Yes, it’s that year end time of inevitable reflections, of dusting off the blog, vows to blog, etc.
There’s not de-dusting or vow-making needed here, I can tell in one URL that this blog hoisted 120 posts in 2019 https://cogdogblog.com/2019/ (though admittedly down from 2018, 2017, 2016…). It’s been a far bit of SPLOT blogging in 2019 (check count) but as they say (who says this), “not the whole enchilada”.
So in this post I’ve pulled out twelve things beyond SPLOTs (they might get their own post) created/shared openly without any restrictions right here at codogblog.com (even how those count URLs are done).
(1) Font Awesome 5 Menu WordPress Plugin
I’ve dabbled more in WordPress themes than plugins, though none of either have been hoisted at WordPress.org (a goal for 2020, need to see about that process). This plugin was more of a twist on an existing one.
For my WordPress Calling Card themes, I’ve built in places for social media menus with recommended Font Awesome 4 Menus – a plugin that converted menu items labels to icons. The problem is that it is based on a now old version of the icons (see http://fontawesome.com/). I posted questions in the plugin support area, but after a while, and some inspection, I guessed the developers had abandoned it.
Because plugins are open licensed, I saw no problem in making modifications to the plugin to use the new font icons- for now the plugin is available at https://github.com/cogdog/font-awesome-5-menus No idea if it is used by anyone beyond me, but just 10 days ago I got two questions from one user as GitHub issues, and even got suggestions for small interface tweaks I folded in.
Maybe in 2020 I will submit to https://wordpress.org/plugins/
(2) On This Day WordPress Plugin
At this pace, 2019 looks like all WordPress plugins. This one came from a tweet/blog post from my good friend John Johnston, and it spurred me to try folding in a plugin for creating a page on your site (well it offers a shortcode to put the output anywhere) that shows all posts on the current day in the past (see mine).
This was kind of neat to figure out; get the plugin at https://github.com/cogdog/wp-posted-today — see also a few examples of it in use on other people’s blogs.
The next one… not a plugin!
(3) Jung hfr vf n fvzcyr pvcure pbqr? Sha!
I’m old, I still use, and occasionally make, web browser bookmarklet tools, one of the older browser tricks still out there (well not in Firefox). I still use one from the very first ones I found, it converts Centigrade to Fahrenheit (and other to go the other way).
And this one, another golden oldie, I use almost every day- I search my own blog for any text, entered or selected, from wherever I am on the web.
This one I made earlier this year for Networked Narratives was to let students experiment with the ROT cipher, to quickly convert any selected text to it’s coded (or uncoded) equivalent, just a bit simpler than round trips to http://rot13.com
(4) A Web Annotation RSS Feed Widget
You can tell an old blogger by how many times they mention RSS. I’m that old. For the web site for Augmenting Human Intellect, the public was invited to use Hypothes.is to collectively annotate Doug Engelbart’s landmark paper. I figured that since you can get an RSS feed for annotations on a sort, it ought to be easy to use the WordPress RSS widget to put that in our site.
Sort of easy? The output was a bit problematic, but was made pretty with a bit of clever custom CSS. No code at all.
(5) Blog Syndication in a Reader
Yes, I still do some sites as Feed WordPress syndication hubs. For all that people cough at that, the darn thing still works well, weird plugin, mostly absent developer, and all.
This post explained how to achieve this outside of building web sites and such, by setting up the feeds as OPML files that could be shared, and askng participants to follow in a Feed Reader.
Simple it is! Right?
(6) Eventually Yours…
Another in the fleet of my WordPress Calling Card themes, this one offers a simple site that leverages the design of an HTML5Up theme inside of WordPress. I thought it was elegant, but got no takers. Get the theme here https://github.com/cogdog/wp-eventually
(7) WordPress Combinations of Category and Tag URLs (or date and tags)
WordPress let’s you organize posts by Categories or Tags, but ought it to be possible to create links that do crosses between? Well there is, it just took a little exploring/experimentation. This post explains how to do something like showing posts the have the same category AND tag, e.g. https://cogdogblog.com/category/wp/?tag=peanutbutter
I have some custom code in my theme that returns the number of posts found when showing an archive, meaning a total number in a category OR a tag, and like above… both.
