It would be easy to assume that everyone on the internet speaks English. The majority of software is produced in English simply for the reason that doing so gives it a larger potential audience (or, maybe more appropriately, gives it access into the American market). However, you shouldn't assume this means everyone reads and writes English at the same level, or that non-native speakers wouldn't want software in their own language. There is a world of speakers outside of English and now is the time to tap into them.
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This guide is another in the Inside WordPress series and attempts to show how to produce a translation for an already-prepared theme, plugin, or WordPress itself. Even if you have little PHP or HTML skills you can still contribute to making WordPress a truly international experience by providing localizations for existing themes and plugins.
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Pings and trackbacks are a way for weblogs to communicate with each other and say 'hey, I talked about your site'. They allow you to see how far your site has spread, and exactly who is reading your content. By default, WordPress mixes pings and comments together, clogging up the conversational flow and making it hard to follow what people are saying.
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This guide is another in the Inside WordPress series and will show you how to install a WordPress theme. While this is a relatively simple task it is one of fundamental importance to WordPress and is often overlooked. As such it is a potential cause of problems to beginners, and not being able to successfully install themes will prevent you from customising your weblog and taking it beyond the default style.
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I've started a series of WordPress guides which I've titled 'Inside WordPress'. My aim with these is to explain different aspects of WordPress from a practical point of view. That is, they will be focussed on showing you how to do things rather than telling you what to do. I've already made a start with several guides explaining some of the more simpler aspects of WordPress, as well as some going a little further. The guides will not always be aimed at beginners and, if there is enough interest, I already have plans to dig deep inside the belly of the beast.
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A new design! I decided I needed a new and fresh look and the result is the still-in-progress 'Guangzhou' theme. My hope is that it's both easier to navigate, as well as being lighter and more suitable for future work. Comments, as always, are welcomed.
In conjunction with the new theme I've made use of WP-Cache and Gravatar cache, which should result in a noticeable speed improvement. The site itself has undergone a good clean, with all invalid code being replaced, all dead-links now corrected, and the addition of new sections for software, articles, and about myself.
On top of that I've added a new plugin: HTML Purified. This plugin changes the default comment filter and replaces it with HTML Purifier, a very exhaustive library that checks, validates, and corrects HTML. Not that WordPress is insecure by default, but this just beefs it up a notch, and ensures that comments are both safe and XHTML valid.
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Four months into the new year and a total of 2 posts. Not so good. I was working on a new version of my Giraffe theme that would allow all the page elements to be dragged around the screen, but it was taking too long and I just didn't have time to finish it. Instead, I cleaned up what I already had, made it WordPress 2.0 compatible, and dropped in a few new features. Now presenting Giraffe2 - the slightly wonky edition.
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After all the hype and bubble-blowing, I decided to dip my little pinkie into the mix and experiment with AJAX. The result has been the release of a new plugin, cleverly titled 'AJAX Calendar'. Once installed this allows the standard WordPress calendar function to be enhanced such that:
- Stepping through the months is now asynchronous, and only updates the calendar
- Clicking on the calendar title takes you back to the current month
- Clicking on the funny «-» button will expand the calendar and display the posts headings for that month
- All content is cached
- Works in most browsers
The plugin requires modifications to the WordPress theme, although these modifications have been included in version 1.23 of the Giraffe theme.
Have a play.
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It's been such a long time since I've posted anything here, and this is just going to be a technical post. Based upon feedback from different users, and the general direction of questions, I've released quite a major update of the Giraffe theme and plugin.
Changes include a major overhaul of the admin interface - redundant options have been removed, and the interface has been simplified. Where possible I have used diagrams to show what the configuration options will change.
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Another addendum to the Giraffe theme, with a Japanese localization courtesy of Tai. The .mo file can be found on the Giraffe page, and the WordPress localization file on the WordPress localization page. Test it out from the sidebar Localization menu.
Thanks once again to Tai.
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