extensions

ScribeFire Reviewed

Well, this would be my second screencast produced out of Camtasia Studio 5 and I’m learning more and more that screencasts are the not the easiest things to create. I’m also trying to learn the magic recording/producing formula which will net me the best results on sites such as Viddler. It sucks to create something that looks so good on my local machine, only to have it look like crap on Viddler. But I think I’m getting closer to the magic bullet.

In any case, Brian asked me about ScribeFire and what it was all about. This screencast aims to answer that question while also providing an in depth review as to what this extension is capable of.

To get the best quality, select the option to watch the video at FullScreen.

Proposed WP Plugin Standards

WordPress.orgLogoWow. Someone has come through and put together a list of proposed standards that plugin authors should abide by. This person goes by the name of Weathervane and considering this fella has downloaded 530 plus plugins, I tend to think he knows what he’s talking about. A little warning, the list of proposed standards is a bit long but it’s definitely a worthy read.

Weathervane makes a ton of proposals that I agree with. But there is one thing he didn’t mention that I think would solve many of the problems that are mentioned. That being, the use of the Official WordPress Plugin Database. Weathervane takes the approach of plugins being available on the authors main website. I take the stance that any and all plugins should be submitted and stored in the WP Plugin Database. This provides a central location for all types of plugins, provides the hosting necessary for plugin authors if need be, provides the ability to have a discussion/support area for each individual plugin, and something I feel that is really important. Automatic notification that a plugin has been updated.

Of course, my view on the proposed standards for WordPress Plugins requires that we start off at the top of the food chain. This would be the WP Plugin Database. Once a series of guidelines were established at the top, the rest of the job becomes easy. Think of the advantages of having a central repository for WP Plugins. As end users, we wouldn’t need to Google Search or bookmark tons of seperate web pages that housed plugins. We would automatically be notified of updates within the plugin page in our WordPress back end. Depending on the coding guidelines that allow plugins to be entered into the repository, as end users, we would have that much more confidence that the plugin actually works and won’t do any hanky panky.

It’s awesome that I think weathervane put in the time and effort into his proposal and I believe a lot of his guidelines would be great to use for WP plugin database. Now that we have someone who has put together a base of their own proposals, it’s time we put our thinking caps on and contributed to the list.