But it also works as I used in my opening… I can see all posts (and a count) for say 2019 https://cogdogblog.com/2019/ or tagged with something in 2019 https://cogdogblog.com/2019/?tag=splot or heck even for a month with the tag https://cogdogblog.com/2019/11/?tag=splot
Playing with URLs, it never goes out of style, right Jon?
(8) Martin Gets a Generator (and then some)
Sometimes you get what you tweet, if it’s interesting… Martin Weller was looking for ways to generate a web site random generator education technology metaphors. I did some fiddling to create a GitHub based edtechaphor version.
It took Martin but a wink of time to make his own version, hoisted in his own domain http://metaphor.edtechie.net/ and a few more others emerged, even one in German.
(9) When a WordPress Content Type Wonders About It’s Taxonomy
From the obscure coding department, but it came out of a direct need of a current project. It had a use for a custom content type added to a site that had its own taxonomy, this was used to generate the terms it belonged to.
Yes, I may have spent longer on Photoshopping the featured image than doing the code or blog post.
(10) A Simple, Mobile Friendly, Options Saving but Cookieless Navigator for a WordPress Site
I have to admit being baffled at not getting any ripples of interest in this approach I thought was rather innovative. It offers a way someone can keep updated on the latest content in areas they select (from categories) from a media rich web site resource (for Leadership development) — but they can get a quick loading version of the site as simple HTML in the “Navigator” view (this is done using the WordPress REST API).
This maybe is not special, but what is happens when you use the filter options on the Navigator to track the areas of interest. Saved as a bookmark or home button screen, the Navigator remembers these options BUT WITHOUT USING NASTYY TRACKING COOKIES! Isn’t that kind of a big deal?
It’s by no means limited to sites about leadership development for managers in BC Corrections, I could do this for any resource site where you to offer a quick means to show what’s new than just visiting the site.
Anyone out there? Bueller? Bueller?
(11) Toolkit for Building Toolkits
This one too I thought was breaking new grounds. How many one off resource database driven sites do we need, where the structure and presentation are locked in one design?
I have a working concept of doing any kind of resource collections in WordPress, independent of topic, meta data structure, or theme. And it can be set up or cloned elsewhere all without any coding. .. this is all doable via a hoste version of WordPress and free plugins.
Maybe I am explaining too much with code. Or maybe I need more demos. I think I will put one of these into play as a project portfolio.
Like (10) above, I felt a lot of excitement for this. I guess most of my peers are caught up in LMS rage and open textbooking.
(12) A Dynamic Google Form Driven By WordPress Content
This was a lot of fun to get into Google Scripting. What it produces will not even hint at what it does under the hood. But I made a form where the menu items offered are updated automatically as categories and entries are added to a WordPress site. Yes, some scripting foo reads from the WordPress API to make the menus self-updating.
(13) But Wait, There’s More!
- Infrequent but fun episodes of The Puerto Rico Connection podcast with Antonio Vantaggiato https://prconnection.cogdog.casa/2019/
- A Writing Space for Cori and 2 colleagues’ high school students
- 2214 Open Licensed Flickr Photos (but not done yet for 2019)
- 1775 GitHub Contributions (99% my stuff, mostly that S**** stuff)
- Other stuff I am forgetting
See no S _ _ _ _ stuff here (but maybe elsewhere)
Featured Image: Yes, a Dozen eggs is cliche, but I like this CC0 image form pxfuel.com (no creator credit there).
You are so far down the rabbit hole I can barely see you from the surface! Gone are the days when I was your #1 blog commentator because I actually understood them and had something to say.
Thank heavens your Instagram feed is so much fun and relatable for dweebs like me 🙂
Happy holiday of choice to you, the wife, the dog, the pickup—living the dream!
Love from
Sandy and Peter
What a lovely bunch of stuff and explorations. I’ve enjoyed following from afar for another year.
PS, particularly enjoy using the on this day plugin. I find glancing back at my old self fascinating.