WordPress MU plugins, themes and news

WPMU for Dummies: Part Deux is a mu-plugin to enhance the SiteAdmin–>Admin(wpmu-admin.php) page only.

This version will only work with WPMU2.6.x

• WPMU Dashboard: adds a widgetized sidebar for SiteAdmins only to the SiteAdmin–>Admin page(I use it for RSS feeds, sitewide widgets)
  • Optional: Go forth and add `if(is_site_admin())` to any widget_init function and it’ll only be available to SiteAdmin, otherwise widgets are shared with remaining sidebars in the SiteAdmin primary blog.
  • All WPMU dashboard widget options are stored/called from the SiteAdmin primary blog. If you have multiple SiteAdmins, the WPMU Dashboard will be unique to each of them. Widgets are added to the WPMU Dashboard in the usual way(Design–>Widgets) but only from the SiteAdmin’s primary blog.
  • Bookmarks to my favorite “WP and WPMU Help” sites (overwritten by widgets when active)
• Search buttons to several WP/WPMU sites: Forums, plugins, themes, Trac, Codex PHP, etc.
• Error Log Editor: searches ABSPATH for error_logs and if found displays them each in their own editable textarea(large error_log files will stall the page, however). Saving an empty error_log will delete it. For fun, there is a corny SiteAdmin WPMU2.6 “Esteem Check”(WP easter-egg) built in if no error_logs are found.

The SiteAdmin page is basically a blank canvas, now it’s a bit busier and, as SiteAdmin, my most frequently visited page.

Usage Note: If you let your error_logs swell to the crack of doom, the plugin will stall the loading of the wpmu-admin.php page. Disable the plugin, delete error_logs via ftp(or however you do it).  Non-wordpress error_logs may be listed if the directory if within ABSPATH, ie bbress.

This is a “works for me” mu-plugin, like it, fix it, enhance it, share it, . . . or lump it.

Download: http://wpmudev.org/project/WPMU-for-Dummies:-Part-Deux

Sitewide “three-in-one” Multi Widget Panel

• Choose the blog ID to feature from the widget control panel, by default it will use Donncha’s Sitewide Tags Pages(’tags_blog_id’) if installed. Blog_id is matched against existing public blogs.
• Checkboxes to enable(and title) each sub-widget within the multi-widget control
• Sitewide Tag Cloud
  • default(no options) for now
• Sitewide Recent Posts
  • Display 0-10 most recent posts
    • full post, post excerpt, no post content
    • titles
    • author
    • date
    • comment link
    • post category
    • post tags
    • avatars(any size 8-80 px)
  • Filtered by Sitewide Tags(comma separated list)
  • Filtered by Sitewide Categories
• Sitewide Archives
  • daily
  • weekly
  • monthly
  • yearly

Download: http://wpmudev.org/project/Sitewide-Multi-Widget

Installation Notes: You’ll want Donncha’s Sitewide Tags Pages(v 0.2) installed and running for a while (to generate posts in the tags blog). I have not tested this widget with any other sitewide tags-type aggregation, but user can substitute any existing public blog id if the ‘tags_blog_id’ doesn’t exist. Sitewide “three-in-one” Multi Widget Panel is a widget so put it with he rest of your wpmu widgets. Designed/tested for WPMU2.6.

So, as WP 2.6.1 has been released we should probably see a fair bit of ‘trac action’ and WPMU 2.6.1 on the way soon too.

However, I’m personally not going to be rushing into any upgrades from WPMU 2.6 based sites, there’s a lot more involved in upgrading WPMU rather than regular WP and if it doesn’t have great new features, important security fixes or serious performance tweaks… if it ‘aint broke, then don’t try to fix it!

Howabout you?

With your WPMU, are you a ‘cutting-edge’ Kevin or a ‘wait and see’ Wanda?

Just quickly, as a short interlude from the plugin contest, some theme news.

We’ve heard that quite a lot of people liked the Edublogs homepage theme (and why not, it took a heck of a while to build!) so , we decided to make it available on WPMU DEV Premium.

A couple of years ago we actually released an (much) older version of the theme on the free site - but were then inundated by issues with it being used for splog sites (hence putting it on Premium this time).

Here’s what it looks like, and you can download it from here:

We’d ask that you don’t just change the logo and use it like that… but feel free to hack the heck out of it, lift the good bits and generally enjoy it for all you are worth.

