GUILTY?

Sorry, but I can’t give you a yes or no answer. The truth is after my first couple of themes I got really tired of the unecessary code repetition, and l went to a plugin based solution.

While the plugin solution did help, it did not completely break my lock in problem.

THE PROBLEM!

The “lock in effect” in WordPress is unique; unlike those that occur between competing vendors that are world’s apart as in the Gimp – Photoshop example . WordPress themes and plugins all have access to the same code base and data core, so it should be pretty simple to reuse or access any code or data.

I looked at my code again and I realised the problem, I was mixing my layout, code and data together, a pattern I had adopted from WordPress very early in my development cycle. The practice made it impossible to access and use any code or data in one theme without breaking the other unless I rewrote the code over and over.

WHATS THE SOLUTION

Custom Post Types, options, data etc, are all part of the WordPress core, so unless it’s deleted on theme de-activation it’s usually there to access. To believe that your theme will automatically be able to access it on installation is wrong. Even when using the settings API, accessing and updating options stored in multidimensional arrays are not out-of-the-box functions yet.

I have started separating code/layout and data to make them easier to access by my other themes. The adoption of a MVC like pattern has helped a lot in this cause.

The gettemplatepart() function is definitely a step in the right direction but there must be greater initiative by community leaders to move WordPress to better Object Oriented design patterns to really solve the problem. In the meantime the rest of us can do a little more to brush up on the PHP skills, WordPress is running with the big boys now and it is no longer OK to contimue copying and pasting code in to apps.

I built a class after reading post on the web about optimizing WordPress plugins and themes, as proof of concept to demonstrate the possibility of adding and extending WP by leveraging “OO PHP”, making it easier to reuse code and reduce a lot of the code repetition that can sometimes be found in WP.

The first release is really simple and includes a Paypal and Facebook  php library, I plan to add more soon. It uses the WP filter function (alm_filter) to add class paths to the auto-loader.

Download the class : https://github.com/shawnsandy/AL-MANAGER

To use, install/upload and activate the plugin, use WP add_filter() function (alm_filter) to add your class folder check the sample code below.

/**
 * --- AL-Manager -----
 */

//check if ALM is loaded and add filter
if(class_exists('al_manager')) add_filter('alm_filter', 'al_paths');

//sample fliter adds 'inc' dir to the autoload paths
function al_paths($folders) {
    $p = array(your_DIR . '/inc/');
    $folders = array_merge($p, $folders);
    return $folders;
}

//use any class in the folder no need to add includes
$class = new Your_class_name();
$class = new Another_class_name();

//end********************

A simple PHP classes / interface auto-load manager for wordpress, built with PHP-Autoload-Manager by http://bashar.alfallouji.com/php-autoload-manager/. AL-Manager allows you to easily extend the power of WordPress using Object Oriented PHP, classes and libraries. =Developer Info = The AutoLoad Manager is a generic autoloader that can be used with any PHP framework or library. Using the PHP tokenizer mechanism, it will parse folder(s) and discover the different classes and interfaces defined. The big advantage of using this autoloadManager is that it will allow you to implement whatever naming rules you want and may have mutliple classes in one file (if you want to have a such feature). So basically, you don’t have anymore to implement some complex naming rules between the filename and the classname. You may organize the way you want your API (may have as many subfolders as you want, you may have multiple API folders, etc.). (http://bashar.alfallouji.com/php-autoload-manager/).”

More info will be available soon, stay tuned!

]]> http://ifitiscreative.com/2012/02/02/al-manager-wordpress-plugin/feed/ 0 http://ifitiscreative.com/2012/01/17/hyundai-black-white/ http://ifitiscreative.com/2012/01/17/hyundai-black-white/#comments Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:02:32 +0000 shawn http://ifitiscreative.com/?p=753

Hyundai Black & White – Re-Edit of the Hyundai posted recently.

Grabbed this shot at the grocery parking lot, the lines on the Hyundai really give the car a sleek amazing look I have been wanting to shoot one. Post-processing was done in the new Lightroom 4 Beta, the controls in the development module have been seriously improved, check the before and after.

I still need Photoshop to remove the car in the and stop sign in the background behind the car trust me that’s a lot less Photoshop when compared to my LR3 Workflow!

Another shot without the car in the background, I still prefer the composition of the first one.

Man would I love to own this baby, the new Nikon D4, the specs on the are crazy, I can practically feel my mouth watering, oh baabeeee! LOL.

Look I hear the talk about the camera does not matter too, but to be frank I don’t really give a F**K, cause;

#1 Concept has nothing to do with gear never has never will, the debate is pointless and it’s time it stopped, if you don’t wan’t too I have no problems getting mine!

#2 The guys who speak the loudest, all got the best gear in their bags!

#3 You are lying to yourself if you believe you 2k camera is a good as this baby, no freaking way in hell!

I know you going to compare Jeremy Cowart or JoeyL and their years of experience, to me a regular joe, but pit them against each other and I bet someone is bound to shout advantage.

Seriously, the advantages of owning better gear is what I focus on, what will this camera, light meter (oh I need one of those too) etc add to my work flow, how does it make my job easier, faster and by extension better at it, these are the questions you need to ask yourself when buying more gear. The truth is cheap gear will not make you creative either!

I plan to follow this post up with one on some of the reason I plan to upgrade my gear, so stay tuned!

I have been listening to a lot of the discussion(s) going on across the inter-webs surrounding WordPress plugin and theme optimization, none of them has been as on the ball as Dev4Press post on plugin optimization (How to optimize plugin loading) by Milan Petrovic.

After testing 35 plugins and how they affect WordPress in terms of loading and resource usage (Measuring impact of pluginson WordPress  loading ) , revealing that plugins do affect performance and overhead, some more than others. They followed up with a great post on how to optimize plugin loading, while geared at plugin developers it’s a great read for theme developers and anyone working in WordPress in general.

After using Frameworks like Zend, Kohana and Codeigniter, I think it’s time for WP developers to embrace a more object oriented php approach to plugins and themes. Funny thing is I recently commented on a post by Konstantin about a similar subject; http://kovshenin.com/2012/01/plugins-vs-without-a-plugin-3745/, it something that really needs to be explored.