I pushed out a quick update to ER Tweet Me yesterday (now version 1.1.1). Now URLs are automatically linked up if they are not already a link. If the twitter feed you're pulling in somehow already turns URLs into live links then it should not have any negative effect. So, go download and enjoy the new update. Remember, it's compatible with both EE 1.6.x and EE 2.x (since the 1.1.0 release).
Today I asked a simple question on twitter and got more responses than I expected. Some of the answers also caught me off guard so I thought I'd extend the question to the blog so we had more room to chat and discuss. The question was regarding how many people/firms add their credits to the footer of the websites they build. At Ideal Design Firm we've been doing that since I can remember but lately I've questioned the purpose it serves. I can't recall a single instance where a client has asked us to remove our name or logo but I also can't recall an instance where we've received business from it. I'd discuss my suspicions as to why those have been our results but that's another topic.
I've recently given some thought to a piece of EE that I have never had a great need for. Control Panel logging. Out of the box, ExpressionEngine logs certain actions that are performed in the CP saving the Site ID, Member, IP Address of that member, date/time and the action performed. This can be very useful when trying to figure out when something happened and who may have done it. It can also help see how many people might be logging in under the same account from various locations (IPs). This is all great but quite limited considering the number of actions for which this occurs.
Today I published an article that walked through utilizing the Control Panel Log in ExpressionEngine and recording with certain actions were performed in your add-ons. To display how this might be used I have updated my Redirect Helper Lite module with such a feature. Now when any redirects are added, modified or deleted the action is recorded to the Control Panel Log along with the standard info of the data/time, Member info, and site ID. If you're a code diver you can check out the mcp.redirect_helper_lite.php file for the changes near the top of the file.
The latest update, 1.1.0, of ER Developer Toolbar is now available. I have added an addition level under Templates which gives direct links to template groups and to the edit page of specific templates. There was also a small UI addition of an arrow to indicate each menu item which had items beneath it. I also did a good bit of re-factoring to the extension file that won't affect the actual functionality of the toolbar. It was simply the first step in the EE2.0 direction. I also updated the documentation link in the extension. You can grab the update on the extension's page. To upgrade you simply replace all original files with the new ones from the zip.
How many times have you been working on a site and poof! something doesn't work the way you expected? For most developers this is just part of the process. There are some common ways to debug issues that are built right into ExpressionEngine. You just need to know how to use them. There are other things that aren't necessarily tools but rather features that might be missed causing errors. Let's dive in.
This morning sometime around or before 5 a.m. EST EllisLab began experiencing some website issues. It appears to be related to either an incorrect database setting in their config file, or more likely - a deeper issue connecting to the database in general. Ironically the message says to "contact your hosting provider if the problem persists." (The irony is that they own the hosting provider)
I recently started being a bit more “social” about my coding. I've come to enjoy keeping online repositories of some of my code on github.com and enjoy the sharing of code in this manor. I recently updated my PHP form script and now host the repository with GitHub for anyone who is interested in contributing/tweaking it. I have only been using version control for a little while so I thought I'd share some resources that helped me get started.
While searching for a new approach to email marketing I came across this excellent resource. It has been put together by the company FreshView for their product Campaign Manager. They have tested 11 desktop email clients and 8 webmail clients and the results are very very useful. I know they will save me some time next time I put together an HTML based email. Take a peek at it here.
This afternoon I was working on some ajax loading for the media player on the church’s website. I opened up ImageReady and was about to get rolling on creating a nice animated gif for a “loading”-type message. Then I asked myself the ever-important question: will I be reinventing the wheel? That’s when I searched Google and found this.