Plugins – JJJ's Blog

Heidenberg

Today I released (on GitHub) a simple version of a simple WordPress plugin to cryptographically sign your posts.

It works by splitting your post content up into words and stenographically inserting zero-width characters between them. Together, those characters combine into a hidden pattern that is unique to your website and that post.

If someone copies your post content, they’ll also unknowingly copy the hidden characters along with it.

A second version of this plugin could include a UI to compare someone else’s content and verify whether or not it was plagiarized from yours.

It’s also likely I will need to tweak the algorithm over time, as flaws with this first-pass approach will probably come up.

This plugin is non-destructive, so you can safely use it without worrying about your data. The worst thing that could happen is that this plugin just does nothing. 😁

JJJ

June 25, 2019

WordPress

Plugins
An update to WP User Avatars

The latest version of my WP User Avatars plugin saw an update this morning.

If you need avatars for your registered users, please check it out and let me know what you think!

JJJ

November 18, 2016

Jobs

Plugins
Chosen & Pretty Filters
In the past month I’ve released two WordPress plugins that I think ended up complementing each other rather nicely:
- WP Chosen
- WP Pretty Filters
Together they make filtering posts in WordPress a much nicer experience:

If you’re a plugin author that’s bundling the Chosen library or doing something interesting with post filters, I hope you’ll consider referring your users to install these instead.

Good plugins are small, purposeful, and they naturally blend into WordPress like bananas in a smoothie, but when you bundle libraries inside your large plugin, you will collide with other plugins that use that same library, and WordPress just isn’t designed to handle this very well quite yet.

Chances are, your plugin works great without Chosen. Users can still drop down a select box and type in it to find what they’re looking for, it’s just not a fancy experience. If you think your users would enjoy a fancy experience, maybe consider pointing them to WP Chosen instead, and update your plugin to support it and avoid the additional support burden while you’re at it.

P.S. All sites on Flox.io now have both of these active by default. <3
JJJ

November 6, 2015

WordPress

Plugins, Chosen, Pretty Filters
Custom Plugin Header Image Label
Back in December of 2011, Matt and friends added the ability for WordPress plugins to have really pretty header images. For BuddyPress, I went through a few design iterations before settling on the header image pictured at the bottom of this post. I wanted it to be minimalistic and unique, so I took an hour to extend the label area with the buddies at the end. Below is the basic approach to make that happen:
- Take a screen shot of the header image without the extended icon area.
- Open that screen shot in Photoshop or your favorite image editor.
- Make a new layer.
- Fill the new layer with a black close to whatever the primary color of the label is. (#181818)
- Hide that layer, select the background layer.
- Magic wand the label.
- Extend the selection to the size you want it to be (Usually 50px or so.)
- Switch to your all black layer.
- Right click; Select inverse; Delete.
- Tweak the opacity of your black layer to match as closely as possible. Take your time with this; even if it’s the slightest bit off, it’s pretty noticeable.
JJJ

August 5, 2012

BuddyPress, Software, WordPress

Plugins, assets

Heidenberg

An update to WP User Avatars

Chosen & Pretty Filters

Custom Plugin Header Image Label