Aytemir.com

TDO Mini Forms: upload path/URL mini hack

Tschai — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:26:34 +0000

The TDO Mini Forms Wordpress Plugin is simply one of these plugins you’ll end up using, when you’ll be using WordPress for more than ‘just another blog’.

For my upcoming project I was looking for a fully customizable end user form and after having tried a bunch, TDO mini forms was simply the best.
I still don’t understand why it is called ‘mini’ because it has a ton of options and almost all of them very usefull.

The only issue I got with it was with the file/image upload widget: It was putting the uploaded files in wp-content/uploads/subfolder where I wanted them in wp-content/uploads/year/month.

Although there are usefull hints in the support forum, they wont get you there exactly. So here is the hack to solve this issue:
In the plugins folder replace line 552 (up until the line “// store info about files on post”) in file tdomf-upload-functions.php from this

$postdir = $options[‘path’].DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$post_ID;

to this

$yearID=date(“Y”);
$monthID=date(“m”);
$postdir = $options[‘path’].$yearID.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$monthID;
$postdir2 = $options[‘url’].$yearID.“/”.$monthID;
tdomf_recursive_mkdir($postdir,TDOMF_UPLOAD_PERMS);
tdomf_recursive_mkdir($postdir2,TDOMF_UPLOAD_PERMS);
$newpath = $postdir.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$theirfiles[$i][‘name’];
$newpath2 = $postdir2.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$theirfiles[$i][‘name’];
if(rename($theirfiles[$i][‘path’], $newpath)) {
$newpath = realpath($newpath);
$newpath2 = realpath($newpath2);

Note that a variable 2 is added, just after the original.
Also note, that I’ve replaced the variable DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR in $postdir2 into “/”, cause it was giving me headaches.

In line 564 in the same file add just beneath this line

add_post_meta($post_ID,TDOMF_KEY_DOWNLOAD_PATH.$i, $wpdb->escape($newpath),true);

the following

add_post_meta($post_ID,ftt_path,$postdir2,true);

Make sure you do use $postdir2 here again. Will be using ftt_path to retrieve the stored URL, so remember what name you give it here.

And now we’ll be calling the uploaded files via the URL like this

get_post_meta($post->ID, “ftt_path”,true);

instead of this, which will give you only the absolute path

get_post_meta($post->ID, “_tdomf_download_name_0″,true);

This way it’s not even necessary to check ‘Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders’ at your Miscellaneous Settings.

Hope this helps others out also. If you have any other issues with TDO Mini forms, please refer to the original support form.

UPGRADE warnings

Remember that automatically upgrading the plugin to the newest version will overwrite the hacks above…so make sure to actually backup before you upgrade!

No related posts.

Ditch Windows, Get Ubuntu: the Experiment!

Tschai — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:47:50 +0000

Like many I’m also fed up with Microsoft software in general and Windows in particular. But like many I too am too lazy to make THE CHANGE to another BETTER OS.
Until now!

Why make the switch?

The last couple of years I’m preferring Open Source alternatives for almost every software. And it’s a true eye opener. And today I’ve made the bold move to do this with my OS also!
Yesterday my 6 year old Windows XP desktop (almost) stopped working: it’s so slow now, that it takes tens of minutes to start any application.
Thus a great opportunity to try out Ubuntu 9.04.

Also just recently my nephews Windows crashed (again)! And while he and I both have a registered and licensed legal Windows versions installed on the computer, the CD’s we’ve got are only recovery versions! And because he already had formatted his drive he could not use his legal CD anymore!
This made me realize how ridiculous this situation is…not Microsoft, but the computer manufacturers are here to blame…I know!
And he also made the switch…although he’s not that tech savy!

Will everything work? Out of the box?

And I’m very pleased I have made the switch. And I’m actually writing this post on my Ubuntu desktop now!
I was afraid I had to search, find and install drivers for my video card, sound card and the ethernet/network card…but it all worked out of the box!
And because Windows made me a coward I’ve also installed the Linux version of the superior viruskiller Avast. Although I’ve read I don’t realy need to…

What have I got now?

A good looking, great performing, FREE OS with some free software already installed like GIMP (alternative for PhotoShop) and Open Office (alternative for the Microsoft Office)!

What’s next?

