Category Archives: RoloPress

RoloPress 1.5 released

Published Nov 5, 2010 | In RoloPress

We just released an update to RoloPress, a WordPress-based contact manager which is one of my pet projects.

Enhancements

There were lot of enhancements that went into this release. The following are some of the notable ones.

  • Tags are now supported on the front-end, including inline editing
  • Moved over to WordPress settings API.
  • Consolidated settings area for better admin navigation.

You can read the complete list in the announcement blog post.

Fixes

This release also includes couple of bug fixes which were reported in the forums. Notable among them are

  • “Recent Notes” works better.
  • Phone number / IM field deletion on edit has been fixed.

Plugins

This release also has a couple of Plugins added to the core, which can be activated separately.

  1. RoloPress Import: probably our most requested feature.  You can now import any Outlook CSV file into RoloPress.  We choose Outlook CSV because most contact managers allow you to export in this format.
  2. Google Maps for RoloPress: View a google map of any address in RoloPress. You can see an example on demo.rolopress.com.

Third developer

Another important milestone of this release is that, this release includes code from a third developer apart from me and Steve. The third developer is Mike Whitfield, who contributed the front-end tag editing code. Welcome Mike :)

Download

You can download the latest version from the homepage and if you are interested, you can check out the source code at github.

Try it out and if you have any feedback, please post it here or in the forums.

Posted in RoloPress | Tagged , | 2 Comments

RoloPress 1.4 with drag-n-drop menu support

Published Sep 3, 2010 | In RoloPress

Just released an update to RoloPress, a WordPress-based contact manager which is one of my pet projects.

The main enhancement that went into this release is that, we have changed the default menu with the super cool drag-n-drop menu which was introduced in WordPress 3.0. Try it out and you will surely like it.

In addition to this, there are also other enhancements and bug fixes which went into this release. You can read the full list in the official announcement page.

You can download the latest version from the homepage and if you are interested, you can check out the source code at github.

Try it out and if you have any feedback, please post it here or in the forums.

PS: While you are at it also checkout the excellent review of RoloPress by John Hawkins.

Posted in RoloPress | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

RoloPress 1.3

Published Jul 1, 2010 | In RoloPress

Just released an update to RoloPress, a WordPress-based contact manager which is one of my pet projects.

The new release has compatibility fixes for WordPress 3.0, in addition to some bug fixes. If you are using WordPress 3.0, then it is a mandatory update.

You can download the latest version from the homepage and if you are interested, you can check out the source code at github.

Try it out and if you have any feedback, please post it here or in the forums.

Posted in RoloPress | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Display Twitter profile image instead of Gravatar in WordPress comments

Published Mar 16, 2010 | In RoloPress, WordPress

In the recent release of RoloPress I implemented Twitter avatar, which allows you to show the user’s Twitter profile image instead of Gravatar. I adapted it into a separate Plugin called Twitter Avatar Reloaded so that it can be used in normal WordPress installations too.

Features

When the Plugin is installed it automatically adds a new field to the comment form to get the user’s Twitter username. You don’t need to edit the theme file at all. Isn’t that cool enough ;)

Screenshot

twitteravatarwordpressplugin[1]

Download

You can download the Plugin from the Plugin’s home page.

Feedback

As usual try out the Plugin and do let me know if you have any feedback, queries or comments.

PS: BTW RoloPress 1.2 has been released with lot of new features. Don’t forget to check it out. :)

Posted in RoloPress, WordPress | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Using WordPress as a platform

Published Jan 30, 2010 | In Events/Camps, RoloPress, WordPress

I just gave a talk in Bangalore PHP Meetup about ways in which we can use WordPress as a platform. The following is the slide I used and a little write up about the talk.

Using WordPress As a Platform

View more presentations from Sudar Muthu.

Okay, we have seen various tutorials, blog posts etc about using WordPress as this, WordPress as that and even a definite guide to using WordPress as a CMS ;)

What I am going to talk about is how we can use WordPress as a platform to develop PHP applications on top of it.

There are basically two ways in which we can write apps using WordPress.

