This blog slowed to a dead stop because of the frustrations I was having with WPMU, most noticeably that the core wasn’t receiving any of the (much needed) updates but it seems that the project has not died. Or at least that’s the way it looks.

My need for it has come and gone but if I had a similar project again… would I use WPMU? I don’t know, I’d have to read up on it. But I’d tnd to lean in another direction. Joomla? No, not just yet (current version 1.5.10)… but we’ll see.

Just as with WPMU, it seems that theme structure (design) is pretty much the first place that you come to with Joomla when you want to start moulding it precisely to your needs. There are a huge number of templates available for a Jooma install but, soon enough, you start work on a project that needs just that something else.

In that regard I’ve an interest in CSS-based them development for Joomla, or any web site for that matter. I’ve recently come across an extremely useful tutorial at Compass Designs. Their tutorial is targetted toward building a CSS-based theme for your Joomla site, begins with an unformatted site and then builds upon that to add in your chosen design elements. Its a good way of doing things because you get to see exactly how your changes take effect and where that effect is seen and its a useful tutorial.

Useful Online Tools

Compass Designs point out an extremely useful online tool where you can make an assortment of layouts and it will develop them CSS for you; its across at CSS Creator.com

Recently I’ve been busy either working away from web dev or working on some Joomla stuff that I’ve got going.

Joomla! (to give it its full name) is an Open Source Content Management System available from Joomla.org. It is arguably the best Open Source CMS system around today. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at CMS systems, something like 18 months+, looking for a CMS system that was usable, well supported and powerful. Amongst those I’ve trialled has been Typo, which was a nightmare seemingly designed for Ultra Ubergeeks, Drupal which was less so but the suport side of things wasn’t the best if you weren’t Ubergeek plus its funtionality was limted; at something like v5 (can’t recall but was a sizeable version number) things like the built-in editor were very basic.

I eventually settled on Mambo just before the company holding the copyright for the name threw a bit of wobbly and 95% of the development team moved on, forming the Joomla! team. Since then Joomla has gone from strength to strength (Mambo has shown some development but has stagnated in comparison).

I’ve a couple of sites in development using Joomla, however thenmc.org.uk is my “baby” : )

andrea_r has posted into the WPMU forums in this thread a link to a working tool for including Flickr images in blog posts. Its a slightly modified version of the original from TanTan Noodles.

It installs easily and works pretty much straight out of the box. I did, however, come across a niggling little problem; on my write post page I was getting the following error message:

Warning: Missing argument 1 for http_request() in /usr/local/lib/php/HTTP/Request.php on line 209

Luckily I was able to track down the problem and it was an easy thing to fix. Luckily

The fix is as follows:

edit file: lib.phpFlickr.php, line 74

orig: require_once “HTTP/Request.php”;
new: require_once “PEAR/HTTP/Request.php”;

Simple as that.

Curiouser and curioser someone much more eloquent than I once penned.

My TanTan Noodles Flickr plugin conundrum continued. I wasn’t able to immediately resolve the problem so decided to come back to it later; there was a post I wanted to write into that blog so I would have to do the image thing the long way around for now ; )

Curiously I then noticed that the file upload dialogue box on the write post page was filled with a view of the blog’s live page; the file upload dialogue had gone, disappeared, never to return!!

Well, not quite. I deactivated the plugin and the file upload dialogue returned. A curious feature to the plugin ; )

I’ve asked at the TanTan support forum if there’s a fix for this. I’ll mention it if this problem is resolved.

Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress, in 2004 had an idea that, well why don’t I let him talk for himself:

“I come across things all the time that I want to link so badly but I just don’t have the time to write an entry about. Now every interesting tidbit I come across is just a click of a favelet away from my readers. It’s liberating.“

Read his full blog entry here, interesting stuff.

… I forget why I came across Matt’s Asides?

Ah! The K2 Theme has an option in its config opyions to enable ‘asides‘

Which will, I can feel it now, drag me off into Widget Land, it will I can feel it in me bones ; )

Another option to manage Flickr photos wihtin a WP (MU) blog is FAlbum

FAlbum : URL = FAlbum WP 1.5/2.0 plugin
Install instructions : FAlbum Install Instructions
Support Forum : FAlbum forum

Well respected, however “FAlbum includes the code needed to have a recent pictures or random pictures section on your sidebar” which, since I’m trying to set up a WPMU install that is as “point and click” as possible for my bloggers, means that no matter how good it is its a non-starter for this project.

