Archive for category WordPress Plugins

WPMU LDAP plugin fixes

Jun 7

Posted by Matthew Danskine in WordPress Plugins | No Comments

So, one of the little projects I’ve been asked to help with at Lane is to move a number of WordPress websites from an old WordPress Multi-User installation to a fancy new server with a WordPress Network (basically the same thing, just called a network since 3.something). Anyway, they wanted to make it really slick, so the network admin set up a plugin to authenticate WordPress users against the school’s LDAP server. In other words, each person (student, staff, faculty…) has a master user name and password for all things having to do with Lane. Rather than have WordPress outside this, we use the WPMU LDAP plugin to allow users to log into their WordPress sites using their Lane credentials. Pretty cool.

Couple issues came up though. The servers at Lane are really tied down so they stay squeaky clean. Little things that developers often don’t worry about display errors here. What that does is just makes you, as a developer, really consider what you’re doing with variables. Here’s what I saw…

Notice: Undefined index: phone in /var/www/ws-prod-blogs/docroot/wp-content/plugins/wpmuldap/lib/ldap_core.php on line 190 Notice: Undefined variable: user_data in /var/www/ws-prod-blogs/docroot/wp-content/plugins/wpmuldap/lib/ldap_ro.php on line 164 Notice: Undefined variable: user_data in /var/www/ws-prod-blogs/docroot/wp-content/plugins/wpmuldap/lib/ldap_ro.php on line 168 Notice: generate_random_password is <b>deprecated</b> since version 3.0! Use wp_generate_password() instead. in /var/www/ws-prod-blogs/docroot/wp-includes/functions.php on line 2839 Notice: update_usermeta is <b>deprecated</b> since version 3.0! Use update_user_meta() instead. in /var/www/ws-prod-blogs/docroot/wp-includes/functions.php on line 2839 Notice: update_usermeta is <b>deprecated</b> since version 3.0! Use update_user_meta() instead. in /var/www/ws-prod-blogs/docroot/wp-includes/functions.php on line 2839 Notice: update_usermeta is <b>deprecated</b> since version 3.0! Use update_user_meta() instead. in /var/www/ws-prod-blogs/docroot/wp-includes/functions.php on line 2839 Notice: wp_specialchars is <b>deprecated</b> since version 2.8! Use esc_html() instead. in /var/www/ws-prod-blogs/docroot/wp-includes/functions.php on line 2839 Notice: update_usermeta is <b>deprecated</b> since version 3.0! Use update_user_meta() instead. in /var/www/ws-prod-blogs/docroot/wp-includes/functions.php on line 2839 Notice: update_usermeta is <b>deprecated</b> since version 3.0! Use update_user_meta() instead. in /var/www/ws-prod-blogs/docroot/wp-includes/functions.php on line 2839

Anyway, the WPMU LDAP plugin had a couple minor issues like using deprecated WordPress functions. If you have found this post because you’re having the same problem, you can download the fixed plugin here.

Please remember that this is for wpmuldap_4.0.2, so check the plugin page on WordPress’s website to see if there isn’t an updated version of the plugin. I’m about 5 minutes away from contacting the developer to see if he would like to fork my fixes.

Tags: Custom Programming, Custom WordPress, Lane Community College, LCC, PHP, WordPress, wpmu-ldap

Herbert Lumber – Riddle Oregon

Oct 13

Posted by Matthew Danskine in Builders Architects & Engineers, Self-Managed Websites, WordPress Blogs, WordPress Plugins | No Comments

Herbert Lumber had recently lost their website to a server crash. Scary. Especially since their host didn’t have a backup. When I talked to them they were trying to figure out how to get a website back up that they could back up and maintain themselves. Hmmmm. What do I have that would work for that? Yep. WordPress.

It came out pretty well. They had some of the original photos that they had used on the original site and even some of the content from the pages. I was able to get a custom WordPress theme set up for them in a couple days and moved all their photos and content over in a few hours. Now they have a site they can maintain, update and, most importantly, back up on their own.

Unfortunately, Herbert Lumber wasn’t the first client I had talked to that week who had lost their website to a server crash with no backups. I decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a way to back up a full WordPress installation with a single click from the Dashboard in WordPress. I wrote a plugin that is available from WordPress that makes a backup of your entire database as well as your entire web root folder. That means that if you have information on your website that’s not in WordPress, my plugin backs that up too. Pretty cool, really. One click makes the backup file, then shows you a link to it so you can download it to your local computer. Then you just delete the backup file from the server and you’re good to go. You can run the backup as often as you like.

If you have lost your website, or you’re not happy with the one you have, give me a call. I’m sure I can help you put something together that will fit your needs, look great and be under budget.

Tags: Cross Browser Compatible, Custom Blog, Custom WordPress, Custom WordPress Theme, Herbert Lumber, Oregon Web Design, Roseburg Web Design, WordPress, WordPress Theme

Total Archive

Oct 4

Posted by Matthew Danskine in WordPress Plugins | No Comments

This is my first plugin. Pretty simple really. I needed something that would allow one of my clients to create an archive of their whole WP site and database, then download it so it didn’t take up a bunch of space on my server.

A few things to keep in mind. I wrote this for my server. Your mileage may vary. I’m running a LAMP server with all latest stable releases (PHP 5.3+, MySQL 5+, Apache 2+) and gzip installed. That may or may not be important. I’m no server guy. All I know for certain is it works with that configuration. I suspect that it will run on most any LAMP setup, but I can’t guarantee it.

One nice thing… The file that is created is named with the site title, date and time of creation and the WP version it’s running. If there’s a server crash, or your web guy dies, you know exactly what you have to do to get back up and running quickly.