Widget Improvement Pack (v246) This is a collection of improvements found on the forums, and a few of my own. Basically widgets that for some reason don't do what they should now do ![]()
Taking control of categories (v246) Gotta have a "happy" improvement to offset a "sad" improvement eh?
Not really. I mean, both the major pieces of shit in b2evolution are completely under control now: footer spam and spyware. All other improvements fall into 2 categories: bugs that just won't get fixed, and stuff that can be 'wow thats cool' instead of whatever it is. This improvement is in the former column: auto-creation of category urlnames.
Stopping spyware from infecting your b2evolution installation If you are using b2evolution v2.* then you are probably infected with spyware. Fortunately there is a cure for the one piece of spyware that actually ships with b2evolution: b2evolution's "dashboard spy". That's my name for it. You can call it whatever you want, and you can stop it.
Post Snap - it snaps posts (so you don't have to) Let's pretend your blog gets comments. Let's pretend your commenters have websites. Let's pretend your commenter's websites have syndication feeds. Let's pretend they blog stuff. Let's not bother pretending anymore and just make a plugin that grabs their feed, finds the most recent post, then tacks on a wee bit about their most recent post to their comment on your blog post.
Easily float images left or right (v246) What this core improvement will do is make it very easy to insert an image into your post either on the left with text flowing around it on the right, or on the right with text flowing around it on the left.
There is an assumption in this hack that you have "leftmargin" and "rightmargin" defined in your style sheet. If not you'll need it. To find if you have it open your /skins/yourskin/style.css and see if this line is in the top of it:
Code:
@import url("../../rsc/css/img.css"); /* Import standard image styles */ |
If not check the file for "leftmargin" and "rightmargin". If you don't have them then you need to add the next bit to your style.css file:
Code:
img.leftmargin { | |
float: left; | |
margin: .2ex 1ex .2ex 0; | |
} | |
img.rightmargin { | |
float: right; | |
margin: .2ex 0 .2ex 1ex; | |
} |
Obviously you can tweak the styles to suit your tastes ![]()
Okay now for the good stuff: this core improvement affects 3 files and lets you float images left or right, and retains the stock 'div imageblock' method, after using the "Files" button when writing a post. By design, b2evolution can do it, but doesn't give an easy method. The only method you get in a default installation is the rather dull "image centered in a div block" ... which I'll use after the jump because my screen shots are too wide to get any text flowing alongside of.
upgrading the videoplug plugin
Well heck this was a lot of fun! Long time in the making too. VERY long time in fact, but hey that's life. Finally got it though: a totally overhauled videoplug plugin for your b2evolution installation.
I reckon that's a fairly effective screen shot eh?
So here's what you get: 10 different embeddable sources, and scaling to make them fit your skin. You basically set a parameter that defaults to 425 pixels for the width and it figures out the height. To make that happen most of the sources can't use the "video code" or the URL anymore - you have to use the "embed code" because that is the only way to bring the video's width and height into the plugin.
Oh and it's fully backwards compatible. Meaning older stuff without width and height info will still render properly. I did that so I wouldn't have to deal with either the database or edit a bunch of old posts. Instead just replace your existing videoplug with this one and you're good to go. Actually you might want to hit your Tools -> misc subtab and delete the pre-rendered cache, but you won't have to.
Partially shown in the screen shot is some advanced settings for your vimeo embeds. Both vimeo and youtube offer ways to tweak what gets embedded, so I made them be parameters you set on the plugin's settings page.
Stopping b2evolution footer spam (v241 - v310)
Every version of b2evolution since v2.4.1 ("Nevada", 2008-03-16) has had spam in the footer, and every version since has been fixable by adding a little bit of code to your hacks.php file. Since we're now seeing the release of the third generation ... and the second generation to have footer spam it makes sense to upgrade this fix. This time we add "nofollow" to the replacement linkback ![]()