Entries Tagged 'rss' ↓

WordPress, one of the world’s most used blogging tools and publishing platforms, has reached Version 2.8 today. Go ahead and download it!

Highlights of this release:

• New drag-and-drop widgets admin interface and new widgets API
• Syntax highlighting and function lookup built into plugin and theme editors
• Browse the theme directory and install themes from the admin
• Allow the dashboard widgets to be arranged in up to four columns
• Allow configuring the number of items to show on management pages with an option in Screen Options
• Support timezones and automatic daylight savings time adjustment
• Support IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite Module
• Faster loading of admin pages via script compression and concatenation

New User Features:

• New Theme Installer routines
• Add CodePress syntax highlighting to Theme and Plugin editors
• Add Documentation(function) lookup to Theme and Plugin editors
• Use “Custom Header” for menu text and revise Default theme to reflect change
• Separate Comments into a separate postbox, from Discussion postbox, on the Edit Post screen
• Make tags accessible without Javascript on the edit screen
• Don’t ask for confirmation when marking a comment as spam
• Don’t notify post author of own comments
• Fix comment paging for static front page
• Allow the dashboard widgets to be arranged in up to four columns as set via the Screen Options tab
• Make titles into links in Dashboard Right Now module (this was in 2.7.1)
• Improved Admin icons (grey-to-transparent shadows)
• Update Blue Admin Color Scheme
• Press This improvements UI, quoting fixes, plus ability for Contributors to use Press This
• Add a Cancel Upload button and a Delete link to Administration > Media > Add New
• Add column “Rating” in Administration > Links > Edit
• Improve installer to help people entering wrong email addresses
• Improved Widget user interface
• Allow editing of all plugin files (Ticket 6732)
• Improved Plugin search (this was in 2.7.1) on Administration > Plugins > Add New
• Per Page option for plugins
• Move “Install a plugin in .zip format” to new Upload tab under Administration > Plugins > Add New
• Show absolute date instead of relative date for scheduled posts
• Fix tags suggest for post quick edit and bulk edit
• Permalink editor changes and fix for pages
• Autosave post/page when pressing Control/Command+S
• Add toggle all button to the Gallery tab in the uploader
• Support more than one gallery on the same page
• Add per page option to Screen Options for comments, posts, pages, media, categories, and tags
• Overhaul of LiveJournal importer (also add define WP_IMPORTING)
• Import category descriptions for Administration > Tools > Import > WordPress
• Show Tools menu for all users so they can access Turbo
• Check for new version when visiting Administration > Tools > Upgrade
• In upgrade process, provide better explanation for database upgrade message
• Fix most popular link category list
• Add description field for tags
• WAI-ARIA landmark roles to added to WordPress Default theme
• “Choose a city in the same timezone as you” for Timezone in Administration > Settings > General
• Remove My Hacks option from Administration > Settings > Miscellaneous
• Hide email addresses from low privilege users on Administration > Comments
• Allow case-insensitive logins
• Login and Registration pages noindex followed
• Give login screen proper iPhone viewport
• Enforce unique email addresses in Add/Edit users
• Make user_nicenames unique during registration
• Add “Send this password to the new user by email” option to Administration > Users > Add New
• Don’t set user’s Website url to http:// in Administration > Users > Add New
• Add password strength meter to Add User and Edit User
• Hide things that need to be available to screen readers via offscreen positioning
• Use invisible class for hiding labels and legends
• Use a semantic class name for text targeted to screen readers

Features that did not make it into Version 2.8:

• Some default shortcodes, maybe the most popular 10 from WordPress.com
• oEmbed support, tied in with shortcodes
• Better UI for post revisions, maybe an optional field to say what changed in a version
• OAuth support
• GeoData for posts, comments, attachments, etc.
• Template tags to do everything the custom gallery on ma.tt does
• Menu editor
• Unbalanced tags across more and nextpage tags (Ticket 6297)
• Sitemaps by default
• Refresh of the importers (LiveJournal was refreshed)
• Gallery post_type
• Versioning of template edits
• Documentation links for functions used in currently edited template
• MPTT (Modified Preorder Tree Traversal) for hierarchies

The complete (and much, much more exhaustive list) is available at WordPress.org. We are going to try the update on our various personal blogs and push it out to The Next Web in the next days. As Boris said in the comments: The Next Web is now running on WordPress 2.8. Took some 30 seconds to update!

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If you build and develop Wordpress themes often, you will probably be fed up of all the repetitive code writing, the constantly checking of your mark-up and all you really want to do is focus on the design and the project-specific features. The answer is a Wordpress development framework. A framework is designed to speed up the process of designing and coding a Wordpress theme by minimizing your time, and balancing your patience, on Wordpress’ back-end code that is repeated within every theme.

This post is not about finding the best framework, it is about finding the right framework that works for you. If you are an experienced developer then you will probably go for the powerful and feature rich Thematic or Carrington, or if you are a novice, you could try the Whiteboard framework or , even easier, download a stripped out and bare bones blank canvas theme, which you will find at the bottom of the post.

Which would you use?

Thematic – WP Framework

Thematic is a highly polished WordPress Theme Framework that is built upon the 960.gs. At first glance, its backend may look daunting and complex, but you will soon realise just how well organised it is and easy to use. Its power is based upon its flexibility and its simple customisation, you would be very hard pushed to find a project you couldn't use the Thematic WP Framework for.

• Thematic Homepage.
• View Thematic Demo.
• Download Thematic WP Framework.
• Thematic Support Forums.
• Thematic Customisation Guide.

Thematic Features

• Optional 2 or 3 column layouts.
• Up to 13 widget ready areas.
• Modular CSS with pre-packaged resets and basic typography.
• Fully Search-Engine Optimized.
• Can be used as it is, or as a blank WordPress theme.
• Dynamic post and body classes make it a hyper-canvas for CSS artists.
• Options for multi-author blogs.
• Great support available from the customisation guide and forums.
• Child Themes are available for upgrading the theme.

Thematic (child) Themes

Thematic uses Child Themes, these are essentially stripped down versions of a full WP theme, that needs the Thematic Framework for functionality. Upon download, Thematic comes packaged with a basic child theme, but you can download many more from the Thematic homepage. Download Thematic Child Themes.

Below, you will find a small selection of themes available for Thematic.

Acamas Child Theme

Second to None Child Theme

Gallery Child Theme

Boumatic Child Theme

Aether for all Child Theme

To activate a new Child Theme, all you have to do is rename and move the entire folder to the root level of wp-content/themes alongside Thematic and activate the new Thematic Child Theme like any other WordPress theme.

