DeepWave

I’ve finally found some time to update my two plugins - Hide Dashboard and MyGallery to WordPress Converter. In short, the following changes were made:

Hide Dashboard 1.2

• Added option to block access to the Dashboard via the URL Location bar
• Added option to allow authors and editors to view the Dashboard and other admin section pages

MyGallery to WordPress Converter 1.1

• Bugfix to import the description and caption (alttext) fields from MyGallery into WordPress as well.
• Added a variable to allow users to change the path of their MyGallery installation if it is different from the default directory

Hopefully, these changes will make the plugins more useful.

As a follow up to my rant in a previous posting, I’ve actually done something about it and put it on the net. Maybe someone can find it useful. Anyhow, I’ve updated my WordPress, and made various changes and updates overall. Hopefully, this current set of software will last, oh, at least the next ten minutes, before being considered out of date.

Recently, I ranted about how WordPress did not give me a clear way to upgrade from external plugins like MyGallery to new features that have been absorbed into “core”. Finally, I decided to do something about it, and thankfully, everything is open sourced, and so I actually could do something about it. And now that I have, maybe I should make it available publicly as well. Now, be forewarned, this is not a plugin which I intend to maintain very much, since I only need to use it once myself. But it could be useful to others.

In short, this plugin helps to convert galleries that use the MyGallery Plugin by Thomas Boley to use the WordPress attachments system and built-in gallery shortcode that comes with WordPress 2.5 or newer.

If you are:

• unclear about full backups/restores of WP Tables and All Files,
• or are not really comfortable with thinking about mucking around with php or sql tables,
• or are just not sure what to do and what this plugin is for,
• or have no idea what I’m talking about . . .

then please, do not use this plugin, because you may lose valuable data! This is a plugin for advanced and experienced WordPress users.

This plugin will attempt to convert MyGallery installations and related shortcodes to the new WordPress Gallery attachments and shortcode system. The actual image files used by MyGallery are kept in the same place and merely added to WordPress. Please note that not all MyGallery shortcodes are converted, so some manual editing is still required. Also, the conversion is only performed on published posts - unpublished drafts, revisions, etc are ignored.

This plugin will directly change WordPress tables, post data, and files in MyGallery. A full backup, ready to restore, is required - better still if you can try it first with on a “mirror” of your blog before actually doing it on the live one.

After the conversion is complete, you will probably still have to go through your blog posts to verify if the layouts are correct. Some (many?) page layouts may need to be edited and changed because there are no exact matches between the layout options in MyGallery shortcodes and WordPress. So, after the conversion is complete, please print or save the results page as a reference of the changes that were made so that you know which pages/posts to check/edit.

Also, due to the fact that WordPress attachments make use of parent/inherited posts as a way to associate posts with the attachments, the conversion process will associate attachments to the first matching published post. Therefore, having the same MyGallery gallery on multiple pages will probably not convert properly. Watch out for “(Previously Added) Parent Post ID:” in the results to indicate that an attachment has been used more in more than one posts.

Steps to take:

1. Upgrade your blog to WordPress 2.6
2. If you have to, disable your MyGallery plugin, but do not delete it or any of the files/tables, etc
3. Install and activate this plugin
4. Run this plugin and follow its instructions, the conversion process can take a long time to work, so please be patient!
5. Print/save the results page as a reference of the changes that were made
6. Once the conversion is complete, check your blog to make sure it is working properly. If things go bad, restore from backup and review what went wrong before trying this again
7. Check/Edit all pages for layout/correct conversion etc
8. Disable/Delete this plugin
9. Disable/Delete MyGallery Plugin
10. You can remove the “mygallery”, “mygprelation” and “mypictures” tables from your WordPress Database
11. You can remove the “tumbs” folder from each of your MyGallery gallery folders in the “myfotos” folder, but do not remove the “myfotos” folder or any of the gallery folders inside it, they have been added to the WordPress attachments system

All changes made by this plugin are irreversible - use this plugin at your own risk!

Latest Update (2008-08-23): Made a bugfix to import the description and caption (alttext) fields from MyGallery into WordPress as well. Also, added a variable to allow users to change the path of their MyGallery installation from the default wp-content/myfotos/ directory. You will need to edit the plugin php file to change this variable (near the top).

Download Sample Output (PDF File)

Download MyGallery 2 WordPress Converter Plugin 1.1

One of the most common comments about the Hide Dashboard plugin was that while it “hid” the dashboard, it did not change the default view of subscribers when they log in (which is still the Dashboard). The new updated Hide Dashboard gives you an option to use its own Meta section as a widget (instead of the WordPress default), and thus bypassing the Dashboard completely for subscribers. This makes it more seamless and cleaner for subscribers.

Hide Dashboard Plugin

For those of you who have been looking for a way to hide the dashboard in WordPress from ordinary users, I’ve just put up a plugin that does exactly that and is used right here at DeepWave. Enjoy!

In the course of setting up WordPress on DeepWave, I wanted a way where subscribers and editors/writers would not need to see the Dashboard in the Admin Control Panel. I noticed a number of people had suggested various hacks and changes in WordPress code to make this happen. But as we all know, we shouldn’t hack code because it would be a pain to upgrade. So I decided to take the various methods outlined on the net and make a small WordPress plugin that would do the trick. I therefore present the Hide Dashboard plugin!

Please bear with me as PHP is not one of my regular programming languages, and this is my first WordPress plugin after all, so if there are any bugs or problems, do let me know. Aside from that, enjoy!

