Here are some of the links that I have found most useful in the last few days of my first cut at custom post type implementation and re-factoring with new features supported in 3.0:

• http://wpengineer.com/example-how-to-add-meta-boxes-to-edit-area/
• http://www.deluxeblogtips.com/2010/04/how-to-create-meta-box-wordpress-post.html
• http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/8-useful-code-snippets-to-get-started-with-wordpress-3-0
• http://justintadlock.com/archives/2010/04/29/custom-post-types-in-wordpress
• http://justintadlock.com/archives/2009/05/06/custom-taxonomies-in-wordpress-28
• http://www.webmaster-source.com/2010/01/08/using-the-wordpress-uploader-in-your-plugin-or-theme/
• http://wpengineer.com/use-more-flexibility-in-wordpress-templates/
• http://wpstorm.net/2010/04/editor-styles-custom-post-types-wordpress-3-0/

While the big features coming with 3.0 are getting a lot of the words / press, there are quite a few little things that have been improved that are worth mentioning.

New Installation Screen Updates

Without fail the first thing I would do on installation of any WordPress 2.9 or earlier setup would be:

• Create a new admin account (not named ‘admin’) with a secure password
• Re-login as that user and delete the existing ‘admin’ user

Having the option to provide this as a part of the initial installation is great. It could also reduce the amount of potential site hacks others encounter who never did this in the first place by giving them the username option at install time.

Header Image Management

The new default theme, 2010, looks quite a bit better than Kubrik which was showing its age. While some question the value of theme configuration pages in the admin console, users who want an easy way to tweak the look of their site without touching code will love the header and background image upload capability. I have explored a little of how it has been done (hint: function add_custom_image_header and /wp-admin/custom-background.php) that I can see being useful:

• Uploading of .pdfs or other attachments into a custom post type where you don’t want to have the URL defined in the content editor field.
• Bringing the featured image into a meta box along with other content type data (instead of a stand-alone meta box)

Idealien Category Enhancements: Refactor or Retire?

Idealien Category Enhancements (ICE) was the first plugin I wrote for WordPress, circa WP 2.5. When I was trying to find a workable solution before committing to writing it, I felt like the ability to connect template files through the admin console should be something that was part of the core of WordPress. The significant updates to 3.0 have raised some interesting questions in my mind:

• The inclusion of custom post types  has all but eliminated the use cases where I do make use of ICE in 2.9-. A category-driven approach feels so “duct tape / McGyver” when compared to the full-scope solution of custom post types.
• The ability to define single-{posttype}.php in a theme based on category was the feature most people who left feedback about the plugin indicated was why they were using it. Replace category with custom post type and you don’t need a plugin to achieve the same purpose.
• Pages with short-codes or Page Templates that use the query_var parameter tied to register_post_type can give an easy way to integrate post types into menus and navigation. You can even control the slug so that a page which acts as container for a post type “category” is identical to what the individual post types will use. This was always a challenge with ICE, although some writings on the permalink performance associated with /%postname%/ does make one wonder can vs should questions.

There will be a not insignificant amount of re-factoring work to enable any site to take advantage of the new features coming with WordPress 3.0. As I said at the outset, template management should be something that is part of the core of WordPress so I’m not entirely unsatisfied that this has come to pass. I’d like to think that my plugin helped influence that decision in the positive direction it has gone. I’m leaning towards retiring Idealien Category Enhancements as a result, but would appreciate any comments from those who currently use it and are looking at their options for 3.0 upgrade process.

Capture and display custom data types using ICE and More Fields

Building on the concept of category templates which I started with the FAQ template tutorial last week, this tutorial will cover how to capture and display custom fields in a template. What’s more, I’ll go through the step-by-step process of how to implement this using More Fields which is a plugin that “enables you to define post types, which are custom Write/Edit pages that contains a pre-defined set of boxes” that store their data behind the scenes in custom fields. The concepts from this tutorial will be of interest for anyone who:

• Has multiple categories of blog content with unique data to capture / present. Thumbnail per post, photo of the day or other customized items.
• Uses WordPress as a CMS for unique page data types (event calendar, classified ads, business partners, etc)
• Finds the selection of custom fields from a drop-down to not be the best user interface experience for capturing structured data.

Direct Video Link:http://www.screencast.com/t/2dcpYsSlk

Example Code

The only real code in this template that is unique is the retrieval of data from a custom field using the get_post_meta function.

A single custom field retrieval
Place this example within the loop of an existing category / post template.

