Virtual EyeSee » WordCamp Toronto

Making the most of Plug-ins at WordCamp Toronto

Natasha D'Souza — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:39:07 +0000

I had an amazing conversation with Brandan Sera-Shriar during lunch here at WordCamp Toronto. He is involved in a lot of very interesting projects and is also a teacher at a College!!!

Building plug-ins in WordPress is very easy and does not need a lot of programming knowledge. A great way to get started is to take a plug-in and copy and paste the code and develop a new one.

There is a limit to what a plug-in can do and will want to customize it to whatever you want. Look is just as important as functionality in a successful plug-in.

HTML/CSS, PHP and MySQL skills are great to have

Check out the source of the plug-ins and make small changes. See what the effect is. If the plug-in is from a good source then it will be well documented. This is the best way to learn. Do this on your local host so that you don’t crash your site.

Design a basic template that you can use overall when designing multiple plug-ins.

He does not release his plug-ins to the community however if you do want them he will make it available to you

Plug-in 101

Create a folder in the /wp-content/plugins/pluginname/
Give the plug-in a name.
Describe, authors. This is standard stuff.
Comments section
Add code for option menu
Setup the Options Page
Register the activation and deactivation hooks
Function
Save as a php file

Side bar info…

Breadcrumb

Can have one database for multiple sites with different look and feel.

WordPress plug-in competition is coming up for 2009.

Break time WordCamp Toronto

Natasha D'Souza — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:38:11 +0000

Here’s what people were doing during the break.

More discussions

Sacha posing

Plug-in side discussion

Just playing around

Mathiew

Rannie and I in a shoot off

Video Blogging at WordCamp Toronto

Natasha D'Souza — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:02:02 +0000

The afternoon at WordCamp Toronto, started off with Mark McKay talking about video blogging.

He showed us some examples of videos on You Tube. Happy Hour is his own show. Dear Toronto has their own style of videos.

He will be on MTV on Thursday at 6pm with his view on the election.

How to make a better video blog?

Think before you speak
Plan out what you want to do or say
Video about 2 minutes
Compress video before uploading

Saw the 61second video posted on Michael Geist, Boing boing

Learnt about video microblogging, 12 seconds

Lot’s of software out there and use whatever you have available to you. Vegas, Premier and Avid.

Take note of the lighting in the room

Video sharing great on WordPress, Delicious, Facebook, MySpace, Mdialogu, TubeMogul,
Talked about Viral Videos by entering contests. Have no plans to make money of the videos and just wanted to get noticed.

Mark has a green screen in his basement and now paints a wall green where he lives. Today it takes the form of a green fabric and has good lighting. DVgarage is a great plugin.

Convergence of a video blog and TV station. Each video blog is a show. Try to keep it to all one idea. Video blog is the internets version of a TV show.
Give it away and let people watch it.

Lunch at WordCamp Toronto

Natasha D'Souza — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:59:49 +0000

No cheeseburgers

Gotta have the ketchup

Yummie, dessert

The vibe contd.. WordCamp Toronto

Natasha D'Souza — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:17:51 +0000

Here are some more pictures from WordCamp Toronto.

Hole in chair

Thirsty again

Accessories

more accessories

Tweeting

Let’s trade moo cards

Hmm I do need to get that WordPress Gallery up and running.