Carrington – The CMS Theme Framework

Being by far the most powerful of all WP frameworks, Carrington was built with both developers and end-users in mind, it truly is the complete Wordpress package. Upon download, the first time user may be put off by its undoubted complexity and its endless features and options, but don't be put off. You must persevere with this framework, and when you learn all the ins and outs (with help from its in-depth documentation and forums) you will receive your just rewards, you will see how beneficial, rewarding and time saving Carrington can be. As the tagline goes, it may just be the best thing since you the wheel and sliced bread.

• Carrington Homepage.
• Carrington Documentation.
• Carrington Official Forum.
• Carrington Downloads.

Carrington Features

• Flexible and powerful templating system.
• Rich, semantic markup.
• Four ready built themes.
• Stylish typography.
• Threaded comments.
• Page and category navigation menus.
• AJAX loading of posts in archive lists.
• AJAX loading of comments.

Carrington Official Themes

Carrington Blog
Carrington Blog is an elegant blog-style theme with advanced features like AJAX loading of content, customizable colors and header images, easy addition of analytics code, widgetized sidebars, stylish gallery features, and more. It is designed for bloggers looking for an “out of the box” experience.

Carrington Text
Carrington Text embraces simplicity with this elegant design. Text and content is the focus here – let your content take center stage.

Carrington Mobile
Carrington Mobile is an elegant mobile theme with that supports advanced touch browsers (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry) and is also backward compatible with older mobile devices.

Carrington Jam
Carrington JAM is a bare-bones theme skeleton. It is intended for developers and designers as a starting point for building a new theme, it is not designed for end-users looking for a blog theme that is ready to go.

Theme Hybrid

Theme Hybrid is Wordpress Framework developed by Justin Tadlock. As with all Justin’s’ Wordpress themes (the excellent Options theme), you know that you are getting a very powerful and versatile backend, but still very easy to use and develop upon. Theme hybrid truly is built with simplicity and power in mind.

The theme club has two types of membership, free and exclusive. Free members can download and use the themes for free and participate in the forums. For $25 you can join the exclusive club, which gives you access to tutorials and you are able to post questions on the support forums.

• Theme Hybrid Homepage.
• Theme Hybrid Blog.
• Theme Hybrid Forums.
• Theme Hybrid Memebership.

Theme Hybrid Features

• Advanced action and filter hooks.
• Child theme support.
• Each individual child theme is in its self choc-full of features.
• Search-Engine Optimized.
• 14 custom page templates.
• 9 widget-ready areas.
• Advanced breadcrumb menu.
• Support for attachment pages.
• Of course, it has valid code.
• Threaded comments.
• Great support, lots of tutorials and forums.

Theme Hybrid Child Themes

For all of these themes to work, you will need Hybrid installed first.

Hybrid
Hybrid is a user-friendly, search-engine optimized theme framework, featuring 14 custom page templates and 9 widget-ready areas.

Life Collage
A purely blogging theme, it has extra widget sections, drop-down menus, with a sleek design.

Hybrid News
This is a free News/Magazine theme, it has extra widget sections, double navigation menus, drop-down menus and a featured post slider.

Leviathan
This theme is clean and spacious, ideal for large images and large posts.

Old School
Old School is versatile enough to be used as either a blog or a magazine/news site, great design as well.

WP Framework

WP Framework is a great starting point when first learning about the Wordpresses structure and first stepping into theme development as well as for the experienced user for quick development. Under the hood its foundation it is very solid, and this framework will cut down on your theme development time and allow you to focus directly and from the off on project-specific features. WP Framework is completely extensible, flexible and the starting point for theme authoring and customization.

• WP Framework Homepage.
• WP Framework Getting Started Guide.
• WP Framework Forums.
• WP Framework Downloads.

WP Framework Features

• Microformats Compatabile.
• Search Engine Optimized.
• Modular CSS includes reset.css, base.css and screen.css.
• Gravatar enabled.
• Favicon & iPhone webclip placeholder images.
• jQuery enabled and screen.js.
• Basic print.css stylesheet ready for direct printing.

Buffet Theme Framework

The Buffet Framework is a WordPress theme framework designed not only for the theme developers who will be using the theme actions and filters to create child themes, but also for the end users who would be able to add and remove what they want. Like most WordPress theme frameworks, the Buffet Framework utilises WordPress actions and filters to allow theme developers to add additional content without editing the templates files using the child theme concept.

• Buffet Theme Homepage.
• Buffet Theme Quick Start Guide.
• Buffet Theme Downloads.

Buffet Theme Features

• Search Engine Optimised.
• Support for Microformats.
• jQuery powered comments form, SuperSleight for IE6, Superfish menus and jBreadcrumbs included.
• Packaged with 960gs and Blueprint CSS.
• Action & Filter Hooks
• Allow end-users to enable/disable features using the extensions feature.
• Localization – fully localized, ready for translation.

Buffet Theme Demo

Buffet Theme

Whiteboard – WP Theme Framework

Whiteboard will never be as powerful as the Carrington framework or the Buffet framework, it has been developed for simpler development requirements. Simply, it has been designed to speed up the process of designing and coding a Wordpress theme by eliminating the time spent on Wordpress’ back-end PHP that is repeatedly used in every theme. It is clean, noted, and very small, weighing in at 76kb, its amazingly compact.

• Whiteboard Theme Homepage.
• Download Whiteboard Theme.

Thesis Theme

The Thesis Theme is a framework that has been built with great typography, a dynamically resizable layout, intelligent code, airtight optimization, and with lots of flexibility that make it versatile enough for most projects. Have a look at this video review of Thesis 1.5.

• Thesis Theme Homepage.
• Thesis Theme Forums.
• Thesis Theme User’s Guide.

The WordPress Starter Theme Project

Similar in idea as the Whiteboard framework, The Wordpress Starter Theme Project was developed for those who hate repeatedly doing the same actions every time you start a new Wordpress project. This is a very easy to use framework, which is ideal for the novice to learn the basics of Wordpress structure.

• The WordPress Starter Theme Project Homepage.
• Download The WordPress Starter Theme Project.

Ashford WP Framework

Ashford has been built to be as simple as possible to use, it is also packed with many useful and powerful features. You can create and edit content with Adminbar, Hints and Admin-In-Place, choose from dozens of page layouts (including a content carousel), content can also be customized using widgets and multiple sidebars and of course all code validates and is fully SEO.

Ashford, like most frameworks, uses child themes, making it even easier to develop with. Unfortunately, child themes for Ashford are as yet limited.

• Ashford Homepage.
• Ashford Support.
• Ashford Blog.

Sandbox

The seemigly ageless Sandbox, is a useful tool for WordPress theme designers and developers, it can be easily developed solely with CSS, so beginners will feel comfortable not having to worry about PHP. Experienced developers and designers can accomplish almost anything with minimal work, thanks to the rich, semantic markup and profusion of classes dynamically generated by the Sandbox.

