Now Reading
WordPress Wednesday: Easter Eggs, Editor Extras, WordPress Plugins, and more WordPress 2.1

WordPress Wednesday: Easter Eggs, Editor Extras, WordPress Plugins, and more WordPress 2.1

In general, the WordPress community is settling down after the recent release of , and people are now upgrading with more confidence since most of the glitches are now fairly well known and more easily fixed. There have been an amazing swell in new and updated WordPress Plugins, so check your Plugins to see if they’ve been updated.

The Custom Fields Contest continues, and more video capabilities have been added to WordPress.com, and…well, a lot has been going on, including the discovery of some interesting Easter eggs and great extras in the Rich Text Editor. I’ve also added a new section featuring five WordPress tips and techniques articles a week. Oh, and Matt’s playing with podcasts – watch out.

WordPress News

How To Upgrade WordPress 2.1 Video: OptiNiche has created a WordPress Video Tutorial to help you upgrade from WordPress 2.0.x to 2.1. This 3.2M video will take you step by step through the process for those using and familiar with phpMyAdmin, Windows, FTP, and using a standard version of WordPress (you haven’t made any core programming file modifications).

WordPress 2.1 Performance Report: Weblog Tools Collection reports on the performance of WordPress 2.1 on their server and site. They found that the Average Processor usage for both user and system is less than half that of previous reports. The site uses no WordPress caching outside of built-in WordPress functions against an average of 10,000 pageviews a day.

New Directory for WordPress Users: Powered by WordPress Directory has just opened up showcasing any WordPress blog that wants to register. It can be full versions of WordPress or WordPress.com blogs. For more details, see WordPress Users Unite: Powered By WordPress Directory.

WordPress 2.1 Easter Eggs: Rumors are true. There are some Easter Eggs in the latest version of WordPress. Check out WordPress 2.1 Hidden Editor Buttons from Solo Technology for the details.

How Pages Changed in WordPress 2.1: Long time WordPress Support Forum moderator and guru of WordPress, Moshu, has written “How Pages are different in WP 2.1”, a must read for WordPress Plugin authors and WordPress Theme developers and designers.

WordPress Rich Text Editor Keyboard Shortcuts: TSL Designs offers WordPress Editor Shortcuts, a list of the keyboard shortcuts you can use when writing and editing a post in WordPress or WordPress.com using the Rich Text Editor.

WordPress Rich Text Editor Has More Features: Codeispoetry offered some great tips for users working with the WordPress Rich Text Editor. In WordPress 2.1, press ALT+V (IE) or ALT+SHIFT+V (Firefox) to toggle the Advanced Toolbar on the Rich Text Editor and get some extra features like formating with headings and paragraphs, paste as plain text, paste from Microsoft Word, and other useful options.

WordPress Custom Fields Contest Continues: Aaron Brazell is sponsoring a “WP Custom Fields Contest” for full version WordPress users. It is designed to showcase what is possible using the Custom Fields feature. Hurry up. The time limit for the contest is running out!

Install WordPress for Free: There is a free service supported by many WordPress support volunteers offering their time and talent to install WordPress for you at no charge. It’s called Installing WordPress for Free (aka install4free WordPress). The free service is limited to personal blogs only, not professional or commercial blogs. Their purpose statement is that this “was started with the principle that the installation of WordPress should not be a hurdle to a person wanting to use the software.” If you are fearful of installing WordPress, check them out.

Auto Update WordPress News: Not for the weak hearted and designed for those who want to “live on the edge” of WordPress development, Aaron Brazell offers his script for Auto WordPress Upgrade that will check the WordPress development trunk and sends a detailed email regarding the upgrade. This helps to keep track of changes from revision to revision and offers a handy reference for roll backs. If you need to know now about what is going on with WordPress development, this might be the tool for you.

PHP 5.2 Upgrades and WordPress: A lot of people using Dreamhost and other hosting services ran into some unusual errors this past week. They upgraded PHP and it seems that PHP 5.2 is lacking some backwards compatibility. Neville Hobson, Matt Mullenweg, and others have shared information on this. According to Dreamhost, any version of WordPress under version 2.1 will have problems after they fix the upgrade to PHP 5.2 and they offer some tips on what to do.

WordPress.com News

WordPress.com W logoVodpod Widget Now on WordPress.com blogs: WordPress.com blogs can now use the Vodpod Widget for video sharing your Vodpod videos.

New WordPress.com Upgrade Page: bloggers have a new Upgrades panel in the WordPress Administration Panels. They’ve cleaned up the “credits” information and process. It also shows you that it will cost you a nickle (USD $0.05) a day to increase your storage space to 1 gig, giving you a better perspective on what some of the Upgrades to your free WordPress.com blog cost.

WordPress Buttons: Want to show off how much you love blogging with WordPress or WordPress.com? WordPress offers a variety of WordPress Buttons for you to post on your WordPress blogs.

