kristarella.com Network

WordCamp Melbourne was great!!!

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:12:13 +0000

I got back from Melbourne last night where we had WordCamp. It was so great! I look forward to writing a more detailed post about all the WordPress goodies I learned.

BuddyPress Box

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 03:58:09 +0000

BuddyPress 1.7+ has theme compatibility, which means that you don’t need a pile of template files in a child theme to add BuddyPress to your site!

This simple box adds that compatibility to Thesis 2.

How to use

Download and install the bbPress Box
Create a new Page Template for BuddyPress pages and copy the regular page template
Remove the content from the Single Post Box and replace it with the BuddyPress box, which should now be located in the boxes sidebar on the right.
Apply the Custom Template to any BuddyPress pages by editing that page in the regular WordPress editor and choosing from the Thesis Custom Template dropdown on the right.

There are multiple price options available, all give you the same box, which you can get for free. If you choose to pay for it, you make it easier for me to keep creating products for the community.

$0.00

bbPress Box

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 03:43:14 +0000

Looking to integrate a forum with your WordPress + Thesis 2 website? You’ve come to the right place!

This box provides a post content section for you to display your bbPress forums in Thesis 2.

How to use

NB these instructions are for the Thesis Classic skin, and may vary slightly if you are using a different skin. The principles remain the same though.

Download and install the bbPress Box
In the HTML editor for your Forum, Topic and Replies single templates drag the bbPress box into the Single Post Box and remove the regular post content.
Edit the main Archives template to include the bbPress box in the Home Post Box. Choose whether or not to show post content on non-forum archive pages.

Main Forum Page/Archive Page

The main bbPress forum page is actually an archive page of the custom post type “forum”. Which is why we use an archive template to display it. Thesis 2.0.3 doesn’t list custom post type archive pages in the template list, which is why we need to use the main archive template for the moment. However Thesis 2.1 is on its way and it does list CPT archive templates, so you will be able to format your forum archives completely independently of other archive pages.

If you want to show the Archive Intro and Headline Area on other archive pages, but not the forums you can:

Edit the Body box and enable the Automatic WordPress Body Classes option.
Put this in the Custom CSS tab of the CSS editor .forum-archive #archive_intro, .forum-archive .headline_area {display:none;}

There are multiple price options available, all give you the same box, which you can get for free. If you choose to pay for it, you make it easier for me to keep creating products for the community.

$0.00

bbPress Forum Icons

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:56 +0000

It surprised me how long it took me to find anything about adding icons to bbPress forums! It wasn’t until it occurred to me that a useful way to implement them would be to use WordPress featured images and searched for forum featured images that I made some progress.

In the end it is really quite simple!
First you need to enable featured images on the forum post type, then you need to put that image in the right place (I prefer to use a hook action for this when I can).

The code

Just place this code in your theme’s functions.php file.

add_post_type_support('forum', array('thumbnail'));

function ks_forum_icons() {
	if ( 'forum' == get_post_type() ) {
		global $post;
	    if ( has_post_thumbnail($post->ID) )
	    	echo get_the_post_thumbnail($post->ID,'thumbnail',array('class' => 'alignleft forum-icon'));
	 }
}
add_action('bbp_theme_before_forum_title','ks_forum_icons');

The code above does those two things: enables featured images on forums and then hooks the image before the forum title on the bbPress archive page (the one with all the forums listed at once).

Icons on single forum pages

If you want to show the image on single forum pages too the method might vary depending on your theme, since the main forum title on those pages is generated using the regular WordPress the_title() function.
If you’re using a theme with hooks, like Thesis or Genesis (and most ‘frameworks’, I think), you can use the relevant “before post title” hook to add the same function as above to the relevant hook. E.g., in Genesis you can use add_action('genesis_before_post_title','ks_forum_icons');

There you have it! Forum icons in bbPress.

What’s all this then?

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 13:10:20 +0000

You might have noticed that things look a little different, and maybe a bit raw around here.

I have decided to strip things back and build up from almost scratch, in real time. Yep! I’m going to make my changes and experiment right on my site for the world to see.