The main feature of the Sandbox, and the feature that has made it very popular, is its markup. The class-generating functions included with the Sandbox create an extensible and semantic XHTML structure. Please note, the Sandbox has only been tested up to WP 2.6.

• The Sandbox Homepage.
• The Sandbox Demo Page.
• The Sandbox Readme.
• The Sandbox Forums.

OnePress Community

The OnePress framework is an integrated website and forum solution. It is, simply, a WordPress theme to serve as the foundation and framework for your web site and online community. Leveraging both WordPress and phpBB projects, OnePress provides a set of features focused on helping you build and maintain your site from the inside out.

• Onepress Homepage.
• Download Onepress.
• Onepress Docs.
• Onepress Forum.

PSD Framework for Creating WordPress Themes

If you have ever found yourself reusing elements from previous designs when starting up Photoshop to create yet another WordPress theme, then this PSD download is just for you.

Homepage and PSD Downloads

Blank WP Themes

Blank themes are not a development framework, as such, they are a blank canvas for quickly and painlessly starting a Wordpress project. Below you will find the best of them.

Blank WP from Anna Linea
There are six themes within this download package.

Blank Wordpress Themes from Refueled
There are three themes available, two-column left sidebar, two-column right sidebar and blank three column.

Wordpress Naked Theme from Siftware

Starkers – Blank Canvas WP Theme from Elliot Jay Stocks

Related posts

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• CSS Frameworks + CSS Reset: Design From Scratch.

About the author

Paul Andrew is a freelance web designer. He is chief admin for Speckyboy – Design Magazine, a web design, web development and graphic design resource blog. Follow him on Twitter here: twitter.com/speckyboy.

© Paul Andrew for Smashing Magazine, 2009. |
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Post tags: frameworks, wordpress

One of the reasons people love WordPress so much is its great flexibility. You can change the software’s appearance with themes. You can enhance its functionality with plug-ins. And, last but not least, you can totally unleash WordPress’ power with hacks. Some time ago, we wrote a post showing 10 Killer WordPress Hacks.

Today, let’s do it again with 10 new and totally killer WordPress hacks to make your blog stand out from the crowd. As usual, we won’t just list the hacks alone. In each entry, you’ll find an explanation of the code as well as the kinds of problems that the hack solves.

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• 15 Useful Twitter Hacks and Plug-Ins For WordPress
• Mastering WordPress Shortcodes
• 10 Steps To Protect The Admin Area In WordPress
• 8 Useful WordPress SQL Hacks
• 10 Useful RSS-Tricks and Hacks For WordPress

1. Create TinyURLs On The Fly

The problem. Because Twitter has become a social media revolution, many bloggers and Twitter users enjoy sharing blog posts they have found and liked on Twitter. However, manually creating a TinyURL before tweeting can get a little tedious. As you probably know, Twitter can bring a lot of traffic to your blog, so it is in your interest to consistently provide short URLs to your readers.

The solution. To use this recipe, follow the simple steps below:

1. Open your functions.php file.
2. Paste the following code in the file:

   function getTinyUrl($url) {
       $tinyurl = file_get_contents("http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=".$url);
       return $tinyurl;
   }

3. Open your single.php file and paste the following in the loop:

   <?php
   $turl = getTinyUrl(get_permalink($post->ID));
   echo 'Tiny Url for this post: <a href="'.$turl.'">'.$turl.'</a>'
   ?>

4. That’s all you need. Each of your posts now has its own TinyURL, ready for tweeting!

Code explanation. The popular URL shortening service TinyURL provides a quick API that creates TinyURLs on the fly. When you pass a URL to http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php, the API immediately prints the related TinyURL on the screen.

Using the PHP function file_get_contents(), we can get it and assign it to the $tinyurl variable. The last part of the code retrieves the post’s permalink and passes it as a parameter to the getTinyUrl() function previously created.

Source:

• How to: Automatically provide TinyURLs for your WordPress blog posts

2. List Upcoming Posts

The problem. If you often schedule posts to be published, how about displaying them in a list? This will make your readers look forward to what you’re going to publish in a few days and can help you reach new RSS subscribers. Implementing this functionality on your WordPress blog isn’t hard at all.

The solution. Nothing hard here. Just copy this code and paste it anywhere in your theme files.

<div id="zukunft">
	<div id="zukunft_header"><p>Future events</p></div>

	<?php query_posts('showposts=10&post_status=future'); ?>
	<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
		<div >
			<p class><b><?php the_title(); ?></b><?php edit_post_link('e',' (',')'); ?><br />

			<span class="datetime"><?php the_time('j. F Y'); ?></span></p>
		</div>
	<?php endwhile; else: ?><p>No future events scheduled.</p><?php endif; ?>

</div>

Once you’ve saved the file, your upcoming posts will be displayed on your blog.

Code explanation. This code use the super-powerful query_posts() WordPress function, which allows you to take control of the WordPress loop.

The parameter used is post_status, which allows you to get posts according to their status (published, draft, pending or future). The showposts parameter is also used to define how many items you’d like to get. You can change the value of this parameter on line 4 to retrieve more or less than ten posts.

Source:

• How to: List future posts

3. Create A “Send To Facebook” Button

The problem. In the first hack, we noted that Twitter can bring a lot traffic to your blog. Another website that can boost your traffic stats easily is Facebook. In this hack, let’s see how we can create a “Send to Facebook” button for your WordPress blog.

The solution.

1. Open the single.php file in your theme.
2. Paste the following code in the loop:

   <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=<?php the_permalink();?>&t=<?php the_title(); ?>" target="blank">Share on Facebook</a>

3. Alternatively, you could use the getTinyUrl() function to send a short URL to Facebook:

   <?php $turl = getTinyUrl(get_permalink($post->ID)); ?>
   <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=<?php echo $turl;?>&t=<?php the_title(); ?>" target="blank">Share on Facebook</a>

4. That’s all. Your readers will now be able to share your blog post on Facebook with their friends!

Code explanation. This useful hack is very easy to understand: the only thing we do here is retrieve the post’s permalink and title and send them as parameters to http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php.

In the alternative method, we used the getTinyUrl() function (created in the previous hack) to send a short URL instead of the post’s permalink.

Source:

• How to: Add a “Share on Facebook” link to your WordPress blog

4. Create A Maintenance Page For Your WordPress Blog

The problem. One thing I really like about Drupal is the option to temporarily redirect visitors to a maintenance page. Sadly, WordPress doesn’t have this feature. When you upgrade your blog, switch themes or make design changes, you may not want your visitors to see your blog as it is being tweaked, especially if it has design or code problems or, even worse, security gaps.

