There are lots of reasons to that, the first one being, time is missing. I’ve been very busy with projects I built for clients around WordPress. I started working on some Android applications and I must say I love making those.

I will probably release my first app within a few weeks (well, when I find time).

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to work on ZdMultilang and fix all these issues you gave back to me but time is a big issue for me, wife, kids and a new job.

Yes, I recently got hired by one of the biggest Video Game company in the World as a Sys Engineer.

I’m also moving houses this month so don’t expect too much updates on the plugins.

By the way, if someone is willing to help on the development of ZdMultilang, you can contact me here and I will facilitate that.

I’m going to drop WordPress slowly as I don’t have much more time to work on that. But I will start making more apps for the Android pretty soon :).

The good thing about this app is, it’s OpenSource and also we’ll get new comments notifications (well if we activate them).

Here is the official video:

And here is the official release notes.

Before giving you the changelog, let me tell you this, I found a way to make translated permalinks work, but, this is very bad in term of SEO so it is not yet implemented. The way I implemented it for now makes these work :
http://blog.zen-dreams.com/fr/nouveau_post
http://blog.zen-dreams.com/en/new_post, that’s great
and finally, http://blog.zen-dreams.com/en/nouveau_post and that is not good at all as two different permalinks with the exact same content…

I’m trying to find a way to make it work properly right now, and even those who forked the plugin have this behaviour. I have my ideas so we may see a version 1.2.6 before Christmas, but probably not.

And now, here is the changelog.

• 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
• Autosave (optional) so that, every 5 minutes.

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.

1. Meet people

So that’s what I did, first by Going to the Summer meetup of meetups, but it was very crowded. Then I’ve been to a second one more focused on Internet Marketing. That where I had the chance to meet John Chow and talk with him for nearly an hour about marketing, WordPress and many other topics (like Airbus A380 :D) as well as how he got banned and reintroduced to the Google search.

2. Work

I’m usually a big fan of the let people see how good you are and they will contact you, but it’s very difficult to do when you don’t know the people in your new place.

So, I started my business here by Working for a great video game company, SlantSixGames. This project was about making their entire website using WordPress as a CMS and Blog. I will repeat myself, but I really enjoyed working with these guys ! Lots of passion in their work and the design was really awesome as you can see below.

I just finished a new project for a Sports author, this project was about integrating the design into a WordPress theme. I will post more about this contract later (when the page will be live ;)

3. WordPress Consulting in Vancouver

I know there are already lots of companies doing WordPress consulting in Vancouver, but I also know there is still room for me ;)

The truth is that there are more Joomla! and Drupal consultants here than WordPress Experts here. I Just wish there was more events around WordPress in order to meet some WordPress fans and can’t wait for the next WordCamp Vancouver.

There is soon to be a WordCamp Fraser Valley but I won’t be able to attend because it’s my daughter’s birthday !

All that to say that I’m a happy WordPress Consultant in Vancouver, and do not hesitate to contact me if you are looking for a WordPress Expert.

[Photo credit: llawliet]

Following some of your requests and due to the fact that I had to look in order to make ZdMultilang work with the latest WordPress, Here is the updated article with explanation of how to integrate tinyMCE into your wordpress plugins.

So here is the code you need to include.

add_filter('admin_head','ShowTinyMCE');
function ShowTinyMCE() {
	// conditions here
	wp_enqueue_script( 'common' );
	wp_enqueue_script( 'jquery-color' );
	wp_print_scripts('editor');
	if (function_exists('add_thickbox')) add_thickbox();
	wp_print_scripts('media-upload');
	if (function_exists('wp_tiny_mce')) wp_tiny_mce();
	wp_admin_css();
	wp_enqueue_script('utils');
	do_action("admin_print_styles-post-php");
	do_action('admin_print_styles');
}

Don’t ask me to explain everything, I just found all these details while browsing the admin pages related to posts.

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]