For those who just met up with WordPress, Profile Builder is WordPress registration done right; it lets you customize your website by adding a front-end menu for all your users, giving them a more flexible way to modify their user-information or to register new users.

We’ve also put together a short presentation video where you can see Profile Builder in action.

Now back to features. Firstly, we have completed the front-end registration plugin with a password recovery page. Just like every other page, this feature includes a shortcode ([wppb-recover-password]). Use this, with fully customizable emails and messages to skip the default WordPress forms all-together.

Also, by using the new (and now complete) custom redirects, your users will only have access to where you want them.

The second biggest feature of this release is the fact that you can mark the fields (both default and extra) as required. This means the user can’t register without having completed these fields, and neither can he delete this info later on from the edit profile page (the information can be modified but he/she won’t be able to submit the new data if it’s not filled out properly).

NOTE: at the moment this feature only works on the front end, but using this in conjunction with the custom redirects, your users won’t have access to the dashboard anyway.

Last but not least, I would like to mention the most important feature of this release: filters, the crème de la crème for all plugins.

We redesigned the plugin and added to every notification/content/values a filter to let you easily customize the layout for your own needs, without the fear of loosing the data after a new update.

You can find a detailed list of all the filters here.

We hope you enjoy the new features, and if you have any questions, just post a new topic over at the forums.

Also, there have been many interesting feature requests, which will be included in the next release(s), so stay tuned!

Related posts:

1. WordPress Profile Builder: a front-end user registration, login and edit-profile plugin
2. Profile Builder Beta
3. Profile Builder version 1.1.13 is officially out

For those who just met up with WordPress, Profile Builder is WordPress registration done right; it lets you customize your website by adding a front-end menu for all your users, giving them a more flexible way to modify their user-information or to register new users.

This update-pack was long awaited by a lot of users, especially since it took us a while to code it, test it and release it; so from now on we will focus mainly on more, smaller updates rather than fewer and bigger ones. But enough with the technicalities, let’s see what we got:

1.) New custom fields:

• Datepicker
• Country Select
• Timezone Select
• “I agree to terms and conditions” Checkbox

2.) Addons:

New features (from now on) will come as an addon pack, meaning they are present in the plugin core, but not active until you activate the one(s) you need. They can be found in a side-tab named “Addons” (intuitive, isn’t it?). Here you can activate whichever you need, and once active it/they will be listed in the side-tab also. This is done so for those who don’t need it, so it won’t complicate their experience with Profile Builder.

The addons added this update are:

• User-Listing
• Custom Redirects

The User-Listing feature is basically a short-code, [wppb-list-users]. Once added, head over to the back-end and activate the addon (if you haven’t done so already). There, under the User-Listing tab you will find some settings, regarding user-listing options. These set by an administrator will become the default settings in the front-end for every visitor/user to see. They can be temporarily overwritten by the visitors (locally), if they wish to do so, but they will revert to the settings the administrator saved once they close and reopen their browser.

The Custom Redirects are just that: you can set up the pages a visitor sees after he registered or logged in or if he tries to access the wordpress login page or the wordpress register page. Besides the fact that you can activate the “Custom Redirects” addon, you can also chose which of these four “actions” to activate (individually).

3.) Register a user with a certain role:

The old register shortcode was [wppb-register], and after registration the user created was (by plugin default) subscriber. I used the expression “plugin default” because it didn’t use the settings set up in the back-end of your wordpress installation, it just registered the user as subscriber.

But now this downside was taken care of: when placing the register shortcode, be sure to add the role=”user_role_name” parameter next to it, like so:
[wppb-register role="user_role_name"].

Thus, to register every new user as an editor, just use the following shortcode:
[wppb-register role="editor"]

Don’t worry in case you get it wrong, this won’t create a new user-role. Instead it falls back to the wordpress role set up in the back-end, and in case something should happen (not set up, or what not) it falls back to subscriber.