The solution. To solve this problem, we use the power of the .htaccess file. Just follow the steps below to get started.

1. Create your maintenance page. A simple WordPress page is generally sufficient.
2. Find your .htaccess file (located at the root of your WordPress installation) and create a back-up.
3. Open your .htaccess file for editing.
4. Paste the following code:

   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/maintenance.html$
   RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^123\.123\.123\.123
   RewriteRule $ /maintenance.html [R=302,L]

5. Replace 123\.123\.123\.123 on line 3 with your IP address (Don’t know it?). Make sure to use the same syntax.
6. Now, all visitors except you will be redirected to your maintenance page.
7. Once you’re done tweaking, upgrading, theme switching or whatever, re-open your .htaccess file and remove (or comment out) the redirection code.

Code explanation. The .htaccess file, which controls the Apache Web server, is very useful for these kinds of tasks.

In this example, we state that any visitor who has an IP different from 123.123.123.123 (which doesn’t request maintenance.html) should be redirected to maintenance.html.

By replacing 123.123.123.123 with your own IP address, you make sure you’re still allowed to browse your blog normally, while others are redirected to maintenance.html.

Source:

• 10 awesome .htaccess hacks for WordPress

5. Display Related Posts Without A Plug-In

The problem. One well-known way of keeping visitors on your blog longer and helping them discover news posts is to display, usually at the end of the article, a list of related content.

Many plug-ins will do this job, but why not super-charge your theme by integrating this functionality by default?

The solution.

1. Open the single.php file in your theme.
2. Paste the following code in the loop:

   <?php
   $tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID);
   if ($tags) {
     echo 'Related Posts';
     $first_tag = $tags[0]->term_id;
     $args=array(
       'tag__in' => array($first_tag),
       'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
       'showposts'=>5,
       'caller_get_posts'=>1
      );
     $my_query = new WP_Query($args);
     if( $my_query->have_posts() ) { ?>
   <ul>
   
   </ul>
   

3. Save the file, and then have a look at your blog: related posts are automatically displayed!

Code explanation. This hack uses tags to retrieve related posts. The first thing it does is get the post’s tags. If a post has tags, the first one is extracted and used in a query that retrieves posts with the same tag.

By default, this code displays up to five related posts. To change this number, simply edit line 9 of the code.

Source:

• How to: Show related posts without a plug-in

6. Automatically Retrieve The First Image From Posts On Your Home Page

The problem. Many WordPress users use custom fields to display a thumbnail on their blog home page. Of course, this is a nice solution, but how about automatically retrieving the first image from a post and using it as a thumbnail?

The solution. This hack is quite easy to implement:

1. Open the functions.php file in your theme.
2. Paste this code in. Don’t forget to specify a default image on line 10 (in case a post of yours does not have an image).

   function catch_that_image() {
     global $post, $posts;
     $first_img = '';
     ob_start();
     ob_end_clean();
     $output = preg_match_all('/<img.+src=[\'"]([^\'"]+)[\'"].*>/i', $post->post_content, $matches);
     $first_img = $matches [1] [0];
   
     if(empty($first_img)){ //Defines a default image
       $first_img = "/images/default.jpg";
     }
     return $first_img;
   }

3. Save the functions.php file.
4. On your blog home page (index.php), call the function this way to get the URL of the first image from the post:

   <?php echo catch_that_image() ?>

Code explanation. The function uses the global variable $post to parse the post’s content with a regular expression. If an image is found, its URL is returned by the function. If not, the default image URL is returned.

Source:

• How to: Get the first image from the post and display it
• Retreive first image from post

7. Resize Images On The Fly

The problem. When you use thumbnails on your blog’s home page or even images in posts, having to manually resize them is boring and wastes a lot of time. So, why not use the power of PHP to do it?

The solution. To achieve this hack, just follow these simple steps:

1. Get this script and save it on your computer (I’ll assume you’ve named it timthumb.php).
2. Use an FTP program to connect to your server and create a new directory called scripts. Upload the timthumb.php file to it.
3. Once done, you can display images like so:

   <img src="/scripts/timthumb.php?src=/images/whatever.jpg&h=150&w=150&zc=1" alt="Screenshot" />

   In other words, you just call the timthumb.php file and pass your image as a parameter. The same goes for your desired width and height.

Code explanation. The timthumb.php script use the PHP GD library, which allows you to manipulate images dynamically with PHP. GD is installed by default on all servers running PHP5. If you’re not running PHP5, you’ll have to check if GD is installed before using this script.

The timthumb.php file gets the parameters you’ve passed to it (image URL, width and height) and uses it to create a new image with your stated dimensions. Once that’s done, the image is returned to you.

Source:

• TimThumb PHP script released
• How to: Resize images on the fly

8. Get Your Most Popular Posts Without A Plug-In

The problem. Displaying your most popular posts is a good way to make visitors stay longer on your blog, as is displaying related posts. Many great plug-ins can list your most popular posts, but again, why use a plug-in when you can simply hack your WordPress theme to do it automatically?

The solution. Just paste the following code anywhere in your theme files (for example, in sidebar.php). To change the number of displayed posts, simply change the “5″ on line 3 to your desired number.

<h2>Popular Posts</h2>
<ul>
<?php $result = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_count,ID,post_title FROM $wpdb->posts ORDER BY comment_count DESC LIMIT 0 , 5");
foreach ($result as $post) {
setup_postdata($post);
$postid = $post->ID;
$title = $post->post_title;
$commentcount = $post->comment_count;
if ($commentcount != 0) { ?>

<li><a href="<?php echo get_permalink($postid); ?>" title="<?php echo $title ?>">
<?php echo $title ?></a> {<?php echo $commentcount ?>}</li>
<?php } } ?>

</ul>

Code explanation. This code executes an SQL query to the WordPress database, using the $wpdb object, to get a list of the five posts with the most comments. The results are then wrapped in an unordered HTML list and displayed on screen.

Source:

• Create your own popular posts page

9. Highlight Searched Text In Search Results

The problem. The WordPress search engine system is often criticized for not being powerful enough. One of its weakest points in my opinion is that searched text is not easily distinguishable from the rest of the text. Let’s solve that!

The solution.

1. Open your search.php file and find the the_title() function.
2. Replace it with the following:

   echo $title;

3. Now, just before the modified line, add this code:

   <?php
   	$title 	= get_the_title();
   	$keys= explode(" ",$s);
   	$title 	= preg_replace('/('.implode('|', $keys) .')/iu',
   		'<strong class="search-excerpt">\0</strong>',
   		$title);
   ?>

4. Save the search.php file and open style.css. Add the following line to it:

   strong.search-excerpt { background: yellow; }

That’s all. Better, isn’t it?

