Wavr Plugin for WordPress

So boys and girls of waveland ( if you are not a member of Google Waveland yet,  come on in ! ), here is another Wave plugin for WordPress. It does something basic as of now, like most of the other plugins for Google Wave. But I see some serious work going on with this sourceforge.net hosted project.

Use this plugin to embed Google Wave inside a wordpress post, as easy as [wave id="wave-id"].This plugin implements the full wave embed api. Will include widgets for the sidebar in the near future. Features a TinyMCE button for embedding the wave.

You can download the plugin from here Official WordPress.org Page here

That’s the short description about the project. These guys are trying to create a community around this wordpress plugin, which is a good sign, and has an idea about what to do with this plugin in future releases. They are promising a sidebar widget in the next version.

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Is the current wordpress dashboard design perfect ? Except the widget management page, it’s awesome, that’s what I think …do you agree with me ?

The problem with the current widget management page is this : Suppose your theme has two sidebars/widget areas, and you want to move your text widget from first to the second sidebar. You will remove it from the first sidebar, save changes, select second sidebar from the drop down menu, click “show”, then add the widget to the second sidebar … but wait, already spent a lot of time “clicking” and now, do you have the content of the text widget ? NO !! You should copy the content somewhere before you remove it from the first sidebar ….. you are lost ..

…. Not any more .. here is the new widgets panel, that’s going to be ready with WordPress 2.8, the next release. Have a look, and you will understand how it solves all these issues. For those who are curious if wordpress.com users will get this feature, the answer is a BIG YES ! You may get this even before self hosted wordpress blog users, just wait n watch!! ( Click on the image to enlarge. )

Wordpress 2.8 new widgets panel

PS: Please note that this version of wordpress, 2.8 that is, under development, and there may be changes to this feature when it’s released.

Simple question, you may say. What should be the first widget on your sidebar ?. If you  spend lot of time on keeping sidebar active, and well designed, this question is very important for you.

The general trend

Usually, people keep any of the following as their first widget : ads, a welcome message, about me text, categories, rss feed link, .. ( sorry, that is a never ending list.)  People who do personal blogging, usually put an gif or jpeg with welcome message, and sometimes they list the books they are reading, or movies they watch. People who wants money from blogging try to put ads as their first widget.

But, which one should I put first ?

Okay, answering that question is not easy, since your blog is different from everyone else’ and so is your needs. So, you should find out which widget is the most important one.  I will help you to find the right one.

When you visit a new blog, or a particular blog post, what is the first thing you do after reading  it ? we take a look at the sidebar, right ? ( yes, obviously… and that is why the first widget so important ) … so think like this … what do you want the user to do after they read your first post ( or their first post on your blog, if they reached through google or a link ) …  your first widget should be an answer to this question.

Do you want them to read more of your blog posts ? list all the topics you cover on your blog ( categories widget ). Do you want them to click on ads  ? Do you want them to subscribe to your feed ? put an RSS subscription link …  and so on …   Isn’t that easy  ?

Links From Friends :

Kristarella redesigned her blog.
Binny’s eyes corrected themselves after 14 years !!

My Widgets are broken, with a theme upgrade … trying to bring them back …

If you are wondering why “wordpress 2.7″, yes, it’s time for another wordpress upgrade. WordPress 2.7 is on its way with loads of features including automatic upgrade, sticky posts ( which wordpress.com users already have ) etc ….

With this update, wordpress will boost the use of “child themes” in wordpress design and development. With more power added to the child themes feature, you will see more child themes coming out in near future.  So, what is a child theme in wordpress, is copyblogger theme using it already ?

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A few updates on what’s happening around. First of all, I’ve bought a bike. Its a news indeed right ?. Funny part is, I am learning driving on it and I will try for my driving license after that. So, please welcome my new bike

New design for the blog, this design brought the sidebar widgets back, something which I was trying to do for a long time. Background image change can happen sometime later. Tried a manual installation of wordpress 2.2. Well it worked after a long try.

Ann celebrated her birthday. Happy B’day Ann. !! There is another B’day on the way. Not mine, if you guessed so sorry. Will tell you all later.

I was going through wordpress.com home page for new blog posts… featured blogs…same time thinking what to write about.. oh yea.. what to blog about right ? .. then I thought I am gong through something I can blog about ? ….

Yes ..I think I should write something about wordpress….

 I started blogging during my Poornam days… and it was nice time always with all our blogger friends of Poornam.. Arun, Nasra, Sojish, Chakky……. Even our Director Amarjyoti was a blogger…. most of them had their own websites… and knew coding very well… working on websites and webservers all the time they were really good at it…and always helped me and Arun.. who were Arts graduate bloggers … ( yea !! others B.Tech Bloggers )

I tried a lot of free websites…. blogging sites.. and finally reached wordpress.com.. and I never thought about moving to another blogging platform… Yes.. this is the right place for bloggers… lot of features.. widgets coming in daily.. easy to use.. new themes coming in …. wordpress.com seems to be the most happening place these days..

I miss my blogging community of Poornam though… still. yes.. wordpress is again the place where  we keep in touch with .. I can take the credit of brining Arun to wordpress.com… and Nasra also used wordpress software in her own website… two of them worked together to create a blog about the table tennis tournament of Poornam …Â

WordPress.com… Thanks a lot … for giving me the best blogging experience..