Tag Archives: Wordpress

WordPress and Thesis talk GPL and the debate over license

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From time to time this issue raises its head in the blogosphere and it pretty much came to a head recently. Its interesting to see the difference in the points of view of the supporters of Open Source and those that work on it but sell theirproduct in the typical fashion, namely for profit and their reasons and issues with this process.

WordPress GPL

WordPress, developed by Matt Mullenweg has a General Public License (GPL) which means that it is distributed freely to all and as such it has allowed development from 1000′s of people who are part of the user base and community. With 11.4 million users out there hosted on WordPress and an estimated 12 million more on self hosted solutions it has established itself as one of the top platforms to use for a blog or website.

Thesis Theme

The Thesis Theme by Chris Pearson has been developed and sold as a separate entity (164 dollars for an unlimited license) but it is based on the WordPress platform. It has an estimated 27,000 users and is NOT under GPL (apparently it is as of recently but I’m still seeking confirmation on this.)

Chris as a business person is arguing that he isnt beheld to WordPress, the license and is resisting the GPL. Have a listen to the debate, arranged by Andrew Warner in the vid and see how you feel on the two sides to the story.

Personally I think Matt came across as more convincing and with a stronger basis for the “correct” thing to do in this particular situation. What do you think?

WordPress Version 3 released

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Looks like the first versions of WordPress Version 3 has finally been released! Heres a breakdown on the features we can expect on this verision (oh goodie!).  Full details on the WordPress of course are available here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.0.

Some of the features I’m quite interested in seeing are:

Highlights

  • WordPress and WordPress MU have merged, allowing the management of multiple sites (called Multisite) from one WordPress installation.
  • New default theme “Twenty Ten” takes full advantage of the current features of WordPress.
  • New custom menu management feature, allows creation of custom menus combining posts, pages, categories, tags, and links for use in theme menus or widgets.
  • Custom header and background APIs.
  • A lighter admin color scheme to increase accessibility and put the focus more squarely on your content.

User Features

General

  • New WordPress logo for admin header
  • Place “Search Engines Blocked” mini-alert in the wp-admin header to prevent people from accidentally delisting themselves
  • Revised administration menu icons
  • Revised Gray Admin Color Scheme

Dashboard

  • Add link so user can visit Dashboard after core upgrade
  • Move Tools->Upgrade menu option to Dashboard->Updates and overhaul of user interface so themes, plugins, and core upgrades under one panel
  • New menu management (navigation) via Menus option under Appearances Menu (#11817)
  • Password nag for newly registered users
  • Split Right Now widget into Content | Discussion

Posts

  • Allow for removing all tags in quick edit
  • Improved revision comparison user interface

Links

  • Order link categories by name, not count, on Add New/Edit Link page

Comments

  • Add additional columns to the Posts Comments view
  • Allow configuration of number of comments to display Recent Comments dashboard module
  • Block comments for future posts and password protected posts (when password not provided)
  • Change to comments UI to show when a comment is replying to another, and link to the parent comment

Plugins

  • Add Details and Install Now action links under each plugin listed in Install Plugins
  • Allow Tab indenting, Shift-Tab (outdenting), and multi-line tabbing, in plugin editor
  • Upgrade plugins in bulk from the Plugins->Installed panel (#11542)
  • When deleting plugins, check for uninstall hooks, and warn of data deletion

Users

  • Allow “No role for this blog” to be chosen in Users->Add New panel

Settings

Multisite

…and that’s just a taste of what the new version has!  now just have to hope that nothing breaks…

Upgrade WordPress plugins in one click

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I have various WordPress sites, I run a few and maintain and admin many others with friends, clients and colleagues alike and once the main bulk of the work is complete I think all the users of WordPress will agree that the single most annoying this is the updating and upgrading of the wordpress plug-ins. The current method requires you to click on each single plug-in and wait for it to upgrade and if you happen to hit it unlucky (like after the WordPress Core has been upgraded) then you might be there for some time and that’s just one site.

I did some searching for a plugin and did see one called One Click Plug-in Updater and decided against it as it required permissions to be changed (my perception was that it would be to difficult for non tekkies to sort out) so I asked around on Twitter and Rob McGuire came back to me and recommend I try that plugin out, so I did.  And it worked a treat!

Grab the One Click Plug-in Updater and try it yourself (hopefully you wont have to mess around with permissions on the server to make it work!).

But wait! Theres more!

This might be surprising to regular users of WordPress as it certinaly surprised me.  Seems it slipped though the cracks at one point in all the new upgrade notes.

Have you noticed that when you upgrade WordPress Core to a new version that there was an option to select all plugins and upgrade them simultaneously but you never knew why that option wasn’t available on the plugins page?  Well check this out.

Glenn Murray from Divine Write saw me asking on twitter about this one click upgrade and he referred my question to Paul Cunningham from Blogging Teacher who suggested I do this.

When you see a plugin or a series of plugins need to be upgraded try this

  • On the left sidebar go to Tools
  • Select Upgrade
  • Select all plugins
  • Click upgrade

Well dont I feel like a right idiot now?  It was there all along and I just never noticed it. Maybe you didnt notice it either but, hey! Now you know. A big thanks to all mentioned who helped me figure this small, but really rather precious nugget out.