Code explanation. Once again, regular expressions are a lifesaver. The regexp parses the $s content ($s is the variable containing the searched text) and automatically adds a <strong class=”search-excerpt”> element around any occurrences of $s.

Then, you simply modify your style.css file to give searched text a special style and make it more visible to your readers.

Sources:

• Make WordPress’ search function suck less.
• How to: Highlight searched text in search results

10. Disable Widgetized Areas Without Editing Theme Files

The problem. Widgets are very useful, but sometimes you don’t need them on a particular page or post. Sure, you can create a page template for a particular page or even remove the widgetized zone from the code, but a much better and more elegant solution exists.

The solution. To do this, simply add the following code to your functions.php file:

<?php
add_filter( 'sidebars_widgets', 'disable_all_widgets' );

function disable_all_widgets( $sidebars_widgets ) {
	if ( is_home() )
		$sidebars_widgets = array( false );
	return $sidebars_widgets;
}
?>

Code explanation. This code first adds a filter to the sidebars_widgets WordPress function. Now every time WordPress tries to execute this function, it will execute the disable_all_widgets function we just created.

The disable_all_widgets function uses WordPress conditional tags (in this example, is_home(), but you can use any conditional tag) to disable all widgets if a visitor is on a particular page or post.

Source:

• Disable widget areas (sidebars) without touching theme templates

Related posts

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• 15 Useful Twitter Hacks and Plug-Ins For WordPress
• Mastering WordPress Shortcodes
• 10 Steps To Protect The Admin Area In WordPress
• 8 Useful WordPress SQL Hacks
• 10 Useful RSS-Tricks and Hacks For WordPress

About the author

This post was written by Jean-Baptiste Jung, a 27-year-old blogger from Belgium, who blogs about WordPress at WpRecipes, about Photoshop at PsdRecipes and about everything related to blogging and programming at Cats Who Code. You can stay in touch with Jean by following him on Twitter.

(al)

© Jean-Baptiste Jung for Smashing Magazine, 2009. |
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Post tags: facebook, hacks, maintenance, related, techniques, tinyurl, upcoming, wordpress

Following everything must be great. The all-seeing eye, yeah! Never miss anything worthwhile. Be the first to know. I’m signing for it.

Such a beautiful utopia, but oh so dangerous to strive for. Though there are plenty of tools that will help you getting you there. Turn on a sound effect every time you receive an email or tweet. Wear your head set all the time. And…, install an Adobe Air app which keeps you up to date about all the latest articles in your feed selection.

Snackr is such a service. After installing it on the Adobe Air platform, importing your OPML file, and placing it in the preferred corner – your RSS feeds are always available. Right there, in the corner of your eye.

I’m running the RSS reader while I’m typing this post, and man, it drives me crazy! It keeps asking for my attention. Like a TV screen in a bar. The design, features, and usability: it’s all very well-executed. – but using the nifty little program will mean the end of productivity for me.

But hey, maybe you’re the kind of guy/ gal who needs a little bit of distraction. If that’s the case, don’t hesitate and click here.

RSS and syndication are the veins that the new social web flows through. Countless products and services have been built on top of RSS in the past few years but there are always a few that stand above the rest.

As part of this year’s Top 10 Products series, we offer below the Top 10 RSS and Syndication Products of 2008. These are the feed tools we and the people we know use day in and day out – we love them, we hate them, we wouldn’t want to work without them.

Sponsor

This is the fourth in our series of top products of 2008:

1. Top 10 Semantic Web Products of 2008
2. Top 10 International Products of 2008
3. Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2008

About the Selections

These aren’t all new products from 2008. They are the products in the RSS and syndication world that we think made the biggest impact or were the most useful.

To be honest, this was not a particularly good year for innovation in the RSS space. Too many of the products listed below are incumbents, several of which drove us crazy this year. They remain on the list, however, because they are incredibly useful and nothing topped them.

Some honorable mentions are deserved as well. We talked to many people who like RSS magazine-style start page Feedly, though we found it overly constrictive and don’t feel that it’s made a big market splash yet. We also found the Associated Press’s AP Member Marketplace very interesting. Had we gotten a chance to get to know it better, it could very well have been on this list. Finally, we love African social media aggregator Afrigator – it’s a great way to learn about what’s happening all over the continent and it’s a great use of RSS. We named it one of the Top 10 International Products of 2008 but we think it deserves an honorable mention in this category as well.

And Now the RWW Top 10 RSS and Syndication Products of 2008

Postrank

Formerly known as AideRSS, Postrank is simply the most useful RSS related application we’ve seen in a long time. Plug in any RSS feed and Postrank will rate each item in the feed on a scale of 1 to 10, by number of comments, inbound links, saves in Delicious, etc. You can then subscribe to a filtered feed of just the 10% most popular items in that feed.

We use Postrank all the time, in all kinds of contexts: from monitoring break-out stories in niche markets we don’t follow closely, to finding out about the bread and butter of new blogs we discover to running search feeds through Postrank to surface hot conversations on any topic.

Postrank has been around for about a year and a half, but we write about it over and over again.

This year Postrank opened an API, made a bunch of deals with other companies, improved its service, raised a round of funding and just generally rocked.

FriendFeed

Social “life streaming” service FriendFeed is making syndication a more social activity than anything else has yet. The service aggregates your activity data from all around the web, lets your friends comment on it and shows you the activities of all your friends’ friends when someone you know comments on something and exposes it to their network.

If RSS readers will change your life and work through their awesome usefulness, FriendFeed is a service that makes syndication fun. It’s one of the first places we go on the web every morning.

We interviewed the ex-Googlers who founded FriendFeed last February and that interview is still the best place to learn how the service works under the hood.

If you’d like to connect with the ReadWriteWeb crew on FriendFeed (and we hope you will) we’ve posted a tour of our FriendFeed profile pages here. Please join us also in the ReadWriteWeb FriendFeed Room.

Gnip

Gnip is a social media ping server, a service that other services ask for user data updates from all around the web. There’s nothing here for users, but almost every developer we talk to these days who is aggregating content in order to add value to it (and that is the name of the game) has Gnip on its radar. The company aims to make aggregation more timely, scalable and efficient than it is today.

We wrote about Gnip at length when the service launched in July.

Snackr

Snackr is a simple little RSS ticker built in Adobe AIR. Its frenetic and unstopping delivery of news is too much for many people, but the rest of us love it. It’s where our eyes wander during page loads and other down times. Many of the stories you read here at ReadWriteWeb were based on things we first caught wind of through Snackr.

Snackr was built in-house at Adobe by Flex team member Narciso Jaramillo. We reviewed it in May and have been using it ever since.

