We talked about which area's of WordPress are under utilized according to Aaron, and he mentioned an area that is dear to my heart as well: the widget functionality that was introduced in 2.8. WP Engineer has a great post on how to build widgets 2.8 style, but if you're a TextMate user, like both Aaron and myself, you should really check out both my TextMate bundle for WordPress and Mark Jaquith's TextMate WordPress widget snippet.

Then we talked briefly about BackPress, which is the attempt to normalise all the code that is shared between BBPress and WordPress into one library of functions and classes that can be used separately as well. Aaron mentioned using it for some non WordPress projects and I've done the same.

We also ranted together on WordPress security, mainly because Aaron did a post on Technosailor with the title WordPress Security and How I’m Going to Take All Your Money. He explained his point: the people who know how to fix this stuff have jobs, they usually make their living building WordPress sites, we don't have the time to fix your blog, so please please upgrade, and if you do get hacked, and it's your dumb fault, we will charge you a lot of money for it.

When asked about his book signing tour it turns out that WordPress authors don't get flown around the world yet to promote their books, which probably has something to do with the WordCamp's being quite local and cheap to go to. I did mention that Aaron should actually be at WordCampNL, where I'll be speaking too October 31st, and he seemed eager to come but probably not this year...

There was a lot more that I'm not going to type out, you'll just have to listen to the show!

Make sure to subscribe to Press This by using the appropriate subscribe button on the Press This page, or tune in live on webmasterradio.fm each tuesday at 2 PM Pacific, 5 PM Eastern, 10 PM GMT, so you can join in the chat! Next week I'll be talking to my buddy Todd Garland of BuySellAds about how to monetize your blog!

Press This with Aaron Brazell is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

• randomize the ad positions
• shows an "advertise here"button
• add styling to your images
• add specific styling to the advertise here button
• just type in the ad image URL, and the destination URL

Currently it allows for four ads, but I'm thinking of a way to make it allow for as much ads as you want. I'm wondering: what would you be wanting from such a widget? And would you be willing to pay for it?

Ads Widget for WordPress is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

The code basically looks like this:

[source language="php"]
function widget_about_me($args) {
if (is_home()) {
extract($args);
query_posts('page_id= ');
while (have_posts()) : the_post();
echo $before_widget;
echo $before_title.get_the_title().$after_title;
the_content('');
echo $after_widget;
endwhile;
query_posts('');
}
}
[/source]

The is_home() makes sure the widget only shows up on the homepage, and then you enter into a new loop with a specific page id. After having done that, I open the "normal" loop again, to make sure other widgets and stuff that relies on is_home() keeps working.

Of course you have to make sure that you 301 redirect the "page" you're using in the widget when it get's opened directly to your homepage. There's no reason for anyone to want to see just that content.

Conditional WordPress widgets with rich editable text is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!