Because I have still gigabytes of software to sort out and clean up on my VAIO laptop which I’m also working on my upcoming projects from I will not switch to Ubuntu on that…yet.
But I will soon.

And everyone should make the switch also…now!

Vista update crashes localhost

Need a short URL service? Try Wordpress!

Tschai — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:12:00 +0000

Although I’m still not ‘tweetin’ I do see it’s potential for promoting the fan-tas-tic project, once it’s finished.
And in my search to do this I stumbled across this article: 10 Exceptional WordPress Hacks. And I noticed a remark in the comments section (#12) about using the built-in default WordPress URL-structure instead of TinyUrl or any other third party service.
I was triggered immediately (comment #25) because I am considering to implement a ‘(re)tweet this’ feature and my options until now were automated TinyUrl’s or a ShortUrl plugin.

As stated above why not try the default URL of WordPress itself? As long as your own domain is not too long, why not give it a try? After having looked around in codex, the solution seemed very simple:

echo get_bloginfo(‘url’).“/?p=”.$post->ID; ?>

For example http://www.fan-tas-tic.com/?p=200 is short enough without the disadvantages of a third party services and your own domain is indexed/searched in twitter and other tools. And you still keep your fancy permalinks. Win, win, win!

So looking for a short Url service for your Wordpress blog; why not use Wordpress itself?
Now isn’t this something to tweet about!?

No related posts.

Vista update crashes localhost

Tschai — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:01:28 +0000

For the development of any website I’m using Wampserver as my local server and it has always been working just great. Until today: it stopped working, just like that!

I should have known better than giving Windows the benefit of the doubt! I thought WAMP/WampServer screwed things up: suddenly I couldn’t connect to http://localhost anymore. Nor to phpMyAdmin, nor to MySQL.
And because I could connect to the internet, I figured it was my local server…and not a Windows Vista related issue.

However it seems Windows Update, Vista 32-bit, screwed the host-file and the localhost was only reachable via http://127.0.0.1.

Following the instructions from the Wampserver forum solved the issue:
Entering the line 127.0.0.1 localhost, just above the already existing line ::1 localhost.

To actually edit the hosts file in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc you have the give your self the proper rights first:
You can do this by right-clicking on the hosts file, selecting properties and the tab Security and selecting Users and pressing the Edit button.
You might give yourself writing rights or full controll: Edit the file and put the original settings back, since you don’t know what Windows might crash next if you don’t!

Hope this helps others out of misery also…and I’m soo close switching OS, when I finish these projects and make enough money to buy me enough time!

PS: I’ve understood the same issue and solution is also applicable for XAMPP.

Fan-tas-tic progress and issues

Tschai — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:26:13 +0000

Although the fan-tas-tic project is making good progress, I’m running to some issues which slows down the overall progress: This post is a short status update.

Issue 1: Internet Explorer still sucks.

Even version 7. And I have no high expectations for IE8, no matter how many tests it’ll pass.
I had to tweak a lot of CSS code just to make sure IE7 doesn’t screw up my layout, although it was fine enough in FF and Chrome.

A relief is that a bigger part (65%) of my visitors do use FF. An explanation for this is that the audience mostly consist of bloggers, designers and developers. They already know IE sucks.
However on my soccerforum IE is used by 53% of the visitors. This just confirms the theory about the audience of the sites. And because I’m expecting a mixed audience for Fan-tas-tic!, I dare not to neglect IE fully.

Issue 2: Local vs online

The ‘look and feel’ of my localhost XAMPP is not 100% the same with the Apache server of my host. So I have to now and then test it online.
Just recently I’ve found this lill’ usefull plugin: Theme Test Drive. Activating this plugin it will give you, logged in as a admin, the ability to activate another theme and see what the site actually will look like.
In the mean time the regular visitors will see the clever ‘under construction’ theme Launchpad.

Issue 3: Intense Debate is still giving me headaches

I just might have to dish it in the end after all. I’ve complained here why I chose for Intense Debate. The problem is that when ID is enabled it takes too long to count the number of comments: it has to retrieve data from the ID-server for every post.

Gotta go…and make some more fan-tas-tic progress.

