Updates for Comment Numbering Plugin and SEO Plugin for WordPress 2.9
With WordPress 2.9 just around the corner, we thought our readers who are also bloggers might like to be prepared in advance for some important changes that are coming up. Updates to our two most popular plugins (with around 16,000 downloads between them, as of this writing) have you covered.
Continuing our tradition of offering open source releases of some of the software tools we use here at CounsellingResource.com, we’ve updated two of our most popular WordPress plugins in preparation for version 2.9 of the popular blogging platform, which should be out some time before the end of 2009. Here’s a rundown.
Greg’s High Performance SEO
WordPress 2.9 introduces a rudimentary API for plugin authors to create custom post types in addition to the four we have now (namely: post, page, revision, and attachment). Because it’s impossible to know in advance what clever new post types may be created by plugin authors, or how blog owners might like to handle SEO for those new post types, Greg’s High Performance SEO now makes it possible for third parties to modify the results it produces for post titles, secondary titles, and secondary descriptions. With the flick of a switch in your admin panel, you can now enable other plugins to tweak these results for any new custom post types that might be created.
Just click here to grab the latest version of Greg’s High Performance SEO from the WordPress plugin repository.
Greg’s Threaded Comment Numbering
A new undo-able ‘trash’ debuts in WordPress 2.9, offering a way to get rid of things with less of the occasional but crushing “oops, I didn’t mean to do that” reaction. The new trash makes it easier than ever to wind up with orphaned comments (where an orphaned comment is a reply to a comment which has been removed by the administrator). So, the new version of this plugin for numbering reader comments left on your posts beefs up detection of orphaned comments and ensures that whether they’re deleted, trashed, or were left at a higher threading depth than you currently have on your blog, they’ll still be numbered correctly.
For highest performance, it’s always best just to make sure you don’t leave orphaned comments sitting around — but if you do, just enable the plugin’s option to check explicitly for deleted or trashed comments, and you’ll be covered.
Just click here to grab the latest version of Greg’s Threaded Comment Numbering from the WordPress plugin repository.
Other articles by Dr Greg Mulhauser, Managing Editor
This article was last reviewed by Dr Greg Mulhauser, Managing Editor on Wednesday, 2nd December 2009.
The URL of this page is:
http://counsellingresource.com/features/2009/12/02/wordpress-plugins-updated/
32 Responses (Including 11 Discussion Threads) to “Two WordPress Plugins Updated for 2.9”
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11
Hi Greg,
Tnx for the quick reply! I am probably not seeing the obvious :-) When I look at “main titles” configuration screen I can’t find it. What field should i be looking at?
My blog title is fixed at “Nature and Travel Images | NiO Photography” and the plugin is configured to only add for instance %post_title% in front of it. It however comes out as “Posttitle – Nature and Travel Images | NiO Photography”
Thanks,
Johan
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11.1
@Johan,
If you have a peek at the instructions page on main titles, it explains how to implement the template tag for delivering the main title functionality; from what you’ve described, it sounds like this part hasn’t been done yet, and so no matter what you set in the plugin’s configuration pages, you won’t see any difference on your blog. Alternatively, as a quick test, you could enable ‘Sledgehammer Mode’, which will brute force the plugin’s title choices into your title tags, but this isn’t nearly as good as going the template tag route.
All the best,
Greg
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12
Hi Greg,
… should have read the manual first :-)
It all works now. Thanks. Great plugin!
Cheers,
Johan
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Cher
13Okay so I just switched to WordPress last weekend and I think your plugin sounds great, especially since I host a lot of giveaways and need to see comment numbers to easily pick a winner!
I am clueless with code, please help me! I already have something in the wp_list_comments line so I am not sure where to put your code. Here is part of my code. I would really appreciate your help, I have probably spent at least 8 hours googling and trying different code.
