Update: I figured it was probably time for me to update my review of Gravity Forms, the premium plugin for WordPress forms. You see, when I wrote this the first time, Gravity Forms had just been released & I’d only played around with it on this site.

In fact, I didn’t think the developer license would be worth the added cost.

This is one of those times, I don’t mind admitting how wrong I was.

Two days after publishing this post, I ran into an issue that I realized Gravity Forms would make 10x easier. I had been searching for months for a method to make user generated content easy, without requiring users to log into WordPress. Just a few tweets to @carlhancock (one of the partners at Rocket Genius, the creators of Gravity Forms), and presto! Gravity Forms allowed automatic publishing of user submitted posts in their next update.

Now I’ve spent quite a bit of time online, and I can tell you it is RARE to find interaction & service like that on a product. I upgraded to a developer license the same day & couldn’t be happier. Gravity Forms has joined an elite group of plugins that I install on every single WordPress site as part of the initial set up.

On one site alone I’d estimate I’ve saved 15 hours so far.  For me, that’s well worth the $199 price of a developer’s license.

But, if you have only one site, or aren’t quite sure that you’ll love Gravity Forms as much as I do, give it a shot with the single use license. It’s only $39 and you can always upgrade later.

I’ll leave my original review for you to read below. I just felt like I’d be doing you guys a disservice if I didn’t update this post to completely rave about such a solid plugin.

Enjoy!

When a plugin has hundreds if not thousands of competitors, you instantly know two things: there’s a HUGE demand for the functionality it provides, and it’s going to be tough to rise above the crowd.

Such is the case with Gravity Forms, the newest premium plugin to tackle the form issue. If you do a quick search for “form” in the plugin directory you’ll see over 800 results shown. If you narrow that down to “contact form” you’re still left with well over 150 different options.

However, if you keep tabs on the WordPress community, you’ll know that Gravity Forms hasn’t had much trouble getting noticed, despite the crowded plugin landscape.

How’d they manage to pull that off? Amazing functionality.

Now that’s something that’s a lot easier promised than delivered but even with my sky high expectations from the hype that’s been surrounding the plugin, I wasn’t disappointed.

Gravity Forms (yes, that’s an affiliate link for all of our FTC friends out there) basically allows you to create a whole host of different forms with just a few clicks of the mouse with no coding required. The interface (as seen below) is extremely intuitive and I had no trouble finding my way around. If you want to add an element to your form, simply click which field you want to add & drag it where you want it positioned.

In about 10 minutes time I was able to reproduce the contact form that I had been using via Contact 7 plugin as well as create a brand new Guest Post Submission page.

Not only does the form allow any fan of WordPress to submit a guest post for my consideration (including post images), it automatically turns that submission into a draft within my WordPress dashboard!

It’s the Flexibility, Stupid!

The Thesis theme disrupted the market by offering incredible flexibility from your theme. Gravity Forms has done the exact same thing. The incredible functionality makes blogging life easier and the unprecedented flexibility eliminates the need for any other form plugin.

The features I’ve highlighted really are just the tip of the iceberg but thankfully you can check out all the different features, take a video tour, and even play around with a demo installation over on the Gravity Forms site.

It Costs WHAT?

As I’ve already discussed, I love the functionality offered by Gravity Forms. But the one aspect of the plugin that I pretty much hate, is the pricing structure.

A single use license is $39, a 5 site license will run you $99, and an unlimited use license will cost you a wopping $199.

I mean, it’s a plugin for crying out loud!

If you’re a web designer or make your living with your websites, $199 might be well worth the time you’ll save using the plugin but I bet your jaw still drops a bit from sticker shock.

Now will I end up breaking down and forking over the money at some point down the line?

Probably.

But, when a plugin is more expensive than two of the most popular (and expensive) themes on the market right now, Gravity Forms is going to have a long way to go convincing people that a plugin’s developer license should cost more than the developer license for their premium theme.

Would I Recommend It?

Given my obvious misgivings about Gravity Forms’ prices, would I still recommend the plugin?

Absolutely.

Most people are never going to need a developer’s license. And, at $39, the plugin doesn’t need to save you much time at all before it’s well worth the small investment.

User Feedback?

Have you used Gravity Forms? What did/do you think of it? What kinds of interesting applications have you found for the functionality offers? Or, do you know of other plugins (premium or free) that you like better?

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below!

WordPress 3.1.1 has been released and addresses three security issues, and one major SEO issue.

According to the official announcement, “the first [of the three security fixes] hardens CSRF prevention in the media uploader. The second avoids a PHP crash in certain environments when handling devilishly devised links in comments, and the third addresses an XSS flaw.”