4.) More translations:

• norvegian (thanks to Havard Ulvin, haavard@ulvin.no)
• czech (thanks to Martin Jurica, martin@jurica.info)
• dutch (thanks to Pascal Frencken, pascal.frencken@dedeelgaard.nl)
• spanish (thanks to redywebs, www.redywebs.com)

We would also like to thank for anyone else who sent their version of the localized Profile Builder, and apologize we didn’t mention them here, but fear not: they are still listed in the readme file!

Last but not least thanks to all our users, who suggested really cool ideas, that were implemented in these new features, with the rest to come in the next update(s).

UPDATE:
Apparently there were some hidden bugs, one where the user tried to register and kept getting the “you need to agree to the terms and conditions before signing up” message even though there was no active Terms and Conditions checkbox. The second one was in the redirecting process after registration; it didn’t redirect all the cases (both when a user signs up and when an admin creates a new user). Both of them are fixed and version 1.1.5 was issued.

Related posts:

1. Profile Builder Beta
2. Profile Builder version 1.1.6 has arrived
3. WordPress Profile Builder: a front-end user registration, login and edit-profile plugin

• New interface
• Create Extra User Fields (like birthdate or education level)
• Add avatar upload for users and automatic integration with any theme that uses get_avatar()
• Shortcodes for login, register and edit profile to use in pages and widgets.
• Select what fields appear in the register and edit-profile pages.
• Select if the admin bar should be present on the front end for user-groups.
• Select if to use the default css or not.

You can sign up for the beta from this page: Profile Builder beta

The new interface was borrowed from the awesome plugin OptionTree created by Derek Herman

Related posts:

1. WordPress Profile Builder: a front-end user registration, login and edit-profile plugin
2. Profile Builder version 1.1.6 has arrived
3. Profile Builder Pro is WordPress Registration Done Right

All went well and we’ve got proper feedback. Apparently people liked the idea.

However, when the time came to put it on the repository things started to get weird. For reasons beyond my understanding, the profilebuilder.php and uninstall.php files were converted to Mac EndOfLine style once uploaded to the Repository (I’m a PC user). Because of this the plugin install would fail and didn’t even appear in the plugin listing in the backend, which is to be expected since the lines were all scrambled up.

After a bit of digging around I found about a SVN property called svn:eol-style that, when set to “native“, allows automatic conversion of end-of-lines, depending whether you are on Linux or Windows. Apparently this isn’t setup by default when you install Turtoise SVN.

To get is sorted you need to add some code to the config file in subversion.

Add this stuff at bottom of your local file ~/.subversion/config. For Windows 7 users this is normally found at
C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Subversion\config

This will ensure that all new source files will have this property.

[miscellany]
enable-auto-props = yes
 
# Note: you may wish to add svn:keywords as well, depending on your project requirements
# E.g. svn:keywords=Date Author Id Revision HeadURL
 