Why? Actually I’m not really sure. It has something to do with how much I love WordPress right now, and a desire to use it more and be be involved in the community a bit more.

How will this venture do that? Maybe it will give people a chance to comment on the progress of the site and make suggestions, which you are welcome to do. Perhaps it will give me time to take inspiration from different sources, read more blogs, and learn some new things. It might inspire me to post more, which is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while (forever?!). You might think that paring back the design might make me intent on designing rather than writing, but I think by allowing my blog to be a bit naked for a while I won’t feel that pressure to get the design finished and ready for the world. I can just spend a bit more time with WordPress in general; it can be a work in progress while I do other things like write and go to WordCamp!

Heck yes! I’m pretty excited. In part because WordPress is great and getting better, also partly because I’ve never been to Melbourne before.

In other (somewhat related) news, over the past few months I have been teaching WordPress courses for a training company in Sydney. There can be between 1 and 8 people in a one-day class and I really enjoy it! I love being part of people learning about how great WordPress is! And their questions give me an opportunity to explore WordPress further, which has been bril!

It’s quite likely that my most recent Thesis child theme will be available in my store this week, and any other previous skins, if I have time to pull them together.

Depression with a side of anxiety

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:49:22 +0000

That’s me! Well, it’s not “me”; I’m not defined by depression, but it is a significant part of me that I have to manage the best way that I can.

What’s there to be depressed about?

I can’t decide if this is a fair question, or one that shows a complete ignorance of mental health issues that affect millions of people. On one hand it is a fair question and the answer is “not much”; I have a great home, a great husband, beautiful pet bunnies, a loving family, a fantastic coffee shop down the road, good food all around me, decent clothes… What is there to be depressed about? On the other hand the question is the wrong question because depression often has little to do with current circumstances.

Depression can be triggered by life circumstances — usually by long-term struggles such as unemployment, illness, long-term stress¹ — or it might have no identifiable cause at all! Depression can be genetic: it can be caused by biochemical imbalances in the brain and doesn’t always need an external trigger.

For me, the first major episode of depression in my adult life² had no trigger that I know of. In fact, I was actually the healthiest I had even been! I had lost 24kg (so I was a healthy 58kg at 5’2″), I was exercising, I felt great. Gradually though I became less active, less motivated, more stressed, sad, angry, irritable, tired, lethargic, isolated… I couldn’t motivate myself to cook so we ate a lot of take away, I couldn’t motivate myself to work and I tended to spend a lot of time watching TV or sleeping on the couch. My Mum, who has had depression too, recognised these signs and told me to see a doctor, which I did. With a combination of medication and psychological therapy to identify unhelpful thought patterns and behaviours and learn to manage them I got a lot better. I was able to go off my medication and live quite well.

About a year later I noticed myself slipping again, and as much as I tried to implement the strategies I’d learned I was anxious, angry and wanted to sleep and cry too much of the time. I went back to the doctor, back to the psychologist and things are going a lot better again. Still, some days are fantastic, some are not. It’s a continual balancing act and sometimes struggle to do the right thing for myself and for others.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Well, while some behaviours and feelings are a lot more severe and prolonged in people with depression, many of them are still just as much a part of the human condition. So I think some of these strategies, mantras and challenges could be just as useful for you as for me.

If it takes less that a minute, do it now!
This is something I got from The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Lack of motivation, laziness and procrastination can be significant in the mentally ill and the healthy alike, sometimes it’s just a part of life. If you stop putting everything off and just do it now, it makes things a lot easier! Put that document away now, put that rubbish in the bin now, rinse that glass now… if it takes less than a minute, just do it now.
Is it interfering with what you need to do?
Sometimes I wonder if I am spending too much time on a particular task that isn’t necessarily important. E.g., finding a new watch when I had lost my old one, or finding the right task manager tool rather than just getting my tasks done, or finding project management tools instead of just managing my projects in the simplest way I can. Sometimes you do need to invest a bit of time in structures that will help you get on with what you need to do, but sometimes you just need to pick a method and start getting things done.
I might not be able to control everything around me, but I can control [insert personal behaviour here]
The thing that you need to control might vary from person to person. For me it is usually what I eat. I am trying to shed the weight from my previous depression episode, but when things are tough it is even more difficult not to succumb to laziness and just get take away, or just eat the high-carb option, or drink too much wine. On a bad day I might not be able to control everything around me, but I can damn well control what I put in my mouth.

