Hacking together a wordpress plugin / widget has been pretty simple and a lot of fun. I hit a sticking point for a little bit with Jason’s plugin template as it was put together for the WP 2.7 style widget API. In WP 2.8 the widget API is very different to enable multi-instancing of widgets – which is a really cool feature I wanted to have for the BookMooch widget. But after searching around a little bit I found another widget template over at Justin Tadlock’s site. By taking the plugin control structure I’d already developed using Jason’s template and stitching it into Justin’s widget template, I was able to bring together a fully functioning multi-instance widget in an evening.

Now I need to stretch my php skills a bit more and add in some tight error handling and string manipulation of the BookMooch widget HTML stream to enable CSS styling of the results. This way my plugin doesn’t just encapsulate what John Buckman from BookMooch has done (which still has a value for novice WP users) but actually extends the functionality available to bloggers by building on the bones John built.

So thanks Jason, Justin, and John! It’s been a lot of fun extending what you’ve all put out in the community.

As I slowly get myself back into coding, I’m finding it much easier to make headway than when I first started some 20 odd years ago. Picking up a new programming language is now a matter of learning syntax, not learning how to think in a logical fashion to start with. However another difference is the number of excellent resources that are available. The most useful resources I’ve been using are the http://www.w3schools.com/ sites. The next best resource are all of the amazing templates and examples that people have released under the GPL.

Earlier this week I decided I would build a WordPress plugin to enable BookMooch users to configure the BookMooch widgets using a WordPress admin settings screen instead of having to copy and past code from the BookMooch site into a HTML widget. I took a look at the code base for several of my favorite templates, and started to get a little cross eyed. Then I ran across the plugin template on Pressography – and the excellent video tutorial that goes along with it. Confidence builds.

A few days later I set aside some time to deconstruct how the current BookMooch widget API works and plan out the options I would need for the plugin. Then tonight  in about 2 hours of hacking from Jason’s template, I have a fully working admin page that saves and retrieves all the variables I’ll need for the widget. Next step, building the widget display code itself.

As I was closing down for the night, Jason’s note requesting a simple link to his site in exchange for use of the template caught my eye. And the ease in which I went from no code to a fully working admin screen really struck me – the magic of open source licensing put the operating system in my computer, WordPress on my servers, Firefox on my desktop, and now templates to help me code and give something back to the community as well. So thank you Jason – you have achieved the goal you stated in your post of saving someone else a rough time getting started with plugin programming. I owe you one – and I’ll pay one forward too.

For the third time I’ve managed to break a bone. Not too bad for thirty plus years. I learn something new each time this happens. This time I learned that I’m not 20 anymore. When I should have just walked around a fence, I decided to climb over it; in the snow and ice, with boots on, and with a shovel in my hand. Not the brightest thing I’ve done all month. The end result was a slip, a fall on a fence post, and a cracked rib.

In case you’ve never had a rib injury before, let me highly recommend that you avoid it. It turns out that ribs are connected to a whole lot of sensitive muscle tissue, and when it gets torn up there are quite a few activities that begin to suck. A lot. Like laying down, standing up, and sitting.

On the good side (and there is always a good side) it’s only a crack and not a full fracture. This means it should only be three or four weeks till I’m able to  get out of bed without biting my tongue to prevent teaching my daughter colorful metaphors.

A while ago I saw the article about several German scientists confirming that the Milky Way galaxy is circling a super-massive black hole, like a great cosmic toilet bowl being flushed. BBC News, December 9 2008. I’ve been reading a lot of hard science fiction lately, and this article has tickled the edges of several stories in my mind.

The last time I tried writing fiction was about 12 or 13 years ago, and those efforts were all fantasy. I ran across several of them while unpacking this fall. I think I’ll try a scan and OCR to see if I can get them digital again, just to try and save them for digital posterity. The softcopies are long gone by now. It was all written on a blazing fast custom built 486-50mgz using a DOS version of Word Perfect, and saved on 3 1/2″ floppies that have dissapeared years ago. Ahh the good old days.

I saw this at a modern art museum in Chatanooga. Inspiring.

Fall in love or fall in hate
Get inspired or be depressed
Ace a test or flunk a class
Make babies or make art
Speak the truth or lie and cheat
Dance on tables or sit in the corner
Life is divine chaos. Embrace it
Forgive yourslef. Breathe.
And enjoy the ride.
- Solbeam