# Do not default any files to svn:executable=*.
# This should only be done on an individual basis as required.
 
[auto-props]
INSTALL = svn:eol-style=native
KEYS = svn:eol-style=native
Makefile = svn:eol-style=native
LICENSE = svn:eol-style=native
NOTICE = svn:eol-style=native
README = svn:eol-style=native
abs-linkmap = svn:eol-style=native
abs-menulinks = svn:eol-style=native
*.aart = svn:eol-style=native
*.ac = svn:eol-style=native
*.am = svn:eol-style=native
*.apt = svn:eol-style=native
*.bat = svn:eol-style=native
*.bsh = svn:eol-style=native
*.c = svn:eol-style=native
*.cat = svn:eol-style=native
*.cgi = svn:eol-style=native
*.classpath = svn:eol-style=native
*.cmd = svn:eol-style=native
*.cnd = svn:eol-style=native
*.conf = svn:eol-style=native
*.config = svn:eol-style=native
*.cpp = svn:eol-style=native
*.css = svn:eol-style=native
*.cwiki = svn:eol-style=native
*.data = svn:eol-style=native
*.dcl = svn:eol-style=native
*.doc = svn:mime-type=application/msword
*.dsp = svn:eol-style=CRLF
*.dsw = svn:eol-style=CRLF
*.dtd = svn:eol-style=native
*.egrm = svn:eol-style=native
*.ent = svn:eol-style=native
*.ft = svn:eol-style=native
*.fn = svn:eol-style=native
*.fv = svn:eol-style=native
*.g = svn:eol-style=native
*.gif = svn:mime-type=image/gif
*.grm = svn:eol-style=native
*.gz = svn:mime-type=application/x-gzip
*.h = svn:eol-style=native
*.htc = svn:eol-style=native
.htaccess = svn:eol-style=native
*.handlers = svn:eol-style=native
*.html = svn:eol-style=native
*.ico = svn:mime-type=image/x-icon
*.ihtml = svn:eol-style=native
*.in = svn:eol-style=native
*.java = svn:eol-style=native
*.jmx = svn:eol-style=LF
*.jpg = svn:mime-type=image/jpeg
*.jsp = svn:eol-style=native
*.js = svn:eol-style=native
*.junit = svn:eol-style=native
*.jx = svn:eol-style=native
*.m = svn:eol-style=native
*.m4 = svn:eol-style=native
*.manifest = svn:eol-style=native
*.mdo = svn:eol-style=native
# markdown (CMS)
*.mdtext = svn:eol-style=native
*.meta = svn:eol-style=native
*.mf = svn:eol-style=native
*.MF = svn:eol-style=native
*.mod = svn:eol-style=native
*.ms = svn:eol-style=native
*.n3 = svn:eol-style=native
*.nroff = svn:eol-style=native
*.patch = svn:eol-style=native
*.pdf = svn:mime-type=application/pdf
*.pen = svn:eol-style=native
*.php = svn:eol-style=native
*.pl = svn:eol-style=native
*.pm = svn:eol-style=native
*.png = svn:mime-type=image/png
*.pod = svn:eol-style=native
*.pom = svn:eol-style=native
*.project = svn:eol-style=native
*.properties = svn:eol-style=native
*.py = svn:eol-style=native
*.rb = svn:eol-style=native
*.rdf = svn:eol-style=native
*.rnc = svn:eol-style=native
*.rng = svn:eol-style=native
*.rnx = svn:eol-style=native
*.roles = svn:eol-style=native
*.rss = svn:eol-style=native
# Restructured text (CMS)
*.rst = svn:eol-style=native
*.scala = svn:eol-style=native
*.schemas = svn:eol-style=native
*.sh = svn:eol-style=native
*.sql = svn:eol-style=native
*.svg = svn:eol-style=native
*.tar = svn:mime-type=application/octet-stream
*.tgz = svn:mime-type=application/octet-stream
*.tif = svn:mime-type=image/tiff
*.tiff = svn:mime-type=image/tiff
*.tld = svn:eol-style=native
*.txt = svn:eol-style=native
*.types = svn:eol-style=native
*.vm = svn:eol-style=native
*.vsl = svn:eol-style=native
*.wsdd = svn:eol-style=native
*.wsdl = svn:eol-style=native
*.xargs = svn:eol-style=native
*.xcat = svn:eol-style=native
*.xconf = svn:eol-style=native
*.xegrm = svn:eol-style=native
*.xgrm = svn:eol-style=native
*.xhtml = svn:eol-style=native
*.xhtml2 = svn:eol-style=native
*.xlex = svn:eol-style=native
*.xlog = svn:eol-style=native
*.xmap = svn:eol-style=native
*.xml = svn:eol-style=native
*.xroles = svn:eol-style=native
*.xsamples = svn:eol-style=native
*.xsd = svn:eol-style=native
*.xsl = svn:eol-style=native
*.xslt = svn:eol-style=native
*.xsp = svn:eol-style=native
*.xtest = svn:eol-style=native
*.xul = svn:eol-style=native
*.xweb = svn:eol-style=native
*.xwelcome = svn:eol-style=native

This config file comes from the apache website. Please note that you might not need all those file-types.

After you do this you still have to apply this to your existing SVN files.

Run a script to recursively set this property on all your source files. First, MAKE SURE YOU ARE UP TO DATE WITH THE REPOSITORY, WITH NO LOCAL CHANGES. Then: you can run this under your source folder:

    FOR /R %i IN (*.php;*.js;*.txt;*.html) DO svn propset svn:eol-style native %i

After these setting stuff came back to normal and I could install the plugin properly from the Repository.