I also note that FAlbum requires an entry within the .htaccess file which, although I’ve not looked into this requirement (at all) makes me less than comfortable because .htaccess problems are the bane of a WPMU install. If I can get away with making as few “customisations” as possible then there is less to break (especially on upgrades). It also means, to me, that the install is more robust.

I’m currently working on installing and configuring the Flickr Photo Album for WP from Tan Tan Noodles. What I intend to do is commentate on how this goes:

Step 1
Open a Flickr account. I’m going with Flickr to try and make things easier; easier for me – less hosting costs than if I set up an integral gallery with The Outdoors Encounter and easier for bloggers who might well have their own “album” solution.

Step 2
Upload archive to site and unzip; within the plugins directory and not the mu-plugins directory

Step 3
Activate the plugin from my blog account (because I intend to create an article for that blog).

first problem – Plugin complains that /plugin/silaspartners/flikr/flikr-cache/ is not writeable by the web server.

OK, easily rectified; chown owner.httpd
refresh web page, plugin disappears from page :-/

Reset owner:group

cd /plugins/silaspartners/flickr/
chown domain.httpd flickr-cache
chmod 775 flickr-cache

sorted.

[click] [click] the plugin installation continues easily.

Error: Please create at least one Flickr photo set, and then click the “Refresh” button above to see your photos.

this is a FLickr error; I need to create a photo set within my Flickr account, its not just as simple as uploading a [test] photo.
Flickr has a menu Option named Organise (except they spell it wrongly ; )
Click that, it complain that need the latest version of Macremedia Flash player
Click OK, install successful, go back to Flickr Organise page and it still complains about he Flash plugin; great my browser is acting up. Now then, how do I go about killing the browser plugins to allow a clean install? Bollocks to it, I’ll sort it later, it just doesn’t want to play; use another browser.

Right, sorted… and behold there were photo in the Plugin config section.

“To insert a photo, just click on the “Write” tab, and you should a new “Photos” tab to load your Flickr photos. Click on a photo, select a size, and a HTML snippet for that photo will appear in the post’s textarea. Cool!“

Yep, way cool, if it had worked… but you guessed it – no “Photos tab” : -(

[tick][tock]

its too late, I can’t resolve this and my legs are mutinying and going to sleep of their own accord. I think its time for all of the rest of mt to follow suit.
Bggr, never works straight out of the tin ; )
/laterz

Time has hurtled past since my last post, partly because I've been busy elsewhere and partly because I've been reading up on WPMU, oh, and I've had some quality time with the other parts of my life ; )

Since mentioning the earth-shattering discovery that there is no panacea [shock][horror] to developing a WPMU site The Outdoors Encounter have moved along a little. Principal focus at the mo' has been toward developing a usable "front end" to the domain (the sub-domains and the blogging are up and running).

One or two snippets have popped up recently;

The principal source for the functions that are called from the templates is the wpmu-functions.php file in the /wp-includes/ directory. For instance;

As samchng has recently pointed on in this thread in the WPMU forums get_most_active_blogs() does exactly as it says on the tin.

There is a useful plugin, called List All that is available from wpmudev.org that is useful and usable. List All is probably the better option because its a plugin and there's no chance that a future update of the base files is going to overwrite your hard-earned customised code.

I don't know why I did it, but did it, I did

I've had cause to [cough] interact with more than a few 'theme' methodologies and none of them are easy to get to grips with; not especially difficult [given time] but its never the case of three-clicks-and-you're-sorted. In picking up the zip package via the WPMU forums I did not find myself with the panacea for all things theme-related and WP; but, still, I'd convinced myself beforehand that it might just be so.

The bottom line is that there a good few pointers, etc., in the code in that 'theme' package but, as always, delving into someone else's code is a real headache. Not only are you trying to follow what's going on but also pick up on their style… made that bit more, er, challenging if you're still finding your way around in codeland (I really should make a point of getting my head down to learn more php).

However, in all of this I have come across a little gem. A series of three short tutorials by a guy called Chris J. Davis that give three very good, quick, and understandable ways to build on the theme package you've already got. His tutorials are:

Secrets of WP Theming – part 1
Secrets of WP Theming – part 2
Secrets of WP Theming – part 3

Notice that they are entitled WP Theming, and not WPMU Theming, but that's no big deal.The most informative, and relevant of the tutorials that Chris gives is #3 because it works with the home.php file which, as he explains, has a specific and unique role to play within your WP installation.