I haven’t got these things down pat, but I am trying to remember them in my day to day. I need to keep going. Keep doing. Keep being.

Do you have any tips or mantras that help you when things get tough or everything seems overwhelming?

For more information about depression and anxiety please visit Beyond Blue and Black Dog Institute.

See What Causes Depression on the Beyond Blue website
I had been depressed as a teen, but with all the crazy hormones of growing up it was easier for me to grow out of it when those hormones evened out.

Update your WordPress username!

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 04:01:50 +0000

After Dion’s message at WordCamp Sydney last year, “Update your bloody WordPress!”, comes this new-ish message update your bloody WordPress admin username.

It’s not really a new message, it’s just that it probably hasn’t been as dangerous to have a username of “admin” as it is now. Many hosts and news outlets are reporting widespread botnet attacks to gain access to the username “admin” in WordPress installs.

It used to be that WordPress would automatically create an account with the username of admin, and usernames in WordPress can’t be changed without editing the database directly. Now-a-days WordPress gives you the option to enter any username you like when you install WordPress, but that doesn’t help all the people with older sites.

Thankfully, if you aren’t comfortable editing the mySQL database, there are some plugins that can change the admin username for you. My favourite is Better WP Security, which can change the admin username and ID as well as a range of other things.

When using these plugins please backup the database first (Better WP Security has this ability built in) and if you use any of the more advanced features, like changing the database table prefix, make sure you have access to your site’s config file and database… I used this feature on a site today and it changed the tables, but not the config file, which I had to change to get the WP files connected to the database again.

You can’t take your organs with you

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 11:35:11 +0000

When I got my driver licence there was no question in my mind that I’d be happy to give any of my organs for donation in the event of my death — you can sign up for the NSW organ donor register when you apply for a licence, or specify which organs you would be happy to give. There was no question because, heck, you can’t take them with you!

Organ transplants can give not only the recipients of the donation a new lease on life, but also their carers, friends and other loved ones (maybe even their pets!).

The donation situation in Australia is pretty sad; donation rates are very low. You can opt to donate in your home state on your licence, but relatives have complete power of veto if the moment ever comes. Also many people don’t know that you need to register your wish to donate on the national register to donate country-wide, but again family can choose not to donate your organs when the time comes. So you really need to talk to your family and friends and ask them to respect your wishes regarding donation.

If you don’t have a deeply religious need to hold onto your organs after your death please register AND talk to your loved ones about it. They need to know your wishes so they are not burdened with the decision in a time of grief.

To hear a bit about living with chronic illness and waiting for a transplant please listen to this short interview with Jennifer Symonds.

k1

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 06:55:13 +0000

The k1 skin for Thesis 2.0.x uses the Gumby CSS grid framework. This framework makes responsive grid layouts a snap.

Features

Responsive layout
Ready to use header, sidebar and footer widget areas
12 column grid allows you to easily layout elements using simple classes
Variables are used for colours, so to change your colour scheme you only need to change the colour values in one place
Google font Holtwood SC for headings

Installation

Just upload the zip file to the Thesis 2 Select Skins admin page and then Activate Skin.

Customising

Colours

All the main colours are managed via variables in the CSS editor. Hover over a variable to view its value, or click on it to edit it.

Columns

k1 uses the Gumby 12 column grid format, which uses simple classes to determine the size of the columns and automatically format them. The default format is 2 columns; content 9/12 wide and sidebar 3/12 wide.

In order to change the proportions of the current columns simply change the classes of the Content and Sidebar boxes (click on the gear icon when hovering over a box to access the HTML class options). Specify the space of the twelve column grid each column should occupy with the class name (e.g., eight). See the gumby documentation for all the options.

