What: WordPress in Depth
When: February, 17 2010 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: Greensboro Public Library Downtown (take a right as soon as you walk in and head to the end of the hall)
RSVP & Details: Triad Web Meetup

These events are always free and everyone is welcome so please spread the word!

Ok, I’m super stoked about the possibilities of this one. Gordon is an open source Flash™ runtime written in pure JavaScript. Give some of these demos a try on your iPhone. They don’t run as fast as they do on the computer but OMG Flash on the iPhone!

• http://jancona.com/gordon/demos/blue.html
• http://jancona.com/gordon/demos/tiger.html
• http://jancona.com/gordon/demos/trip.html

(thanks Mark)

What: jQuery Overview
When: September, 16 2009 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: Greensboro Public Library Downtown (take a right as soon as you walk in and head to the end of the hall)
RSVP & Details: Triad Web Meetup

These events are always free and everyone is welcome so please spread the word!

It would be quite a burden for the client to have to know how to create all of the appropriate image sizes, upload the photos and insert the correct HTML tags. So here’s what we’ve done instead:

First, we set the WordPress image sizes to match the thumbnail and large sizes that we needed by going to Settings->Media in the admin tool.

Next, the client just has to upload all of their photos and a PDF for the project sheet. The images are automatically scaled by WordPress and attached to the page. They can also change the order the photos appear by dragging/dropping them in the admin tool.

Finally, adding this simple snippet of code to the functions.php in their theme, I can ask for all of the images associated with the post.

// get all of the images attached to the current post
function aldenta_get_images($size = 'thumbnail') {
	global $post;

	$photos = get_children( array('post_parent' => $post->ID, 'post_status' => 'inherit', 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'image', 'order' => 'ASC', 'orderby' => 'menu_order ID') );

	$results = array();

	if ($photos) {
		foreach ($photos as $photo) {
			// get the correct image html for the selected size
			$results[] = wp_get_attachment_image($photo->ID, $size);
		}
	}

	return $results;
}

So, if you want all of the thumbnail images (as an array of html tags) you can make the default call:

$photos = aldenta_get_images();

If you want all of the medium sized images you pass medium as the size:

$photos = aldenta_get_images('medium');

My function has a bit more going on inside of it but you get the idea of what you can do with this. Another way I like to use it is to pull the first image from the post. Sometimes, you want to display a thumbnail image that represents a post. Here’s how I like to do that:

// get the first image attached to the current post
function aldenta_get_post_image($size = 'thumbnail') {
	global $post;

	$photos = get_children( array('post_parent' => $post->ID, 'post_status' => 'inherit', 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'image', 'order' => 'ASC', 'orderby' => 'menu_order ID') );

	if ($photos) {
		$photo = array_shift($photos);
		return wp_get_attachment_image($photo->ID, $size);
	}

	return false;
}

// the html tag for the first image or false if no image is found
$photo = aldenta_get_post_image();

What if you want to get the PDF attached to the post? No problem – it works the same but you change the mime type to application/pdf.

// get the first PDF attached to the current post
function aldenta_get_post_pdf() {
	global $post;

	$attachments = get_children( array('post_parent' => $post->ID, 'post_status' => 'inherit', 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'application/pdf', 'order' => 'ASC', 'orderby' => 'menu_order ID') );

	if ($attachments) {
		$attachment = array_shift($attachments);
		return wp_get_attachment_url($attachment->ID);
	}

	return false;
}

// the url to the first pdf or false if no pdf is found
$pdf = aldenta_get_post_pdf();

This technique has helped me tremendously and I hope it does the same for you.

As you can see, I’m sporting one of my favorite shirts today.

Since I’m a geek, and have fun electronics, I try to keep everything turned off and unplugged when not in use. The laptop gets powered down at night and the power strip switched off where all of the electronics are plugged in. Actually, in support of Earth Day I think I should keep everything turned off and skip work…

What do you do to help out the Earth?

What: Intro to WordPress
When: April, 22 2009 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: Greensboro Public Library Downtown (take a right as soon as you walk in and head to the end of the hall)
RSVP: Triad Web Meetup

These events are always free and everyone is welcome so please spread the word!

I contacted YellowPages.com via email and they were nice enough to give me a list of local providers who are responsible for phone books. So, I called Bell South, my local book provider, and removed both of my addresses from their mailing list.

• AMERITECH: 1-800-346-4377
• BELL ATLANTIC/VERIZON: 1-800-346-9639
• BELL SOUTH: 1-800-682-4000
• GTE: 1-800-346-9639
• MCI: 1-800-444-3333
• PAC BELL: 1-800-848-8000
• SWBELL: 1-800-792-2665

Get rid of these monstrous books and help save a tree (and fuel, paper waste, water, forest animals, money and everything else that’s connected to producing a phone book)!