It will include lots of new features, some bugfixes and still no different permalinks for each languages.
Apparently someone managed to do it for Carla Bruni Sarkozy but they forked the plugin and didn’t share the changes…

I just contacted the company who made the website and see if they will share the knowledge. If not, then we will all have to wait until I fix that.

In the meantime, I did some improvements to the plugin, here is the changelog for version 1.2.5 :

• The most expected feature is now working : You can have static pages as a frontpage !
• Updated a bug with translation icon in the page while the page has never been saved
• Added options to hide the flag in the widget
• Function zd_multilang_menu now takes two paramaters : zd_multilang_menu (show_language_name, show_language_flag) by default these are true
• Added an option to display original post while translating
• Added a donate button if you want to support development of the plugin
• Ability to choose the user level needed to edit content
• Added an option to keep comments separated – Amazing work done by Pau Sanchez

Stay tuned, I’ll let everyone know as soon as I publish the next version, it should be soon.

In order to do so, I need YOU. I will make all the improvements and bug fixes based on a priority list that I want you to help me build.
Below is a list of bugfixes and features that will be included in the next release (or two if I release first a version with full 2.8 compatibility)

1. Bug fixes

• Fix home page as a static page handling !
• Fix the save button in WordPress 2.8 Fixed since 1.2.3
• Issue with the Media Upload icon Fixed in the upcoming 1.2.4
• Better handling of permalinks detection (permalink with more than 2 char)

2. Features

• Allow to create different permalinks depending on the language
• Update the zd_multilang_menu function to add parameters (like displaying only some elements)
• Add an option to allow displaying all the languages including the current one in the widget.
• Make a better, up to date F.A.Q / Help page.
• Create a function to get the current language used.
• Handling of Widget title translation.
• Uninstall function with Database cleaning
• Write post in non default language only (find a way to do this…)
• Add a theme switching function according to current language (requested by AMN)
• Translation could have a different date than the original post.
• See if it can work with WP-Print

Now it’s up to you to help me add items to the list. Please read the comments before asking for a feature/bugfix as I will try to update the list as much as possible.

Watch your step, fresh paint

Well, You may have seen with my series of Extreme Makeover WordPress Edition, I’ve been working a lot on my new theme here.

Now you can see the result !

First of all, I wanted a cleaner theme, lighter and with clear content. Yes, my purpose here was to give more focus on the content so that you stay and read the blog, not only go on the zdmultilang page to do some comments on what’s not working ;)

I also wanted to include some new features like threaded comments, more spread the love stuff, you will also see my twitter feed on the right sidebar.

The archive page has also been worked a lot on so that you can find your way inside the blog easily.

But more important than all the other reasons why you should like the new design is, I do LOVE it ! Now I want to blog more here simply because I’m not finding my own blog to be ugly and messy ;)

By the way, leave comments, I don’t eat people and actually, I’m quite a nice guy !

Technical details

So, for those who wants to hear more of the technical details, this theme is not using any wordpress framework appart from the 960 gs css grid. jQuery is used for all the visual effects, I chose to use jQuery as it’s probably the most powerfull javascript lib.

Here is a list of the files I’m overriding :

• 404.php
• archive.php
• archives.php
• comments.php
• comments-popup.php
• footer.php
• functions.php
• header.php
• index.php
• page.php
• search.php
• sidebar-archives.php
• sidebar-left.php
• sidebar-right.php
• single.php

The theme has also it’s own defined widget and functions. One of the most important one is the one I made to display the monthly archives.

[Photo credit] – Gaetan Lee

Once you have decided the features you are looking form you should try to get some inspiration. Inspiration is very important to understand your niche and to find out what your audience would like to see in a Blog and what they do not expect. Of course, inspiration is not copying a blog, au contraire !

You will have to find what is best for you, take bits and pieces everywhere to make your own design unique !

Here are some specific places where to find inspiration:

1. Webdesign Cluster on Flickr
2. Web Design Pool on Flickr
3. WebDesignerWall made a great post on finding Inspiration
4. 44 Must Learn Web Design Layout Tutorials in Photoshop @ Naldz Graphics
5. 40 Web Design Artists And 102 Websites Worth Watching @ 1stwebdesigner
6. 25 Incredibly Artistic Websites @ vandelaydesign
7. 50 Stylish Navigation Menus for Design Inspiration @ Six Revisions
8. 30 Most Inspirational Business Websites @ elitebydesign
9. 41 Great Looking Free WordPress Themes @ Hongkiat
   

But there are also some more generic places to go for your daily dose of inspiration

• Smashing Magazine
• The FWA: Favourite Website Award
• Abduzeedo
• Css ZenGarden
• Naldz Graphics
• Elite By Design – Inspiration category
• The Design Inspiration

And you, where do you find your inspiration ?

[Photo Credit: stephenpoff]

1 – List the good/bad things about your design

Before to go to far, you should make a list of all the features you want and all you want to get rid of from your current design.

Which basically means, what do you want to keep from your current design and what do you dislike ?

For example, you might want to get rid of that left sidebar and move it to the right, get a better search system but want to keep your great Archives page !

2 – Define your style.

You have to define your topic. Then you’ll have to decide which style you will use.
Why is that ? Mostly because your topic and your style will have a bigger impact with a design made for them.

Let’s say for example you are a Video game company and you want to have a funny design, then you cannot have a serious style as it will be misplaced. If you have a comic style logo and have a corporate tone, then your audience will be lost.