To see this plugin in action, just register and login to this site. Alternatively, here are some screenshots:

These are images showing the effect of the Hide Dashboard plugin for ordinary Subscribers. On the left, Hide Dashboard is deactivated, while on the right, it is activated. Below is the same for an Editor:

Latest News (2007-11-10): I’ve just updated Hide Dashboard to version 1.1. The big change here is that I’ve added a widget for widget-enabled sidebars to use Hide Dashboard’s Meta instead of the WordPress default Meta section. This is done because the default WordPress Meta Login will direct subscribers and admins to the Dashboard page - which we’re trying to avoid (for subscribers anyway) in the first place. So now, when people login using Hide Dashboard’s Meta widget, it will take them back to the web page, and they can click on “My Profile” to see their own profile. I think this makes more sense for the default case. To see this sort of thing in action, try DeepWave.Net’s register and login functions above. Alternatively, if you do not have a widget enabled theme, then try using a WordPress theme like Serene which has Hide Dashboard’s login functions built right in. Additionally, this has been tested and is working fine on WP 2.3.1..

Edit (2008-07-28): This plugin works just fine with WordPress 2.6. But most users keep forgetting that they must use the special Hide Dashboard Meta Widget for logins. Just make sure you use a widget capable theme and use Hide Dashboard’s own Meta widget instead of the default one.

Update (2008-08-23): Two new options have been added to Hide Dashboard. The first, is the option to block access to the Dashboard via the URL Location bar (needs PHP Output Buffering to be enabled), and the second is the option to allow authors and editors (user level 2 and above) to view the Dashboard and other admin section pages. To enable output buffering, you can edit your php.ini file and set “output_buffering = On”, or edit .htaccess and add the line “php_flag output_buffering On”

Download Hide Dashboard Plugin 1.2

I’ve just activated the WordPress Notify Members Plugin.. It gives users an option in their profile page to receive an email notification whenever a post or comment is added to the page.

To use it, just register on this site, and select a notification level in your profile. Let me know if it does or doesn’t work

Do also check out Some Light Reading for fiction work, or the Press and Events section for publications, press, seminars and events.

• Game Hints
• Back Orifice Check
• Novell CNE/CNA Information
• Animator’s Toolkit
• PalmOS Information and Reviews
• WordPress Hide Dashboard Plugin
• WordPress Serene Theme
• MyGallery to WordPress Converter Plugin

Old, Outdated or just Archived documents:

ASCII Art Pack!
___ ____ ___
____( \ .-’ `-. / )____
(____ \_____ / (O O) \ _____/ ____)
(____ `—–( ) )—–’ ____)
(____ _____________\ \____/ /_____________ ____)
(______/ `-.____.-’ \______)

BIG HUG

HTML References

Javascript References

Net Information - contains the following references:

• Internet Access Information (Internet Service Providers) - CICNet, FreeNets, Merit - MichNet, MSEN, Public Dial-up Internet Access List
• Mailing Lists - Anonymous Mail Server, ASPIRE, Berita-L (SEA News), Gateway 2000 Computers, Novell Netware, SLink (Singapore/ASPIRE), Windows For Workgroups, WinNews Newsletter
• Other Information - SANS’s Heuristic Analysis system for Defensive Online Warfare, Computer Abbreviations, Escape Codes, Graduate School Email Addresses, Computer Companies’ Phone Support

DeepWave.Net started out as a personal web page way back in 1993. It was hosted on my university’s Sun and NeXT servers. During those days, NCSA’s Mosaic was the sole premier web browser. It was plain as web pages go, but later, there was an experiment called WIF - WebInterFace. WIF was designed to build an application entirely based on a web page and using Javascript to provide the necessary user interaction. Unfortunately, WIF had some serious bugs in it with Javascript on Netscape 2.x and Macintosh Netscape.

In 1997, the entire site was re-released as the Andromeda Express and was well supported in Netscape 4.x. In July 1998, the Andromeda express was re-released as version 2.1 at its new home at DeepWave.Net.

Eventually, with a Perl-based site management tool called the Web Pre-Processor, DeepWave.Net was re-released yet again as version 3.0 in December 1999, with some significant changes in the design of its user interface.

At the end of 2006, a long overdue makeover for DeepWave.Net was finally implemented. This involved a complete switch to using an excellent Blogging/CMS tool called WordPress.

Welcome to Version 4.1 of DeepWave.Net!

One must always give credit where credit is due, and so, after maintaining raw HTML pages with text editors, and later with Perl, DeepWave.Net now uses a whole bunch of software and tools created by other people. So, here’s the list of major items used at DeepWave.Net:

WordPress
This is the core CMS / Blogging system I use. It is easy to setup and maintain
and it looks pretty good too.

Serene Theme
I use my own Serene Theme for the site.

Cleaner Gallery and Lightbox 2
Of course we want our pictures to look great right?

Email Obfuscator
See also news://alt.spammer.die.die.die

Feeds Widget
Easy to use RSS Feeds Widget.

NRS Folding Pages Widget
Shouldn’t this be included by default?

Google Analyticator and Google XML Sitemaps Generator
I am Google-d, Therefore I am…

Hide Dashboard
A small plugin I wrote to simply Hide the Dashboard from the Admin Menu
for anyone logging in who is not an Admin.

Search Everything
Why this is not the default in WordPress, I have no idea.

Simple Tags
Great add-on, for a great feature.

Underscore Permalinks
Because underscores are cooler than dashes?

UrlEncoded Permalinks
Just in case…

WP Spam-Free
More Anti-Spam, one can never have enough of this stuff.

WP AJAX Edit Comments
For the really nice comment F/X

WP Contact Form III
Short, sweet, to-the-point contact form - what we all need

And of course, the default Akismet plugin that comes with WordPress.

DeepWave.Net is hosted at: