If you are looking for a cool plugin to write, I believe that it would be really useful to be able to message inside the WordPress admin pages. I have multiple authors and I would like to leave them messages which they would see when they log in and be able to leave comments/critiques on drafts and even as a QOTD or an MOTD for all users of the blog.
This idea could be further expanded to share messages within a certain peer group of blogs. If you have my PeerID, you could receive and read internal messages from my blog that were added to your username on my blog. This should be relatively easy to do if login names remain the same across blogs. I imagine that I would log onto my dashboard to see all the messages/comments that people have left for my login on all the blogs that I am a member of. I can see this being very useful in community type blogs and for people that co-author more than one blog.
Anyone think they can execute this?
[EDIT] For other “Developer Wanted” sort of ideas, check out the Developer Wanted Category on the pluginblog.
QOTD/MOTD is a different beast to the Private Message system that you also talk about.
the PeerID is a different beast on top of that…
MOTD is easy to do – just use the admin hooks. Much like Matt’s “Hello Dolly” plugin does.
Actually Gregory, QOTD/MOTD is not that different at all. If a user messaging framework is developed, an MOTD would just be a simple entry into each user’s messagebox. The emphasis is on building a framework and not hacking small peices into place.
As for the PeerID, not a big deal at all, just a few lines of code. Check out my Blacklist peering plugin for a good example.
The idea of messaging got me to thinking about a simple message board. I have a site where people want to be able to post messages; they don’t really need a full-blown bulletin board or forum, just a way to post some simple messages back and forth.
I like the idea, but no way am I going to think about tackling it. 🙂
Mark – ok, point taken, but a MOTD is about 3 lines of code, the others are a bit more.
I can think of many ways to do it, but it IS more complex than just a simple motd, I agree tho – not too complex. Not something that I’d work on as I have no use for it… but I’m sure someone can do it.
Couldn’t the Post Level Plugin be useful? Instead of having the messaging system within wordpress, post the message as a blog post and set the minimum user level to whatever you want.