Another aspect of the update that seems to be getting very little press thus far is a fix for the handling of category & tag URLS.

I actually encountered this problem one of my own sites after noticing a dramatic drop in search engine traffic. I finally tracked the issue down to my category and tag pages and only last night discovered the URLS had all been changed! After eliminating all plugin interactions as a possible cause, some quick searching turned up a few other people experiencing the same issue.

Apparently when using permalinks (as everyone should) the structure of the URL was being stripped out of category and tag pages for “a handful of people, MOSTLY on IIS” (I’m not on IIS so I guess I was one of the lucky ones). As far as the search engines were concerned, when updating to 3.1 I had effectively removed dozens of pages that ranked well that now served up 404 errors. Needless to say, this had a HUGELY negative impact on my search engine rankings.

Unfortunately, all of the advice I found for fixing the issue focused on changing the URL structure, not making the URLs which had previously been ranking work. I finally gave up trying to find a real “fix” and simply redirected the URLs that had magically disappeared, so the search engines could at least find the new ones. Naturally, I was greeted this morning by the news of the 3.1.1 update which thankfully fixed the issue.

There’s no doubt that I should have paid more attention to my site, it’s rankings, and the search engine traffic I was receiving (I mean it’s my job for crying out loud). However, issues like this one, are exactly why many people are loath to update their WordPress installations. While WordPress has made tremendous strides in making updates easier to implement, there’s still the risk of things breaking your site, even in a way that’s not readily apparent right away.

While WordPress creator, Matt Mullenweg, frequently preaches speaks about the freedoms open source platforms provide users, it seems he’s not a fan of that freedom extending to those who dare to criticize him.

You don’t exactly have to dig deep in the archives of this site to realize I’ve been fairly critical of Mr. Mullenweg. Call me a stickler but I expect someone who claims to put user freedom at the top of his priorities to actually live up to those standards. Instead, Mullenweg has consistently opted to feed his ego and further personal vendettas at the cost of the very user freedoms he claims to champion.

And while I certainly didn’t expect my call for his resignation to earn me an invitation to the Mullenweg Christmas dinner, I was honestly shocked at the cowardly reaction it apparently elicited.

At the time, I was the SEO Manager for Network Solutions, a company who, among other things offers domain name registration and WordPress hosting packages. Like many other companies, Network Solutions has a social media policy in which employees must clearly disclose their employment and state that their opinions are their own and do not reflect the company. Since I’m so active in social media, I went out of my way to make it abundantly clear at every turn that this site, as well as my Twitter account, were my own.

For the most part, those disclaimers were effective. People realized that my views on anything from politics, to sports, to WordPress were not indicative of Network Solutions’ stance on the matter. (Despite my best efforts to make the St. Louis Cardinals the official sports interest of the company, I failed.)

But, when Matt Mullenweg decided he’d had enough of my criticism, he didn’t come to me personally. Instead, as any true freedom loving person would do, he decided to go over my head and raise the issue with my employer. Matt, by his own admission, claimed that my writings here and on Twitter “borders on hate speech and reflects badly on any organization you’re associated with, regardless of any disclaimers you may have.”

(click for full sized image)

Update: While I initially didn’t think this follow up exchange added much to the post, a commenter below prompted me to post the rest of the exchange.

(click for full sized image)

Now, I wasn’t privy to the conversation that took place, but I have a healthy imagination and can think of a few topics that might have come up.

Whatever was discussed, a brief investigation was launched. But, thanks to those lovely disclaimers it was determined that I was abiding with company policy, and my employment (thankfully) continued.

On a more personal level, the accusation that my criticisms even remotely resemble hate speech is ludicrous, and that sort of accusation is not only irresponsible, but offensive in its own right.

As with any good story, there are several lessons to take away from this episode. First and foremost, please make sure you’re abiding with your company’s social media policy. You never know when it will save your job from a passive-aggressive egomaniac leveling unfounded accusations to your employer behind your back.

Secondly, this event continues the disturbing pattern of behavior by Automattic & WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg. Many within the WordPress community refer to Matt as their “benevolent dictator” because he controls pretty much every aspect of the WordPress project (from WordPress.com, to WordPress.org to the WordPress Foundation). However, the kind of bullying, threats, and intimidation displayed in this episode as well as here, here, and here, are lacking any hint of benevolence.

The final, and most unfortunate, lesson of this sad but true story is that unless you’re prepared to be attacked by Matt Mullenweg and the almost cult-like following he’s incubated, don’t criticize Mullenweg, Automattic, or WordPress in any way.

