English Mike
The random musings of an indolent writer.
WordPress Quick Tips #3:
Adding a Shortcode to a Sidebar Widget
Jul 7th
Are you thinking of using a plugin that uses shortcodes? (Shortcodes are tags in square brackets like [az-index id="1" escape="true"] that some plugins use to embed content into posts and pages.) Do you want to be able to use a shortcode in your blog’s sidebar instead of your post or page?
Well, if the answer to both those questions is “Yes” then you have come to the right place!
AZIndex User Guide Under Way
Jul 7th
I have just added the beginnings of an AZIndex User Guide to the blog. The first installment is mostly a “Getting Started” guide for those who are just starting to use the plugin, but I hope to add full documentation for the plugin and all its many settings by the time it’s complete. Unfortunately, since there are a lot of things to talk about with AZIndex, that is going to take some time — probably a few months — but I will continue to add new sections as I write them.
Feel free to comment on the AZIndex User Guide if you spot a mistake or if you find it too confusing in places.
Friday Funny: The Web of Caves
Jul 4th
High time for another Friday funny — this time my all-time favorite Doctor Who sketch, The Web of Caves. I never tire of watching this one. Anyone who remembers watching the old Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker episodes will appreciate all the little observations they put into the sketch, especially the way they pronounce the word “Dok-tor” in such mock menacing tones. (Yes, the enemies of the Doctor really did say it that way in those days!).
You may not recognise him under all that makeup, but the Doctor’s main protagonist in the sketch is David Walliams, later of Little Britain fame (and fortune).
Announcing AZIndex version 0.5.1
(lean, mean caching machine)
Jul 3rd
Phew!! The latest and greatest version of AZIndex is now available. As I mentioned in a previous post, the main enhancement this time is caching. Large indexes will load much, much faster in this version when they are being cached. Adding or modifying posts will cause AZIndex to check to see if the index has been changed as a result, but it will only invalidate the cache if a post should be added to, deleted from, or must change position in the index. Kind of cool, really.
Anyway there was a little hiccup getting 0.5 out into the WordPress repository, which might have caused one of two people to download a bad version. But I’ve sorted out the problem, so it’s safe to upgrade to 0.5.1 when you’re ready.
(Update: Changed to version 0.5.1 after I fixed a minor bug — that produced a scary but inconsequential error message when creating a new index.)
WordPress Quick Tips #2:
Embedding HTML in Blog Taglines
Jul 3rd
This tip similar to Tip #1 in that it will help you add HTML styling to parts of your blog that the usual HTML styling doesn’t reach! Last time it was post headings, this time we’re targeting your blog’s tagline.
While it’s perfectly possible to style your blog’s tagline using a CSS stylesheet, that method only allows you to modify the styling of the whole tagline. If you want embolden one word, or italicize one phrase, then you’re out of luck. If you try adding <strong> or <em> tags, they just appear in the tagline. So, what to do?
Well, the solution is a little bit more involved than last time, which is why I’ve designated this article for tweakers as opposed to regular bloggers, but in most cases it only requires a one line change to your theme’s header file to do it.
So, if you’re ready, let’s go…
Incidental Imponderables #2
Jul 1st
Why, when I put a clean shirt on just before sitting down for a meal, do I always seems to spill something on it?
AZIndex: Caching In — Update
Jul 1st
Just a quick update for those who are following developments for my AZIndex plugin (is there anybody out there… there… there… ?).
Anyway, it looks like I have a viable caching solution almost completed, and the speed improvements are quite gratifying. I have created several test indexes containing over 1100 items and the index pages load anywhere from 4x to 50x faster when they are being cached, depending on the options set for the index.
Obviously indexes with multiple pages see the biggest gains because if you put 1000 items on one index page, the plugin still has to loaded all 1000 items from the database even though they don’t have to be sorted. Even so, a 4x speed improvement is nothing to sniff at. But if you have a large number of items in the index, it’s only natural to have them spread over multiple pages, so in most cases you will see at least a 10x improvement over a non-cached index.
I have added an option to disable caching, but I recommend against using it unless you think you might be having problems with caching, and you can reset the cache from the admin page if necessary.
How does AZIndex know when the cache is out of date? Well, it attaches to the WordPress action hooks which fire when someone saves or publishes a post. Each index maintains a dirty list of posts and pages that have changed since the cache was last rebuilt, and when the index is next display, it checks though its dirty laundry (if you will) to see if the ordering of the items has been affected by the changes, or if a post needs to be removed from or added to the index. If it does find the index needs to be updated, then it will rebuild the cache causing a one-time slower load for one very slightly unlucky user.
