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.

These really are worth 2,000 words!

This release will feature form AND function improvements

When version 2.5 of WordPress was released there was a lot of uproar in the community, most of which was based on the fact that the admin panel changes felt to be change for the sake of change. You still:

• Needed two clicks to get from anywhere to writing a new page
• Only had a limited amount of real estate horizontally for plugins to put their options screens.
• Depended on great plugins to make the admin interface significantly more usable.

With 2.7 – and the integration of the usability test efforts codenamed Crazyhorse – you are beginning to see the fruits of Automattic’s effort to support people who have been using WordPress as a  robust platform for more than just writing blogs. The WordPress 2.7 admin wireframes released late in September gave a taste of this, but the real reason I say this has less to do with the screenshots above and more to do with the demonstration I mentioned earlier.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the video from that event made it online, but WTC has a good starting list of the great things you can expect from this release. With a little less than a month to go before the planned release date of November 10th, I’m sure there will be a flurry of activity and beta releases to have a chance to get hands-on experience with the new UI. I am excited to get the opportunity to use it and can already think of a number of ways in which I will be able to leverage the new form / function:

• Reposition the admin panels which my clients use most into places where it is easy for them to use.
• Turn-off all of the interface panels which they never use and need not know about.
• Integration of the plugin repository functionality into the plugin installation area.
• More image size options – a very important thing for those who use WP for portfolios, product display, etc.
• On the non-admin side – THREADED COMMENTS!

Between these tidbits of information and the recent announcements that Automattic has acquired IntenseDebate and PollDaddy, it seems like 2008 is going to finish on a very high note!