Version 0.4.1 of the rssCloud WordPress plugin is now available. The biggest change is adding support for the domain parameter in notification requests. This means that rssCloud updates processed by the plugin are no longer limited to being sent to the IP address that the request came from. Support for the domain parameter is live on WordPress.com as well.

When a domain parameter is included with a notification request the verification process does the following:

• Sends an HTTP GET request to the {domain}:{port}{path} URL
• That HTTP GET includes to pieces of data: url and challenge. The url field contains the URL of the feed that we’ll been sending pings about. The challenge field contains a random string of characters
• The response back must have a status code of 2xx and the body must contain EXACTLY the contents of the challenge field. If both of those conditions are not met then the verification process will consider this a failure

For notification requests that have no domain parameter the verification process is unchanged from before.

Another item that some may find helpful is a new constant – RSSCLOUD_FEED_URL – if that is defined they it will be used as the feed URL of the blog instead of determining it via get_bloginfo( 'rss2_url' );. For plugin authors that provide options for an alternative feed URL note that can override the default in WordPress via the feed_link filter. That filter can be used instead of the RSSCLOUD_FEED_URL constant and will bubble up through the get_bloginfo( 'rss2_url' ); call.

Related Posts

1. RSSCloud For WordPress
2. WordPress & libxml2 Episode IV: A New Plugin
3. Installing WordPress As A Subversion Checkout ( Or External ) In A Subdirectory
4. Will Norris On Authentication In WordPress 2.8

This year at WordCamp New York there will be a whole track dedicated to WordPress MU and BuddyPress. Some of the topics being presented are:

Getting off the Farm:
WPMU Beyond Blog Hosting. We all know that WPMU can be used to host multiple blogs for public or internal signups. But what else can you do? How far can you stretch it? I’ll be showcasing a number of sites that use WPMU in interesting ways. Speaker: Andrea Rennick.

Writing Plugins for WordPress/MU:
This session will be directed toward plugin developers. We will discuss platform differences & guidelines to keep in mind when writing a plugin for both WordPress & WordPress MU. Speaker: Ron Rennick.

User Authentication with MU in Existing Ecosystems.
Speaker: Casey Bisson.

How-to with MU: Using Multiple Domains, and Building a Member Directory.
A two-part session where we will dig in to two different concepts. First up, we’ll cover how to domain map member blogs, and the difference between multiple sites and multiple domains. The second half will cover how we built a business/member directory and what plugins we used to accomplish this so you can build one too. Speaker: Andrea Rennick.

Growing Community with BuddyPress:
Speaker: Lisa Sabin-Wilson.

Creating Killer Group Extensions in BuddyPress:
In this session learn how to build highly custom feature extensions to BuddyPress groups. Andy will be talking through how you can use the new group extension API to build Twitter stream integration right into your groups. Speaker: Andy Peatling.

Developing BuddyPress as a Collaboration Hub:
In this presentation, I’ll discuss some of the BuddyPress development I’ve done to bridge the WordPress/bbPress/MediaWiki platforms, taking BP beyond its roots as a social networking platform and turning it into a collaboration hub: a space where users can find, friend, and team up with each other (the social networking part BP that does well), work together to produce content (that’s the “collaboration” part), and feed the content back into BP (that’s the “hub” part). Speaker: Boone Gorges.

Other soon-to-be confirmed sessions: Setting up BuddyPress (workshop); BuddyPress theme framework.

For a full list of sessions please see the program page.

It should be a fantastic event with space for up to 1000 people. Tickets are selling out fast so if you’re thinking of attending, now is the time to hop in and buy a ticket. It looks like this is going to be the east coast WordCamp to attend. I’ll see you all there!

New Plugins

Ponticlaro Media Settings

It has a really nifty [media] shortcode that hacks into the great built-in WordPress gallery.  You can put one [media] in your post and it will access the first image in the gallery without any code.

Table of Contents Creator

Table of Contents Creator (TOCC) automatically generates a dynamic site wide table of contents that is always up-to-date. All entries are navigable making your site extremely SEO friendly. TOCC can be configured to display static pages, blog entries and forum comments. Another great feature of TOCC is the ability to include anchor tags marked with a special class. This feature allows links to articles, downloads or even other sites to appear within the table of contents as if they are part of your site’s navigation.