Some cute code bits include the login form, full support and integration for our MU avatars plugin, some really cute css / design stuff, the on page RSS tabber (controlled by the theme options) and we’ll be releasing shortly plugins to allow you to manage a list of recently updated blogs (with avatars) just like our ‘Supporters’ section and also, possibly, some of our global tagging stuff (although Donncha’s MU tags should work just as well!)

More cool CMS / Frontpage themes will be coming to WPMU DEV Premium soon too.

Well, we’ve had a busy few days on the WPMU Plugin Contest front!

Not only have we had several excellent entries from Donncha (MU domain mapping) and dsader (Limit Users per blog, Toggle admin menus sitewide and Limit post revisions sitewide) but we’ve also had another $150 added to the prize pool ($100 from Trent Adams and $50 from Kevin Gormley at MyLocalCause.com).

This takes our current prize pool to US$1225!

Thanks for the submissions and prize money guys - do you know anyone else who might like to contribute to the prize pool? The WLTC plugin contest has managed almost $4000 in prizes… it would be great if we could get close to that!

Menus (Enable or disable WP Backend Menus)

I needed an mu-plugin to keep track of what menus I’ve enabled or disabled.

The SiteAdmin–>Options already does the Plugins menu, so I’ve add a bunch more.

If, like me, you need to hide the Themes Menu, or don’t want anyone messing with the Permalinks menu, or are frightened by the Delete Blog menu, this plugin will help.

I’ve added a checkbox to move the Design menu to the right, my preference.

I’ve added a checkbox to toggle a redirect to hide the Dashboard.

I’ve added a toggle to return the normal WP Media Buttons in the edit forms.

I’ve added wp-redirects: for example with a Settings->Permalink submenu disabled even if a user entered the options-permalink.php url in their browser, they arrive back at Settings->General.

Not all menus are listed, you could experiment easily enough, I figure.

Disabling the Widgets menu is not an option as it is added conditionally by the temlpate and is required by the dashboard.

There is also a checkbox for enabling all menus for SiteAdmin while leaving normal users with limited menus.

If you use other plugins to disable/hide admin menus, there will be collisions/errors. Happy testing!

The following menus are disabled by default giving you the option to turn them back on:

• Settings
• Settings General
• Settings Writing
• Settings Reading
• Settings Discussion
• Settings Privacy
• Settings Permalinks
• Settings Miscellaneous
• Settings Delete Blog
• Users
• Users Authors and Users
• Users Your Profile
• Write
• Write Post
• Write Page
• Mu Media Buttons
• Media Buttons
• Write Link
• Manage
• Manage Pages
• Manage Links
• Manage Categories
• Manage Link Categories
• Manage Tags
• Design
• Design Themes
• Manage Import
• Manage Export
• Move Design Menu to the Right
• Dashboard

Download: http://wpmudev.org/project/Menus

Allows MU Site Admins (Site Admin–>Options) to limit the number of post revisions, sitewide.

Enter 0 to disable the Post Revision feature in WPMU2.6.

Download from http://wpmudev.org/project/Limit-Post-Revisions

Allows WPMU Site Admins (Site Admin–>Options) to limit the number of users that can be added by a blog admin before the “Add user from community” form is hidden.

Download: http://wpmudev.org/project/Limit-Users-Per-Blog

There’s still over a month to get your plugins in for the WPMU plugin contest, but the sooner you do, the better a reception they are likely to get!

Also, if you do submit now, there’s nothing stopping you resubmitting a newer version before the contest closes… all the more attention for you :)

And with over US$1000 in the prize pool (including $US575 cash!) already and even a list of requests and suggestions for winning plugins… what more do we need to persuade you to get submitting!

It might seem that getting a blog site into China should no longer be that hard… after all, WordPress.com, Blogger.com and Typepad.com have all managed it, right?

Well yes, they have, but I’m guessing that it wasn’t initially that easy for them, and they’ve gone through some pretty tried and tested channels to make sure it’s the case. It probably helps to have some good Valley links who’ve done it before… and who know who to talk to.

But that may well not be the case for plenty of WPMU sites, and especially so for those that use ‘blogs’ in the title… for example, Edublogs - which, as you might have guessed by this post so far is… blocked in China.

Now, of course there are tried an tested ways for Chinese internet users to circumvent these blocks… but that’s not what we really want is it… we want our users, especially when a lot of them are in Beijing, to be able to carry only blogging regardless.

Heck, we even offer a variety of Chinese language options.

So… can anyone help out with some advice as to how to get WordPress MU sites unblocked?

Is your WPMU blocked in China?