Second sidebar

To add a new column on the right add a new container box after the Sidebar box, inside the Content Area and Wrap. Give that container a class of columns and the number of columns it should take up separated by a space (e.g., two columns if you also set Content to eight columns and Sidebar to two columns; or any other combination totalling 12). Then add your content to the new container (e.g., a widget box, or text box).

To create a sidebar-content-sidebar layout a few more steps are needed. Please ask me in the comments if you need these instructions.

$6.00

Header Image Box

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 10:37:24 +0000

This box for Thesis 2.0.x enables the WordPress Custom Header panel in the Appearance menu.

You can position the box anywhere in your skin layout and use the simple WordPress image uploader/editor to manage your header image (located in Appearance > Header in the WordPress dashboard).

This box also adds a meta box to posts and pages allowing you to specify a unique header image for any posts and pages, replacing the default site-wide header image.

You can use this box instead of, or as well as, the site title and tagline boxes.

See the Thesis user manual for installation and usage instructions.

$2.00

Google Maps for iPhone: woooot!

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 07:41:57 +0000

The official Google Maps for iPhone came out today! I’m pretty excited.

Apple maps wasn’t so bad, if you live in California and possibly inner-city China. I thought the design of Apple Maps was pretty great, I liked the layout of the directions and how you could swipe across to see the next step of your journey. The only problem with it in Australia was that you couldn’t see major landmarks until you zoomed in pretty much as far as it goes… and you couldn’t search for business names or types and actually find anything useful… and it told you to do things that are illegal and therefore dangerous in New South Wales (like u-turns at lights)… and it sometimes told you to do impossible things like turn into a street from a cul-de-sac end… oh, and it got people so lost that they needed police assistance.

Yes, Google Maps had a couple of those problems (like the cul-de-sac one) in the early days, but why didn’t Apple learn from Google’s mistakes and do more testing before making such a drastic change?

I’m not sure what this release means for Apple Maps. Perhaps some good samaritans, or folks who don’t download a lot of apps, will still use it and report problems back to them. Perhaps I will be a good samaritan and compare directions and report problems to Apple occasionally. What do you think Apple will do? Will they ditch their maps app like they did their YouTube app? It seems a shame after all the work they put in, but all that work wasn’t quite enough.

I can actually see the train stations!

You can tap on red dots, or swipe across the bottom business name to select search results

Calendar Package

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 12:23:51 +0000

The Calendar Package for Thesis 2.0.x adds a CSS package to help you pretty up the WordPress calendar widget.

Through the package options in the Skin CSS Editor you can style

Date links
Today’s post day link
Month navigation links
Month heading
Days of the week headings

$0.00

Gmail iPhone app is useful now!

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 06:03:48 +0000

I woke up this morning to an update to the Gmail app for iPhone. On a whim I looked at the “what’s new” section of update message and BOOM! It now has features that you actually want, and more!

Nice layout
Multiple account support!
Easy image attachment
“Scribbles” drawing attachments (this comes under the more than I want; although cute I can’t see myself really using it!)
Search with auto-suggest

There’s room for improvement, but this is sooo much better!

IDs and classes in Exifography output

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 01:15:09 +0000

I just released Exifography 1.1.3, which includes the ability to add unique IDs and classes to the HTML output of your EXIF data.

EXIF block ID

In order to add the image ID to the EXIF container HTML use %s where you want the ID to appear. E.g., <ul class="exif" id="%s">

The output for that ID is wp-image-ID, since WordPress automatically adds the same as a class to the images it inserts into posts you can fairly easily associate the EXIF block with its image, which will be useful for javascript effects and that sort of thing.

If you happen to be using that ID as an ID for something else on the same page you could include it as a class instead: <ul class="exif %s">.

EXIF item classes

You can also add a unique class to each exif item to style them separately.

E.g., <li class="%s">

The class that is applied is the same as the keys used in the shortcode. So, in order to style the timestamp differently to all the other items, for example, you would use .created_timestamp {text-transform:uppercase; color:blue;}.

Reset the Thesis 2.0 Classic skin

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 02:35:36 +0000

Hey, so you’ve just installed Thesis 2.0 and you’re trying to figure out what is going on and completely messed up the classic skin? You’re not alone!