All hail King Matt.

Coward image source: Miriella

If you were disappointed by your Christmas presents this year, don’t worry! WordPress has one more gift for you… version 3.0.4 which, naturally, contains a critical security update!

That pair of socks your great-aunt gave you aren’t looking so bad now, are they?

For those of you keeping score at home, that’s 3 security releases in a month, with the latest being the most severe and hitting smack in the middle of the holidays.

Needless to say, this string of events doesn’t inspire much confidence in the platform.

Too Many Cooks or Not Enough?

While I’m admittedly not privy to all the details regarding security efforts, one only need to look at the releases to see there’s a problem. WordPress version’s 2.8 and 2.9 both had several security related releases, and it seems the pattern has continued with 3.0.

I’ve gone on record several times, both on this blog and on Twitter, calling for the WordPress foundation to hire more security experts to help the programmers like Mark Jaquith who already focuses on security.

Unfortunately, the WordPress team doesn’t seem to agree. Andrew Nacin stated that more security experts would result in too many cooks in the kitchen.

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And Mark Jaquith pointed out that they already consult with external security experts.

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Perception is Reality

While many of the security issues addressed by recent releases have been relatively minor, requiring a would-be hacker to already have privileges to a WordPress installation in order to exploit the vulnerability, they still pose multiple problems.

First of all, more and more elaborate and advanced sites are being built on the WordPress platform. As that trend progresses, even these minor security issues will affect more users and provide the potential for even greater damage.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, these security issues pose a SERIOUS threat to how the platform is perceived.

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Most users don’t take the time to understand whether their sites were actually at risk when a security update is released. So, when users see 3 security related releases in less than a month, many begin to question whether their sites are safe on WordPress.

This is essentially the same problem the community faces during all major hacking events. Whether the problem is with WordPress (as it is in the case of these security updates) or with a popular WordPress hosting company (as is usually the case), the platform’s image is what suffers.

Communication is Key

As I said before, I’m certainly not a part of the in-crowd when it comes to knowing the inner workings of the WordPress team. However, I was surprised to hear the team worked with outside experts on the issue of security. When coupled with the fact that many users associate any update with security, a common thread begins to emerge.

Communication.

It would behoove the folks that work on WordPress to spend a bit more time educating the average user about what steps are taken in regards to their site’s security. Explain what vulnerabilities are when they arise, make it clear when an update DOESN’T contain any security fixes, and maybe even expand the notification area within the WordPress admin panel to provide more information.

Basically, WordPress needs to engage in a full fledged PR campaign on the issue of security. Would hiring more security experts to work exclusively on WordPress.org help make the platform safer? I suspect it couldn’t hurt, but it certainly would be a major step in the right direction when it comes to public perception.

The single universal truth about every website owner is this:

We all need more traffic.

And, since Google and the other search engines have essentially become the gateway to the internet for most web users, site owners are increasingly seeking to optimize their sites for search engines.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a simple concept; structure your site to provide search engines the information they want, and in return they’ll deliver hoards of visitors straight to your virtual door step.

While WordPress is fairly SEO friendly “out of the box”, there are several settings and options that need to be tweaked in order to achieve higher rankings and receive more search engine traffic to your site.

Permalinks

A default installation of WordPress doesn’t create the most search engine friendly URLs. Instead of having nice targeted keywords in the URL it puts a post number along the lines of “/?p=5″.

Thankfully, WordPress also makes it easy to change that with their Permalink structure. There are countless combinations and custom settings you could come up for your link structure but I stick with the simple route.

My preferred Permalink structure is:

/%postname%.php

Using this structure will swap out those ugly looking ?p= for some keyword rich urls such as /good-keyword-here.php

Note: Using post names will result in long URLs. Keep your URLs as short as possible (preferably 2-5 words) by removing extraneous words such as “a, an, and, the, in, to” etc. Also use your targeted keywords or phrases in your URLs when possible.

You may be tempted to use a category name in the url, but in my experience it’s more trouble than it’s worth. If you ever decide to tweak a category name, you’ll have to implement a 301 redirect to avoid losing any links pointing to articles within that category.

Titles

First and foremost, go install and activate the All in One SEO plugin (unless you’re using the Thesis theme which has most of the same functionality built in).

In the All in One SEO settings, there’s a whole host of options you’ll need to customize. First on the list are the title, description, and keyword tags for your home page.

Your home page title tag should include the main keyword or phrase that you’d like your site to rank for in the search engines. Keep your title tag under 65 characters (including spaces & punctuation) or Google and the other search engines will truncate it for you.