Google Reader

Google Reader is the market leader in full featured RSS readers, having pulled ahead of the troubled Bloglines in recent months. This year Google Reader has made their sharing feature much more transparent, added the ability to translate any feed into a number of different languages and recently redesigned.

It hasn’t been a super exciting year for the product, and there are still basic problems like very infrequent caching of rare feeds, but Google Reader’s incredible dominance in the field makes it a required part of this list.

Google Reader RSS Subscriber Count Greasemonkey Script

One of the simplest little changes we’ve made to our browsers lately is the addition of this greasemonkey script that shows the number of readers in Google Reader that any page’s RSS feed has. You can usually multiply that number by 2 to 4 times for an estimate of how many total readers a feed has across all readers, but either way it’s a great little indication of a site’s popularity.

The script was written by an anonymous user named “uncv” and we’d like to thank them. We love what they’ve done! This was one of the 7 coolest browser tweaks from the last month that we wrote about earlier this week. It’s already won a permanent place in our hearts!

Dapper

Dapper.net is a point and click interface for data extraction – a nice way to say scraping an RSS feed. We continue to depend on Dapper for all kinds of research, we’re always finding new ways to use it around here. We love it.

Unfortunately, some sites don’t like us to have access to links back to them available in our RSS readers (like Facebook, for example) and that really upsets us. In many cases those feeds that we created ourselves are the only way we’d be drawn back to a site, so it’s their loss as much as ours.

Dapper has been around since 2006, but they recently launched a semantic ad platform that we included in our list of the top 10 semantic web products of 2008.

Twitterfeed

Love it or hate it, Twitterfeed has made a big impact on the web in 2008. It’s the service people use to publish an RSS feed right into Twitter.

Some people argue that twitter is all about conversation and that publishing an RSS feed there is grating and inappropriate. We like getting our local newspaper story links on Twitter, though, and everything from disaster monitoring to traffic conditions are now available via Twitterfeed.

Feedburner

Google’s RSS publishing service Feedburner hurt our ability to break news first, can’t be used in many corporate environments because it gets blocked in China and only made 6 posts all year to its company blog, none since May. That’s compared to 28 posts in 2007. Apparently once you get your Google money there’s not much point in communicating with the people who depend on you every day.

Why would we call Feedburner one of the top 10 RSS products on the year then? Because despite how frustrating it can be, the service is still so incredibly useful that we don’t know what we’d do without it. Not just for publishing and analytics for ReadWriteWeb feeds – from numbers to email delivery to FeedFlare links, Feedburner will work magic easily on any feed you work with. I’ve got 68 different feeds in my account and I’ll probably publish several more before the year is up.

Pipes

Yahoo! Pipes is another RSS based service that is really frustrating, hasn’t innovated substantially in the last year – but is still so powerfully useful that it deserves a spot as one of the top products in this market.

Splicing and filtering RSS feeds is the simplest thing to do with Pipes, but there’s much more you can do with it as well. It’s great for us pseudo-geeks, we can work all kinds of magic with it. We’ve used Pipes throughout the year to do things that we (ok I) don’t have the technical chops to do otherwise. For that I thank the Pipes team a whole lot.

Those Were Our Favorites This Year – How About You?

Did we miss anyone you think should have been on this list? We hope you’ll share your favorites in comments below. What RSS and syndication products impacted you the most in 2008?

Discuss

The last time WordPress – the popular open source blogging platform – changed their user interface, they got a reaction. And it wasn’t positive. Even diehard fans were questioning the reasoning behind the changes, trying to figure out ways to work within the new construct, or simply throwing their hands up in despair. So, it comes as little surprise that the latest release, WordPress 2.7 – codenamed “Coltrane” – has had a great deal of time and energy focused on improving that interface. But could the WordPress development team win back the adoration of those angry users with yet another interface change?

Sponsor

If the initial reactions are any indication, the answer would be yes. Now, those same users who were hating WordPress 2.5 are gushing that WordPress 2.7 interface “reeks of pure awesome.”

Personally, I experienced a similar reaction when I saw Coltrane demoed in front of the WordCamp Portland crowd in September. Jaws were dropping. I swear there were “Oohs,” “Ahs,” and spontaneous applause. (Which I guess is appropriate for a release named after a jazz legend.) Everyone – from new user to WordPress developer – was downright giddy.

WordPress 2.7 delivers an interface that is nearly impossible to hate – because each user has ultimate control over the way the interface is arranged. Practically anything you can touch on the interface can be changed. Don’t like something? Put it away. Drag it somewhere else. Resize it.

The new release also offers features that users have been requesting, including things like “sticky posts” – posts that remain stuck as the first post on a blog even as additional posts are published – and the ability to do more from the dashboard. If the first word to describe Coltrane is “customizable,” then the second word is definitely “thoughtful.” Across the board, users can complete more activities with fewer clicks.

All the shiny newness on top hints at changes to under-workings, as well. There have been several changes to APIs, bug fixes, and inline documentation added to assist in development and support.

But for as impressive as the new release is, I’d offer that the positive reception has less to do with the technology and the functionality. I think it’s far more visceral than that. I’d say it has more to do with the fact that users felt that the WordPress interface team – led by recent Automattic addition Jane Wells – listened to their concerns and worked to resolve them. What’s more, they allowed users to be involved throughout the development process.

With WordPress 2.7, WordPress users feel like they’re part of the team again. And that goodwill could gain WordPress far more ground than any of the new features.

To read more about the new release, see the WordPress blog. Or take our word for it and download WordPress 2.7.

Discuss

By Jean-Baptiste Jung

RSS is one of those technologies that are extremely simple yet extremely powerful. Currently, RSS is the de facto standard for blog syndication, and it is used widely in both personal and corporate settings; for example, in blogs. And because a large percentage of these blogs run on WordPress, we’ll cover in this post some (hopefully) relatively unknown but useful RSS-related tricks and hacks that will help you use RSS in a more effective way — and without unnecessary and chunky WordPress plug-ins.

Let’s take a look at 10 useful, yet rather unknown RSS-tricks for WordPress. Each section of the article presents a problem, suggests a solution and provides you with an explanation of the solution, so that you can not just solve some of your RSS-related problems but also understand what you are actually doing. Thus, you can make sure your WordPress theme remains under your control and is not bloated with some obscure source code.

1. Control When Your Posts are Available via RSS

The problem. Have you ever published an article and then immediately noticed an error? Sure, you can edit it, but there’s another problem: the article has already been published in your RSS feed. To avoid this kind of problem, use this recipe to create a delay between the publication of a post and its availability in your RSS feed.