Replacing your comments with Intense Debate

Replacing your comments with Intense Debate

Tschai — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:28:32 +0000

There are some very great and creative ways to design the comment section of your blog: check out these examples for some inspiration (37 Ways to Design the Comments Form, 30 and 30 More Must See Comment Designs for Web Designers).
And while I was thinking about how to design my own comment parts of my upcoming WP powered sites, I decided I should go for the easier way…which by the way kinda is the philosophy of this blog.

So just recently I’ve installed the Intense Debate commenting system on this blog. As you may notice however, the older posts with no comments are still using the built in commenting system. The reason for this is that somehow I’ve not been able to synchronize my WP account with my ID account.
The new plugin crashed and I was forced to use the older version of the plugin. Also with this version however I’m still not able to import my older comments. In general, you should not have any trouble, so don’t be alarmed.

So why did I bother then? Well I’ve got three reasons for that:

1. I want for all my Wordpress powered projects one common commenting system. Although not many of my visitors may register, some of them will be automatically registered when they’ve got an Intense Debate account already. This should encourage them to participate more interactively.

2. I’m expecting Automatticto fully integrate Intense Debate into Wordpress in the near future. It is a logical next step and I would not be surprised if they do this well before version 2.8. The acquisition by Automattic is also the reason that for example Disqus is no more an option for me.

3. It saves me a lot of development and design time when I decide to use a free WP template, which does not support gravatars and threaded comment. The Unstandard theme is a good example of this. Although you can’t design it fully to your own taste, it still is flexible enough.

So if you should also run into troubles with the newest version of Intense Debate and the support team is not able to help you out, like in my case, you should consider using the old plugin/version. And take the lack of some features for granted, I’m afraid.

UPDATE

Ironically on 23th January 2009 the Intense Debate site is down. And another con for using a third party commenting system is beeing illustrated very typical with this: it slows down my site significantly and when a post has been loaded, you can not comment!
I’ll give them yet another chance…for now.

A fan-tas-tic start of 2009!

Tschai — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:50:28 +0000

As stated in my post Setting goals for 2009 I’ll try to post only about the projects I’m working on…from now on. And I have to admit it’s hard not to blog, rant or rave about anything else.
Because there is actually a lot to blog, rant and rave about. For example this blog now has reached a Pagerank of 2 in 3 months, but so did my sleeping site Uppedd.com, which never had any content at all…and this is a big mystery to me.

The first post of 2009 year is a ‘fan-tas-tic’ one. Well, actually it’s about one of my projects called ‘Fan-tas-tic’ and a although the name may suggest otherwise it’s actually a quite humble project: a ‘fan-tas-tic gallery’ powered by Wordpress.

Yes, I am aware that there are already hundreds of (CSS) galleries (like these lists of examples: 36 + 74 + 115) and a lot of free Wordpress themes to make your own. However they all lack some essential features for the visitors and for the administrator.
I’ll come back to these features in another post, when I’ve got the full feature list of my own gallery complete.

In the mean time you should also check out some of the galleries above for inspiration and figure out which features you think they lack and leave a comment. If I can, I might just implement it in my ‘Fan-tas-tic Gallery’ theme.

Setting goals for 2009

Unstandard theme now Wordpress 2.7 compatible

Tschai — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:43:12 +0000

Like many great themes the Unstandard theme did initially lack some basic features like widgets and gravatars. I made a widgetized and gravatar-ized version and this version has been donwloaded almost 600 times from October 2008 till now. Which proves that it’s still a popular theme and a decent upgrade was necessary.

Unfortunately I am thinking of changing my blog theme, while the current one will probably no longer serve my goals set for 2009.
The good news however is that the original author of the Unstandard theme has made his theme now Wordpress 2.7 compatible: I suggest you check out the demo and get this new and approved version instead!

Should you not want to upgrade Wordpress, than my ”pimped’ version will still be available for reference and download.

Have fun with this great theme.

Related post(s):

The Unstandard theme: widgetized and gravatar-ized

Setting goals for 2009

Tschai — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:08:52 +0000

Looking back at 2008

Playtime is over! I’ve used the past period to experiment with some forms of promoting my posts and trying to get more traffic. Although the results were satisfying as you can see in the graph above, it felt more like ‘work’ than ‘hobby’ for me. Because doing this is rather time and energy consuming. And that is not a good thing…if you’re not making money from it, that is!
The above graph illustrates the short period from October until end December for this blog. And it’s no surprise that it’s possible to get a peak of visitors and views, no matter how humble your blog or post is. But to keep this visitors coming back you need to invest a lot in time and energy…but I’m gonna focus on other things instead.

