navid azimi » Wordpress

I lost the battle, and the war.

Navid — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 01:28:51 +0000

I have had to disable comments on this blog because despite repeated efforts by the WordPress community to thwart them, the spam artists are perpetually one step ahead of the game. Since there are no active readers (or writers, to be fair) anymore, I find this to be a win-win situation.

I just purged something in the neighborhood of 30,000 comments this afternoon. I started the process very prescriptively to avoid deleting any real comments but soon gave up when I found myself literally drowning in the sea of colossal waste. There were new comments being added as I was deleting them directly in the database.

In fact, there were so many comments that I could not even use the WordPress management interface. It continuously and utterly failed. It even gave excellent confirmation messages such as “X number of comments have been deleted” while nothing was actually being deleted. Nice.

Adieu. Navid.

WordPress 2.0

Navid — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 05:16:29 +0000

I just upgraded from WordPress 1.5.2 to WordPress 2.0 — which was released today. If something broke, I apologize. However, from my early assessment there seems to be a lot of great improvements. There are a lot of other things which I thought could have been done to improve WordPress but were not implemented. If I ever get the time, I’ll definitely implement them myself. In the meanwhile, I am in the process of cleaning everything up. Once that’s done, I’ll continue with my legendary end of 2005 entry.

Same Layout, New Look

Navid — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 22:23:52 +0000

You might have noticed that things are looking a little different than they used to. And that’s because I’m currently in the process of updating the look of my site. Someone had the audacity to say that my site was boring to look at and another said it looked girlish. Therefore, I’m addressing both of these insults with a new and fresh look. The layout will remain the same but there are going to be tweaks all over the place. Most notably, the gallery link is back and now can be found in the navigation bar above as ‘albums’.

one-five-one-two

Navid — Sat, 28 May 2005 08:44:33 +0000

I made some major upgrades to the backend of the website. This is all in preparation for the newly designed navidazimi dot com. I am pretty excited about the way things are turning out — and for the record — Audrey isn’t going anywhere. I’m just going to have to find a place for her. Keep checking back because there are big things happening.

Adieu. Navid.

The Execution of All Things

Navid — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:40:07 +0000

If you’re still modifying or hacking up Templates in order to embed custom wordpress functionality inside posts and pages you are way behind the times. Introducing the Execution of All Things plugin (wp-exec). This plugin for WordPress allows users to easily insert dynamic content insides posts or pages (and even include posts or pages within one another!) There is an entire slew of functionality already implemented but, best of all, it supports calling any wordpress function and embedding the output inside a post or page effortlessly.

Okay, so it sounds pretty cool in theory but what does that mean and what tags are currently implemented?

Samples and Examples

Please note that each function is only shown with one or two parameters at most. You should check out the projects page for a complete list of all parameters that can be used.

Date: This is a very simple example but you can easily embed the current date or time in any post or page.

Saturday February 04, 2012 at 2:41 pm

02:04:2012 2:41pm

Archives: This is probably the most common usage I found. Instead of faking the templates in order to include a list of archives using the function — you can simply create a new page and embed:

Categories: Again another common usage would be listing all categories in a post or page.

Function: This tag will allow you to arbitrarily call any user defined functions (including any wordpress functions and even functions in activated plugins). Tres cool!

Include: This, I think, is the neatest feature of this plugin. It facilitates dynamically including a post or page within one another. You can embed a post inside another post or vice-versa. You simply need to supply the tag the ID number of the post or page you are attempting to include. You can also embed other information by using the field tag (but by default the content is used).

bloginfo: This tag simply gives you quick access to the global information regarding your wordpress installation.

3.2.1

Finally, please note that archives and categories just like their PHP counterparts should be encapsulated by

More Information

You can find more infromation and download this WordPress plugin (wp-exec) from http://www.navidazimi.com/projects/wp-exec/.

Enjoy!

Adieu. Navid.

Audrey Unloaded

Navid — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 00:06:20 +0000

I have to say that I am really surprised. I am really surprised with the lack of enthusiasm regarding the old color scheme. I thought it was really good but alas everyone else had their reservations regarding the maroon/olive look. I really thought that breaking out of the monotonous blue would be welcomed. Maybe the Internet is not yet ready for the desaturates.

I am now experimenting with the blues again trying to get something elegant going. In addition, I am working on bringing back the stylesheet switcher so that each person can have their own theme. I am personally resenting the blue more and more… please help me out.

Adieu. Navid.

List Manager Plugin v1.7 Released

Navid — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 23:59:29 +0000

Yes, it’s true: I have released a new version of the WordPress List Manager. Version 1.7 offers three new features based on the new list attributes tag.