This is my recommendation for resetting the classic skin to its default. DIYthemes might release an official method soon, but until then, this should work if your skin files are still in tact.

Switch to the Thesis Blank skin

find custom.php in wp-content/thesis/skins/thesis-blank/ (you will need FTP, or your host’s file editor for this) and insert the following code:

delete_option( 'thesis_classic_css_custom' );
delete_option( 'thesis_classic_css' );
delete_option( 'thesis_classic_vars' );
delete_option( 'thesis_classic_snippets' );
delete_option( 'thesis_classic_packages' );
delete_option( 'thesis_classic_templates' );
delete_option( 'thesis_classic_boxes' );
update_option( 'thesis_raw_css','' );

Reload your home page (it should be blank unless you’ve played with adding HTML to the blank skin)
Reactivate the Thesis Classic skin
Save and Compile CSS in the skin editor
Delete the code from step 2.

This deletes the classic skin related data from the database, so that when you reactivate the Classic Skin it loads its defaults back into the database.

Installing Thesis 2.0

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 12:58:33 +0000

Update 26 Oct 2012: Thesis 2.0.1 is out and you shouldn’t need to go through this install procedure. My tests have shown that the skins are automatically installed and configured on new Thesis installs.

Thesis 2.0 is out, and it is a completely different animal to Thesis 1.x!

I’m sure it’s capable of some amazing things, but it’s also going to take a bit of getting used to, and those that jump in face-first might get a bit confused by what they see.

Firstly, on the download page there is a plugin that will enable you to play around with Thesis when logged in, while still serving your active theme to visitors. If you are installing 2.0 on your site and want to port your design over, I recommend using that plugin. I more strongly recommend using a test site to play around with Thesis 2.0 and get used to it. I won’t be installing it on this site until I’ve had more experience with it, and I almost always develop my themes on a test site anyway.

Install & Activate

Installation and activation is the same as any other theme: you upload Thesis to your wp-content/themes folder and activate it on the Appearance > Themes panel in the dashboard (unless you are using the plugin I mentioned, in which case follow its instructions).

Get Started

Do not click the “check out your site now” link. It will be blank, and maybe scary. Do click the “Click to get started” button, which will install the default skins and folders where your custom skins, boxes and packages will go.

Save your CSS

Next you need to head to the Skin Editor to save your CSS. The link to the Skin Editor can be found under Skins in the menu on the Thesis admin page.

Once there navigate to the CSS tab in the top left corner.

In Thesis 2.0 CSS is generated mainly from CSS packages, which are modules designed to help you style all your fonts, links, widths, colours, backgrounds etc via a visual interface. The settings for all of these are in the Skin Editor and when you’ve got things the way you like you need to save and recompile your CSS file. For now your CSS file hasn’t been compiled yet, so you need to do that. You don’t need to change the package settings at this point, just click the “Save and Compile CSS” button.

It is possible to write custom CSS from the editor, or use style.css from a child theme if you want. In time many more packages will become available as developers have the chance to write them.

Now! you can check out your site

Now that your skins are installed and the CSS is saved you can check out your site without having a heart attack.

The Thesis Classic skin is the default and looks like Thesis 1.x did. From there you can check out the Skin Editor. The HTML section allows you to rearrange, add and remove elements of the page and the CSS section allows you to edit the styles for your site. There is also a Thesis Blank skin that you can use to build your own skins from scratch. All skin settings are saved in the database, so you can switch between skins at your leisure and things will be as you left them if you want to switch back.

Tips for the Skin Editor

Boxes = page elements that you can add to your templates in the HTML editor
Packages = CSS packages that have a visual interface for you to input your style preferences, which automatically generate the CSS for you
Variables = bits and pieces of CSS that you can assign a value to and use in your CSS and packages. E.g., you could name a variable “color1″ and give it the value #000 and then in your CSS packages instead of picking or typing in a colour you type $color1. This will be handy: you can change colour schemes by only changing your colours in one place, or you could use it for regularly used values like padding and margins etc.
To move HTML elements within a container just drag the box. To move elements between containers shift+drag.
Each type of WordPress page can have a unique template. To change which template you are editing click on the name of the template at the top left of the HTML editor.
You can copy one page template to another by selecting the template you want to copy to in the editor and then click on the name of the template again, in the 3rd column of the popup you can select the template you would like to copy from.

