Category Archives: WordPress

WordPress MU 2.6.5

The beauty of Burnham Beeches

WordPress MU, the multi blog version of WordPress that runs on such sites as WordPress.com has been updated to version 2.6.5 to address an XSS vulnerability in the feeds offered to users.

More details will be forthcoming but for the time being, there’s also the WordPress.org announcement post.

This release also has a number of bug fixes, including a fix and improvements to rss caching. This is a required upgrade, so please install it as soon as you can.

After you’ve upgraded, check out the nominations for the 2008 WPMU Awards and vote for your favourite!

In related news, a new version of WP Super Cache is also available. This version hopefully fixes:

  1. Issues with clients seeing compressed pages incorrectly
  2. Cache clean up
  3. Warnings if Apache modules are missing
  4. Better support for WordPress MU. The wp-content/cache/.htaccess rules are now displayed on the admin page
  5. Better documentation on file locking
  6. WP Cache files are written to a temporary file first
  7. Use WP_CONTENT_URL in mod_rewrite rules generator

It also adds a number of filters:

  1. “supercache_dir” filter so the supercache directory can be manipulated. “wp_cache_key” cache_action to modify the key the wp-cache file is named after. Using both of these should make it easier for plugin authors to manipulate the cache based on user agent or other criteria. ie. iPhone theme? Unfortunately .htaccess rewrite rules will have to be updated manually.
  2. Added “wpsupercache_buffer” filter so the current page can be manipulated before being stored in the cache.

Make your WordPress plugin talk AJAX

This morning at BarCamp Cork I gave a short talk on how to add AJAX functionality to WordPress plugins.

Here are the example scripts I used during the talk. Rename the files to .php and install as you would normal WordPress plugins.

  1. helloworld1.txt – very simple and basic “Hello World” plugin.
  2. helloworld2.txt – script that will display the text “Hello World” using an AJAX request to get the text from the server.
  3. helloworld3.txt – script that displays “Hello World” text, and an “update” link that increments a counter via an AJAX http request.
  4. helloworld4.txt – script that displays a simple form. The form has one text box, a “Random” button and a “Save” button. Clicking the “Random” button makes a request to the server to get a random number. “Save” sends the number to the server.
  5. helloworld5.txt and rate.txt – “Rating” script to rate a post (Originally from here). Makes an AJAX request to the server with the rating. Server returns randomly generated stats on rating. Place rate.php in wp-content/

All scripts that operate in the Settings page in the Dashboard use a nonce for security and access admin-ajax.php when making AJAX requests. The wp_ajax_$POST[ ‘action’ ] hook is used to execute the actual code that does something useful.

The rating script uses wp_enqueue_script() to load the jQuery class.

If you’re an Irish O2 user, and use Twitter you might like to install the new Tweet Tweet WordPress plugin. Thanks to Enda who let me use his O2 account briefly, I created a plugin that sends Twitter sms notifications using the free O2.ie web texts. That means Meteor, Vodafone and O2 are now covered. Anyone want to contribute a plugin for 3?

PS. I was very proud that Automattic was able to sponsor BarCamp Cork, and hopefully most of the WordPress badges found good homes! Conor says 116 signed up for the event, with just over 100 showing up. That’s a great number to pull in for a Saturday tech event!

IMG_4625

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More photos can be found on pix.ie and flickr. Looks like Phil hasn’t uploaded any of his shots yet! Can’t wait to see what came of his afternoon photo session. I had to leave early and missed it unfortunately.
Discovered photos of my presentation. Yes, I used Vi (or Vim if you want to be pedantic) to give my talk!

WordPress MU 2.6.3

WordPress MU, the multi blog version of WordPress that runs on WordPress.com has been updated.

Version 2.6.3 has just been released. This is a security release and a required update. More details about the vulnerability in the Snoopy library that WordPress uses can be found on the WordPress 2.6.3 announcement.

This release also includes a number of minor bug fixes but if you want to fix the Snoopy bug alone, it’s sufficient to update these files:

Those are not download links, click through and download the files using one of the links at the end of each page.

Otherwise, updating from 2.6.2 is as simple as overwriting your current install.

WP Super Cache 0.8.4, the garbage collector

WP Super Cache version 0.8.4 is now available. WP Super Cache is a page caching plugin for WordPress that will significantly speed up your website.

This is a minor release but was prompted by White Shadow. He released a plugin that cleans up expired cache files on a periodic basis instead of after X number of hits. Great minds think alike, (or fools seldom differ) because I had the same idea a few weeks ago and had the code running on this blog for that time without any problems.

WP Super Cache 0.8.4

The garbage collection system should have operated this way in the first place, but at least now it’s easier to configure.

PollDaddy join the Automattic Family

You’ve probably heard the news that Lenny and Eoin of PollDaddy have joined Automattic. PolDaddy has been acquired by Automattic, but on a personal level we’ve been joined by two great Irish guys from Sligo bringing the Irish contingent of Automattic up to three. Lenny did completely trash me at Wii Tennis but I won’t hold that against him!

We’ve even taken over a house here in Breckenridge, calling it the Irish House. The Irish Tricolour is flying outside an Irish pub downtown. They might lend it to us if we ask nicely ..
Raanan is staying there too so I guess we’ll make him an honourary Irishman for the week!

