Archives for: August 2007
You can do it ;)
Posted in : Silly O'clock quotes
tuxnus: yer only half a help
yabba_hh: yeah, but I always hope that the half I provide is enough to make the recipient realise that they can work it out themselves
OMG we almost have a new plugin!
Posted in : Plugins & Widgets
Hi %name%, yer gonna be really impressed with me, I just wrote a new post called "%title%"
This post won't come as much of a revelation for those of you who have the AstonishMe Bopit plugin installed, because you'll have seen it in the list of plugins on the admin tooltab, but it's worth reading anyway ..... honest 
What is the plugin?
Although most people who actually use blogs know about that wonderful little thing called RSS which allows you to follow a blogs post or comment feeds without having to actually visit the "Pastel Palace" in question, some of them still use InterDebt Exploiter ( or *shudder* AOL ) and wouldn't know a feed if you hit them over the head with a meal voucher. So, this plugin allows them to subscribe to your wondrous examples of literary excellence via email.
Great, I just love AOL users, so how do I get it?
Well, in a totally Pimp-A-Plugin fashion, the only place to currently get it is by installing the AstonishMe Bopit plugin and clicking on the download link .... Install is the normal shit : unzip, upload, click install ... you're probably gonna want to wander over to the settings and amend stuff, there's a full list of what they are and what they do in the readme ..... and, erm, well, that's it really .... don't forget that it's still under development though, if it melts your servers cpu or harasses people then don't blame me huh?
As always, let me know if it screws up
¥
Customise your posts
Posted in : Plugins & Widgets
We've had this plugin lying around for so long that we've already updated it twice and still haven't managed to do a public release ...... oooops 
Anyway welcome to the AstonishMe Custom Plugin, this plugin allows you to add all sorts of custom stuff directly from your posts giving you far more control over your blog than ever.
Wanna play with SEO?
Whilst b2evolution is a great little blogging platform, it does have a few drawbacks, one of which is the static keywords and descriptions for each blog. As you probably know, the evil google bot prefers to see keywords and description that are relevant to the content on the page at any given moment. Now you can have custom keywords and description on a per post basis, you can also control the title and even add more meta tags if you want. The title & description of the post are used when you're in single post mode ( it defaults to the stock ones if you don't have one for a post ). The keywords are used whenever the post is being viewed archives/categories/front page etc, only the unique ones are shown so you shouldn't get any duplicates.
Gimme some style
Apparently some people like to make their posts look like a tarts boudoir which, up until now, has meant that you either needed a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge stylesheet or *shudder* you had to restrict yourself to just a few boring styles!! Now you have the ability to add post specific baubles to your blog with no fear of excessive bloat. To make things easier you can target each post specifically simply by using %post% in your class/id names. This will be replaced by am_custom_post_##_ so you can avoid conflicting classnames.
Need a script?
If you had javascript enabled, you wouldn't be reading this
If you happen to be one of those people who are forever adding all sorts of javascript gimmicks so that you can amaze your visitor with some stunning new effect, assuming they have javascript enabled of course, then you're probably going to want to meander through the plugins code and change a 0 to a 1 . This will then allow you to either add your script in <head> or directly inside the post at the spot you type it. Fair warning though, enabling this option will allow any user with posting rights to post javascript, so be think before you enable it huh?
Enough already
I suppose it's time to tell you how to use all these new found powers huh? First off all you need to do all teh usual stuff like, download the plugin, unzip it, upload it, wander into admin and install it. Unlike most of our plugins, this one also involves you ripping a couple of bits out of your skins _main.php. Don't worry though, it's fairly painless and the worst you could do is melt down your server if you delete the wrong bit huh? So, now that you're reassured, crack open your skins _main.php and delete the red bits
PHP:
<span style="color:red"><title><?php </span> | |
<span style="color:red">$Blog->disp('name', 'htmlhead'); </span> | |
<span style="color:red">request_title( ' - ', '', ' - ', 'htmlhead' ); </span> | |
<span style="color:red">?></title> </span> | |
<base href="<?php skinbase(); /* Base URL for this skin. You need this to fix relative links! */ ?>" /> | |
<span style="color:red"> <meta name="description" content="<?php $Blog->disp( 'shortdesc', 'htmlattr' );?>" /> </span> | |
<span style="color:red"><meta name="keywords" content="<?php $Blog->disp( 'keywords', 'htmlattr' );?>" /> </span> |
Now what?
From now on, whenever you make a post you have the ability to customise it in all the ways mentioned above by using the following tags. For css and javascript %post% will be replaced with .am_custom_post_##_. For those of you who have been using this plugin for a bit, don't worry, all old style tags still work as well
Code:
<!--title title to use --> | |
The title to use will be used as the pages html title in single post mode. | |
<!--description post description --> | |
The post description will be used as the pages description in single post mode | |
<!--keywords keywords to add --> | |
The keywords to add will be appended to the pages keywords. The plugin also ensures that there are no duplicate keywords | |
<!--meta meta tag data --> | |
This will add a meta tag <meta meta tag data /> | |
<!--css custom css for post --> | |
The custom css for post will be output between <style> tags | |
<!--script javascript to add --> | |
The javascript to add will be output inside <head> between <script> tags | |
<!--js javascript to add --> | |
The javascript to add will be output inside your post between <script> tags | |
WARNING : This will allow any user with posting rights to post javascript, it's disabled by default. To enable javascript you need to manually change the setting in the plugin code. |
So, now you can decorate your posts to your hearts content, let me know if you have any problems huh?
¥