I have just listened to the discussion between Matt and Chris on WordPress and the Thesis theme. As a user of WordPress and Thesis and during it Chris makes the statement that he believes none of his users feel that he disrespects WordPress. I have to say right from the word go I have been uneasy about using Thesis for this very reason. I use Linux and continue to use a variety of software that use the GPL. As a user of Thesis I believe Chris shows total disrespect for WordPress, for Matt and the whole community and will from now on start moving my themes away from Thesis.

Just one thing though, as Chris is so blatantly anti the GPL, why should I respect any licence he chooses to adopt?

WordPress Theme Challenge. Breoc Theme v Thesis. I love WordPress which is why I say ouch! But a good ouch. After a heated debate between Matt Mullenweg and Chris Pearson creator of the Thesis theme, I felt it was maybe time to join the discussion. I have to admit that the Thesis theme powers this blog and a few others. I don’t like the fact that it does because I go with Matt, the GPL is the GPL and charging for a theme seems wrong to me and so….. the creation of Breoc. I will start work on the creation of a theme that will have similar functionality to Thesis but will be open sourced and GPL’d.

The initial element will be to set the theme up with a simple white theme and the choice of columns and widgets. It will be installed as a 3 column theme with the choice of where you want to place the columns, content, sidebar, sidebar or sidebar, content and sidebar. It will also enable you to change this to 2 or 1 column either site wide of per page. And finally, we will add the chance to include a 4 column home page. Widgets will be available:

• In the header
• Between the header and the main body of the page
• In the content column, either before or after the content
• In the sidebars
• After the main body of the page
• In the footer

Hopefully that will be a start. Where next please?

Any comments please?

It is that time thankfully. We have started work on the new CRM WordPress plugin. It has been redesigned from the ground up and will take on a totally different format. At this point I need to say that this is not an upgrade from the old plugin. It is a totally new plugin and there will be no upgrade path. Sorry guys.

We will shortly need beta testers. I am hoping that the beta will be ready by the middle of next week. If you are interested then please email me and I will add you to the list.

By the way the first 50 that reply to this email will get the plugin free. The next 50 will get the plugin at half price, everyone after that will have to pay full price. So get your emails to me.

For those that want to know the cost of the new plugin will be £0!

I am ready to start the rebuild of the CRM. It will take a new course of action. The first thing we will be doing is to change the way the user element of WordPress works. That’s to say we will be adding features.

When the plugin is activated it will create new fields:
Company Name
Address Field 1
Address Field 2
Town
County
Post Code
Country (Could be a drop down select)
Telephone Number
Mobile Number

It will also create a new category called CRM. And new tags Telephone, Email, Visit. And finally a link in the sidebar called CRM.

When creating a new user the plugin will add certain fields when the new user is created. For example if the new user is Richard Brown whose firm is Cregy, a new sub-category under the main category of CRM will be created. This sub-cat will be called Cregy. The plugin will also create a new tag called cregy_richardbrown.

The plugin will now work like this. I make a new post and add it to the category Cregy and tag it richardbrown. I also add the tag Telephone. In the content box, I write something like, Phoned Rich and spoke about the new website. When I press publish certain things need to happen.

1. The post is not visible from the front end if not logged in.
2. When clicking the CRM link in the sidebar we now get a client list. The first name in the list will simply be Cregy. Sub links under Cregy will be: Edit, Posts, Tags. If I click on Edit, it takes me to the edit user information. If I click on Posts it will lists all the posts I have made under Cregy. And if I click on tags it will list all the tags beginning cregy.

This means I can quickly view any contacts I have made with the firm Cregy or with Richard Brown.

So if I now add a second contact called Claire Stoner who also works at Cregy. I end up with the tag cregy_clairestoner. So if I look under the crm link and click on Cregy I now have all posts created for everyone who works at Cregy. If I click tags, I can quickly see the posts sorted by the tag lists. So I can view the contacts made with Claire or Rich.