The solution. To apply this hack, simply paste the following code into your theme’s function.php file. If your theme doesn’t have this file, just create it.

function publish_later_on_feed($where) {
	global $wpdb;

	if ( is_feed() ) {
		// timestamp in WP-format
		$now = gmdate('Y-m-d H:i:s');

		// value for wait; + device
		$wait = '5'; // integer

		// http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/date-and-time-functions.html#function_timestampdiff
		$device = 'MINUTE'; //MINUTE, HOUR, DAY, WEEK, MONTH, YEAR

		// add SQL-sytax to default $where
		$where .= " AND TIMESTAMPDIFF($device, $wpdb->posts.post_date_gmt, '$now') > $wait ";
	}
	return $where;
}

add_filter('posts_where', 'publish_later_on_feed');

Code explanation. The above code will add a 5-minute delay to the time between when your post is published on your blog and when it appears in your RSS feed. To change the length of the delay, change the value of the $wait variable on line 9.

Sources

• Publish your feed later

2. Redirecting WordPress Feeds to FeedBurner Feeds

The problem. Beginner bloggers usually start to use FeedBurner only after they have seen it used on many other blogs and realize how useful and cool this tool is. They sign up and start to use it, but their early readers are already subscribed to their default WordPress feed.

Another problem: do you often change your theme? If so, you must be bored having to edit each call to bloginfo(’rss2_url’) and replace it with your FeedBurner feed’s URL.

The solution. The solution to both problems described above is simple: use server redirections.

1. Create a backup of your .htaccess file, located in the root of your Web server.
2. Edit the .htaccess file and add the following code. Don’t forget to modify the feed’s URL with your own feed’s URL.

   # temp redirect wordpress content feeds to feedburner
   <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !FeedBurner    [NC]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !FeedValidator [NC]
    RewriteRule ^feed/?([_0-9a-z-]+)?/?$ http://feeds.feedburner.com/wprecipes [R=302,NC,L]
   </IfModule>

3. Save the file. You’re done!

Code explanation. Each time someone clicks on a link to http://www.yourblog.com/feed, he or she will be redirected to http://feeds.feedburner.com/yourblog. This way, you will have never lost an RSS subscriber, and even if you change your theme twice a day, you’ll never have to manually edit your RSS feed links again.

Sources

• Redirect WordPress feeds to FeedBurner via htaccess (Redux)
• How to: redirect WordPress RSS feeds to FeedBurner with .htaccess

3. Insert Ads (or Anything Else) in Your RSS Feed

The problem. Monetizing RSS feeds is currently becoming a common practice, and many blog owners do it to maximize their income. FeedBurner can insert AdSense ads into your feed items, but you need at least 500 subscribers to qualify, and you can’t use any ads other than the AdSense ads provided by FeedBurner.

The solution. It is possible, though, to insert other kinds of ads into your RSS feed. You can, for example, use a link to a free WordPress theme only for your RSS subscribers.

Follow these simple steps to perform this hack:

1. Edit the functions.php file of your theme. If your theme doesn’t have a functions.php file, simply create one.
2. Paste the following code into your functions.php file:

   <?php
   function insertAds($content) {
       $content = $content.'<hr /><a href="http://www.wprecipes.com">Have you visited WpRecipes today?</a><hr />';
       return $content;
   }
   add_filter('the_excerpt_rss', 'insertAds');
   add_filter('the_content_rss', 'insertAds');
   ?>

3. Save the file. You’re now displaying your ads in your RSS feed!

Code explanation. I have seen many similar hacks on the Web, but all of them require you to edit WordPress core files to achieve the same result. Of course, editing WordPress core files is a very bad idea because then you would have to re-edit the files each time you upgrade your blog. Instead, this hack uses the add_filter() WordPress function to insert content into your RSS feed without editing any core files.

Sources

• How to: insert ads in your RSS feed
• WordPress, ajouter du contenu dans son flux RSS !

4. Format Your Images for Feed Readers

The problem. You took a lot of time to write and format your post and add beautiful screenshots. It looks so good on your blog. Sadly, when the post is displayed in Google Reader or any other RSS reader, it doesn’t look so great.

The solution. This is due to the fact that most feed readers display images inline with text:

To avoid this problem, add a CSS class to display the image as a block. WordPress provides the built-in class “center“:

<img src="http://88.198.60.17/images/wordpress-rss-hacks/myimage.jpg" alt="This is my image" class="center"/>

Sources

• How to format images for feed readers

5. Provide Your Readers with a Feed for Each Post

The problem. When a post has lots and lots of comments, it can be hard for readers to follow the conversation. Most WordPress users don’t know this, but our favorite blogging engine has a built-in function for providing an RSS feed for the comments in each post.

The solution. Well, this recipe isn’t really a hack or anything: to provide an RSS feed for the comments in a particular post, just call the comment_rss_link() function:

<?php comments_rss_link('&raquo; Comments RSS Feed'); ?>

Sources

• WordPress how to: provide an RSS feed for the comments in each post

6. Exclude Categories from Your RSS Feed

The problem. Do you use one of your blog categories to let readers know about your website’s news, or does your blog feature a category that has nothing to do with the rest of your content? If so, it is generally not a good idea to include it in your RSS feed.

The solution. Here’s how to get rid of one of the categories in your RSS feed:

1. First, get the numeric ID of the category you want to exclude. If you don’t know how to get the ID of a particular category, you can learn how here.
2. Once you have the ID of the category you want to exclude from your RSS feed, edit the functions.php file in your theme. Create the file if it doesn’t exist.
3. Paste the following code in it:

   function myFilter($query) {
       if ($query->is_feed) {
           $query->set('cat','-5'); //Don't forget to change the category ID =^o^=
       }
   return $query;
   }
   
   add_filter('pre_get_posts','myFilter');

4. Save the file, and you’re done!

Code explanation. This hack works exactly the same way as the previous one: create a custom function to exclude the category that you don’t want to appear in your RSS feed, and then use the super-useful add_filter() function to apply it to the pre_get_posts() WordPress core function.

Sources

• Excluding posts from your WordPress feed
• How to: exclude categories from your RSS feed

7. Display Any RSS Feed on Your WordPress Blog

The problem. Do you have more than one blog, or do you manage a forum? If so, you may want to be able to display any RSS feed on your WordPress blog.

The solution. Many plug-ins can do the job, but they’re not necessary at all. WordPress has a built-in RSS reader that is used, for example, to display news on your dashboard. All you have to do is use it in your theme.

1. Paste the following code anywhere in your theme (personally, I’d put it in the sidebar, the footer or, even better, the page template):

   <?php include_once(ABSPATH.WPINC.'/rss.php');
   wp_rss('http://feeds.feedburner.com/wprecipes', 3); ?>

2. Save it and you’re done. It’s as easy as that!

Code explanation. The first thing we have done is include the rss.php file from WordPress core. This file allows us to use the wp_rss() function, which takes two parameters: the first is the RSS feed’s URL, and the second is the number of RSS entries to be displayed.