Hooking changes to custom fields turned out to be a pain, since there are no definitive hooks for them, and you can change them without having to save the post afterwards. In the end I attach to the Ajax hooks which fire when a user is editing a custom field. That will probably work for 99% of all custom field changes, but if a blog uses another plugin to change custom fields using the function calls, then there is little AZIndex can do to detected those changes. But in the worst case, all the blogger has to do is manually clear the cache once all the changes have been made.
So, be on the lookout for AZIndex v0.5 with full caching support sometime this week, just in time for the holiday weekend.
Incidental Imponderables #1
Jun 29th
Why, a full three decades after my first skin eruption, do I still get the same insane surge of pleasure when popping a ripe, bugling zit?
New Version of AZIndex Plugin in the Offing
Jun 27th
I will be updating the AZIndex plugin to version 0.4 within a couple of days after I have done a bit more testing. It contains just about all the new features I plan to add (except for caching) before I declare the beta phase over. The new features include:
- An option to use CSS style striping to decorate your index entries (e.g. add a gray background to alternate entries).
- An option to use your own customized sort to sort an index.
- An option to customize which alphabetical links appear with your index.
- An option to place index entries that do not begin with a character or number at the end of the index instead of the beginning.
- An option to ignore punctuation like quotes or double-quotes while sorting the index (useful if some of your post titles are in quotation marks, for example.
- Safe upgrades to new versions without having to uninstall and recreate your indexes.
I think that’s more than enough functionality for the first major release of this plugin. Thanks to everyone who has given me feedback, reported bugs, or suggested enhancements. This plugin is already much the better for your help, even though it’s not quite finished yet.
I hope to have the caching done before I go on my summer vacation, but it could be tricky to do, so I can’t promise anything. However, from playing with the plugin myself, and from feedback I have received from a couple of users, if you are holding off installing AZIndex because of my dire warnings about performance, it seems that I might have been a little too cautious. If your index contains fewer than, say, a couple of hundred entries, and is not going to be accessed by thousands of users an hour, then I think you’ll find that it’s ok to install without the caching.
So keep your eyes peeled for an update to AZIndex. It should be coming your way before the weekend is over.
Car Insurance — Are You Paying Too Much?
Jun 24th
Have you noticed how quickly your car insurance rates seem to go up? Doesn’t it seem that, even as you maintain your spotless driving record, the amount you’re paying every six months is going up by leaps and bounds?
Well, it was certainly happening to me. When I signed up with Progressive Insurance a few years ago, I managed to cut my rate in half, from over $500 to about $250 for six months. But since then, despite having no accidents and no traffic tickets, the rate kept climbing and climbing until the last renewal slip of $600 dropped into my mail box (and that’s with an excellent credit rating!).
That was enough for me to finally get my act together and I started shopping around. It took me all of five minutes before I found a much better deal online at Geico Insurance — only $330 for six months. Problem solved.
So why the big difference? Simply because most service-oriented companies bank on customer inertia to rake in the big bucks. It happens all the time with phone companies, cable companies, ISPs and so on. New customers always get the best deal because companies know that once they’ve signed up, most people don’t pay much attention to what they’re paying in the months and years ahead. Insurance seems to be even more insidious since many people expect their rates to go up as a matter of course, and they do, big time.
So, do yourself a favor. Next time your car insurance is due (or even before that, since you can usually get a refund if you cancel early), take half-an-hour and visit just two web sites (at the minimum): geico.com and/or progressive.com and get a couple of online quotes (remembering to specify the equivalent coverage). You may be surprised to find how low the offered rates are. And remember to check every time a renewal notice arrives. Over a couple of decades you could find yourself saving several thousand dollars in insurance premiums if you do.
Oh, and feel free to let me know if you manage to find a better rate.
(Note, I have absolutely no loyalty or ties to either Geico or Progressive. They are both well known companies with a decent track record, but I am sure with a bit of extra surfing you will be able to find other sites you can use for further rate comparison shopping.)
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Adding a Shortcode to a Sidebar Widget
Embedding HTML in Blog Taglines
Embedding HTML in Blog Taglines
Adding a Shortcode to a Sidebar Widget