kdmurray.blog

The crossroads of life and tech

Tag Archives: Wordpress Plugins

Ultimate Google Analytics Plugin for WordPress

I’ve always been a bit of a stats monkey when it comes to… well pretty much everything.  I like to know how many there are, how long it takes, how much it costs.  I want the numbers.  But more than that, I want accurate numbers and often times in the past trying to get accurate numbers for website traffic has been a real challenge.  Google Analytics does a great job of  tracking every hit to my blog, but unfortunately it tracks mine too.  This conundrum led me to the Ultimate Google Analytics Plugin.

This plugin does a great number of things and has an options screen as long as my arm.  Aside from having the ability to ignore administrators, it also has the ability to add in tracking to all of your outgoing links and downloads.

If you use WordPress and you use Google Analytics you need this plugin.

Random Image Selector 1.2.0 Released

I’ve just put the finishing touches on the latest version of the Random Image Plugin that I originally released in the summer.  This plugin will allow you to produce an <IMG> tag containing a randomly selected image from a folder of your choice on any wordpress page (or post if you allow php).

The two biggest features in this version are:

  1. Automatic discovery of your WordPress Folder:  One of the biggest barriers to entry for the non-technical folks who tried to use this plugin was a lack of knowledge (or access) for finding the physical path to the WordPress installation.   The plugin will now automatically detect and use this path. CAVEAT: If you currently point your plugin at a folder which is outside of your wordpress installation, you will need to move that folder to use the v1.2.0+ versions of the plugin.
  2. Scaling/Sizing of the Displayed Images: One of the most requested features from the first iteration of the plugin was the ability to resize or scale images to fit in a particular location.  With older versions, if you wanted all the images to display at the same size or proportions then you needed to resize them all prior to uploading.  Well this is no more!  Now you can upload tons of randomly-sized images and the plugin will take care of the dirty work (including the calculation of just how much to scale-to-fit.  :)

I’d like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has downloaded the plugin, and particularly those who have taken the extra time to send me feedback.  As of this release the plugin has been downloaded over 2,400 times which far exceeds anything I thought I would accomplish.

So give this plugin a shot, and let me know if it works out for you!

Random Image Plugin — 1000 Downloads!

Exactly 2 months ago, I released my Random Image Selector plugin for wordpress.  Every now and again I take a look and see how many people are downloading the random image plugin.

On average, in the exactly 2 months since it’s release about 15 people are downloading the plugin.  And on September 22nd, it hit the 1000 download mark!

Thank you to all who have provided feedback on the plugin, and suggestions for the next version.  I am working on it now and expect to have something released by mid-October once all the WordPress 2.3 testing is completed.

Thanks again, and happy downloading!

WordPress Plugin: Admin Links Widget

I’ve just launched the first version of a new WordPress widget, the Admin Links Widget.

This very simple widget does as the name suggests. It provides links to administrative functions from the sidebar of your WordPress installation. The catch is, only administrators will be able to see the links so the general public won’t have their view cluttered up with links they can’t use.

Give it a try!

  1. Download the Plugin
  2. Unzip into your WordPress plugins folder
  3. Activate the plugin
  4. Add the widget to your site!

If you have any suggestions or feedback, please feel free to post below.

WordPress Plugin: Random Image Selector

UPDATE: December 9, 2007: The Random Image Plugin has been updated! Please see the new post for updates on features, or to comment.

 

 

Have you ever wanted to display a random image from a folder on your site? Maybe for a background or banner for your blog? Now there’s a quick and easy way to do it: the Random Image Selector plugin for wordpress!

The initial release, version 1.0.2 is available from the WordPress.org plugins site. The download location is http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/random-image-selector/

The premise of the plugin is quite simple, create a folder on your website where you want to store your randomly selected files. The plugin will select from all the files in that folder, and choose one at random to display. This is a great way to create a random, rotating header for your blog, or even GASP a primitive ad-rotator.

  1. Extract randomImage.php into your wp-content/plugins folder (or a subfolder)
  2. Activate the plugin in WordPress
  3. On the options screen, select the “Random Image” menu
  4. Fill in the values for your physical and http paths
  5. Add some code to whatever page you want to display the image. This is a great way to customize the header image for your wordpress installation. The plugin will look in the folder and randomly select a header image to display.

Sample Code: <?php if (function_exists('generateRandomImgTag')) { generateRandomImgTag(); } ?>

I welcome any comments, feedback or suggestions for future iterations. I’ve got a few ideas myself. I would like to thank Stefan, one of the early adopters, for his feedback and corrections for the documentation. For another look at the plugin in action visit his site stefanmedia.