For example, the title I use for the home page of this site is:

WordPress Themes, Plugins & Tutorials | WPblogger

The description of your home page should also include one or two of your targeted keywords and should summarize your site in a way that makes it enticing for searchers to click on your listing.

The description I used is:

WPblogger covers a wide range of WordPress related topics. From theme and plugin reviews, to tutorials, or WordPress news, we've got it all!

The keywords tag has been rendered obsolete for all practical purposes. Some people like to use the keywords tag to insert common misspellings or typos, but I prefer to spend my time and effort elsewhere.

After the home page meta data options, you’re presented with several options controlling title tags for every other page type.  I’ve included a screen shot of my preferred settings below, but All in One SEO’s default settings are actually quite good.

Categories, Tags & Archives

Categories, tags and archives all present the same danger in terms of search engine optimization: duplicate content.

As the phrase suggests, duplicate content is when multiple pages have largely the same content.

Duplicate content within your own site is not something you will usually be penalized for, it can cause some confusion for search engines and as such should be avoided if at all possible.

NoIndex

There are actually several ways to combat duplicate content within your categories, tags, and archive pages. One option that many SEOs recommend is to simply keep those pages from being indexed using the noindex tag.

I use that method to keep all of the date based archive pages from being indexed by search engines.

However, when it comes to category and tag pages, I prefer to prevent them from being duplicate content in the first place.

Excerpts

Instead of allowing your category or tag pages to display full posts and risk being seen as duplicate content, you can force them to display only the titles or excerpts of each post.

This allows you to still target new terms to rank while reducing the amount of content that is carried over from each post, thus reducing the risk of it being seen as duplicate content. For example, if I decide to use theme names as tags, my tag pages could then rank for searches related to those names. Had I decided to noindex tag pages, this wouldn’t have been a possibility.

As is often the case, the Thesis theme makes this as simple as selecting a few options (as seen in the image to the right). If you’re not using Thesis, you’ll probably need to edit a few files as described in the WordPress Codex. Trust me, a little bit of preventative efforts spent here could pay off big time in search traffic to your site in the future.

Note: You can also reduce duplicate content problems by reducing the number of categories you place each post in. Instead of dropping a post into 6 categories it only loosely relates to, place in the single category it fits in best.

Pagination

As Jim Westergren points out, WordPress introduce comment pagination in version 2.7. The setting, which is on be default, breaks comments into pages of 50 comments each. Unfortunately, as with tags or archive pages, the bulk of the content on those pages will not be unique.

Turning this option off, especially if you don’t often get more hundreds of comments per post, will prevent WordPress from creating multiple versions of each post.

Another unfortunate result of WordPress pagination is that as your posts age, they are pushed further and further away from your home page. While this makes perfect sense for readers, it isn’t great for SEO.

The easiest way to combat this issue is to install the Google XML Sitemaps plugin which creates a map of all the pages on your site so search engines can easily find them.

Also, regularly linking to previous posts and category or tag pages will help emphasize to search engine spiders that those pages are still important. The SEO Smart Link plugin is great for automating this process. And last but not least placing links to your categories or using a tag cloud on your home page will be a big boost to your SEO efforts.

Other Resources

If you’d like to know more about optimizing your WordPress site to grab as much traffic from search engines as possible, there’s plenty of information out there.

For example, Google Engineer Matt Cutts recently gave a presentation at WordCamp San Francisco which he’s made available for download. The slides cover a lot more ground than just SEO for your WordPress site but it’s valuable none-the-less.

Over the last year, I’ve also been privileged enough to give several presentations on the topic of SEO for WordPress. While there’s some overlap in the presentations (hint: that’s the really important stuff!), I think they all provide valuable content.

Market STL:

BlogWorld:

PubCon:

Recommended SEO Plugins

There are several plugins that will help in your SEO efforts. Here’s a list of the ones mentioned in the post as well as a few others we highly recommend

• SEO Smart Links
• Google XML Sitemap
• Redirection (makes 301 redirects easy)
• Broken Links Checker
• and last but certainly not least, the Swiss army knife of plugins… Joost’s WordPress SEO

Once you’ve digested this vast assortment of material, if you still have any questions or are ready to share tips and tricks of your own, please do so in the comments below.

In their continuing jihad/crusade against all things Chris Pearson, Automattic is removing yet another extremely popular theme from WordPress.com.

The theme on the chopping block this time is PressRow. This despite the fact Matt Mullenweg once labeled the theme one “of the best ones [themes]” submitted for inclusion, and significant outcry from users of the theme.

The message, as always from Automattic: we care more about our injured ego and vendetta than we do about our users.