Under the Edit link I will now find 2 options…. edit Richard Brown or edit Claire Stoner.

I am not sure how long it will take but I will update this post to let all know. If you have any comments please add them in the usual place. If you would like to contribute towards the plugin please use the contribute link I have added.

In the course of the building the plugin I am going to add various elements. The first will be whether you require a contact to be visible in the front-end as a business card. The second will be whether you want to allow the clients to access their information. This could take the form of a new tag that allows certain user levels to view. i.e. The client logs in and doesn’t see the dashboard but sees all the posts with this tag listed. In this way you could pass on information. They could also be allowed to edit their contact information.

Additionally I will add an invoice feature.

And finally, I think the Church directory is a brilliant idea and I will be turning this into a membership CRM as well. All the features will be available to everyone but just how you use it will be different. For instance, adding a list of users feature will enable it to become a membership plugin. Any user logging in will be able to see all users and search for a user.

Unfortunately, I do have a limited budget and also limited time, so if you want to add elements then contributing will speed up the development. Thanks.

Quite a simply tip this and one only for Mac users I am afraid…. although someone with a knowledge of Windows will tell us how to do it on a PC.

I use Thesis in my sites a lot. Thesis comes with an image rotator – very useful.

Just an aside here. I am looking forward to what Ian can do with Thematic and themes now he is working with Automattic.

Anyway, back to rotator and Thesis. Snow Leopard has changed the way the services menu works. You can now add a service for image resizing using Automator. In Automator, select Service and click Choose. Then choose, “Service Received selected files or folders” in the folder.app. Drag the create Thumbnail Images action underneath it and choose the thumbnail size and suffix. Finally, save and name. Now when you need images for rotator you can resize with ease.

Since I wrote the post yesterday about IntenseDebate I felt I ought to add some more information about Automattic. Automattic are the parent company that take care of WordPress and various other initiatives – all of the initiatives improve the web for the better and that fits with their tagline.

Inspired by you
Striving to create good
Nothing is perfect. *

WordPress.Com
This is where to go if all you want is a blog. You enter a few words, click a few buttons and a blog is yours. Very simple and in the words of Automattic, “Hassle Free”.

Akismet
Kills all known spam dead – it does just what it says on the tin!

IntenseDebate
Imagine better comments.

PollDaddy
Create polls and surveys

Gravatar
A globally recognised avatar. This is simply brilliant and this for me has proved 100% brilliant.

VIP
Just look at the prices for this and you’ll realise why the BBC uses them!

VideoPress
Easily upload and share videos on your WordPress blog or any site, even in full HD.

P2
P2 is a theme for WordPress that transforms a mild-mannered blog into a super-blog with features like inline comments on the homepage, a posting form right on the homepage, inline editing of posts and comments, real-time updates so new posts and comments come in without reloading, and much more. Visit the site for a full resume.

After the Deadline
After the Deadline is a plugin for WordPress and TinyMCE that improves spelling and grammar.

WordPress.org
The best blogging software on the planet.

BuddyPress
Social networking in a box. Build a social network for your company, school, sports team or niche community all based on the power and flexibility of WordPress.

bbPress
Forum software built with WordPress reliability.

Glotpress
GlotPress is a collaborative, web-based software translation tool.

Ping-O-Matic
Ping-O-Matic is a service to update different search engines that your blog has updated.

WP for iPhone
Introducing the only iPhone app that lets you write posts, upload photos, edit pages, and manage comments on your blog from your iPhone or iPod touch. With support for both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (2.7 or higher), users of all experience levels can get going in seconds.

WordCamp SF
WordCamp San Francisco will be held on May 1, 2010. Last year’s event was attended by over 700 people from 32 countries. As speakers and schedule are confirmed, new information will be added to this site, so check back now and then!