An the contrary, if you have a profesionnal looking website like the one we can see at EA, then your tone as to be corporate.

3 – Define your content guidelines

How do you intend to present your content, one image as a header, 2 paragraphs as the introduction and h2 titles to cut the content ?

This content guidelines will help you to define the whole structure of the site (cf ch4). If you use a banner for all posts, then you have to define the placeholder with the correct sizing to make sure there is consistency on all pages of your design.

As well, if you do use separators for paragraphs, you’ll have to remember to design them.

4 – Define the general structure

You have to know how the content is going to be organized, this means define (or change) the names of your categories, the pages and how they will be organized, like subpages etc…

By doing that, you will give more consistency to your blog as well as readability. For example, you can see that I do have a header with pages, this will change in next design as there will be more sub-pages and therefore more submenus. I will also join multiple pages into one page with subpages.

About + Resume + Contact will become an entire category (page + subpages) and will lighten the header.

[Photo Credit: Caro Wallis]

This is no secret, it is a WordPress powered website, thus giving Slant Six Games the power to use it as a corporate website, and as a blog at the same time.

This was the challenge, while having dynamic pages, we wanted to have static pages and a blog as well. The graphics, layout and wireframes was built by Karyo Edelman and it was integrated and developed by myself. The most challenging part of this website, appart from making it compatible with Internet Explorer 6 was the changing layout depending on the pages you are looking at. And also the apple spotlight functionnality that was requested as the search engine.

Basically, you have the homepage (3 column layout), the blog (2 column layout), single page (2 OR 3 columns depending on the content) and static pages (2 or 3 columns depending on the content). Below are some screenshots of the site, of course you can also go and check it live !

Zen-Dreams will also change

And now, it is time to change this layout ! I will try to make posts during this process to emphasize the process and show you how to : Integrate ZdMultilang in your design and how to create your own WordPress Template.

Screenshots

Slant Six Games Homepage

The blog @SlantSixGames

Life at Slant Section

The search box in action

]]> http://www.zen-dreams.com/en/2009/03/25/slant-six-games-new-website/feed/ 0 http://www.zen-dreams.com/en/2008/12/10/zdplugins-now-have-an-official-forum/ http://www.zen-dreams.com/en/2008/12/10/zdplugins-now-have-an-official-forum/#comments Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:15:59 +0000 Anthony http://www.zen-dreams.com/en/?p=553 As you might have noticed, there is now a new tab on this site. It corresponds to a forum I installed today in order to provide more collaboration with plugins support.

This will give everybody the chance to share their knowledge regarding various plugins I created.

I Hope this will help you all.

Photo Credits :Haags Uitburo

One of the most problematic part of the plugin was to define languages as language codes where not known of the users. So, in order to help you define your languages, next release of zdmultilang will include a language selector which has been made using the list of languages included in WordPress.

The language selector will look like this. Clicking on a link will fill correct values, allowing you to modify them before to save.

Language Selector

Feature list / Bugs I’ll be working on

Just to let you know, there is no specific order on tasks.

Features :

• Rename all falgs
• Give a list of available languages and option to create a new language
• Don’t show the flag on untranslated posts.
• Enhance zd_multilang_menu(); and create a doc on how to implement it in themes
• Search in translated texts as well as original posts
• Don’t show flag for current language in posts/pages
• Translate more : Blog title, blog slogan, post excerpts, link and cats descriptions, …
• Translate slugs – feasible ?
• Translate metatags – feasible ?
• In translate post/page, add a button to import google translation
• Allow translations using ThickBox
• Add Draft status so that you can publish a translation later.

Bugs :

• Fix the “show language name in language selector”
• When homepage of the blog is a static page, translations and permalink are not working.
• Repair Links to prev/next translation
• Check for different permalinks structures (in ?lang=… & /index.php/%postname%)
• Check compatibility with wordpress MU

Feedback ?

Of course, ZdMultilang is not only a plugin made for me, but also for YOU, so for any feature request, bugs, do not hesitate to leave a comment here, or use the bug tracker here on Launchpad.

Here is the change log :

• Some typos in French translation
• Better user level limit handling
• Better support for php4 (using php5 will give you some more features)
• Daily stats screen improved.
• No more css messing around with the dashboard.

IMPORTANT : As with every previous update of the plugin, you’ll have to download the GeoLiteCity.dat file. But this time, using a new option, you can locate it somewhere else on your server and it won’t get deleted each time you’ll update the plugin. Until now that was the main reason why there was so few updates. I didn’t want to bother you all with downloading this file again.

This simply means that statistics are much more realistics. This new version will allow more tips and tricks for spam detection thanks to the search engine included.

As for now, I’m still evaluating the possibiility to include outgoing links into the stats for version 2 (don’t worry it will come in version 2.1 if not in V2.0).

Below are some screenshots of the new features of the plugin.

Date Selector

Calendar in every page

All pages are now displaying a date selector allowing you to choose your time span anywhere in the statistics.

Technologies tab

ZdStatistics V2 Browser View

This tab shows you what browser/OS was used to navigate your site.

Daily Stats

ZdStatistics V2 Daily Stats

New daily chart now uses Google Vizualisation charts to replace the OpenFlashChart component. This will give you more compatibility as it only needs support for javascript.

Geolocalisation

ZdStatistics V2 Geolocalisation view

The new geolocalisation tab will not only display you the list of cities that your visitors are coming from, but they will also be displayed within the page using Google Maps API (You will therefore need an API key)