The argument’s been made that users of PressRow should have seen the writing on the wall when Cutline was removed with little warning, and disastrous impact on it’s users. However, most WordPress.com users probably don’t keep up with all the egotistical politics that have been driving Automattic’s decisions lately.

Naturally, many PressRow users are upset about the impending change. And given the kinds of comments being left by folks who have opted to already make the switch, the number of angry users will only increase over the next two weeks.

If you’d like to urge WordPress.com to NOT remove the theme theme of your choice over a personal grudge that has nothing to do with you or your site, I’ve made the badge below available for embedding:

To embed the image, copy and paste the code below:

<a href=”http://wpblogger.com/pressrow-automattic-casualty.php” target=”_blank”><img style=”margin-top: 2px; margin-bottom: 2px;” title=”Save my Theme – PressRow!” src=”http://wpblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/dinomatt-small.jpg” alt=”Save my Theme – PressRow!” width=”250″ height=”125″ /></a>

While I think it is important to raise awareness of this issue, I would urge PressRow users to have a backup option in place. Automattic’s recent track record (capital P dangit issue, Cutline, etc) suggests they couldn’t care less what users want, or if their actions break users’ sites.

If you’re one of the unlucky PressRow users, there is a bit of good news. Chris Pearson has announced he’ll be releasing Cutline and PressRow as skins for the Thesis theme for free, to all Thesis customers. Also, Grant Griffiths of Headway announced that they’ll be offering a discount to all former PressRow users if you’d like to move to a self hosted version of WordPress.

If nothing else, this whole episode can serve as an important reminder of the importance of owning your web property, and maximizing your control over your site.

image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zjmac/3819026218/

Update: I’ve finally gotten around to updating this Thesis Skin for Thesis 1.8! Unfortunately I can’t keep up with all the updates to Dynamic Content Gallery so please read the installation instructions provided by the plugin developer.

When I declared that Premium Themes Are Dead, I received a LOT of feedback arguing that there will always be a market for premium themes since they give you a head start on the design process.

My response was that skins for framework themes such as Thesis provide that same “leg up” on the design and layout, without sacrificing any of the flexibility.

And, while I firmly believe that, there is one slight problem… there just aren’t many skins available yet.

So in an effort to help my prediction about premium themes come true, I decided to create a free Thesis Skin that heavily mimics one of my favorite premium theme designs.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce…

The Network News Thesis Skin!

Feel free to click around the demo site to check things out.

As those of you familiar with premium WordPress themes world will no doubt notice, the skin is based heavily on the Gazette theme by WooThemes, but offers even more flexibility.

Note: Let’s go ahead and get one thing out of the way right off the bat. I did not rip WooThemes off. Their themes are released under the GPL license and this is exactly the kind of thing the GPL is designed for. Besides they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

If you’re already comfortable using Thesis as well as the custom.css & custom_functions.php files using the skin will be a breeze for you.

If you’re not quite to that level yet, I’ve documented the process below in as much detail as possible. Please don’t let the length of the instructions intimidate you, I just wanted to make it clear enough that even someone new to Thesis can use the skin.

Requirements:

So what do you need for this skin to work?

Well obviously, you need to have the Thesis theme (and yes, that’s an affiliate link *waves to FTC*).

Also, this skin is also built for Thesis version 1.8.

I left comments within the custom.css file for those of you using older versions of Thesis, but you really should upgrade to the newest version.

You’ll also need to install the Dynamic Content Gallery plugin which will create the featured content slider on the home page for us.

Installation (Updated for 1.8!):

In order to download the files for the skin you’ll need to enter your name and email in the form to the left.

Don’t worry, we won’t be spamming you or anything like that. We simply want to be able to alert you when we update the skin or release a new one you might be interested in using.

Anyway, once you’ve confirmed your information you’ll receive an email with a link to download a zip file.

Unzip the files into a folder that will be easy to find later.

Upload the custom.css, custom_function.php and layout.css files to the Custom folder, over-writing your current versions. While I didn’t make any edits to the layout.css file, it would be best to upload the version I’ve provided just to make sure we’re all starting from the same place.

Tip: Always save copies of your current files before uploading the new versions. They’ll act as a safety net of sorts in case anything should go wrong or you make a mistake.

Next navigate to the Manage Options page in the Thesis menu.

On the Thesis Options Manager page (as seen in the screen shot above), click the green Download All Options button to save your current settings as a backup. That way you can always go back to the design you have now if you decide not to use the skin for some reason.

After creating your backups, click the browse button on the All Options field of the Upload Options section. Select the network-news-thesis-options.dat file and click Upload.