  • As a Plugin or a Theme
  • As a standalone app

As a Plugin or a Theme

This is the most common way of writing apps using WordPress. You basically write a Plugin or a Theme that uses WordPress API. (This is how RoloPress is developed)

Check out the slide for some examples apps using this technique.

As a standalone app

In this technique, we can make use of our knowledge about WordPress functions and API in our non-standard WordPress PHP-based web applications. The easiest way to use this technique is to use BackPress.

BackPress

So what is BackPress. Here is the official definition

BackPress is a PHP library of core functionality for web applications. It grew out of the immensely popular WordPress project, and is also the core of the bbPress and GlotPress sister-projects.

Using BackPress, you can include the necessary files and you will get the WordPress utility functions. My most favourites are the security functions. In additions to using the utility functions, you will also be able to get the following features.

  • User role management
  • Complete Plugin API
  • XML-RPC Server and Client
  • Object Caching
  • Database Abstraction
  • Pseudo-cron functionality
  • Full HTTP library
  • KSES: Full security filtering for HTML content

You can see the full list in the BackPress documentation.

I also go about discussing the scenarios where it is advantages and where it is not so advantages to use BackPress. (You can see those in the slides)

So in a nutshell, if you are a WordPress developer and want to use the familiar WordPress functions in a non-WordPress PHP-based web application that you are developing, then you can use BackPress to get those familiar functions.

I am going to use BackPress in a couple of projects, which I am going to start and so stay tuned. :)

Posted in Events/Camps, RoloPress, WordPress | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

[Poll] – RoloPress Importer

Published Jan 20, 2010 | In RoloPress

With the maintenance release out, we are planning to work on importers, which will allow you to import contact data from other programs.

I want you to help me to choose which importer I should work on first, which will be released in for the next version of RoloPress.

So please cast your vote and we will work on the importer which receives the most number of votes.


(You can cast your vote here directly, if you are not able to see the poll widget or if you are reading this post from a feed reader)

Thanks :)

Posted in RoloPress | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

RoloPress 1.1

Published Jan 14, 2010 | In RoloPress

As promised RoloPress, the WordPress based contact Manger was released at the beginning of this year.

Now the first maintenance release (version 1.1) has been released with a couple of bug fixes and some enhancements. You can read the full list of changes in the announcement post.

You can download the latest version from the homepage and if you are interested, you can check out the source code at github.

Try it out and if you have any feedback, please post it here or in the forums.

Posted in RoloPress | Tagged , | 3 Comments

RoloPress – WordPress based contact manager

Published Nov 19, 2009 | In Events/Camps, RoloPress, WordPress

I have been dropping hints about a secret project which I have been working on for quite some time and now it’s time to reveal it.

RoloPress

The secret project was RoloPress, a WordPress based, open source contact manager, which I was developing with my friend Steve Bruner. The main distinction of RoloPress is that it is an application build on top of WordPress and is not a separate application with is tied up with WordPress.

Features

Some of the notable features of RoloPress for end users are:

  • All admin tasks can be performed from front-end itself. You don’t need to visit the admin area.
  • Ability to add/edit contacts
  • Ability to add/edit companies
  • Ability to add/edit notes about contacts or companies
  • Has lot of readymade widgets (around 8 in the initial release)

Developer features

RoloPress follows WordPress Plugin architecture and provides lot of features for developers to play around.

  • Highly extendable API
  • Lot of custom hooks and filters
  • Look and feel can be easily modified by creating child themes
  • Most of the existing WordPress Plugins will work out of the box
  • Easy to extend (If you know how to write a WordPress Plugin then you can easily write Plugins for RoloPress)

Release

The initial plan was to show the preview in WordCamp NYC (Now you know why I was interested in WordCamp NYC ;) ) and release it on 16-Nov-2009. But during the preview session, Matt (founder of WordPress) gave some interesting feedback and we are working on them now. Unfortunately these changes are not backward compatible and so we have held back the release till those changed are incorporated. So you have to wait for sometime ;)

For those who can’t wait, here is a presentation about RoloPress which was used in the preview session in WordCamp NYC.

RoloPress – WordPress based contact manager

View more presentations from Sudar Muthu.

Posted in Events/Camps, RoloPress, WordPress | Tagged , , , | 17 Comments