IntenseDebate has this as it’s strapline…

Imagine better comments

Intrigued I duly signed up. But for the minute that is as far as I got. I contacted tech support because I couldn’t get the plugin to work – I received an email the same day offering some solutions to try. (I wish I could get tech support like that from all the other companies I use). Anyway, none of the solutions seem to be correct so I am posting some screenshots to see whether it is possible to fix the problem. I’m loading it up here in case someone else runs into a similar problem.

The problem is that when installed the plugin takes you offer to the settings page to configure the plugin. First step is to login which I do with no problems, the second step is to import your comments and this is where things go belly up. It starts to import and then logs me out and asks me to log back in again. A never ending loop!

Here are the screenshots:

Hey are we excited that BuddyPress is now compatible with a single WordPress install. There are problems though with getting it up and running with a standard install most particularly with your current theme. That is why this plugin was written; Buddypress Template Pack. I have a site up and running over at Cornwall Wave that runs WordPress single install, Buddypress 1.2 and Thesis 1.6. It works just not completely! The challenge is to get it working.

So I uploaded the above plugin and proceeded through step 1 with no problems. Step 2 is skipped because there were no problems with step 1, step 3 however listed this:

Step Three
Now that the template files are in the correct location, click through your site (you can come back to this page at any point). You should see a BuddyPress admin bar at the top of the page, try visiting some of the links in the “My Account” menu. You should find that BuddyPress pages now work and are displayed.

If you find that the pages are not quite aligned correctly, or the content is overlapping the sidebar, you will need to tweak the template HTML. Please follow the “fixing alignment” instructions below. If the content in your pages is aligned in the correct place then you can skip to the “Finishing Up” section at the bottom of this page.

Fixing Alignment

By default BuddyPress templates use this HTML structure:

[HEADER]

[PAGE CONTENT]

[SIDEBAR CONTENT]

[FOOTER]

If BuddyPress pages are not aligned correctly then you will need to modify some of the templates to match your theme’s HTML structure. The best way to do this is to FTP to your theme’s files at:

/home/cornwallwave/web/wp-content/themes/thesis_16/

Then open up the page.php file (if this does not exist use index.php). Make note of the HTML template structure of the file, specifically the

tags that surround the content and sidebar.

You will need to change the HTML structure in the BuddyPress templates that you copied into your theme to match the structure in your page.php or index.php file. The files that you need to edit are as follows (leave out any folders you have not copied over in step two):

/activity/index.php
/blogs/index.php
/forums/index.php
/groups/index.php
/groups/create.php
/groups/single/home.php
/groups/single/plugins.php
/members/index.php
/members/single/home.php
/members/single/plugins.php
/registration/register.php
Once you are done matching up the HTML structure of your theme in these template files, please take another look through your site. You should find that BuddyPress pages now fit inside the content structure of your theme.

Finishing Up

You’re now all done with the conversion process. Your WordPress theme will now happily provide BuddyPress compatibility support. Once you hit the finish button you will be presented with a new permanent theme options page allowing you to tweak some settings.

Ok now we have some problems. I think I’ll pass this to the Thesis forums and see what if anything folks come up with.

In the Thesis theme the developer has included a place to add code to your footer or header. Without this you can hack your theme but in any future upgrade or theme change you will have to hack theme again. Read this first paragraph in a very useful post about a plugin which adds the code for you.

The biggest reason many of us require to edit themes is to add JavaScript libraries, CSS codes or analytics tracking code. However, the problem with editing themes is that you will lose all your customization when you decide to change your theme or redesign it.

For more information head over to Weblogtools to read Footer stuff allows you to seamlessly add content to themes.

I love using the automatic upgrade path in WordPress but can you use it to upgrade to a beta version. Yes you can. Using an ftp programme navigate to wp-includes and edit version.php. Find this line:
$wp_version = '2.8';

It is towards the top and defines what version you are using. Simply change it to whatever beta version you require.
$wp_version = '2.8.1-dev';

See Nightly Builds for more information.