Warning! Importing these options will overwrite any of your current options. However, it also saves me from having to explain every single option I’ve clicked as I did with previous skins.

Logo

To display your logo instead of the big red block that’s there by default, you only need to make one simple edit to your custom.css file. Replace http://thesisdev.wpblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/logo-placeholder.jpg with the file path to your logo and save!

The default logo size is 384 x 100. The skin can easily accommodate a wider logo, however that will limit your use of the banner widget in the header .

If your logo is taller than 100 pixels, you’ll need to edit the height setting in the custom.css file one line above where you entered the image URL. You may also need to adjust the margin-top: value (currently set at -82px) for the sidebar_header in your custom.css file in order to keep it centered vertically.

Banner

The Network News was designed to incorporate a 468 x 60 banner advertisement into the header. To make use of the banner, add a text widget to the sidebar named Banner. Drop your banner code into the widget, click save, and you’re all set.

If you don’t want to use a banner, not a problem! Just don’t insert a widget into the Banner sidebar and the sidebar won’t be displayed.

Featured Content Slider – Warning: Outdated!

Last but certainly not least, we need to get the featured content slider working. Michael Gray has an amazing tutorial on how to create the slider and it’s actually his code that I’ve incorporated into the skin.

Note: The code on Michael’s site is slightly out of date. We’ve gone ahead and made this change to the code so be sure not to over-write it.

Setting the plugin up can be a bit tricky so I’ll try to walk you through a few of the items that are specific to this Thesis skin.

Once you’ve installed and activated the Dynamic Content Gallery (DCG) plugin (version 3.1), you’ll need to go to the DCG settings page and skip down to step 3 to specify what content you want to feature.

DCG gives you 5 “slots” to feature in the slider and allows you to mix and match how you want those slots distributed. Rather than mixing and matching across several categories, I just created a Featured category, and inserted the category id (in my case 5) into each of the 5 category id spots.

Since I want to display the last 5 posts from that featured category, I simply numbered 1 through 5 in each of the post select boxes.

Steps 4 & 5 let DCG know where to find the images you want to use in the slider. I’ve input /wp-content/uploads/ in both fields since that’s where my images are stored.

Tip: WordPress defaults to managing your uploads into month and year based folders. Unless you want to be continually updating this setting in DCG, I recommend unchecking that box and forcing WordPress to store your images in one large folder.

Step 7 is where you’ll need to set the desired width, height, and colors for your slider. Since I want the slider to take up the full width of my content section, I set the width to 595. The height is up to you but I used 270. The rest of the settings are fairly self explanatory and I’ve included a screen shot of my settings for easy reference below.

click for larger image

Tip: Make sure my post images are cropped to the 595 x 270 dimensions so the images aren’t stretched or distorted in any way.

Once you’ve entered the desired settings, click the update options button to lock them in.

Before the slider will work you’ll need to a) make sure to save a few posts into your featured category and b) create two custom fields on each post you  want to display in the slider.

The fields are as follows:

• Key = dfcg-image with a Value = Image filename including extension eg. myImage.jpg
• Key = dfcg-desc with a Value = Description text eg. Here’s our latest news!

After you enter each of the custom fields once, WordPress will automatically remember them for future use. When you want to put a new post into the featured slider, just make sure you add those two fields.

Also, make sure you only include the file name of the image in the dfcg-image field. The plugin is already set to look for the images in your uploads folder so you only need the myImage.jpg portion of the file name.

Customize to Taste!

I’ve said countless times that the best thing about the Thesis theme is the incredible flexibility it offers.

I’ve tried to capitalize on that as much as possible with this skin offering all sorts of widgetized areas that should make it easy for you to mix and match the different content you want to feature on your site.

I really enjoyed the process and plan on creating a few more skins so if you have any questions or suggestions please leave them in the comment section below!

With this being a a free skin I won’t be able to offer support for every question or problem you might encounter. However, leaving the attribution link in the footer definitely won’t hurt your chances

BUY THESIS | DEMO

After posting my recap of the Thesis GPL drama, I got a lot of questions about how I incorporated the various tweets I cited.

If you didn’t see the post, I’ll include an example below just to bring you up to speed.

[blackbirdpie id="20477399126"]

In the past when I wanted to cite a Twitter message, I’d have to copy the text (boring) or take a screen shot. If I wanted to cite an entire conversation on Twitter, it was nearly impossible. Trying to make each screen shot the same size & shape was incredibly time consuming and I almost never got it right anyway.

So, when Leland from ThemeLab tweeted about a new plugin to handle tweets, I was pretty eager to try it out.