Posty Widget

Displays the contents of two custom fields in a Sidebar Widget. The widget can stay the same (and in the same place) but the content can be dynamic and set to provide more information about the post you’re looking at.

WP Grins Lite

A “lite” version of the original WP Grins plugin using the lighter-weight jQuery library. This plugin allows smilies to be inserted into your comment form.

Static Random Posts

Allows the display of random posts, but allows the admin to determine how often the random posts are refreshed. With Static Random Posts, the random posts will remain the same for a set amount of time.

SyntaxHL-Editor

Offers an easy to use graphical user interface for Syntax Highlighter and Code Colorizer for Wordpress. You can easily enter and modify source-code highlighted in your posts as well as specify options for every single snippet.

Updated Plugins

Twitter Goodies

Twitter Goodies plugin will show your tweets under Sidebar Area (Widget), Post and/or Pages. REFRESH AUTOMATICALLY and you have 5 different Color Option.

AVH First Defense Against Spam

The AVH First Defense Against Spam plugin gives you the ability to block spammers before any content is served. Spammers are identified by checking if the visitors IP exists in a database served by stopforumspam.com, the Project Honey Pot or a local blacklist.

Yet Another Featured Posts Plugin (YAFPP)

Yet Another Featured Posts Plugin provides an easy interface for featuring and unfeaturing posts.

Page Meta

Adds the ability to override the page meta title and add in meta descriptions and keywords for pages.

Extended Page List

Add custom configured page lists to your posts, pages and sidebar.

Broken Link Checker

This plugin will check your posts, custom fields and the blogroll for broken links and missing images and notify you if any are found.

We’ve launched an affiliate program and a public knowledge base at WordPress HelpCenter (WPHC), two things that I’m very excited about. We’re getting closer and closer to my overall vision for the service.

Affiliate Program

The affiliate program is really core to how we want the HelpCenter to work. It creates a formal relationship between WPHC and plugin and theme authors so that we can support the great WordPress development community. It sets up:

• WPHC to pay plugin and theme authors when we do paid work with plugins or themes they created.
• Makes it easy for plugin and theme authors give us FAQs and tips about the things they have built so that we can provide great support for them.
• Builds relationships with plugin and theme authors so we can send them bug reports and contact them with advanced issues we are dealing with.
• Rewards affiliates for referring business to us.

We have a collection of badges that plugin and theme authors can place on their web sites and in the WordPress admin pages for their plugins and themes to direct people to the WordPress HelpCenter to get support (and earn affiliate payments).

We also have released a WordPress plugin that does two things:

1. it adds a WordPress HelpCenter support tab to the admin interface to make it easy for people to contact WPHC for support.
2. It creates a system profile that details key information about a WordPress installation that is very useful in troubleshooting and debugging. This system profile can be sent to WordPress HelpCenter.

Affiliates can download a customized version of this plugin that includes their affiliate code so that they receive a referral payment in addition to any payments for work we do with plugins and themes they have registered with us.

We think that this may be something that plugin and theme authors may want to distribute along with their work. Additionally, developers that create WordPress powered sites but may not be in position to provide on-call support for them may want to install this on sites they create for their clients.

The system profile page created by the plugin uses standard WordPress filters to enable plugin and theme authors to add information to it that may be relevant for their plugins or themes.

I’m really excited about the affiliate program because it provides a monetary reward for plugin and theme developers while actually removing a burden from them and potentially freeing them up to spend more time building great things for the WordPress community.

Over the years I’ve thought and brainstormed quite a bit about ways to provide financial incentives for WordPress developers. Our affiliate program is a start. It’s a true win-win arrangement, and it will only get better as the WordPress community continues to grow.

Public Knowledge Base

The public knowledge base is another core element to WPHC and our vision of what we want it to be. We do troubleshooting and debugging of WordPress, plugin and theme issues every day, and this gives us a way to share the solutions we find with the community.

In addition to our own notes, when affiliates register plugins and themes with us they have the opportunity to add FAQs and tips about those plugins and themes. As appropriate, we then make that information publicly available.

Even better, the affiliates can come back and add additional FAQs and tips at any time. This is something I’m really excited about because the way that plugin README files work, they always lag one release behind on wordpress.org.