<?php $locationPhone = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'locationPhone', true);
if ($locationPhone != '') { ?>
	<div class="locationInfo">
		<h4>Phone Number</h4>
		<?php echo  $locationPhone; ?>
	</div>
<?php } ?>

Full retail location fields
This example is the full loop for use within a category.php file to display the contents of custom fields named: location

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
	<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
 
	<h2><?php echo the_title('','',false); ?></h2>
	<?php the_content(); ?>
	<div class="clear"></div>
 
	<?php $locationAddress = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'locationAddress', true);
	if ($locationAddress != '') { ?>
		<div class="locationInfo">
			<h4>Address</h4>
			<?php $locationMapURL = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'locationMapURL', true); ?>
 
			<?php if ($locationMapURL != '') {
				echo  "<a href='" . $locationMapURL . "'>"; ?>
			<?php } ?>
 
			<?php echo  $locationAddress; ?>
 
			<?php if ($locationMapURL != '') {
				echo "</a>";
			} ?>
		</div>
	<?php } ?>
 
 
	<?php $locationPhone = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'locationPhone', true);
	if ($locationPhone != '') { ?>
		<div class="locationInfo">
			<h4>Phone Number</h4>
			<?php echo  $locationPhone; ?>
		</div>
	<?php } ?>
 
	<div class="clear"></div>
 
	<?php $locationHours = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'locationHours', true);
	if ($locationHours != '') { ?>
		<div class="locationInfo">
			<h4>Business Hours</h4>
			<?php echo  $locationHours; ?>
		</div>
	<?php } ?>
 
	<?php $locationWebsite = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'locationWebsite', true);
	if ($locationWebsite != '') { ?>
		<div class="locationInfo">
			<h4>Website</h4>
			<?php echo  "<a href='" . $locationWebsite . "'>" . $locationWebsite . "</a>"; ?>
		</div>
	<?php } ?>
 
	<div class="clear"></div>
 
	<?php endwhile;
 
else : ?>
 
	<p><?php _e('Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.'); ?></p>
 
<?php endif; ?>

Over the next few weeks I’ll be putting out a series of 5-minute videos walking through the installation and template design process for different category styles. First up is one that everyone is probably familiar with – frequently asked questions. Code sample and step-by-step instructions are included below the video.

Direct Video Link:http://www.screencast.com/t/RrGumx6HhdY

Step-By-Step Instructions

1. Download Idealien Category Enhancements from WordPress.org Plugin Directory.
2. Upload the contents of the .zip to your wp-content/plugins folder.
3. Activate the plugin.
4. Copy a page.php file or any other existing template file from your current theme and save it as category_faq.php.  (or whatever matches the category template prefix you define in the Settings > Idealien Cats menu. The rest of these instructions assume you are using category_ as the prefix).
5. Go to the Posts > Categories menu to add / edit a category. At the bottom of the form make sure to select faq from the Template drop-down.
6. Go to the Settings > Idealien Cats menu and copy the php comments at the top of the menu into your category_faq.php file, changing the appropriate fields. When you refresh the posts > categories menu it will now have the file title / description from the comments area.
   Note: This does not affect the database table which stores entries based on the actual category template filename.
7. Modify your template file to use the two loops provided in the example code area below. The first one uses an unordered list of href links to show just the title. The second one has headings with anchor links followed by the post content for each post.

Example Code

Insert this code into your category_faq.php file within whatever standard xhtml / css markup is used to generate your primary content area.

<ul>
	<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
		<li>
			<a href="#post-<?php echo $post->ID; ?>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>">
				<?php the_title(); ?>
			</a>
		</li>
	<?php endwhile; endif; ?>
</ul>
 
 
<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
	<h3><?php permalink_anchor('id'); ?><?php the_title(); ?></h3>
	<?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this page &raquo;</p>'); ?>
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

Updates:

• Minor text changes to admin screen so the functionality is a little more intuitive.
• Category templates can now be created without any php comments at the top. The drop-down list will be populated with whatever follows the Category Template Prefix in that case.
• 

  The template selection screen from a child theme

  ICE now fully supports child themes and use from within theme frameworks. If your parent theme (framework) has any ICE templates you will see a [P] preceeding their info. If it comes from the child theme you will see a [C]. If you aren’t using a parent / child theme, you will not see a change.

• When you de-activate the plugin, it will no longer change it’s enhanced categories / posts options to off. This was causing much confusion for people when performing upgrades.

To help people understand the potential ways to use this plugin I have also started a new project section – Idealien Templates – where I will be sharing custom category / post templates that I have built for sites. The hope is to provide examples for a basic theme (Kubrik) as well as a WP framework (Thematic).