And as you can see, I wasn’t disappointed.

[blackbirdpie id="18780211069"]

The plugin, Twitter BlackBird Pie by themergency, uses a short code and automatically pulls in the desired tweet and displays it against the background used by the Twitter member you’re quoting.

Installation

Like most plugins these days, installation is only a matter of a few clicks.

Use

Using the plugin is just a little bit more involved. You have to insert a short code of [blackbirdpie id=”N”\ and in place of N insert the ID of the Tweet you’re wanting to quote.

This is where the plugin really stands out from Twitter’s official version of Blackbird Pie. To include just a single tweet, you’d need to copy and past all this code!

Problems

The plugin is still in it’s infancy so I can’t be too hard on it. However, there are a couple of issues I’d love to see fixed sometime soon. The most prominent issue is a glitch when trying to use the full URL of a tweet. Although the documentation claims it should work, I never could get the plugin to pull in a tweet using the full URL.

The other issue I’d like to see addressed is the fact that tweets have a built in shelf life. Twitter’s archives only go back so far and eventually the tweets I’m citing in this post will disappear. It should be pointed out this is really a limitation of Twitter’s Blackbird Pie functionality itself, not specific to themergency’s plugin. And, while I’m not quite sure what a possible fix for this issue could be, I suspect support for some sort of Twitter archiving system (TweetBackup perhaps?) would be a step in the right direction.

Verdict

Despite those two minor issues, I am in love with this plugin. It saves me an untold amount of time, allows users to click links within the tweets I’m quoting, and helps break up the content of my posts. By simply dropping in a quick short code, I can quickly quote a tweet and give my posts added info and a helping of eye candy. What’s not to like?

You’ll never guess, but the GPL has caused yet another controversy to erupt within the WordPress community. You’re surprised right? Yeah me neither.

So for those of you who haven’t been paying attention (read as: had something better to do) I’m going to try and summarize the events over the last few days as concisely as possible. I’m also going to strive to keep my opinion out of it as much as possible since there will be plenty of time for me to rant on that later.

So let’s get started…

History

It has long been Matt Mullenweg’s contention that all plugins and themes developed to work with WordPress should inherit the General Public License (GPL) which WordPress is licensed under. They are, in his estimation, derivative works, and as such should be released under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license.

Naturally, there are those who disagree. Chris Pearson, the creator of the Thesis theme, is one of those people. As a result, he licensed his theme under a different and non-GPL compatible license.

Note: The issue of debate is not for or against the GPL as a license. The issue is whether the GPL requires themes to inherit the same license, or not. While it’s much easier to classify the debate as pro or anti-GPL, that’s an oversimplification and skews the issue. Few if any people are arguing against the GPL as a whole.

The Spark

The initial spark for this latest explosion was Automattic CEO, Toni Schneider, kicking WordPress consultant Bill Erickson out of the CodePoet directory for supporting Thesis.

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Bill then posted the expulsion on Flickr. Mullenweg left a comment on the image accused Pearson of having “verbally abused a female community member at a conference yesterday” (even though that female member, Jane Wells denies being abused), accused Pearson’s company, DIYthemes, of “break[ing] the law” and recommended that Pearson leave the WordPress community.

Mullenweg then took the fight to twitter saying:

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Those tweets, along with the accusations left on Flickr were like a spark hitting a gasoline soaked pile of rags…

The Explosion

Matt quickly followed up his barbs with his first (of many) offers to buy a Thesis user any other premium theme as long as it was licensed under the GPL.

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As frequent readers of this blog know, I’m never one to shy away from sharing my opinion. However, I didn’t expect my tweet to illicit Mullenweg to state a lawsuit against DIYthemes was allegedly being planned.

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As anyone who knows Pearson will tell you, it was only a matter of time before he responded. That led to this exchange between he and Mullenweg.

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The Confrontation

After several more shots were volleyed back and forth, both Chris and Matt agreed to be interviewed on Mixergy. Andrew Warner did a great job of moderating what was obviously a very passionate discussion.

Note: I’ll embed the video as soon as I can get it to work.

It’s interested to note that it seems this interview has been many people’s starting point when trying to figure out what this whole argument has been about. If viewed in isolation I don’t think Chris comes off all that well. He’s obviously worked up, while Matt is for the most part calm and collected. However, when viewed in light of the interactions that led up to the interview, it becomes clear both sides are heavily and emotionally invested in the debate.

A Proxy War

When two personalities as large as Pearson & Mullenweg clash so publicly, there’s never a shortage of people eager to chime in. Almost immediately the #thesiswp Twitter hash tag stream became over-run with people voicing their opinions on the issue.