Have fun!

Thesis 2.0 release date announced

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 05:50:14 +0000

October 1 2012

Why yes, that is 6 days away! DIYthemes announced the release date of the new Thesis Theme for WordPress with a few teasers earlier today.

I’m pretty keen (along with many others it seems) to see what this version of Thesis will do. One of the things I’m most excited about is the ability to drag/drop your website’s page structure AND have semantic HTML come out on the front end. There have been some drag/drop themes and tools around, but I’ve always been dissatisfied with the results as far as HTML goes. I’m sure that Chris, with his appreciation of standards & semantics, has that covered.

I have no idea what this means for the Thesis development space. There has been a huge market for those more CSS and PHP savvy than the rest to customise the heck out of Thesis for clients. That market may still be there, same as ever, or it might have to shift a bit. Either way, I’m sure we’ll come up with something bril! WATCH THIS SPACE.

There seems to be a lot of people who are confused about their current license… Anyone with a license will be able to download Thesis 2.0. Folks with a development license will be able to get some extra goodies (no word on what those are yet).
The prices will be going up, so if you’re a diehard fan and really want those extra goodies, but only have a personal license, you can upgrade from a personal license to the developer license now at the current price and get the extras along with Thesis 2.0 when they’re released, or you can wait to see what they are and upgrade later at the increased price.

If you’ve been on the fence, now looks like a good time to get Thesis.

Add location to Jetpack Carousel

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:53:30 +0000

I received a good question regarding Exifography in the WordPress support forums: can you add location to Jetpack carousel?

It looks like Jetpack will eventually be adding location data to the carousel view. They have it all built in, but the notes in the source code say they want to “fuzzify” the data for privacy before letting you display it (also, they don’t seem to have built in a way to import location data for photos). I’m not quite sure how they will fuzzify data and still provide useful location information, perhaps it will just reduce the number of decimal points in the location. Anyway, if you don’t want to wait for that to happen you can use the following filter in your theme’s functions.php (or custom_functions.php in Thesis) to show a nice little map in your Jetpack Carousel.

function add_geo_meta_carousel($html,$imgID) {
	$allmeta = wp_get_attachment_metadata($imgID);
	$imgmeta = $allmeta['image_meta'];
	if (class_exists('exifography')) {
		$exif = new exifography();
		if (isset($imgmeta['latitude'])) {
			if ($imgmeta['latitude'])
				$latitude = $imgmeta['latitude'];
			if ($imgmeta['longitude'])
				$longitude = $imgmeta['longitude'];
			if ($imgmeta['latitude_ref'])
				$lat_ref = $imgmeta['latitude_ref'];
			if ($imgmeta['longitude_ref'])
				$lng_ref = $imgmeta['longitude_ref'];
			$lat = $exif->geo_single_fracs2dec($latitude);
			$lng = $exif->geo_single_fracs2dec($longitude);
			if ($lat_ref == 'S') { $neg_lat = '-'; } else { $neg_lat = ''; }
			if ($lng_ref == 'W') { $neg_lng = '-'; } else { $neg_lng = ''; }
			$imgmeta['latitude'] = $neg_lat . number_format($lat,6);
			$imgmeta['longitude'] = $neg_lng . number_format($lng, 6);
			//remove raw geo
			unset($imgmeta['latitude_ref']);
			unset($imgmeta['longitude_ref']);
			$imgmeta = json_encode($imgmeta);
			$html = preg_replace('/data-image-meta="\{.*?\}"/',
			'data-image-meta="'.esc_attr($imgmeta).'"',
			$html);
		}
	}
	return $html;
}
add_filter('jp_carousel_add_data_to_images','add_geo_meta_carousel',10,2);

You do need to have the Exifography plugin installed and active in order to enable import of location data when uploading images and to use the fractions to decimal functions that are in this filter.

