Weblog Tools Collection

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How do I start writing on the Plugin Blog and submit my ideas for feedback from readers?
After you have registered yourself on the Plugin Blog or if you already have a registration but do not have author permissions, please contact us with your details and a little information about the plugin(s) you are planning to enter into the competition and we will enable your account. This is a security precaution and we apologize for any inconvenience.

When should I submit my plugin?
We recommend that you submit your plugin to us at the end of the competition. This will give you enough time to test the plugin for any bugs and resolve them. You will have time to look into feature requests from your visitors. This will also ensure that you don’t need to submit multiple bugfixes to us. We prefer receiving a single final version for our records.

Won’t I be at a disadvantage if I submit it at the end?
No, of course not. Voting will begin only after the plugin competition ends. Also, our judges will take a look at the plugin only after the end of the competition.

Is okay to release it prior to submitting it for the contest?
Plugins released in these two months are eligible for the competition. In fact if you release it now, you have time to test it and receive feedback from the community so an early release to public is a good thing. Conversely, an early release to the public does not mean an automatic submission to the competition.

How do I know the plugin is new?
You can search to see if a similar plugin is available in WordPress Extend. You can also use any search engine to see if a similar plugin is available.

What about the plugins in last year’s competition
If you need an idea of the type of plugins that have been submitted in the past, here is a list of plugins from last year’s competition.

I am a WordPress user. I have an idea, where do I submit it?
You can also post them in this post or this posting in our News Forum.

How do I sponsor a prize?
If you would like to sponsor a prize or donate some money to the competition, please contact us. We are actively looking for prize money.

Do you have any other questions about the competition? Please post them in the comments section below.

Although the FAQ on WordPress 2.5 did an excellent job of answering a ton of frequently asked questions, users chipped in via their comments and ended up asking even more questions. This post will try to highlight a few of the questions brought up in that post and explain the answers in more detail.

Q. Is there a way to see a count on the number of comments you have total?

A. I’ve looked around for that particular detail and it has been omitted from WordPress 2.5. However, the good news is that a ticket has already been made (Ticket #6471) According to the change history, it looks like this will be one of those things that will come along with 2.6 and not WordPress 2.5.1.

Q. What happens if i don’t upgrade to WP 2.5?

A. This is open to opinion but I’ll point out the obvious. If you don’t upgrade, you are putting your blog at risk of being exploited by any known security vulnerability that may have been discovered for your version of WordPress. More specifically, if you are running 2.3.2 or earlier, you are at risk with the exception of 2.0.11 which contains all the security patches for the 2.0 branch. Also, the longer you wait to upgrade, the worst off you’ll be as the last thing anyone wants is to upgrade their blog and one week later, they have to upgrade again.

Q. Where can I find “Multi-file upload with progress bar” as described by Matt on his launching WP 2.5 post?

A. In WordPress 2.5, there is not a button specifically for uploading multiple files. After clicking on any of the ADD MEDIA buttons, click on the CHOOSE FILES TO UPLOAD BUTTON. You can select multiple files and then click on the upload button and each file you selected will then be uploaded to WordPress. You can also select a directory where all files within that directory will be uploaded.

Q. What happened to my Import Links ability?

A. It’s still there, it’s just a little more hidden. You can access the link importer by logging into your WordPress administration area and selecting WRITE - LINK - IMPORT LINKS. Note that the IMPORT LINKS will show up under the RELATED box in the right hand sidebar.

Q. Why can’t I “Save and continue editing” anymore?

A. At first, it may seem like this option doesn’t exist anymore but the SAVE button now acts the same as the old SAVE AND CONTINUE EDITING button.

Q. Some examples of code that uses the [gallery] feature of 2.5

A. WordPress 2.5 introduced something called the gallery shortcode. It looks a little something like this [gallery] The shortcode can be used in either a post or a page and displays a thumbnail set of gallery images attached to that page/post. Here are a few examples in how you could use this shortcode.

columns - specify the number of columns. The gallery will include a break tag at the end of each row, and calculate the column width as appropriate. The default value is 3. If columns is set to 0, no row breaks will be included. For example, to display a 4 column gallery:

For Example: [gallery columns="4"]

id - specify the post ID. The gallery will display images which are attached to that post. The default behaviour if no ID is specified is to display images attached to the current post. For example, to display images attached to post 123:

For Example: [gallery id="123"]

size - specify the image size to use for the thumbnail display. Valid values include “thumbnail”, “medium” and “full”. The default is “thumbnail”. For example, to display a gallery of medium sized images:

For Example: [gallery size="medium"]

Some advanced options are available:

orderby - specify the sort order used to display thumbnails. The default is “menu_order ASC, ID ASC”.

itemtag - the name of the XHTML tag used to enclose each item in the gallery. The default is “dl”.

icontag - the name of the XHTML tag used to enclose each thumbnail icon in the gallery. The default is “dt”.

captiontag - the name of the XHTML tag used to enclose each caption. The default is “dd”. For example, to change the gallery markup to use div, span and p tags:

For Example: [gallery itemtag="div" icontag="span" captiontag="p"]

Special thanks to the folks who put this information in the Codex which you can view here. (Using The Gallery Shortcode)

Q. How do I edit Widget Configuration?

A. Login to your WordPress back end and browse to DESIGN - WIDGETS. Look on the right hand side under CURRENT WIDGETS and click on the EDIT link for any widget you would like to configure the settings for.

If you have any more questions, keep them rolling in as this quite possibly might be a regular feature here at WeblogToolsCollection.com. Also, be sure to read the Codex first if you encounter any issues with WordPress as it’s the best source of documentation available.