Updated Today
About the “Updated Today” Plugin:
This is a WordPress Plugin that will display a graphic in the upper left corner of the blog when the blog has been updated the day of the view. This is my first plugin and I intend to make more. If there are any problems with this plugin let me know in the comments. Any suggestions are welcome and comments please.
Download version 2.1
Compatability:
This is tested and written on my own WordPress install which is currently version 2.8.3. The minimum for this plugin is WordPress 2.7.1.
To install this plugin:
1. Download the .zip archive
2. Unzip and upload the “updatedtoday” folder to your “wp-content/plugins/” directory
3. Then simply Activate the Plugin
4. If it does not display be sure to check that this line of code is in the footer.php file of your theme:
<?php wp_footer(); ?>
Change Log:
–Version 2.0–
Added a ‘Settings’ page in which you can choose your image to display, the side of the page it displays on and allows the blogger to upload their own images to the specified folder.
–Version 1.8.1–
Cleaned up the whitespace on the CSS and added CSS to make the padding and margin on the image ‘0′.
–Version 1.8–
Modified database query to use the $table_prefix variable for databases containing multiple Wordpress installations as well as people who modified the $table_prefix on setup.
Big thanks to Georg and TeraS for their help on testing for this one!
–Version 1.6.1–
Fixed an error with some themes that made their header image use a Z-Index of 99, which matched that of the plugin. Changed the plugin Z-Index to 100. – thanks TeraS
–Version 1.6–
Fixed the banner from displaying when a draft was created by adding the post_status query to only include posts with the status of ‘publish’
–Version 1.4–
Fixed the issue with not displaying transparent in Internet Explorer
Fixed link of the banner to now go to the post id instead of the guid URI
–Version 1.3–
Plugin is now fully WC3 Compliant
Minor CSS style changes
Added configuration boolean (true/false) settings for placement, style, and pngfix.
Added link to the most current post
Known Issues:
When a picture is used in a post, that picture becomes the target of the link on the banner.
–Version 1.2–
Chromakode is now helping me out with some of the testing and coding.
Improved WC3 compatability (still one more issue to resolve with code placement)
–Version 1.1–
Included pngfix.js in to the plugin folder in order to make for an easier install. This allows for transparent png’s to be visable in Internet Explorer.
Thanks to http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bobosola/ for the PNGFIX code.
–Version 1.0–
This is the initial release of the plugin.
Possible issues:
Not certain if every WordPress install uses the same field names for the post_date and same table names.
I have been using this plugin for some time wih no problems. When I switched to the Mandigo theme, the banner is hidden behind the header image now.
Any idea how to fix this?
Thanks in advance!!
TeraS
Hey Tera,
I looked into the issue, and it looks like that theme had increased the Z-Index of the header image to the same Z-Index that I made the banner. I have updated the plugin to 1.6.1 to modify this. You should be able to download it anytime now at the Wordpress site as version 1.6.1. I made the Z-Index of the banner 100 instead of 99 and it fixed it on the test installation with the Mandigo theme. Thanks for the bug find!
-Chris
*huggles*
Thank you for the fix Chris!!
Tera
thanxs but i cant update from Version 1.6 to Version 1.6.1
Works great, thank you
I have installed it on my WordPress portal: http://wordpress.blogos.dk, but the graphics does not display. Is it the theme or what? The wp_footer() – or the equivalent do_action(‘wp_footer’) – is present in the theme.
I also made a Danish banner, but it is not yet on this blog.
I run WP 2.7.1, by the way, and I have published a post today.
Any suggestions?
@Shihab.I
You will probably need to do a manual update for this version. I have been having lots of problems with the Wordpress Subversion updates. It took me over 24 hours for them to even update the plugin on their site, and now when you try and do an automatic update, their system isn’t recognizing 1.6.1 as a different version than 1.6. Sorry.
@Georg
I took a look at your source, and the plugin has added both is CSS and IE 6 pngfix.js file so the plugin is active, as the wp_head hook is being called correctly.