We have a section on the site for plugins and for themes. There are a few resources up there now, I’m looking forward to watching these areas grow in the future as more affiliates sign up and register their plugins and themes with us.

I expect this to become a very useful resource for the WordPress community; one that grows nicely over time.

I view the WPHC from several different perspectives.

• As the founder and a partner in the business, I want it to be financially viable so that we can maintain a great staff and provide top notch service.
• As a WordPress professional, I need it to be a place I trust and feel comfortable referring my clients to for support.
• As a WordPress developer, I want users of my plugins and themes to be able to get great support. I also know that with the growth of the WordPress community and the responsibilities I currently enjoy, I am no longer in a position to provide that support directly.

From all of these perspectives, it is of paramount importance to me that the WordPress HelpCenter be a shining and trusted member of the WordPress community. The team and I are very committed to making that happen.

If we are able to continue to build it as we envision, the WordPress HelpCenter will be a great asset to the entire WordPress community. With these new features, I believe we’ve taken a few big steps in that direction.

The number one reason people give us for not upgrading to the latest version of WordPress is fear that their plugins won’t be compatible. As part of our continuing efforts to make WordPress core, plugin, and theme upgrades as painless as possible, Michael Adams developed and launched a beta of a new “Compatibility” feature in [...]

That’s the question Matt Mullenweg is asking on the official bbPress.org support forums. The post highlights the fact that bbPress is not going away and that it is an important project for the WordPress community. After all, it powers the WordPress.org plugin repository, the support forums, and TalkPress, Automattics hosted forum service.

Strategically the most important thing we need to figure out is how to integrate bbPress better with WP more for people who want that — right now it’s easier to use one of the WP plugins for forums than bbPress.

I’ve only installed bbPress locally once to check it out but it’s not my cup of tea. I think the bbPress forum software is aimed at developers since it comes with all the basics to build on or around but doesn’t contain the feature set of modern forum software out of the box. For example, the SimplePress plugin for WordPress Matt mentions is packed with more features than the dedicated forum software. One idea I’ve heard Matt discuss with Sam that I think has a ton of potential is to replace or add onto the WordPress comment system with bbPress. This type of tight integration between the two is what I believe Matt wants to figure out. It would be awesome to have such an easy way to not only have a forum where visitors can start their own conversations, but also leave comments on articles on the blog side of things. I hesitate to mention Vbulletin but it’s the software that comes to mind that takes this to the next level by offering their own CMS with the forum software built into it.

One of the best things bbPress has going for it right now is the work of Andy Peatling. In BuddyPress 1.1 Andy rewrote the forums component from the ground up to provide one click internal bbPress forum integration enabling users to setup forums in a fraction of the time. BuddyPress is gaining traction and as Matt says, has all the ingredients to become as large and successful as WordPress. I think the more people that use BuddyPress, the more that will use bbPress building that community simultaneously with BuddyPress.

Your Thoughts:

You tell me, or Matt. What is the future of bbPress you would like to see turn into a reality? Also, if you use bbPress, tell me why and how.

I’ve experienced a weird and unfortunate chain reaction over the last 48 hours.

1. A flood of comment spam
2. Akismet not accepting connections from my server¹ and/or not catching the spam
3. The email notifications from all the spam comments sending to my mail account
4. My mail host started blocking all mail from my server (due to the high volume of comment spam)

This has presented me with a choice between receiving email and accepting comments on this site, and that’s an easy choice.

I disabled comments, and once the flow of spam mails stopped my mail host seems to be accepting mail again. It’s sad to see the problems caused by comment spam extending beyond the annoyance of having them appear on your blog.²

I’m taking some additional steps to try to get the mail situation set up a little better (domain migration so I have better DNS control, sending mail directly to Google Apps and then forwarding to my primary mail account from there). I’m hopeful that I can get the Akismet connection issues resolved and enable comments again in the near future.

Regardless, it’s been a genuine pain in the arse having to deal with this. Apologies for the impact it’s had on anyone looking to comment here and/or receiving emails from my server.

UPDATE: re-enabling comments, hoping for the best.

1. It allows connections at times, but then doesn’t for long periods of time. [back]
2. They can also cause server scalability issues. [back]