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13.1
@Cher — I’m afraid I’m not in a position to offer free personal consulting on how best to modify specific individual themes. However, I have included basic instructions and a link to the full WordPress documentation on
wp_list_commentswithin the plugin itself.All the best,
Greg
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14
I love this plugin and I have used it on a previous theme. I can add it to my current theme and it works but it really messes up my comments css. I’ve tried the advanced usage that you suggested, but I’m afraid that is too advanced for me.
If someone can “dumb down” the advanced usage part to work with an Artisteer created theme, I’d be very grateful!
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14.1
Hi Janine,
I’m glad to hear the plugin works well for you, but that’s a shame about the theme not supporting easy modification of the callback function. In most cases, adding the comment number (I assume you’re talking about the comment numbering plugin!) is a matter of just dropping a single line of code into the right place. It’s virtually impossible to describe succinctly all the myriad ways you might go about finding that ‘right place’, but for a PHP programmer or WordPress code hacker — or even someone moderately experienced with modifying WordPress themes — it shouldn’t be too tough a nut to crack (especially with the info included in the plugin’s instructions). If you can get hold of someone who is able to take a look at your theme files, you should be good to go.
It’s a shame that WordPress’s relatively new comment features (those introduced with 2.7) were designed to be so impenetrable for the casual user and so difficult to modify even for programmers! In earlier versions, inserting comment numbers could be done by theme creators with just a couple of lines of code. Now it takes a whole plugin and some fairly sophisticated logic chugging away in the background just to keep it all straight.
I’ve done my best to make it accessible again, by wrapping up all the programming logic inside the plugin itself, but unfortunately they’ve still made it impossible to get numbering into the theme itself without some manual intervention.
All the best,
Greg
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14.2
Thanks for your reply. So basically you are saying that I just have to figure out where to put this?
[code bits got mangled]
Is it that simple?
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14.3
Yes, if you already have a callback function (which I’m guessing you do, since 2.7 and above requires one in order to use all the new comment functionality), it’s just a matter of dropping the template tag into place within the callback function:
gtcn_comment_numbering($comment->comment_ID, $args)Preferably, as mentioned in the instructions, that would be wrapped in a conditional to test whether the function exists before employing the template tag.
All the best,
Greg
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15
Ohhh it finally clicked! I understand now and was able to get it to work! Thanks so much for helping me out, and for the great plugin! =)
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15.1
Excellent, glad to hear it — and you’re very welcome!
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16
I have one more question (sorry!) Is there anyway to NOT number pingbacks and trackbacks? I just want them to show, but only want the actual comments numbered. Thanks again! :)
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16.1
The WP comment loop became very complex when all the new functionality was introduced in 2.7, and because of that underlying complexity, it is very difficult to commingle comments and pingbacks/trackbacks while still maintaining correct numbering for only the comments. So the ‘yes’ answer must be qualified: it requires separating the display of pingbacks/trackbacks from the display of comments. Then you include a comment number when displaying the comment list, but no number when displaying the pingback/trackback list.
Details (including an example comment loop that shows only the comments) are available here:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/wp_list_comments
All the best,
Greg
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17
Thanks, I’ll look more into that. I appreciate all the help!
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Mark
18Hello Greg,
I’m using WordPress 2.9.2. and the comment limiter isn’t counting down like yours here. Is it not compatible with WordPress 2.9.2. ? Did I do something wrong? THX!
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18.1
Hi Mark,
If you take a look at the plugin’s options tab entitled “Instructions”, you’ll see that you have not yet completed either of the first two steps in the numbered list.
All the best,
Greg
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boef
19Ohai Greg
love your plugin ,
Got a request : Could you add a NOARCHIVE to the metahead ?
as most pages of mine will disappear over time this could help some seo performancecu
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19.1
Hi boef,
No plans to add it, but if it’s something you’re after throughout, it’s easy to add it directly to your theme… (I’m not convinced it would have an impact at all on performance, but to each their own!)
All the best,
Greg
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