While all this seams straight forward for me now, I had to spend more then 5 hours to figure it out. It was very frustrating seeing the plugin fail on install when the local version worked perfectly.

Related posts:

1. Professional WordPress Plugin Development review

This is the book I’ve been waiting for ever since I started to work with WordPress 3 years ago. As a theme designer and developer you really have a lot of documentation online. However, the instance you need to do some wild things with WordPress you realize there just isn’t enough information to go on. I’m talking about stuff like plugin security, proper way of handling plugin settings, ajax in WordPress, cron, the rewrite API and developing for multisite.

Professional WordPress Plugin Development review

A lot of Codex pages are just stubs with almost no information what so ever.

Here are some of the dark corners of WordPress this book brought light to them:

• Addresses how to integrate into WordPress, save settings, create widgets and shortcodes, and implement uninstall
• Learn the proper techniques for storing data, customizing user roles, and security best practices
• Shares techniques for using custom post types and creating and using custom taxonomies
• How to create plugins for WordPress Multisite networks
• Integrate user and role management
• Explores the HTTP API, JavaScript and AJAX, Cron, the Rewrite API, and more

The authors went into so much detail that after reading it you really get start looking at WordPress as a full fledged application framework and not just a simple CMS to display your company portfolio.

Most other book to date that talked about WordPress Plugin Development went around coding examples and solving particular problems. That’s ok, but you’ll never have a birds eye view of the entire API ecosystem. This is where “Professional WordPress Plugin Development” shines. Each little api function that is available in WordPress is explained in a consistent way and also shows how it interacts with the rest of the system.

Another great thing is explaining WordPress plugin development best practices. If you don’t have a lot of experience with WordPress plugins and don’t have the time to really research how to do things you can end up writing code that can be handled by the WordPress API in such a fashion that’s future proof. Take for instance the Plugin Settings options – if you manage them through the API any future changes to the WordPress UI will be reflected in your plugin as well.

All in all this book is a MUST READ by all plugin developers and theme developers alike. If you ask me all the information in this book should be added in the Codex (although that wouldn’t be fair to the writers). So go ahead and get your self a copy from Amazon and start reading it today. (You can get it as a Paperback or digital download – great for code copy&paste)

Related posts:

1. Multilingual WordPress – WPML Plugin Review
2. “Digital Experience Design: Ideas, Industries, Interaction” – book review
3. Front-end interface portability between CMS – the next BIG step in web-development?

Another cool thing we can do with this new menu is build the sitemap. I was in need the other day of a plugin that would generate a sitemap page (something like an archive page). Not an xml sitemap, just a standard page from where the visitors of the site could navigate more easily. The best solution appeared to be an WordPress menu shortcode.

Since I couldn’t find something like this I realized that I could use the wp_nav_menu function and built a shortcode to insert it into my page.

wp_nav_menu shortcode

To install the shortcode just place this code inside functions.php file of your theme.

// Function that will return our Wordpress menu
function list_menu($atts, $content = null) {
	extract(shortcode_atts(array(  
		'menu'            => '', 
		'container'       => 'div', 
		'container_class' => '', 
		'container_id'    => '', 
		'menu_class'      => 'menu', 
		'menu_id'         => '',
		'echo'            => true,
		'fallback_cb'     => 'wp_page_menu',
		'before'          => '',
		'after'           => '',
		'link_before'     => '',
		'link_after'      => '',
		'depth'           => 0,
		'walker'          => '',
		'theme_location'  => ''), 
		$atts));
 
 
	return wp_nav_menu( array( 
		'menu'            => $menu, 
		'container'       => $container, 
		'container_class' => $container_class, 
		'container_id'    => $container_id, 
		'menu_class'      => $menu_class, 
		'menu_id'         => $menu_id,
		'echo'            => false,
		'fallback_cb'     => $fallback_cb,
		'before'          => $before,
		'after'           => $after,
		'link_before'     => $link_before,
		'link_after'      => $link_after,
		'depth'           => $depth,
		'walker'          => $walker,
		'theme_location'  => $theme_location));
}
//Create the shortcode
add_shortcode("listmenu", "list_menu");

To use the shortcode just place [listmenu menu=Sitemap] into your post and that’s it (replace Sitemap with the id, slug or name of the menu you want to list.)

