog(I hope to get many new visitors due to the Plugin Week), I’m Binny. I’m a freelance web developer on the LAMP platform. I specialize in PHP and JavaScript. More about me on my personal site. Plugin Week 2 is an initiative to force myself to a small deadline to write code. It worked great during Plugin Week 1 – so I’m doing it again. Also, I get a lot of visitors during the Plugin Week – that can’t be bad.

If you want to get news about the upcoming plugin releases(remember, 1 per day), please subscribe to this site.

If you like the concept of the Plugin Week or if you found it helpful, consider writing a post about Plugin Week on your blog. If you write a post, please let me know – and I’ll list your post on the last day of the plugin week(it will have a ‘Thank You for your Support’ section).

Next plugin will be released tomorrow.

After eight posts, I am ending the plugin killer series. It has been a nice run. Hopefully, I have given you an idea of how easy it is to customize WordPress yourself – without having to resort to third party plugins. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Its just that, its more satisfying when you do it yourself. The advantages and disadvantages of customizing a theme rather than installing a plugin is given in the introduction to the WordPress Plugin Killer Series.

The Posts

Avoid Duplicate Content – Use Canonical URL in WordPress

If you are on wordpress, the canonical tag can be integrated into your theme easily. There is a plugin to do the job for you – but you don’t need a plugin to do something as simple as this.

Show Popular Posts in WordPress – without a plugin

A list of the popular posts of the blog is a standard feature in many blogs. There are quite a few plugins that offer this feature. But it can also be implemented using a simple SQL query that counts the number of comments in a post.

Adding Social Bookmarking Button in WordPress – Without Plugins

Many blogs have links to add the current post to various social bookmarking site like Digg, Reddit, Delicious, etc. This blog don’t have it – but my LinDesk blog does. This effect is achieved using wordpress plugins. But when you take a look at the code, its just simple HTML.

Show Related Post in WordPress Without a Plugin

Related posts is a very popular feature. My default wordpress installation often includes a plugin that has this functionality. There are quite a few plugins that lets you have this feature. This can be implemented by listing other posts with the same category/tags as the current post.

Highlight Author’s Comments in WordPress without using a WordPress Plugin

Many blogs highlight the author’s comment in the comments section. You can use plugins to get this effect(For eg., the Highlight Author Comments Plugin) – but you don’t have to. You can get the get the same effect by adding a small bit of CSS code to your theme stylesheet.

A Tweet This Button for Each Post in WordPress – Without a Plugin

TweetThis is a WordPress Plugin that ‘adds a Twitter link to every post and page, so your readers can share your blog entries on their Twitter accounts with ease.’ And in the tradition of my WordPress Plugin Killer Series, this post will show you how to do it without a plugin.

Creating a Paypal Donate Widget in Wordpress – Without a Plugin

Paypal donate plugins. This is extremely simple to implement – you don’t even have to edit the code to get this done. Just copy/paste the code provided by Paypal.

Create a Better 404 Page in WordPress – Without Plugins

Recently, one of my friends posted a list of plugins you can use to optimize your 404 page. In case you don’t know what a 404 page, its the page that shows up if the URL requested by the user don’t exist. He listed eight plugins to do this. And since I am working on the Plugin Killer series, it got me thinking – is it possible to do it without using any plugins?

Other People’s Posts

Many other people have written on this topic too. Here is a few posts I could find….

• Add Custom Status or Notes to a Post without a Plugin
• How to Display Any RSS Feed on Wordpress Blog
• WordPress Maintenance Mode Without a Plugin
• How to: Show related posts without a plugin
• WordPress: Removing Nofollow Without A Plugin
• WordPress & jQuery Contact Form without a Plugin

If you know of any such articles, post a comment.

Recently, one of my friends posted a list of plugins you can use to optimize your 404 page. In case you don’t know what a 404 page, its the page that shows up if the URL requested by the user don’t exist. He listed eight plugins to do this. And since I am working on the Plugin Killer series, it got me thinking – is it possible to do it without using any plugins?

Turns out, its easy. As long as you know about the Google’s 404 Widget. It adds a search box for your site with appropriate search suggestions and tries(and unfortunately, often fails) to provide alternatives to incorrect URLs.

See it in action here – http://www.bin-co.com/perl/perl_tk_tutorials/. The correct URL is http://www.bin-co.com/perl/perl_tk_tutorial/ – which the user finds and shows.

Enable Google 404 Widget in your Site

• First, create the code by following the steps given in the 404 Widget page.
• Then open the 404.php file of your wordpress theme and paste the code you got into it. Save and upload – you’re done.

