<div class="rss-widget"><ul><li><a class='rsswidget' href='http://wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-208-a-nod-to-the-king' title='In this episode of WordPress Weekly, Marcus Couch and I discuss the death of Alex King who was a pillar of the WordPress project. King passed away a few days ago from colon cancer. We share stories of meeting and discussing WordPress topics with King and describe his many contributions to WordPress. King will be dearly missed by the WordPress community. During the second half of the show, we discuss upcoming changes in WordPress 4.4, the lessons I learned moderating comments on WP Tavern, and WordCampus renaming to WPCampus. Stories Discussed: Alex King, Founder of Crowd Favorite Passes Away Alex King’s Final Request  WP Super Cache 1.4.5 Patches XSS Vulnerability  Lessons I Learned Moderating Comments in WordPress  WordCampus Renames Event to WPCampus  WordPress 4.4 to Possibly Rearrange Fields to the Comment Form  WordPress 4.4 Removes the View Post and Get Shortlink Buttons From the Post Editor Plugins Picked By Marcus: Contact Form 7 Customizer allows you to alter items like spacing and button size of the contact form using the customizer. View Admin As lets you simulate what a site looks like from a user with a specific role or capability. Grayscale Images converts images to gray-scale and displays the colored image hovered over. WPWeekly Meta: Next Episode: Wednesday, October 7th 9:30 P.M. Eastern Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe Subscribe To WPWeekly Via RSS: Click here to subscribe Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Stitcher Radio: Click here to subscribe Listen To Episode #208: '>WPTavern: WPWeekly Episode 208 – A Nod to the King</a></li><li><a class='rsswidget' href='http://wptavern.com/6-wordpress-plugins-that-take-native-comments-to-the-next-level' title='Last week, I shared the lessons I learned and the drawbacks to moderating comments in WordPress. In this post, I highlight six plugins that solve a problem I encountered or enhance comments for both readers and site administrators. All of the plugins are free of charge and available from the WordPress plugin directory. Problem Solvers Crowd Control I discovered that not all comments need to be moderated. Crowd Control, by Postmatic, gives readers the ability to report comments they feel don’t adhere to a site’s commenting policy. When enabled, a new option is displayed on the General – Discussion settings page. You can configure how many reports a comment needs before it’s sent to the moderation queue and whether administrators should be notified when it happens. Crowd Control Settings If an administrator approves a comment that’s in moderation due to hitting the threshold, it won’t end up back in the moderation queue. This gives administrators the last word on whether a comment is acceptable or not. Crowd Control in Action If you think a comment needs an administrator’s attention or does not adhere to the WP Tavern commenting policy, hover over the comment and click the report button. A new column is added to edit-comments.php that displays how many reports a comment has. It’s important to note that detailed information of who reported the comment is not saved to the database. Reported Comments Column The system is open for abuse but I trust that the Tavern readership will use it responsibly. Show Parent Comment Comments that are pending moderation in the WordPress backend that are in response to another comment are hard to moderate. Show Parent Comment, developed by Stephen Cronin, adds a Show More dropdown to the edit-comments.php screen that allows administrators to see the text of the comment that a person is responding too. Click to view slideshow. I’ve used this plugin for more than two weeks and I enjoy the user interface. It looks and acts as if it’s a natural part of WordPress. Chris Christoff created a ticket in Trac with the suggestion that a user interface element like the one in Cronin’s plugin be added to core. If you have feedback on the best way to accomplish this, please add it to the ticket. Enhancements to Native Comments Epoch Epoch is a plugin developed by Postmatic and a few other contributors that enhances WordPress’ comment system. Unlike services such as Disqus or Livefyre that replace the comment system, Epoch adds features to WordPress’ native comments. This allows you to keep comments within your database at all times without relying on a third-party. Epoch applies a series of visual enhancements to the comment form. Replies from the post author are a different color from regular responses and the date and time the comment is written is displayed at the top. Epoch also uses Ajax to send and receive comments which eliminates the need to refresh the page. Click to view slideshow. Epoch has a front end moderation capability that allows site administrators to approve, trash, or spam comments. Unlike the native comment form, Epoch doesn’t load the comments unless the browser reaches a certain point on a post or is accessed via a direct link. In most instances, the comment form loads quickly but on certain mobile devices, the lack of speed is noticeable. The team is aware of the performance issues and is attacking the problem with a three stage approach. Epoch relies on JavaScript to function so if a visitor browsing your site has JavaScript disabled, the comments don’t load. Again, the team is aware of this issue and is creating a fallback to WordPress’ native comment system if the files can’t be retrieved from its CDN or JavaScript is disabled. Basic Comment Quicktags In WordPress 4.3, the allowed HTML tags text displayed near the comment form was removed. The tags were removed because they’re note relevant and confusing to most users. While I agree that the text is not relevant, I think the comment form should have basic text formatting buttons so readers don’t have to remember and manually type HTML tags. Basic Comment Quicktags in Action Once Basic Comment Quicktags is installed, navigate to Settings – Discussion