Today, I released the first public version of the Co-Authors Plus plug-in for WordPress, which allows multiple authors to be added to Posts and Pages. The plug-in is an extension of the Co-Authors plug-in created by Weston Ruter.
The plug-in is a result of a this conversation, namely how to deal with users as your userbase grows, a genuine problem facing newspapers, magazines, and community sites using WordPress, and a problem I’ve been toying with for a while now while working on website for The Boar.
Currently, WordPress allows only a single author per Post/Page. Weston’s plugin fixed that problem. However, the other design problem it failed to overcome was the usage of drop-downs to assign users to Posts/Pages. Once you scale up to 10+ users, this starts to become unmanageable (and when you start pushing 100+ it really becomes a problem).¬† Granted, the typical blog would not deal with this problem. Granted, the design is only a problem when you dealing with a large number of users, and therefore not something the average blog would worry about.
So, what’s the main difference between Co-Authors and Co-Authors Plus?
The most notable difference is the replacement of the standard WordPress authors drop-downs with search-as-you-type/auto-suggest/whatever-you-call-them input boxes. As a result, major bits of the JavaScript code was changed to be more jQuery-friendly. Eventually, I hope to include the ability to add new Users from within the Edit Post/Page screen, to fix another piece of broken workflow, and possibly Gravatar support.
Find it here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/co-authors-plus/
This article was originally written in August 2008 as a submission for the Digital Design Research Project, with the hopes of exploring the various technologies in use by the magazine industry and what movements the trends were indicating. Note, as this was written in 2008, some of the points mentioned are either outdated or no longer valid.
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My independent digital design project (DAC 400) completed as part of my Digital Arts Communication specialization explored the push by magazines into the online and technology spaces. The goal of the project was to explore viable technologies to use as a platform for developing an online presence for The Boar, an arts and literary magazine produced by and for the students in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Waterloo. I explored the traditional online website format but looked further by designing a prototype of an up-and-coming Flash-based technology known as the “digital edition.” This “new technology” is being adopted industry-wide like wildfire (see Issuu, Scribd, Zinio, etc.). It takes a traditional PDF and converts it into an interactive magazine-like object on a webpage that can be used and manipulated much like a physical magazine. My prototype (although not entirely functional) took a step further and explored the possibilities of creating greater ties between a magazine’s website and their digital edition via a synchronization of comments, bookmarking, and other social networking type tools.
As supplementary materials, I have attached 3 documents that I completed as part of my project:
- Technology Research: exploration of various technologies in use by the magazine industry and what movements the trends were indicating.
- Strategy, Scope & Structure: Documentation outlining requirements for the online presence and drill down into specifics, as well as a high-level architectural diagram.
- Final Analysis: Analysis of the end result of my project, including rationale for technical and design choices as well as possible enhancements for the future.
Also included is a somewhat-working version of the digital edition prototype.
The website in its current state, which has deviated slightly from the original design, can be found here: http://theboar.ca
Holy Smart Playlists, Batman!
One of the greatest things about iTunes is the Smart Playlists feature. One of the worst things about iTunes is figuring out how to do things.
One thing I always had difficulty with was figuring out how to create Smart Playlists for the music on my iPod. Sure, I could create Smart Playlists and sync them directly with my iPod, but sometimes that ends up throwing in music I don’t want. And when you’re dealing with limited storage capacity, you have to be ruthless about what gets on your iPod.
So, I looked everywhere, but didn’t really have much luck (not even through Apple’s Support site). After many hours of fussing, I finally hit jackpot and figured out how. Detailed instructions after the jump.
Note: for this trick to work, you need your iPod set up for automatic sync to a playlist.
I proudly support moustaches (and fighting prostate cancer)!
The final result of the group project for class, DAC 300 (Special Topics in Digital Design: User Interfaces). We created a Volunteer Handbook for CanTeach International, a Waterloo-based organization that sends volunteers to Central America to assist Teachers in schools.
The aim of the project was to design, prototype and test an electronic handbook to be used by volunteers new to the CanTeach program. The expectation was for volunteers to use the handbook throughout all phases of their journey (before, during, and after) as a learning and information gathering tool. The handbook was also to act as an electronic scrapbook of sorts, with tools for volunteers to capture their experiences in text.
The final prototype is below along with various supplementary materials related to the project.
CanTeach Volunteer Handbook (~3MB file; requires TK3 Reader)
Note: Since the prototype requires TK3Reader to be installed, I have included sample screenshots of the eBook as well.
Tools used: TK3 Author, Adobe Photoshop
Supplementary Materials:
Architecture diagrams
Initial Draft
Final Architecture
Strategy and Scope Document: http://www.scribd.com/full/3088149?access_key=key-2exzroa8srabm4b2nl5d
Presentation: http://www.scribd.com/full/3088089?access_key=key-1ibct2pwtngup105sysb
KiwiShake was a prototype Facebook application. The idea was to provide users with the ability to create eCards that could be customized with photos, videos, etc. It’s not even close to completion and it pretty terrible overall, but there’s a lot of potential.
I programmed the interface of the application, which involved lots of JavaScript and some AJAX work.
See a somewhat functioning prototype here: http://digitalize.ca/media/kiwi/kiwi.html
Tools used: JavaScript, Aptana IDE, YouTube API, various JavaScript libraries
The above was the final design created by me for the project that I worked on during my first work term. The objective was to create effective resource materials for new faculty at the University of Waterloo. After multiple informational and design interviews with various new faculty members, the result of the project was a personalized stationary pad (design seen above), coupled with an online resource guide.
Tools used: Adobe Photoshop
For full (readable) versions of these and more, please visit: http://www.scribd.com/groups/view/803-my-layout-designs
Tools used: Adobe InDesign
Tools used: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign
