Plugin Troubleshooting

Scenario: You’re having trouble with a plugin of mine and you would like me to fix it. Here’s the definitive guide for providing a useful bug report:

Versions

Make sure you’re using the latest stable version of the plugin, installed on the latest stable version of WordPress. If you’re using older versions, you’re on your own.

If you’re using a development version of either of these, please mention which.

JavaScript

If any sort of JavaScript is involved, mention in which browsers you’re seeing the problem.

Also, mention any JavaScript errors that you encountered. If you’re using Firefox or Chrome, just press Ctrl + Shift + J to open the error console. If you’re using Internet Explorer, see this tutorial.

Conflicts with other plugins and themes

To make sure it’s a problem with the plugin itself, deactivate all other plugins and see if the problem persists.

Furthermore, try switching to the bundled theme, currently Twenty Ten.

Handling plugin options effectively

The more popular a plugin is, the more options it seems to have. This goes for themes too. Managing options is apparently brain-dead simple, using add_option() and friends.

However, when you find a plugin specifically wrote for cleaning up the Windows registry WordPress options table, you know it’s not all rainbows and unicorns.

People often complain that their options table is filled with cruft from previously installed plugins. How can this happen? The main reason is that those lazy developers are too distracted to take out the trash when you’re done with their plugins.

Because I’m a plugin developer too, ergo hard-working & focused, I wrote a class to help me with this problem. It’s called scbOptions and it’s a part of my little plugin framework.

It takes care of removing the options automatically when the plugin is uninstalled via the WordPress interface. It also encourages and makes it easier to work with consolidated options.

So that takes care of 2 out of the 10 most common mistakes. Do you have any tips for handling options better? Do share.

Monitor links to your WordPress plugins

A while ago I made a pipe that helped you see what people were saying on the support forums about your plugins. I, for one, am still using it today.

I also like to monitor links to my site. I use both Technorati and Blogsearch for this. But I noticed that some people only link to the page on Extend, rather than the page on this site. Those links never appeared on my radar.

So I made another pipe that, instead of tracking support topics, tracks links to plugin pages on WP Extend.

And here it is: WP Plugins Links

Monitor support topics for your WordPress plugins

If you are a WordPress plugin author and have several plugins hosted on WordPress Extend, read on.

You have probably noticed that on the sidebar of each plugin page there is a list of topics related to that plugin. If you want to monitor these topics, you would normally have to subscribe to a new feed each time you release a new plugin.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a single feed which would contain all topics related to any of your current or future plugins hosted on Extend?

Well, now there is such a feed. It is generated by Yahoo Pipes and all it needs to run is your profile name, which is the last part of this URL:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/profile/yourname

And here it is: WP Plugins Support.

Redesign Music Matters

Ieri am terminat de pus la punct site-ul unor prieteni din nimic.org:

CMS: WordPress

Temă de bază: Sandbox

Paletă de culori: Je ferme les yeux

Custom plugin: Random Media Widgets (afişează în mod aleatoriu câte un video YouTube, respectiv câte un audio Trilulilu, dintre cele existente în articolele postate)

Ce am învăţat

Cum să combin diferite moduri de a obţine colţuri rotunjite.