Sources

• How to: Display any RSS feed on your WordPress blog

8. Use Category-Specific RSS Feeds

The problem. Many blogs talk about a lot of different topics: design, programming, blogging tips, etc. Have you ever come across a blog in which you have enjoyed only one category of posts? If so, you should definitely consider offering one feed per category to your own readers.

The solution. Let’s say you’d like to be able to subscribe only to TheGridSystem’s tools section. The category URL is:

http://www.thegridsystem.org/categories/tools/

To get an RSS feed for this category, you simply have to add /feed to the end of the URL:

http://www.thegridsystem.org/categories/tools/feed

Pretty easy, isn’t it? But pretty useful, too, in my opinion.

9. List RSS Feeds by Category

The problem. If you like the previous hack, you will probably also want to be able to display the names of all your category feeds in a list to your readers.

The solution.

1. Edit any of your theme files, where you want to list your categories and their accompanying feeds.
2. Paste the following code:

   <?php wp_list_categories('feed_image=http://www.myblog.com/image.gif&feed=XML Feed&optioncount=1&children=0'); ?>

3. Save the file. You categories will now be displayed, along with their RSS feeds!

Code explanation. This hack uses only the good old wp_list_categories() function, with two parameters. The first is feed_image, which allows us to specify the URL to be displayed as a feed image. The second parameter is feed, which is used to specify the feed format.

10. Get Rid of RSS Feeds the Clean Way

The problem. Let’s say you’re using WordPress as a CMS to manage your online portfolio or your company’s website. In such cases, the RSS feed isn’t that useful, and some people would probably want to remove it.

The solution. I have seen many “hacks” on the Web where people say you just have to remove the include on the wp-settings.php core file. I don’t think you should ever edit a core file. Instead, the following hack will do the job. Simply paste this code in the functions.php file of your theme:

function fb_disable_feed() {
	wp_die( __('No feed available,please visit our <a href="'. get_bloginfo('url') .'">homepage</a>!') );
}

add_action('do_feed', 'fb_disable_feed', 1);
add_action('do_feed_rdf', 'fb_disable_feed', 1);
add_action('do_feed_rss', 'fb_disable_feed', 1);
add_action('do_feed_rss2', 'fb_disable_feed', 1);
add_action('do_feed_atom', 'fb_disable_feed', 1);

Sources

• Disable WordPress feed

About the author

This guest post was written by Jean-Baptiste Jung, a 26-year-old blogger from Belgium, who blogs about WordPress at WpRecipes and about everything related to blogging and programming at Cats Who Code. You can stay in touch with Jean by following him on Twitter. (al)

Rss is still getting more important for many bloggers, as co-blogger Boris update our blog for RSS last May:

“Well, if it turns out that most of your readers don’t actually visit the site but just read your posts in their RSS reader than it might be time to start optimizing for that.”

Since the updates, subscribers on thenextweb have been increasing tremendously! (subscribe here if you haven’t done allready) Here at TheNextWeb office we have been trying out different programs to read the feeds of other sites, and today I found one on Techcrunch with a new time saving approach:

Open source program Apprise allows users to not only read, but also share news directly from your RSS reader. The project is developed by Christina Cantrell, an Adobe Employee and editor on WatchReport.

The reader is based on Adobe Air, users can simply add and aggregate feeds. Its not world changing, but I believe this is the first RSS reader that can share your articles this easy.

Key Features

1. AIM Integration. Just click on a story, and choose which of your buddies to send it to.
2. Twitter Integration. Post URLs to Twitter right from Apprise.
3. Drag and drop. Easily drag and drop (or copy and paste) articles to share them via email.
4. Realtime search across all feeds.

Sharing your RSS finds

How often do you copy and paste URLs from your news reader or browser into your IM or Twitter client in order to share stories with friends? Apprise created a simple way to share articles from your RSS feed. Simply add your twitter and AIM credentials in the preferences, and the icons will light up. Tap the button will send the article to it respective destination
.

Open Source

The free Apprise reader is opensource, so integration with other services can be expected if the project picks up! We are hoping for integration in more social websites like Wordpress, Tumblr and Stumbleupon.

Try it out on Apprisereader and add our feed: Thenextweb

What it does

RSS feeds are a great way of receiving real-time updates and ensuring that you never forget to check your favorite websites amongst other things. Mytvrss offers to extend the convenience of RSS to your TV life by allowing you to receive a notification the day a new episode of your favorite show is aired. No sign up is required, just go to mytvrss.com and search through the extensive alphabetized list of TV shows until you find your favorites, check the boxes next to them and then click “create feed”. Nothing else is required, just sit back and relax with the knowledge that you will never have to miss an episode of your favorite programs again.

In their own words

“Select your favorite shows below, and then click “Create feed” to generate your own personalized RSS feed. We’ll then alert you through the RSS feed the day an episode is aired. You don’t have to register! If you don’t see your favorite show, just tell us and we will add it to our list.”

Why it might be a killer

This is quite possibly the easiest way to be reminded about when the next episode of your favorite show is going to air. People will love the simplicity, the extensive selection and the ability to request shows that aren’t currently listed.

Some questions

Have they thought about expanding to allow people to get alerts which include the exact time? That would require adding an option for entering your time zone but that would make this service even better.

Updates

 » original news

Those of you who remember MeasureMap are long time readers of this blog. It was a blog-centered analytics service that first surfaced in August 2005. The service was created by San Francisco based Adaptive Path. The first details emerged in October 2005.

It was Google Analytics but just for blogs. It told you stats based on posts and other key blog features. By November 2005 Google had copied some of the features. And a couple of months later, before MeasureMap had even officially launched, they just bought it outright.

Since then, nothing. Founder Jeffrey Veen became the User Experience Manager and has been associated with a number of projects. Measure Map simply faded and was forgotten.

Except, not completely. Today Google emailed early MeasureMap users and said:

About your Measure Map account

Remember Measure Map? A couple of years ago, we gave you an account on an
early alpha test of our blog analytics software. Since then, a lot has
happened. We got acquired by Google, we redesigned their Analytics app, and
we’ve since rebuilt Measure Map from the ground up.

I’m writing you because we need to move everyone over from their Measure Map
accounts to the new version at Google. If you’re no longer interested, no
problem. You can stop reading this now. But if you’d like to try out the new
service, here’s how: [instructions followed]

I went through the signup process, which requires a Google Analytics account and tracking pixel. They then said “Great! You’re all set. We’ve got a few things to set up on our end. We’ll send you an email when we’re ready (soon!) and explain how to log in.”

I’m emailing Google now to see if they’ll give more details on the planned launch and how it will be different from Google Analytics.

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