2012 earphone saga

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 02:04:57 +0000

This is a long post, so for those with less time or a short attention span here’s a summary. In 2012 I went through 7 pairs of earphones. Four pairs were destroyed by bunnies, two pairs were faulty and one pair just didn’t fit well. Feeling both foolish and unlucky as far as earphones were concerned last year!

At the end of 2011 we got a bunny. She’s gorgeous, but like any pet, or child, she can be a bit naughty. Rabbits love chewing cables! We knew this before we got her and we wrapped up all the major cables in parts of an old sheet, we taped down the ethernet cable that runs around the edge of the room, and we try to keep an eye on the charging cables when she’s in the same room as them.

I used to leave stuff on the coffee table without worrying that Kaylee would chew on it because she never went on the coffee table. That is until she was playing in a box next to the coffee table and from there it was only a short hop to the coffee table. Now she feels quite welcome to jump on the coffee table and chew the buttons off the remote controls and nibble through any earphone cables that might be there.

The first time my earphones got chewed I was rather disappointed. I was using Sennheiser M30i earphones. Soooo nice! They stay in my ears (regular earphones, like the old and new Apple ones just fall right out), don’t hurt my ears, the remote control is very handy, and the microphone is good enough to talk to my Mum on the phone (as opposed to the Griffin microphone adaptor I previously had, on which she couldn’t hear me very well at all). Also, as you may know Sennheiser isn’t cheap; it’s worth the price, and the M30i are near the bottom of their selection, but they’re certainly not disposable. I’d owned that particular pair for about a year, so although they would have lasted a lot longer sans bunny, I could cope with the loss.

After that first chewing incident I bought some cheap in-ear earphones from the supermarket to tide me over until I decided whether to buy more Sennheisers or not. These earphones were so uncomfortable (despite being ones with little rubber ear socket bits) and sounded crappy — I’m no audiophile, but even I could tell they sucked! Also, the lack of remote was so annoying that they helped me to decide that I did indeed want my M30is back. My birthday was coming up, so I asked for new earphones for my birthday.

In order to keep them safe from little bunny teeth I crocheted a little pouch with some yarn scraps I had, and tried to be diligent about putting the earphones away whenever I wasn’t using them. As a few months passed I guess I became more lax in that practice; I always put them away when I was going to be in a different room for some time, but if I was using my laptop next to the coffee table I didn’t always put them away. One day I went to the toilet and came out a minute later to find Kaylee munching on the earphone cables again.

That was a lot more upsetting than last time, but from my previous experience of putting up with crappy, inconvenient earphones I knew that I wanted the same earphones again and I knew I sure as hell would never leave these things anywhere without putting them back in their pouch! I used the crappy ones for a day or so until I got up to the shops to buy some more, and bonus! some CDs I’d been wanting were on sale too.

Two days later I was using my new earphones, popping between my laptop, the kitchen, and other rooms of the house doing some housework while listening to MacBreak Weekly. I sat down for a moment to do something on the laptop and Kaylee was next to me enjoying my company, or so I thought. Next thing, I heard Andy Ihnatko’s voice go completely haywire and looked down to see Kaylee biting at the earphone cable right down next to my jeans pocket where it was plugged into my iPhone.

This time I was really upset! Two days! Two freakin’ days these $70 earphones had lasted. There was a few tears and a bit of yelling.

I did not rush out and buy a new set of earphones. I pulled out the crappy supermarket ones again and used those for a bit. I looked at what cheaper options for earphones might be out there: something that was convenient and useful, but not as devastating to get nibbled on. Or slightly more expensive, but far less likely to be nibbled.

There was only really a few candidates that I could see. There were some Sony ones for about $40 that had a remote with microphone, but multiple reviews said that the microphone was too far away from their head and people couldn’t hear them during phonecalls. Skull Candy had some with a microphone, but I couldn’t be sure if it was a good enough mic that people would actually hear me on the phone, and worth spending the money. Or I could just breakout and get some Plantronics Backbeat Go earphones: bluetooth in-ear earphones with a remote and mic.