and check the box to enable them for comments. When enabled, the comment text area will have Bold, Italic, Link and Quote buttons. The best part of this plugin is that it exposes a built-in core feature using the Quicktags API added to WordPress 3.3. Text formatting buttons in the comment area is a courtesy I’d like more site owners to give to readers. Simple Comment Editing Simple Comment Editing, developed by Ronald Huereca, adds the ability for readers to edit their comments in a limited time frame. By default, readers have five minutes to edit their comment once it’s submitted. Although no configuration is necessary, you can alter the time and behavior of the plugin by using actions and filters. I’ve changed the time limit to 15 minutes on the Tavern to make sure readers have plenty of time to make edits. Simple Comment Editing Countdown Timer With Simple Comment Editing installed, the amount of contact form submissions and requests to edit a comment have gone down considerably. Postmatic Postmatic is a plugin that ties into a service and has a number of features. Readers can subscribe to posts or to comments and receive updates via email. Postmatic has a beautiful email template that shows the most recent reply, the commenter’s Gravatar, and a recap of the post and conversation. Postmatic Comment Email Template Readers can respond to comments via email without having to visit the comment form. Site administrators can reply, trash, or submit comments to Akismet via email. It’s important to note that Postmatic is not a third-party commenting service. Instead, it uses the native comment system in WordPress allowing you to keep and own your data at all times. While I moderate comments from the WordPress mobile app or the WordPress backend, Postmatic is a great fallback. I also think the email template looks great and offers a better user experience than the comment notification emails provided by WordPress. Postmatic does a lot more than what I describe above but for the purpose of this article, I focused on the comment portion of the service. Postmatic is a new addition to the Tavern that I encourage you to try. After trying it out, please tell me about your experience. I especially wany to know if it’s easier to keep track of and take part in conversations. Notifications That a Comment in Moderation is Approved One of the problems I’ve yet to solve is being addressed by a number of WordPress contributors in ticket 33717. If all goes well, it’s possible this feature will be added to WordPress 4.4. Once added, readers whose comments end up in the moderation queue will automatically be notified by WordPress when it’s approved. It’s Not Perfect but It’s an Improvement Even with all the features these plugins provide, I don’t think the comment system in WordPress or the form on WP Tavern is perfect. I’m not sure if perfection of either can be achieved. However, I think both are improvements over the previous iterations. If there’s a plugin you use to improve WordPress’ native comments or its moderation system, let me know about it in the comments.'>WPTavern: 6 WordPress Plugins That Take Native Comments to the Next Level</a></li><li><a class='rsswidget' href='http://z9.io/2015/09/29/the-web-wont-forget-alex-king/' title='If you use a WordPress site, either as a visitor or owner, you’re using code that Alex King, one of the original developers of WordPress, worked on.  He passed away after fighting cancer for 2 years but his online presence lives on in the form of his blog with it’s deep archive of posts going back years, and in so much code that it’s humbling to look at his projects page. Looking through the svn log of WordPress trunk shows he still had a hand in helping the WordPress project until relatively recently: trunk$ svn log|grep alexkingorg props alexkingorg for the initial, long-suffering patch. props alexkingorg. fixes #24162. Props alexkingorg `wp.media` instead of just `media`. props alexkingorg, see #22676. Add $post_ID context to the pre_ping filter. props alexkingorg, devesine. fixes #18506. Add filter so the users can select custom image sizes added by themes and plugins, props alexkingorg, fixes #18520 esc_textarea() and application for obvious textarea escaping. props alexkingorg. fixes #15454 Escape links by default.  Props alexkingorg. see #13051 Safely include class-json.php, class-simplepie.php and class-snoopy.php, props alexkingorg, fixes #11827 Fix user creation from admin after changes for #10751. Fixes #10811 props alexkingorg. Hooks needed to allow alternate category admin inteface. Props alexkingorg. fixes #3408 Wrap cat name in CDATA. props alexkingorg.  fixes #3252 I’m sorry I never met Alex, however I remember working virtually with him and Adam Tow on AllThingsD which seems like a lifetime away now. Adam has a great article on Alex on his blog, as does Matt who went into detail about Alex’s involvement with WordPress going back to the days of b2. I had completely forgotten the CSS competition he mentioned! Alex, your legacy lives on.   Related Posts b2 Hacks How to find cocaine in Ireland King Of Hearts'>Donncha: The Web Won’t Forget Alex King</a></li><li><a class='rsswidget' href='http://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-4-removes-the-view-post-and-get-shortlink-buttons-from-the-post-editor' title='In WordPress 4.4, the View Post button in the post editor is disappearing in favor of a clickable permalink. Four years ago, Scribu, who is a former WordPress contributor, created ticket #18306. In the ticket, Scribu explains that the View Post button is redundant functionality and suggests that it be removed in favor of a clickable permalink. Here are two screenshots of the post editor. The first is WordPress 4.3 and the second is WordPress 4.4. Clicking the permalink allows you to preview the post in its current state. Notice the slug part of the URL is in bold. You need to click the Edit button to edit the permalink. WordPress 4.3 Post Editor WordPress 4.4 Post Editor Not only does this change remove redundant functionality, it removes a UI element from the page. Enhancements like these are a huge win for WordPress because it makes the interface simpler without permanently removing the button’s purpose. In addition to the View Post button, the Get Shortlink button is also removed. The button shows up if you’re using a custom shortlink and can be re-enabled using code or a plugin. For most users, the Edit button is the only one they’ll see between the post title and content box. I expect some users will be frustrated as they go through the process of changing their workflow but overall, I think it’s a great improvement. What do you think?  