Media Tags 2.2 plugin for WordPress Released

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Over this past week I added quite a few features to the famous Media Tags plugin for WordPress. The list below details many of these new features

  1. Added a new tab to the Media Upload popup box. Anyone familiar with WordPress Post or Page entry is familiar with the popup provided to upload images and other media files. In this popup if you wanted to search for items using the handy Media Tags it was not possible. Now the user is provided with a new Tab labelled ‘Media Tags’. When the tab is clicked the user is presented with a listing of all Media Tags used on the site. Along with the Media Tag name there is a use could in the far right of the listing. This count if greater than zero is a link and will filter the Media Library (another Tab) listing for items from that Media Tags group.

    Below is a screenshot of the new popup tab.

    Media-Tags New Upload popup tab

    Media-Tags New Upload popup tab

  2. More control over the permalink prefix. The Media Tags plugin works with the WordPress Permalink rewrite system to provide ‘pretty’ URLs for the archive. For example if you have some media loaded and tagged on your site for say ‘Texas’. The you can display these items in an archive type listing by using the URL http://www.mysite.com/media-tags/texas/ This format should be familiar to most users of WordPress since Categories and Tags or handled in much the same way. This feature was added in Media Tags version 2.0 and has received much acclaim from the users. The problem is the prefix ‘/media-tags/’ was hard-coded into the plugin. I have a few users request a way to alter this prefix. Other than suggesting they edit the config file for the plugin there was not a good solution.

    So I starting thinking I would just build my own admin page where the user can set this permalink prefix. But I hated having to build a new admin page just for the one setting. Well over the weekend I found the solution of solutions. Why not just add my own field to the WordPress Settings -> Permalink page. This turned out to be quite easy using the new Settings API introduced into WordPress 2.7.

    Below is a screenshot of the new Media Tags Permalink option. The new field just below the standard Category and Tags fields.

    Media-Tag Permalink Slug Prefix

    Media-Tag Permalink Slug Prefix

  3. Playing nice with other plugins. I’ve used the Google Sitemap XML plugin for quite some time and generally install it by default onto any client site I’ve worked on. This is one of those plus plus plugins that can only help your site. Recently I had to figure out a way to include non-WordPress pages into the XML sitemap output. This is actually very easy to do as the plugin authors have provide a nice hook to allow this.

    So my next enhancement to the Media-Tags plugin was to include the Media Tag archives into the Google Sitemaps XML output. This feature is quite powerful since it just adds juice to Google content harvesting. Not wanting to hard-coded this feature into the plugin I ended up building that admin interface I mentioned in the previous point. There is only one option on the page (more to come soon). A simple Yes/No box to include/exclude the Media Tags archive from the Sitemap XML output. I assume most people will wan this but also know there is always the possibility some may now.

    Below is a screenshot of the new Media-Tag admin interface. Look for this under the standard WordPress Settings section.

    Media-Tags Admin Page

    Media-Tags Admin Page

  4. Along with the above mentioned new features I also cleaned up some code related issues. Most of these are under the covers cosmetic items and not related to any screen changes.

Media Tags Future Enhancements

Still on my list of features to add in some upcoming release is Media-Tags Cloud. This is still one of the most requested options for the sidebar. Still working on that code. Trying to follow some of the code written for the built-in WordPress Tags. pretty ugly stuff. Has to be a better way.

Other than the Media Tags Cloud I don’t have any big changes planned for the plugin. Then again the three features mentioned in this post were not planned at all. Just something that hit me on Friday that I started working toward.

So if there is a feature you just think would make the Media-Tags plugin rock for your blog please consider leaving a comment below.

Donations

If you enjoy using the Media Tags plugin or any of my other WordPress plugins, please consider making a donation to show your support. Anything is appreciated. Thanks.

See the Media-Tags Project page for up to date information regarding the Media-Tags plugin

Bobalu Cigar Co Featured on CNN Small Business

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When I’m in my office in the morning I generally have the morning CNN Morning Express with Robin Meade on. As I’m watching the muted television I see a very familiar face. It’s Jeff Lipton from Bobalu Cigar Company here in Austin. I had to go track the video on CNN.com to share.

The correct method of adding JavaScript to a WordPress theme

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A quick note to all the WordPress developments out there. If you are adding a standard JS library like jQuery or Prototype, chances are WordPress already includes a version as part of the core files. So no need to download your own copy and place in somewhere in the themes folder.

Many theme developer who rely on JS for different effects simple place the link into the template header.php. Something like this:


<script src="http://localhost/wp-content/themes/mytheme/js/jquery/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

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codehooligans-adding-simple-javascript-to-header.php

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While this does accomplish the goal of loading the JS library it also increases the chances of a second instance of the library also being loaded. Thus bloating your site.

A better option in my opinion is to add a little code to the themes functions.php file. The theme file functions.php is standard in most WordPress themes and is considered the best place to place common code that is needed by the theme. The functions.php file is automatically loaded by WordPress.


<?php
function my_functions_init() {
wp_enqueue_script('jquery');
}
add_action( 'init', 'my_functions_init' );
?>

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codehooligans-adding-javascript-via-wordpress-init.php

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Note we are hooking into the WordPress ‘init’ logic. We must setup the JS loading early. Some time later WordPress will load the theme. If the theme header used the theme function ‘wp_head()’ then our JS library will automatically be included. The ‘wp_head()’ function allows plugin author to insert needed JS and CSS files dynamically. Using this hook we are doing the same thing for our theme. No more hard coding the JS file link.

So how is this really “Better”?

The biggest benefit is we are preventing multiple copied of the same JS library from being loaded by WordPress or plugins. If we did hard code the JS link for jQuery and we also installed some plugin like cforms which used the jQuery library then it will load it’s own copy. By using the ‘wp_enqueue_script()’ function we are letting WordPress know we need jQuery loaded. When the plugin is loaded it will also tell WordPress is needs to load jQuery. As a result WordPress can track what JS files need to be inserted via the ‘wp_header()’ function.

For more information on the ‘wp_enqueue_script()’ function check the WordPress Codex
http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_enqueue_script

Media Tags 2.0 released

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Today I would like to finally release to the wild the totally rewritten Media-Tags plugin version 2.0. The Media-Tags plugin 2.0 has been completely rewritten to use to WordPress Taxonomy system for storing related media-tag information. As a benefit to this rewrite the user now has a new Media Tags management interface located under the Media section. Via this Media Tags management interface users can better manage the media tags used on the site. Deleting, renaming and adding new media tags is now quite simple. The Media Tags for the attachment are still display both under Media and the media popup on the editor screen as before. Continue reading

Media Tags 2.0 Beta

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Today I’d like to release the first public beta of the Media Tags plugin. This is an exciting change and almost complete rewrite to the core plugin code.

For anyone downloading this beta please be aware this is a beta version and subject to change in the near future. Also since this is a beta it is recommended NOT to use this on a production system. User beware! If you do download the plugin and test if please using the comment form below to mention any issue you have with the new plugin. I can only test thing to a certain level with my own client sites.

This new beta has been tested on WordPress versions 2.7.1 and 2.8 only! At this time I’ve not tested the new Media-Tags Management interface on any lower version of WordPress.

Continue reading