List Attributes

Patrick — a WordPress user just like you and I– suggested in an email to me the idea that date and time of when a list was last updated/modified should be made available. So, there you have it, you can now let users automatically know when the list was last modified/updated. This was slightly more difficult than I had originally anticipated but instead of hacking it, I decided to introduce the new custom tag which can be used inside posts and pages. This new functionality now paves the way for easy future additions.

To use this new functionality, in your posts or pages, simply add the following custom tag where ever you would like to insert the date/time.

id: just like the normal list tag, we need to know which list we are dealing with.
attribute: we need to know what attribute we’re looking for, so set this to lastmodified or lastupdated (same thing).
format: if you omit this tag, it will automatically grab the default WordPress values, otherwise use the PHP date() syntax to specify the format. (optional)
gmt: if you want to display gmt instead, set this value to true. defaults to false. (optional)

Of course the custom tag is based off the new API method available — in case you prefer to use this functionality directly within PHP:

List Count

In addition to the “lastmodified” attribute, there are two more attributes available: count and countchecked. Basically, just like above, you can embed the following tags anywhere in your post or pages:

returns the total number of items in the list

returns the number of items checked or crossed off in the list

Again, this functionality, is built off the following API methods:

Documentation

Also, I have taken the time to basically clean up the “documentation” so its much easier to understand and use this plugin overall. This was suggested by Lorelle regarding on how to import lists. Therefore, I changed the “Example Usage” layout in order to answer specific questions regarding how to use the plugin. I hope things are much more clear.

As always, if there are any feature suggestions or bug reports, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Adieu. Navid.

Audrey Reloaded

Navid — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 03:20:04 +0000

Yet another redesign. Don’t I have anything better to do with myself? Nah. After spending much time with Audrey (my custom personal theme for WordPress 1.5b), I decided it was time to incorporate some new design merits after seeing what works and what doesn’t with the last incarnation of Audrey. Audrey Reloaded basically only has one design feature in mind: easy reading. There comes a point where I realized creating good looking websites and creating websites which look good given the content are generally two very different layouts. Therefore, after years and years of writing on this website, I am trying to take into account my personal writing habits and designing towards those goals. As you probably know I am exceptionally verbose and the old harsh black and default line spacing definitely made it much harder to read. But let me be the first to say that I by no means am a designer. I am simply a developer and avid writer. Here is a list of things I tweaked around for Audrey Reloaded:

Color Scheme: Adam Polselli predicts that purple is the new pink. And I agree with him but I gave my hand at trying to compose a masculine purple themed color scheme and well, it simply didn’t work. I may revisit purple soon but in the meantime I took Adam’s other advice and gave the “desaturates” a try. Tell me if you like it.
Readability & Line Spacing: I am a very verbose fellow and reading my entries with the default line-text is almost nauseating. I have vertically spaced out the lines and lightened the text to create a much easier reading environment. I still don’t expect any of you to actually read what I write, but this way I can continue to pretend you care.
Contrast & Background: I have put an emphasis on attempting to create a much more open and lighter presence. The old dark gray background did not seem to go over very well. Again, lighter colors and more open space has been the key.
Search Functionality: I have not only enabled searching but I have also added a new search template to the theme. Maybe I will throw LiveSearch in down the road. We’ll see.
Categories: I added a lot of new categories to help organize the ever growing collection of entries. Originally, the sidebar only displayed the parent categories.
Banner Design: I still think the top header looks plain as an all white background but its going to stay that way until I (or my cousin Arshia) find something better.
Color Scheme: I have also added little minor touches of color here and there to spruce things up. I am really liking the new design but then again, I could be totally alone in this category.

Your comments are always well received especially when they pertain to the websites’ readability, accessibility and just plain old good looks. Let me know what you think and if you feel this is a step into the right direction.

Note: If you still see the blue banner with Audrey’s picture in the header, please refresh.

Adieu. Navid.

List Manager Plugin v1.5 Released

Navid — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 01:47:28 +0000

I think my favorite aspect of being a developer is the notion that I get to run the absolute cutting edge applications while I am developing them. By the same token, I am always running the latest version of my List Manager plugin and the rest of you suckers can only get it when I make it public. I think there’s an inherent satisfaction. Maybe you understand what I am saying, maybe you think I am nuts. Whatever. I just wanted to mention that I have released a new version of the List Manager Plugin (wp-lists) for WordPress. You can download or just find out more about it over at the projects area. Enjoy.

In other semi-related news, I have finally put the latest version of my DVD Collection up. You can find it here or under the “lists” section on the sidebar. And yes, it is powered by the wp-lists plugin.

Adieu. Navid.