Setting goals for 2009

While reading My Internet Goals for 2009 I found out writing your goals down works very therapeutic and very refreshing. Although very personal it can be interesting and inspiring for others too.

Now that the new year is getting closer it’s time for me to get my goals clear and focus on them. Maybe you should write down your own goals too?

Aytemir.com: Design, Develop…Blog!

The main goal for this blog has always been a supporting blog for the projects I’m running or planning. I’ve used the past months to experiment with some social media and I’ve learned a lot, which I hope to use in return when I’m ready to promote these projects once their ready.
I will keep the current categories and write about the progress of the projects listed below. I’m prepared for a lack of visitor peaks, but the content should be useful (for me) when starting a another/new project.
At a certain moment I think I might have to say goodbye to the Unstandard theme…

Uppedd: Ranking and Rating the Stars!

This will be my ‘Pièce de résistance’. Like the rest of the projects I’m going for the easy route and use already existing tools and plugins and try to go (private) beta in 2009!
Although the concept is rather basic, it still is a rather ambitious project and it’s potentials are very promising.
Expect to read more about this projects in the coming posts.

Fan-Tas-Tic! Science-Fiction & Fantasy Art Gallery

I was always meaning to do something with my favouriet genre: SF&F. While writing Best of 2008 for developers: 2008+ tips, tricks, scripts and sources! I came across a bunch of Wordpress powered CSS galleries and got this fan-tas-tic idea: Why not do the same for fan-tas-tic SF&F art!

Fan-tas-tic.com was luckily not taken and from now on will it be not only my own personal favourite gallery, but visitors can also submit other SF&F art and vote on the submissions.
I’m aware there are already other great resources for SF&F art, but they mostly miss some of the basic features of these Web 2.0 galleries, like tags, rating and ranking or they also contain less fantastic work.

BAOA: Blogging About Oracle Applications

This niche technical blog is actually for my company and I it’s about time it got pimped. It needs an upgrade, new look and feel and a lot of more useful plugins.
The content is absolute king and therefore it needs more audience, yet only from the same technical niche, which is a great challenge.

VoetbalPortaal: Exclusive Soccer Forum

I’m considering this soccer forum project actually as finished, since there is not much more I’m gonna change about it.

Summary

Note that I’ve not set any goals regarding monetizing any of the new projects. And initially the design will be of based on a existing theme in most cases.
The focus will be on getting things finished instead.

A fan-tas-tic start of 2009!

Best of 2008 for bloggers: 1600+ tips, tricks, advices and strategies!

Tschai — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:04:15 +0000

Last in the series of Best post for Designers, Developers and Bloggers. A collection of more than 1600 useful tips, tricks and advices from (pro) bloggers for newbies and pro bloggers posted in 2008. From getting started to getting (more) traffic and from getting (more) subscribers to actually making money with your blog.
A huge reference if you need just that little push in the right direction.

Aytemir.com

TDO Mini Forms: upload path/URL mini hack

UPGRADE warnings

Ditch Windows, Get Ubuntu: the Experiment!

Why make the switch?

Will everything work? Out of the box?

What have I got now?

What’s next?

Need a short URL service? Try Wordpress!

Vista update crashes localhost

Fan-tas-tic progress and issues

Issue 1: Internet Explorer still sucks.

Issue 2: Local vs online

Issue 3: Intense Debate is still giving me headaches

Replacing your comments with Intense Debate

UPDATE

A fan-tas-tic start of 2009!

Unstandard theme now Wordpress 2.7 compatible

Setting goals for 2009

Looking back at 2008

Setting goals for 2009

Aytemir.com: Design, Develop…Blog!

Uppedd: Ranking and Rating the Stars!

Fan-Tas-Tic! Science-Fiction & Fantasy Art Gallery

BAOA: Blogging About Oracle Applications

VoetbalPortaal: Exclusive Soccer Forum

Summary

Best of 2008 for bloggers: 1600+ tips, tricks, advices and strategies!

General Blogging Tips (733)

Subscribers, Success and Failure (267)

Money Making Tips (53)

Promotion and Traffic (572)