Go ahead and download it from the WordPress Plugin Directory! You know you want to!

Installation

1. Download the plugin
2. Unzip files to your wp-content/plugins directory on your local PC
3. Upload the files from local PC to your web server
4. Activate the plugin through the plugins menu in WordPress
5. Go to the Settings > Category Enhancements menu to configure features
6. Develop template(s) which can take advantage of this functionality. Your category template files SHOULD have the following comments at the top:

   <?php /*
   Category Template: Custom Template Name
   Template URI: URL path where WP users can find more information about your template(s)
   Description: A short description goes here.
   */ ?>

If you have any other questions, please ask via comment.

Ice download graph from WP.org

The first version of ICE was released to support WordPress 2.6 (2.6.2 to be exact). After a few weeks of fighting an authentication issue on the SVN repository for plugins, I started to share it via the WordPress plugin gallery on Oct 18, 2009. Since that time almost 800 people have downloaded it and almost 2,000 visits have been logged to my site looking to learn more about it. It was also recently featured as one of 40 exceptional “CMS Enabling” WordPress plugins by Noupe.

I have been slowly adding more features / functionality to ICE and hope to release an update within 1 – 2 weeks of the pending release of WordPress 2.8. The following is a list of items which are already either implemented or on track to be for that timeframe:

1. Parent / Child Theme Support
   As more WordPress theme frameworks hit the web the ability to integrate category / post templates into themes takes on more importance.  Not only was this a commonly requested feature in past comments, it was also something I needed to resolve as I moved my own site theme over to be a Thematic child theme.
2. Post Specific Template Selection
   While I still struggle to see the immediate value in this, it has been requested enough that I was willing to do some research into how complex (or not) it was to achieve. Nathan Rice developed a post templates plugin which offers the functionality and has a similar approach to design as ICE. I contacted him about the potential of a collaborative development effort. While he doesn’t have time to contribute towards such a project, he was kind enough to agree that it would be “no problem whatsoever with you taking the functionality of my plugin and adding it to another and extending it. Just be sure to attribute me in the source for the original work, per the GPL.” Thanks Nathan!
3. Simplification of installation and use
   As an extra level of granular control, I had added the ability to enable / disable ICE while the plugin was still active. This setting was disabled by default or any time the plugin was activated / deactivated. This has caused a lot of people grief as it is counter to the standard plugin process. I’ll keep the deactivation concept, but make it enabled by default so people will not notice it is there.I am also going to reduce the number of required php comments in a given category / post template. The current version required title and description (as it was shown on the screen in manage > categories). However the plugin can always fall back to display the template filename since this is what is actually stored into the database.
4. More Fields Customized Category Selector Object
   I’ve been telling anyone who will listen for some time now that Idealien Category Enhancements + More Fields plugin = total customization control over the presentation layer for both client and administration sides of WordPress. The key pieces being pre-selecting the category based on the write panel, having the selected category drive the template for post and category.

   However there are some situations (namely when you have a multiple parent categories with lots of child categories) where being able to see and select which category a post belongs to from a subset of the entire category list would be useful. The idea for this came as I started to upgrade one of my original WordPress projects, the product display gallery for Sawdust & Glass. This one falls under “nice to have” if I find enough time to develop it and depending on when WP 2.8 actually drops.

If there are other features / functionality that you would like to see in ICE now or in the future, please suggest it in the comments below. Or if you are interested / willing to be a beta tester for some of these features I would appreciate the help.

• You can now use one category template for multiple categories without identical copies of the category-##.php
• All category / post templates and settings are relative to the current theme applied to WordPress
• If you select a different theme, the entries will remain in the database in case you want to revert back.
• If you delete a category, all records (regardless of theme / version) will be deleted.
• The Sub-Category Inheritance option applies for both category templates and post templates.

Screenshots

Installation

• Download the plugin from the WordPress Plugin Directory
• Unzip files to your wp-content/plugins directory on your local PC
• Upload the files from local PC to your web server
• Activate the plugin through the plugins menu in WordPress
• Go to the Settings > Category Enhancements menu to configure features
• Develop template(s) which can take advantage of this functionality
• Make sure to include the following PHP comments at the top of each template file:
  <?php /* Category Template: Custom Template Name
  Template URI: Developer website
  Description: A short description goes here.
  */ ?>

License

This plugin is GPL2 compatable which means that:

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation based on version 2 of the License. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Download

Wordpress Plugin Directory

This plugin is now available exclusively for download from the WordPress Plugins Directory at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/idealien-category-enhancements/