Most Popular on WordPress.com: Want to know what’s most popular and getting the most attention on WordPress.com? Check out WordPress.com Blogs of the Day Top Blogs and WordPress.com Top Posts lists to keep up with what everyone else is reading. The list changes constantly as blogs go up and down in popularity. You can also filter the list by language, looking for the top blogs and posts in any of 79 different languages. Wow!

WordPress Plugins and Themes News

Help Wanted for the WordPress Theme Viewer: The WordPress Theme Viewer is the official site for WordPress Themes and it needs your help. They are looking for volunteers to help handle the dramatic increase in Theme uploads and updates due to the recent WordPress 2.1 release and increasing WordPress popularity. If you can help, let them know.

Unhappy with the WordPress 2.1 Feed? Many were upset with the truncating of WordPress feeds on posts using the MORE (continue reading) option. ReviewSaurus offered some tips on how to fix the problem with the Cavemonkey50.com Full-feed WordPress Plugin, and added a great use of the Related Entries Plugin with a hack to allow related post lists to be visible in your WordPress feeds, exposing more of your blog content.

Put Digg in Your WordPress Blog: Joe Levi offers “How to Implement DIGG’s new Smart Button in WordPress”, tips for getting the new javascript for displaying the “Digg This” and Digg counts in your WordPress blog posts.

Month of WordPress Plugins: I’m continuing my month long series on WordPress Plugins and have added a guide on How to Install, Configure, and Use WordPress Plugins for those who are new to WordPress Plugins, or just can’t figure out how to stick that code thingy into a WordPress Theme. Step-by-step instructions take you through the process, along with some troubleshooting tips. If you are looking for WordPress Plugins, see Where to Find WordPress Plugins.

Add Your Netflix Queue to WordPress: Brodrigu offers “How to Add Your Netflix Queue to WordPress”, taking advantage of the Magpie RSS Parser that comes in the latest version of WordPress. This technique can be used to incorporate feeds from other sites onto your WordPress blog. There is also a Netflix WordPress Plugin and Netflix Widget to make the process even easier.

Future Of WordPress Themes: Keep Them Flexible: The YWWONG Flexible WordPress Theme is an example of the growing trend in WordPress Theme designs to incorporate a flexible, or easily customizable, WordPress Theme. From the Administration Panels, the user is given options to use a left or right sidebar or both, changing the header image and/or background image, changing background images in the different sidebars as well as the footer, and even changing the overall color schemes from blue to red or autumn to spring colors. Whatever the Theme designer wants to offer. Other popular and highly customizable WordPress Themes are Plaintxtblog and Sandbox, which revolutionized CSS Theme design in WordPress.com blogs. I’ll be writing more about these customizable WordPress Themes soon.

See Also
Apple Silicon Processor

Looking for WordPress Widgets? WordPress Widgets are the next generation of WordPress Plugins, offering easy installation of a variety of sidebar accessories to your WordPress blog. Check out WordPress Widgets for a wide variety of Widgets.

General WordPress Community News

Akismet for Zend Framework: The Zend Framework Module for will be included in the next ZF release.

Weekly WordPress Wish List from Weblog Tools Collection: Weblog Tools Collecton has long helped promote WordPress news, tips, Plugins and Themes, and now Mark is starting a Weekly WP Wish List. If you have searched the WordPress.com Forums, , , WordPress Theme Viewer, and the web for a WordPress Theme or Plugin to meet your needs and have come up blank, you can use the Weblog Tools Collection Contact Form to ask to be included in the weekly “WordPress wish list”. Readers are requested to recommend solutions. Who knows, the solution might meet your own needs.

Akismet for Habari: Chris J. Davis has released an Akismet for Habari plugin for those using Habari blog software.

New bbPress Release: The popular forum software, bbPress, is out with a new release called bbPress 0.8 “Desmond”. New features include forum deletion, multibyte tags, custom locations for Themes, Plugins, and configuration files, multiple Theme support, better timezone management, stronger language support especially for RTF languages, better support for search queries, and a lot more. WordPress blogs using older versions of bbPress should consider upgrading.

WordPress in a Race With Digg? Paul Kedrosky reports that Alexa shows WordPress passing Digg for popularity and traffic. Go WordPress! ;-)

Alex King on WordPress Development: BloggerTalks has an interview with noted WordPress guru and developer, Alex King. It’s a great inside look at his perspective on WordPress, WordPress Themes, WordPress Plugins, and the future of WordPress and blogging.

Matt Mullenweg on the Loose with Podcasts: Someone needs to take away Matt Mullenweg’s new toy. The head honcho of WordPress has been experimenting with podcasting on his blog and while he’s improving, the first few experiments were audibly painful. I’m sure he’ll come up with an easier and better way to podcast, but do we have to suffer along with his learning curve. :D

WordPress Techniques and Tips

Know of a great WordPress tips and techniques article? Let me know and it may end up on our weekly list.

More WordPress News

For more news on WordPress, see:


Each Wednesday on will be WordPress Wednesday where I will be featuring the news around the WordPress Community. Put it on your calendar!Lorelle VanFossen blogs about blogging and WordPress on .

View Comments (6)
Scroll To Top