It looks like the do_action(‘wp_footer’) while being the ‘equivalent’ to wp_footer (according to Wordpress) does not use the wp_footer hook correctly which is the hook the plugin uses to interject the coding.
I have tested my site by adding BOTH wp_footer() and your do_action(‘wp_footer’) and it has not caused any errors so you should be able to go ahead and just ad wp_footer() to your footer.php file without error.I will take a look into this in my future releases for a fix but right not, the codex page isn’t turning up anything quickly.
-Chris
@Georg
So I just removed the wp_footer() from my footer.php and left only the do_action(‘wp_footer’) to my theme and it functioned without error. I suggest trying a different them for a short minute to verify that it works with another theme. It may be that the theme you are using is causing an error in the calling of the hook.
I have tried several themes, and it does not work. I have tested it with iNove on http://test1.blogos.dk and with Amazing Grace, Blogline and Fusion on http://wordpress.blogos.dk. I have tested it with Firefox 3.0.8 (with a lot of add-ons), but also with Opera and IE. So I really don’t know what more I can do? Any suggestions for version 1.6.1?
FYI Chris…
Plug-in does not display in the Women Theme…
Tera
@Georg @TeraS
I am not sure what’s going on with your blogs at this time. When I try and visit your blogs I see the plugin writing both the Javascript as well as the CSS styles for the banner which are in the same function as the banner div tag itself. For some reason your sites are not writing this code. I have tried to duplicate your errors with my own blogs using the same templates but cannot do so. Everything displays perfectly fine at http://chriskdesigns.com and http://chriskdesigns.com/wp27 (my test blog)
I have removed and re-installed the theme plenty of times thinking maybe it’s an installation issue, but that is not causing the problem either. Alas, I will keep searching for the problem. Have you both tried to display it with the default Wordpress theme?
Thanks for creating such a neat plugin. It is certainly very helpful to grab a readers attention regarding new content and this is a great visual way of letting people know.
To your success,
Karl
Keep your eyes open for version 1.8 to release sometime in the next 24 hours.
Great job, Chris!
Now, I wonder whether you would like to develop this plugin a little further? I have a site where it would be quite nice if it would be possible – as an option (?) – to to let this plugin check whether a page was created or edited.
An “ignore all/post/page/ updates just today” option would also be nice!
Well, for your consideration!
@Georg
I am planning on adding a settings page for the plugin in future versions. The options I would like to add are placement, when to display (modifications, new posts, or new pages), different images, etc. I will keep the site updated to reflect any beta versions.
Thanks for such a nice plugin Chris. I have a question though, is it, or would it be, possible to place the banner in the upper right hand corner instead?
@Wayne
People have done it, but at this time it takes a manual editing of the image and the coding for the CSS placement. In future releases it will have an option inside of a settings page to choose which side.
Worked fine on another site but on this one it displays down in the footer area when activated. Using the SimpleStyle theme. Had to disable for now.
@Andy
After looking into the SimpleStyle theme, it appears the reason the plugin won’t work with this is they have not created their footer to be completely modular. Their footer is located inside of the actual content area, from what I can gather on their theme coding which means their placement is ‘relative’ and due to this, the plugin is displaying in the relatively placed container and therefore forced to be at the upper left corner of the container it’s placed in, instead of leaving that container. There may be a way to fix this later, but at this time I’d say it’s due to the theme not following very good coding practice and CSS placement.
Ok, thank you for taking the time to look at that, I appreciate it. I’ll forward your comment son to the theme designer & see what he can come up with!
I have one suggestion. Add 0px padding and margin for the image:
#updated img{
padding:0;
margin:0;
}
This is to ensure that there is zero gap between the image and the edges of the browser.
@Chris K
That’s great news. I look forward to seeing what you come up with! Thank you.
why the plugin sometimes shows on my website and some other more times it doesnt appear on the same website??????
@The-Logic-Solution I’ve looked at your site and it looks like the plugin displays on all of your pages. Keep in mind this only displays when there has ben a modification to your site that day. If there have been no updates to your site on today’s date, the plugin will not display.