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Countless posts have been written on the topic in support of both sides of the issue, an incredible volume of tweets have gone back and forth, with Mullenweg and Pearson encouraging their supporters through liberal use of retweets.

In fact, Mullenweg has gone so retweet-crazy it prompted Lisa Barone to tweet the following:

[blackbirdpie id="18546650326"]

Copied Code?

The anti-Thesis horde was invigorated when developer Drew Blas ran a comparison of Thesis and WordPress’ code and found several snippets of WordPress’ code that were copied by Thesis.

Whether those snippets constitute plagiarism or simply fair use became the hot topic and the argument flared up with renewed vigor while the issue of GPL-inheritance seemed to take a back seat.

Pearson was quick to track down the code to former employee Rick Beckman who admitted to using copied code in this tweet:

[blackbirdpie id="18616465957"]

While Pearson has vowed to remove the code before releasing Thesis 1.8 from beta, there are those suggesting that the codes’ inclusion poisons all of Thesis as inheriting the GPL until the entire theme is re-written. Beckman, for his part doesn’t exactly appear shaken up by his role in the dispute.

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Editorial Note: I know I said I wouldn’t do many of these, but this seems like a scary situation for any software developers out there. Can one rogue employee effectively nullify your license by slipping in chunks of GPL code? Could a hacker break in and distribute a copy of your software including GPL code thus forcing an entire re-write or GPL adoption? Would Pearson have recourse to sue Beckman? It seems I’m full of questions but few answers.

The Fallout?

As is so often the case with online flame wars, very little has actually been accomplished. Matt Mullenweg has re-issued his threat to sue DIYthemes several different times, although as of yet, nothing has been filed. He’s also continued to be very vocal about his offer to give any Thesis prospect or user a GPL premium theme of their choice at no cost. I’ve not been able to confirm whether any of those themes have actually been purchased, or what the users are required to do in exchange for the theme.

Chris Pearson has vowed to remove the copied snippets of WordPress code from Thesis before releasing version 1.8. While the anti-Thesis mob seems to be having some success inspiring uncertainty amongst Thesis users, even if a lawsuit were filed, it would have little to no impact on Thesis users. The Thesis theme remains, in my opinion, the most flexible WordPress theme on the market and until a better option emerges, I plan on continuing to use it as my primary theme on all my WordPress projects.

One interesting development of note is that Headway has made the decision to dual split license their theme to adhere to the Software Freedom Law Center’s interpretation of the GPL requirements. While Headway’s creators had been vocal GPL-inheritance opponents in the past, the attacks Thesis is sustaining as well as the possibility of having Mullenweg purchase and then give away copies of your theme has to be a powerful incentive from a business perspective.

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Note: Sorry for any confusion. The appropriate term is split licensed, not dual licensed as previously stated. Mark and Andreas explain the difference in the comments below.

What Next?

Personally I expect the issue to slowly burn out over the weekend. Even given the strong rhetoric from both sides I would be surprised to see a lawsuit actually happen. I would also be shocked to see Thesis adopt the GPL or even dual license it’s theme. But no matter what happens from here on out, I’ll try to keep things summarized here so be sure to check back often.

Other Relevant Reading:

• WordPress GPL Feud (Again)
• Thesis + GPL + WordPress = Pain
• WordPress, Thesis, GPL, and premium themes
• WordPress Thesis Conflict Highlights GPL Nuances
• Chris Pearson vs Matt Mullenweg (big thanks for the amazing Twitter Blackbird Pie WordPress plugin)
• Matt Mullenweg Fouls His Nest & Undermines His Credibility (a great read)
• The GPL is Marxist

image source: theparasiteguru

With apologies to Dr. Seuss and HUGE thanks to our resident cartoonist, Jim Cook aka my “Pops”, allow me to present Matt Mullenweg: King of GPL!

…until Matt M, the king of them all,
Decided the kingdom he ruled was too small.
“I’m ruler”, said Matt M, “of all WordPress you see.
But I don’t rule enough. That’s the trouble with me.
With Automattic for a throne, I rule WP swell.
But I cannot rule places beyond GPL.
This throne that I sit on is too, too low down.
It ought to be higher!” he said with a frown.
“If I could sit high, how much greater I’d be!
What a king! I’d be ruler of all that I see!”

Please feel free to use this image for non-commercial purposes as long as you include a link of attribution (such as the one below).

Matt Mullenweg: King of GPL – Image Source: WPblogger.com

Matt Mullenweg: King of GPL - Image Source: WPblogger.com