If you’re using the WordPress beta testing plugin by Peter Westwood, I encourage you to set it to bleeding edge nightlies and update your site. You’ll be able to test this change and others during the WordPress 4.4 development cycle.'>WPTavern: WordPress 4.4 Removes the View Post and Get Shortlink Buttons From the Post Editor</a></li><li><a class='rsswidget' href='http://ma.tt/2015/09/remembering-alex-king/' title='Alex speaking at WordCamp SF 2009One of the original WordPress developers, Alex King, has passed from cancer at far too young an age. Alex actually got involved with b2 in 2002 and was active in the forums and the “hacks” community there. Alex had a background as a designer before he learned development, and I think that really came through as he was one of those rare people who thought about the design and usability of his code, the opposite of most development that drifts toward entropy and complexity. One of my favorite things about Alex was how darn tasteful he was. He would think about every aspect of something he built, every place someone could click, every path they could go down, and gave a thoughtfulness to these paths that I still admire and envy today. As an example look at his project page (essentially a category archive) for the Post Formats Admin UI, isn’t that clever and intuitive how the posts connect together, and when more time passes in the thread it’s shown as a break. It’s classic Alex: something simple and thoughtful that in hindsight is so gobsmackingly obvious you wonder why everything doesn’t work that way, but you never would have imagined it beforehand. And Alex wouldn’t just imagine it and do it for himself, he released his best work as open source, as a gift to the community and the world, over and over and over again. Back when WordPress was getting started Alex was a celebrity of the b2 world, his hacks (plugins before plugins) were some of the coolest ones around. We had a ton of overlapping interests in web standards, photography, development, and gadgets so we frequently read and commented on each other’s blogs. I would never miss a post on his site, and that’s back when we were both doing one or more posts a day. To get a sense of Alex it’s worth exploring his blog — he was a clear thinker and therefore a clear writer. The straightforward nature Alex wrote with was something I always admired about him. We discussed WordPress early on, Alex signed up to help with what later became the plugin directory, and his CSS competition (look at those prizes! and notice it’s all GPL) was hugely influential on the path to themes, and he officially became a contributing developer in August of 2003. The list of what Alex was one of the first to do in the WordPress community is long, and in hindsight seems gobsmackingly obvious, which is the sign of innovation. I smile when I think of how he moved from the Bay area to Denver before it was cool, or his love of scare quotes. Once there was something going on in WordPress and he called me to talk about it, I was so surprised, he said the number was right on my contact page (and it was) but even though it had been there for years no one had ever called it before, but that was just the type of person Alex was, always reaching out and connecting.  Adam Tow, myself, Barry Abrahamson, Alex King; Photo from Adam Tow’s post. I’m not sure how to include this next part: I couldn’t write last night — I was too tired. After falling asleep I had one of those super vivid dreams that you can’t tell are dreams. There had been some sort of mix-up on Twitter and Alex was still alive, I visited Colorado with my sister and saw him surrounded by family at a picnic table, all the rooms were taken so they put me on a floor mattress where I slept. Tons of his friends were around and we took pictures together, he was excited about the better front camera on the 6s+. (Alex understood mobile all the way back to the Treo days.) It was all very ordinary and in a group setting, until we decided to walk alongside a small highway, past some grain silos, to meet the group at a bar. The walk was just the two of us and we talked and laughed about the big mix-up and he asked about this post, what was going to be in it. He got most excited and emphatic with the part about him being a developer with great taste, and a clear writer William Zinsser would be proud of, so I like to think that those were two things he was proud of. The overwhelming emotion I remember was joy. Waking up was disconcerting, part of me wants to believe part of Alex’s spirit was there, where another more logical part thinks my mind was just going through the denial stage of grief. Regardless I know that Alex will stay in the minds of people who knew him for many years to come. Code that Alex wrote still runs billions of times a day across millions of websites, and long after that code evolves or gets refactored the ideas and philosophy he embedded in WordPress will continue to be part of who we are. Alex believed so deeply in open source, and was one of the few people from a design background who did. (Every time you see the share icon on the web or in Android you should think of him.) I like the idea that part of his work will continue in software for decades to come, but I’d rather have him here, thinking outside the box and challenging us to do better, to be more obvious, and work harder for our users. He never gave up.'>Matt: Remembering Alex King</a></li></ul></div>