Little secrets of better WordPress development

With WordPress conditional statements your blog will stand out against thousands of others
Conditional statements can transform themes in something unrecognizable. Be sure, your readers will be amazed by such features in Wordpress blog design. There is nothing difficult in directory conditioned elements, they based on PHP code. So with the help of php programmers you will be able to realize your ideas. For instance, welcome block at the home page can be done with the following code:
if (is_home()) {
echo ‘YOUR WELCOME BOX CODES HERE’;
} else { }

Theme framework is a timesaver for WordPress template customization
There are a lot of theme frameworks (Guerrilla Theme, Thesis, Thematic, WP Framework, etc.) that will help you to build custom templates in the shortest possible time. Use them with no hesitation!

WordPress widgets for better usability
With widgets you can easily customize the look of your theme, rearrange different blog areas (ad blocks, posts, headers, footers, etc.).

Say “no” to plugins and “yes” to PHP code
Using WordPress plugins you force end-users of your blog to download and install additional software. It’s not a good idea for quick and easy accesses to blog features and published information. PHP solves this problem and it also gives more know-hows for WordPress developers.
Continuous learning is an indispensable condition of qualitative WordPress development

WordPress has a great blogging community, it’s even more then web community. So WordPress-as-a-CMS development can be just fun and easy work with some simple plugins, php code and official teaching material from tutorial sites. You can try a simple hack code that helps to reduce spam. It blocks all comments on your blog written by users who have come with “No referrer” result (for example, spam bots).

function check_referrer() {
if (!isset($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']) || $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] == “”) {
wp_die( __(’Please enable referrers in your browser, or, if you\’re a spammer, bugger off!’) );
}}
add_action(’check_comment_flood’, ‘check_referrer’);add_action ( ‘check_comment_flood’, ‘check_referrer’);

Microsoft adds new features in Eclipse for PHP and Java developers

Eclipse Summit that was organized in Germany brought fresh news: Microsoft together with its partners Tasktop and Soyatec are going to release a range of tools and updates for Eclipse.

• Eclipse will support Windows 7 and all its new interface functions;
• Eclipse Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) will be expanded to work with new features in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2;
• The open source tools Windows Azure Tools for Eclipse will be available for PHP developers;
• The open source Windows Azure Software Developer Kit (SDK) will be available for Java developers;
• The Eclipse Tools plug-in will be available for Silverlight.

So, Windows Azure SDK for Java allows leveraging Azure storage service while developing Java applications. Its logical architecture is quite simple:
It is reported that according to the voting (see The Open Source Developer Report 2009 based on Eclipse Community Survey), conducted among Eclipse users, more than 64% are using it in Windows OS. It’s obvious that PHP and Java programmers will appreciate this significant commitment from Microsoft.

14 technologies that won’t become obsolete before 2014: foundations of software development

The impact of recent changes in the world economy changed the situation in world of software. Now the majority of developers are focused on short-term work. But it doesn’t mean that they are careless about their prospects. Self-education and experience are still the only way to success. That is why it’s so important to be constantly analyzing existing technologies and methodologies trying to keep step with changeable IT- world, not wasting valuable time for unnecessary knowledge and superseded information.

So we will try to forecast the most essential skills for developers that won’t become obsolete in the next five-six years. In this and the next posts we will list 14 the most relevant technologies for software developers.

#1-3: Java, PHP, .NET

It’s highly unlikely that three foundations of software development, Java, PHP, .NET, will be in less demand in the near future. Developers need to know at least one of these programming languages and development platforms: Java, .NET (VB.NET or C #), or PHP. Nevertheless only one programming language syntax is not enough. Usually projects cover a wide range of different functions, so developers need to know the frameworks and libraries associated with the necessary functionality in more details.

to be continued…

DOLPHIN SMART COMMUNITY BUILDER

A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network software services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.

YouTube, MySpace, Odeo, Flickr, Match and Facebook - all in one solution named ‘Dolphin smart community builder’. Developed for creating dating sites, social networks, content sharing portals.
Dolphin is absolutely free.

Dolphin is based on: PHP, MySQL, Ajax, JavaScript, Flash, Java.
Official site: http://www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/. Demo site: http://www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/doldemo/
Dolphin software contains most popular features peculiar to a common social network. Among them:

• Blog
• User profile
• Forum
• Audio/Video sharing
• Friends invitation
• Private messaging
• User groups
• Voting
• And much more

This solution is optimal for rapid start of your own social network (of course, if your goal is to get free solution).
There are many analogous solutions:

• Pligg
• PHPIzabi
• Elgg
• PHPFox
• Other

Also there are services for creating social networks.
Among them:

• Ning
• Kickapps

This software does not provide the source code (are not open source), they provide API. All interaction is held using XML and JSON. Solutions are not free.

Lightbox customization (PHP programming tips)

Current version of Lightbox (widely used in web development) has an intricate navigation in the image gallery. At first a user trys to guess where to show “previous” or “next” buttons. This navigation isn’t user friendly. Here are some small modifications for creating a simple navigation:

The best way for creating it in your image gallery is overriding the code without direct changes in the lightbox source code. It’s profitable when it is necessary to update the source code.

Doctrine in a PHP programming

Home page: www.doctrine-project.org. Current version: 1.0.2

Doctrine requires PHP 5.2.3+. It doesn’t require any external libraries. For the database function call abstraction Doctrine uses PDO which comes bundled with the PHP official release that you get from www.php.net.