This is the last of my plugin killer series. Just to balance things out, I’m thinking of doing a Plugin week(yes, a second plugin week) next week. Let me know if any of you are interested.

Paypal donate plugins. This is extremely simple to implement – you don’t even have to edit the code to get this done.

Widget Mode

Open the admin side of your blog and go to Appearance > Widgets. Now add a Text widget to the sidebar you want the widget in. Edit it and paste the HTML code from the Paypal site.

<form name="_xclick" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick">
<input type="hidden" name="business" value="binnyva@hotmail.com">
<input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="Donation">
<input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
<input type="hidden" name="amount" value="25.00">
<input type="image" src="http://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donate_LG.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!">
</form>

Make sure you use your own paypal ID in the business field.

Save the widget – and you’re done.

Theme Mode

Another method is to add the same code to the theme’s code directly. Usually in the sidebar.php file. I kind of prefer this method – but it involves code editing, FTP, etc. Not everyone is comfortable with this.

Post Mode

Last but not the least, you can embed the code directly into a post. This is perhaps the simplest of all. Below is a working sample of the code…

TweetThis is a WordPress Plugin that ‘adds a Twitter link to every post and page, so your readers can share your blog entries on their Twitter accounts with ease.’ And in the tradition of my WordPress Plugin Killer Series, this post will show you how to do it without a plugin.

The Code

You can add twitter button to your post by editing the single.php file in your theme. Go to the place in the file where you want the button to show up – then add this code at that location…

<a href="http://twitter.com/?status=<?php echo urlencode(the_title('','', false)) ?>+-+<?php the_permalink() ?>">Tweet This</a>

This is a super simple way of doing it – with a little more code, you can use a URL shortner to ’shortify’ your permalink. Otherwise it might overflow the 140 char limit.

Twitter

By the way, if you are on twitter, add me – I’m @binnyva

Many blogs highlight the author’s comment in the comments section. You can use many plugins to get this effect(For eg., the Highlight Author Comments Plugin) – but you don’t have to. You can get the get the same effect by adding a small bit of code to your theme.

The Changes

Just open up the style.css file in your active and add this at line at the end…

.bypostauthor { background-color:#aaa !important; }

Change the #aaa to the color you want as the author comment’s background. That’s it – you’re all done.

Note: This will only work on 2.7+ version of WordPress – if you are using an older version, please read the instructions in this post.

Related posts is a very popular feature. My default wordpress installation often includes a plugin that has this functionality. There are quite a few plugins that lets you have this feature…

• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)
• Similar Posts
• Aizattos Related Posts
• WordPress Related Posts
• Wasabi Related entries

The Code

WordPress has been supporting tags in its new released – so the related posts feature can be implemented without the help of any plugins. All we have to do is find the other posts with some same tags as the current post. Just open the single.php file in your theme and add this bit of code where you want the related posts to show up…

<?php
$tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID);
if ($tags) {
	$tag_ids = array();
	foreach($tags as $individual_tag) $tag_ids[] = $individual_tag->term_id;

	$args=array(
		'tag__in' => $tag_ids,
		'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
		'showposts'=>5, // Number of related posts that will be shown.
		'caller_get_posts'=>1
	);
	$my_query = new wp_query($args);
	if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
		echo '<h3>Related Posts</h3><ul>';
		while ($my_query->have_posts()) {
			$my_query->the_post();
		?>
			<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
		<?php
		}
		echo '</ul>';
	}
}
?>

This code finds the other post with any one of the tag that the current post has. If you want to show the posts with any one of the categories that the current post has, use this code instead…

<?php
$categories = get_the_category($post->ID);
if ($categories) {
	$category_ids = array();
	foreach($categories as $individual_category) $category_ids[] = $individual_category->term_id;

	$args=array(
		'category__in' => $category_ids,
		'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
		'showposts'=>5, // Number of related posts that will be shown.
		'caller_get_posts'=>1
	);
	// Rest is the same as the previous code

WordPress Plugin Killer Series

For those who came in late, this post is part of the WordPress Plugin Killer Series. This series will show you how to duplicate the functionality of the a few wordpress plugins without having to install it using custom code in the wordpress theme. The previous posts in this series are…

• Avoid Duplicate Content – Use Canonical URL in WordPress
• Show Popular Posts in WordPress – without a plugin
• Adding Social Bookmarking Button in WordPress – Without Plugins

More Resources

• 10 Exceptional WordPress Hacks
• How to: Show related posts without a plugin
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