Undecided, I was in K-mart one day and saw some earphones with a remote and mic for $10. Even if the mic was useless and the sound a bit crappy, they looked more comfortable than my supermarket ones, and a remote would be nice. As it turned out, the sound was slightly better than the supermarket ones, they were slightly more comfortable, the microphone was completely useless, and though the remote was a bit temperamental, it was better than nothing.

Somewhere in that time my husband’s Sennheiser earphones were also attacked; he bought some more for himself and his model happen to come with a little leather pouch that he doesn’t use. So I took to using that little case with my el cheapo earphones.

A few months ago I started a new program at the gym and was interested in heart rate monitors. I popped into Harvey Norman to see what they had and walked out with some House of Marley Smile Jamaica earbuds instead. These things were great, especially for the price. They had fabric wrapped wires (which I suspect were less appetising to Kaylee), remote and mic (good enough to talk to Mum with), they were quite comfortable and also came with a pouch. After a few weeks the left earbud just stopped working. No bunny teeth involved, just generally faulty.

I took the Marley earphones back to Harvey Norman, they sent them off for testing, determined they were faulty (after several weeks) and said they’d replace them. So I went in to get my replacements only to find they don’t have those ones anymore and probably can’t get them in. Might have been nice for them to check that before calling me, eh? So, after much umming and ahhing it was a choice between a refund and paying $5 more for Sol Republic Amps. I paid the $5. They passed the phonecall-to-mum test and sounded fine, but I wasn’t convinced by the bulky bud design and the cable is very appealing to little bunny mouths (we now have 2 bunnies, and I have to be doubly on guard). I returned those and trekked over to Bing Lee where I found online that they have Marley’s in stock.

Sometime during all that Monty, our second bunny, dug into my gym bag and also chewed my Sennheiser sport earphones. Gah!

I enjoyed my new Marleys for 1 week, yes one week, before the left ear crapped out. Holy moly, the seemingly same fault, again! I took those back when I got the chance and thankfully didn’t have to wait for them to send them away for testing; I received a replacement… I felt dubious about getting the same earphones again, but since the previous faulty pair were from a different store I decided not to ask for a refund unless they broke again. So far they are still working.

Wish me luck, and diligence!

Add EXIF to WordPress gallery image titles

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 01:36:38 +0000

My Exifography plugin provides different ways for users to display EXIF data for their images in WordPress.

One of the ways people like to show EXIF is within the image title, like Sam does on daily dose of imagery. This allows the EXIF to show up in a tooltip when hovering over the image, or if you use a lightbox plugin it might include that information in the popup.

If you have a single image, or a small number of large images, on the page you can just add the Exifography shortcode within title="" to include the EXIF in the image’s title attribute. However, if you’re using the WordPress gallery shortcode, the title attribute is rendered automatically for you. Thankfully, all the attributes that are output with an image in WordPress can be filtered.

The following PHP in your theme’s functions.php, or custom_functions.php in Thesis, will add the EXIF data after the image name in the image’s title attribute (when Exifography is active).

function my_image_titles($atts,$img) {
	if (function_exists('exifography_display_exif'))
		$atts['title'] = trim(strip_tags( $img->post_title )) .' '. exifography_display_exif('all',$img->ID);
	else
		$atts['title'] = trim(strip_tags( $img->post_title ));
	return $atts;
}
add_filter('wp_get_attachment_image_attributes','my_image_titles',10,2);

Make sure that your Exifography display settings are suitable for the title attribute, which doesn’t render HTML; you will need to use plain text separators to format the EXIF data. Like the example below.

If you use a lightbox that uses both the title and alt attributes in the popup, you can modify the code to suit that. prettyPhoto, for example, uses the alt attribute as the image name and it uses the title attribute as the description. In that case you would want to remove trim(strip_tags( $img->post_title )) .' '. from before the Exifography function as to not repeat the image name.

WordPress uses the image name as the alt attribute by default if there’s not a different alt attribute set, so you shouldn’t need to worry about it, but if you do want to change it you can filter it in the same way the title is filtered using $atts['alt'] instead of $atts['title'].