As well as the great PollDaddy news, expect a few more enhancements to WordPress.com soon, and if I have anything to do with it, a plugin or two that will make it into the WordPress MU community too!

WP Super Cache 0.8.3 "Speedy"

WP Super Cache version 0.8.3 is now available. WP Super Cache is a page caching plugin for WordPress that will significantly speed up your website.

Double Caching

This releases fixes a long standing compression bug. In older versions of the plugin, the cached page was compressed twice. Once to display to the current visitor, and once again for the cached files stored on the server. This has now been fixed and there’s a noticeable speed increase for anonymous visitors. Unfortunately as a side effect, it’s not possible to display the “super cache gz” html comment now. To verify that html pages are being served from the supercache directory you’ll have to add an error_log() somewhere and check that visits aren’t logged.
The plugin now uses fopen() instead of gzopen() which according to a comment on the gzopen() manual page is unreliable under high load.

IE7 Fixes

Apparently IE7 has problems when gzipped files are served as “x-gzip” files, under certain circumstances. This is an obscure bug but this has been fixed. If you’re upgrading, either remove wp-content/cache/.htaccess and visit the admin page and that file will be regenerated, or edit that file and change “x-gzip” to “gzip”.

A number of smaller bugs were also fixed. Check the changelog for further info.

WordPress MU Sitewide Tags Pages 0.3.1

One of these days I’ll rename all my plugins and give them nice snappy titles.

Version 0.3.1 of the Sitewide Tags Pages plugin (for WordPress MU) has just been released. If you’ve been using this plugin you should probably update because this fixes a number of bugs including the problem with the Prologue Theme (and possibly Feedwordpress but I haven’t tested that.)
This release wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Thomas Schneider!

Main changes:

  • Pages are now filtered out because they don’t really fit neatly anywhere in the global posts page.
  • Prologue Theme problem with wp_insert_category() is fixed.
  • Set comment and ping status of global posts to closed.
  • Lots of translation work, including a German translation.
  • Lots of fixes related to when blogs change status, or posts are edited.

Grab it from the download page.

WordPress MU 2.6.2

WordPress MU, the multi blog version of WordPress that runs on WordPress.com has been updated.

Version 2.6.2 is now available for download and is a required update. WordPress MU isn’t vulnerable to the security bugs that were the reason for WordPress 2.6.2 but it does contain a number of important bug fixes, including:

  1. xmlrpc.php works better if you use multiple sites. #735
  2. get_option() wasn’t reading all options.
  3. Configurable media buttons on the Write page. #598, #738
  4. 404 “file not found” errors on folder installs is mostly fixed. #745
  5. And more .. (timeline)

PS. Don’t forget the voting is now open in the WordPress MU plugin competition.
PPS. Registration is now open for BarCamp Cork II on November 1st. I’ve put my name down to give a talk there.

WP Super Cache 0.8

WP Super Cache is a page caching plugin for WordPress that will significantly speed up your website.

If you’re not interested in the changes, simply grab the latest version of the plugin and copy the files into your plugin folder. It’ll work, but if you’re upgrading, you should read on.

Major changes in this release:

  1. Generate a semaphore id based on hostname and cache path to avoid problems on shared hosts, props Tigertech.
  2. If you run WordPress from a different directory to where it’s installed, supercached files weren’t deleted when a post was made or updated. That is now fixed. Thanks Viper007Bond for all your help on that.
  3. Paged archives, category pages, and tag pages are now cleared when a post is edited or comment approved. This replicates what WP Cache did all along so you should hopefully see supercached static files updating more often.
  4. If your .htaccess is read-only, the mod_rewrite rules are displayed on the admin page. Thanks Matt for the patch.
  5. Updated mod_rewrite rules won’t serve static html files if there’s a “=” in the url. Should catch all sorts of problems with plugins and attachments. You’ll have to manually edit your root .htaccess to match the new rules.
  6. Set cache control and expiry headers of supercached files. They are cached for 5 minutes, but with a “must-revalidate” header. Delete wp-content/cache/.htaccess for the new rules to be updated.
  7. Check for WordPress MU because it can’t update the .htaccess file.
  8. Write supercache html to temporary files and rename. The old way opened the correct file for writing, did some work and wrote the file. In the fraction of a second it took to write the file, someone might request it and get an incomplete page.
  9. The Supercache expiry time has been removed. There can be only one.

Edit: 0.8.1 has just been released. This addresses the following:

  • The “forbidden files” problems some users had is fixed.
  • Supercache files were being removed needlessly when a moderated comment was made.
  • I added a “Clear cached files when post is edited” checkbox.
  • I added a “Delete Cache” link next to the Dashboard link on the dashboard.
  • Tigertech found that when a file is renamed and the new filename is already used, the old remains.
  • Updated readme.txt.

WordPress MU 2.6.1

WordPress MU version 2.6.1 has just been released. This is a sync of the WordPress maintenance release that saw the light of day a few weeks ago.

This is a required upgrade as it fixes a number of critical bugs, particularly in deleting users and blogs. Upgrading is as easy as copying over the files of your current install.

For a more comprehensive list of changes, check the timeline, but in short, yes you do need to upgrade!

WordPress MU is a multi blog version of WordPress that runs many sites such as Linux.ie Blogs and WordPress.com. If you run the single blog version of WordPress you can probably ignore this message.

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