You can also use all the variables that come with the new wp_nav_menu function, like menu_class, or container so you can customize your menu really easy. Just separate the attributes by space like so:
[listmenu menu=Sitemap menu_class=sitemap_menu]

Conclusions

This is really useful for client sites, where you want to make it easy edit and modify the site without braking the html. We could have just manually created the sitemap, but this is a lot nicer. Another way you could use this shortcode would be to create sub-menus on certain pages only.

If you find use for this shortcode in an interesting way don’t hesitate to share it in the comments.

Related posts:

1. All Child Themes got updated

A Smart WordPress 3.0 Theme

As mentioned before Smarter theme was designed as a powerful CMS for company websites. It’s a business wordpress theme, with a SEO friendly structure.

This being said, here are some of the new things that Smarter 2.0 has to offer.

The News Items was implemented using the custom post type feature from WP 3.0. Now, adding and editing news is simple and straight forward, leaving no room for confusion.

The custom navigation menu has been set as the theme default menu, so now you will be able to insert and organize things like pages, categories, news or custom links in your theme menu.

Smarter also comes with a big package of different color child themes, giving you the option to choose the right color range for your business.

In case you’re aiming for a multilingual website, Smarter 2.0 has been tested and works great with WPML plugin.

Smarter Theme Options, which let you customize your site looks, comes with a lighter interface which includes all the options from the previous version. So you have options like: selecting between multiple theme layouts, uploading a header image, editing the featured slider page etc.

To find out more about Smarter 2.0 and it’s new features check out the screencast below:

Pricing

For 25$ you can purchase Smarter 2.0, which includes all the functionality of the old version, plus the new features mentioned before. The zip also includes the psd files and the color child themes. Being released under a GPL license, Smarter can be used on an unlimited number of websites.

Support

If you have any suggestions or questions regarding the new version of this theme, please visit our forums (http://cozmoslabs.com/forums/).

Related posts:

1. Smarter WordPress Theme
2. Smarter Theme Teaser
3. wpMail.me – a concise, once weekly free roundup of WordPress news and articles

Here is how to remove Google Buzz from Gmail in three easy steps.

Hide Google Buzz from the Gmail interface

Turn off Google Buzz completely

Related posts:

1. Themes in Gmail
2. Detect if javascript is enabled in php and remove the TypeKit flicker

Besides support for the themes I hope to discuss any issues you might have with the code snippets found on the site.

So without further ado I here by present you the Cozmoslabs Forums.

No related posts.

Since version 2.0 Aptana stopped supporting their own fork of the Eclipse PDT I’ve been searching for another editor. I got feed up with how slow it is, all the bloatware, installing the PDT was made me loose an entire day and I honestly believed there had to exist a better editor for Windows.

I must have lost several days searching and testing different editors!

What I want from a Code Editor:

• Really good and easy to use FTP manager
• Code completion for css (it saves me a ton of time). It has to be automatic. When I write it should start showing suggestions.
• Good code coloring
• Fast and good looking.

Sounds simple enough right? Well… not really. Out of all of the Code Editors out there for Windows (including the ones you have to pay for – except Dreamweaver that is just to expensive to be taken seriously) there is just a handful of editors that fit the bill: Notepadd++ (however the FTP is full of bugs and sometimes just refuses to work), UltraEdit (it flickers when you’re using auto-completion – I think it redraws the screen every time I press a key) and jEdit.

jEdit to the rescue

Why didn’t I try jEdit before? I always thought it was a Java only editor. But boy I was wrong. It appears it just requires Java JRE.

So why use jEdit? Because everything works (at least for what I need it for), good FTP, good code completion, fast and it looks good. Oh! Did I mention that is FREE, GPL and supports plugins?

I honestly hope my search for a Code Editor stops here, if not I’m going to start writing my own .

No related posts.