Clearskys.net Blog

Congratulations to Mark Hughes

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Mark is the lucky person who picked the correct sector in our Hoard Hunter competition.

As Mark is based in the UK we have chosen to send him a (RED) 2Gb iPod shuffle as this has the added benefit of supporting the (RED) charity.

Hopefully we will be running a few more competitions in the very near future. If you would like to run your own competition then please get in touch and we would be glad to help out.

Note: When I say “picked the correct sector”, I actually mean that the sector he selected was picked at random, after the competition ended, as being the winning sector.

Not cut out for Property management

I’ve spent the past eight days single handedly looking after a friends property management business whilst he and his wife were away, and I can honestly say, hand on heart, I don’t know how anyone does it. I’m at breaking point already!!!

So, let’s use this post to start a wish list. What functionality do you absolutely need in StayPress to make your life easier? What functionality would be nice and what would be a dream come true.

I’ve already made a few notes myself inbetween screaming and hair-pulling bouts and will be getting these altogether in the development roadmap, so now’s your chance to get something I haven’t considered in there as well…

StayPress gets a facelift

Just to prove that work is continuing on the StayPress system, I thought that I would point all you watchers out there over to the new look StayPress site. I hope you like the look and direction I am taking, if not then I’m sure you will let me know in the comments below.

StayPress now also has it’s own blog (new theme coming soon) to keep you up to date with on-going developments. We will soon be looking for beta testers, to have a play with the online version of the system to help us sort out the UI and spot any bugs, before an initial code release. So if you haven’t already subscribed to the StayPress blog now is the time to do so.

Marking a post as an event - a clarification

So far I’ve not had many error or bug reports for the Vent system, hopefully that is because it is simple to use rather than people just giving up and uninstalling it. A few questions have come up, however so I thought I would take five minutes to clarify one or two things.

Can a post be both a post and an event?

Once a post is identified as an event it is taken out of the normal blog hierarchy as
it’s status is changed from “post” to “event” and thus isn’t picked up by the
standard WordPress Loop query that is used to populate the blog. So a post can not be
an Event AND a Post at the same time.

Do I need to enter an end date?

You don’t need to enter an end date for the system to work. It is only “really”
required if you want to ensure that the generated hCalendar microformats are correct
for people who are going to export the event to a calendar application. An event
without an end date will still export but will default (depending on the calendar
application) to a 30 minute event.

Why does the system default to being disabled after I’ve activated it?

The Vent system starts in a disabled state for two reasons. Firstly, when it is first activated it doesn’t know what criteria you want to use to identify an event. If it was enabled from the start then it would mark ALL future posts as events from that point onwards.

Secondly, the Vent plugin is designed to also run in WordPress MU as well as the standard WordPress. In WordPress MU ALL plugins are activated by default. So if a user doesn’t want to use the Vent system they can disable it from within the settings page (WordPress MU users don’t have access to the plugins page).

Only when in an enabled state does the Vent system “Hook” into WordPress and start checking posts. So a disabled Vent system should have little to no processing overhead on a blog (or multiple blogs in WordPress MU’s case).

Vent - version 0.5

Wow, that was a rapid rise through version numbers…

I’ve just made Vent version 0.5 available. It fixes a few niggles that made it past me late last night (and earlier today) but is a stable release now.

You can see the current version running on this blog (until WordCamp UK is over anyway), with the Next Event post at the top of the page and the Upcomming Events widget over on the right hand side. To view all of the events running this month you can use this URL : http://blog.clearskys.net/events/thismonth/

If you want to view the hCalendar microformats embedded within the page,I can recommend the Operator Firefox plugin, available from http://www.kaply.com/weblog/operator

The Operator plugin detects any embedded microformats and allows you to add or export them to a calendar application (such as Google or Yahoo).

The Installation instructions and download link for Vent can be found here.

Vent - version 0.1 released

Update: Now I have more time, I’ll add a few more detail to this post.

Vent is a plugin that allows you to use the scheduled posts functionality within WordPress to add and list events on your blog. It identifies a post as an event using a user-defined criteria so that the standard Scheduled posts functionality will still operate as before.

The plugin works with standard WordPress and can also be installed within WordPress MU for activation across all hosted blogs.

More details and installation, setup instructions can be found on the following page:

http://blog.clearskys.net/plugins/vent-events-system/

Download

Click below to download the latest version of this plugin.

Old Post is below

This is just a short note as I have to shoot out of the door in about 5 minutes.

I have just made available version 0.1 of the Vent system which is my entry into the Weblogtoolscollection.com competition.

More details and a download link can be found here.

Let me know what you think.

Hoard Hunter - the plugin

The main plugin (version 0.5) for the Hoard Hunter game is now available for download from the link below.

This initial version requires that payments received via PayPal are approved manually. There will be an update very soon with a more integrated PayPal option. If you would like to be notified of new releases of the game plugin and / or would like installation and running support then please consider making a charitable donation using the Donate button below. Donors will be invited to the private Hoard Hunter group where support, ideas, update notifications and links to development versions of the system will be posted.

More »

Hoard Hunter theme is now available

The Hoard Hunter Oxford map game theme is now available for download from the link below. Whilst this is a WordPress theme, it is not designed (nor will it function) as a standard blog. It has been developed solely for use with the Hoard Hunter game.

I am still undecided about the best way to release the plugin part of the game system. The plugin (and theme) were developed in order to raise money for charity so I may request that people who download the plugin either only use the plugin for fund raising or make a charitable donation. The way to do this, however, escapes me at the moment. I would rather not make payment a pre-requisite for getting the code.

Either way, the plugin will be made available tomorrow afternoon.

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Quick Hoard Hunter update

Firstly thank you again for all your patience. I am still without a telephone line and internet access so updates to software and blog posts will have to remain patchy for the time being.

I have now packaged up the Hoard Hunter plugin and theme ready for downloading and will aim to get them available on the site tomorrow afternoon. There is currently a small bug in the PayPal integration class, so purchased sectors have to be manually approved, but hopefully I will have it tracked down before the release (if not then the first release will have it disabled).

Once again, if you want to try out the front end of the system then head on over to HoardHunter.com and purchase a sector. It is only $5, supports charity and helps me debug the code. On top of that you could win an 2Gb iPod shuffle for your efforts.

Vent - adding events to your WordPress blog - teaser

I’ve now done some initial work on the plugin that I will be entering into Weblog Tools collection plugin competition this year, so I thought I would take the opportunity to post some details here.

Vent is a plugin that allows you to use the Scheduled post functionality of WordPress to add and manage future events.

Details of the next scheduled event can be displayed at the top of your blog page, as well as in a sidebar widget.

All future events can be viewed on an Event listing page, and on a “Upcoming events” sidebar widget.

You also have the option of converting past events back to standard blog posts so that they remain in the blog hierarchy.

You can specify the criteria you use to identify an event in the options panel. This means that you can still use your scheduled posts functionality for it’s intended purpose.

I’ll post more information as the development continues. I am also thinking of a possible fit into the StayPress family so StayPress will handle venues and bookings and now possibly events as well.