Anthology of Ideas

When XHTML was first released nearly everyone, myself included, rushed headlong into it. Countless websites were shredded, old HTML code was stripped out and rebuilt using XHTML syntax under the watchful eye of the W3 validators. When it was over, the dust settled and, for a time, everyone tried to pretend HTML no longer existed — scorning those who had the audacity to still use HTML. Time passed. People began realizing that XHTML wasn’t the save all and be all that it was supposed to be: some popular browsers (cough: IE) couldn’t even properly render its content type of application/xhtml+xml, so developers were stuck calling it XHTML and pretending that it was truly XHTML+XML, but they were really just dishing out HTML that was properly formatted.

I’ve been getting ready for WordPress 2.3, so in preparation I’ve started cleaning up my database. My first order of business was to clean up the tags database. Over time I’ve used several different methods of separating words: all spaces, hyphens and underscores have all been used which really makes the nice names ugly. Fixing this was easy, I just used the MYSQL replace command: UPDATE table SET field =

The average WordPress theme has different files for pages, single posts, archives and the front page; however, most of them are almost exactly the same except for inside the_loop. This is a quick tutorial on how to do the most with the fewest files, and includes a few methods to have custom templates by separating content display from structural elements. WordPress looks first for special files and then defaults to the index.php file (as shown in this diagram).

XHTML specifications provide three types of lists ordered lists , unordered lists and definition lists . Ordered lists are meant for content that must be arranged in a specific order — things like instructions, or lines of code. Unordered lists are meant to be used for content that can reasonably be displayed in any order such as navigation menus or shopping lists. The rarely used definition lists is meant to be used where one list item is logically defined by a subsequent item (a definition term followed by a definition description ) it functions the same way as a FAQ or glossary.

If you have tried to use AJAX with WordPress, most likely you have stumbled upon the wp_die() function which completely kills the response you expect to get. However, we can trap the wp_die() by using PHP’s output buffering and the ob_start callback function to process the output of wp_die() even though a die() is called. This is a very special case, and will only work when you are able to ensure output buffering can be called before the die is called.

Aside from a brief flirtation with a couple payed projects, I’ve been heavily focusing on rewriting the code for INAP 3.0, and it has almost reached the point of a private beta (which means I start running it on this site.) I have selected the new name for INAP 3.0, but I’m not going to reveal it just yet. Here is a small preview of what you can expect from INAP 3.0: INAP 3.0 is now truly modular with a main Javascript/PHP core that other features hook into to function.

When XHTML was first released nearly everyone, myself included, rushed headlong into it. Countless websites were shredded, old HTML code was stripped out and rebuilt using XHTML syntax under the watchful eye of the W3 validators. When it was over, the dust settled and, for a time, everyone tried to pretend HTML no longer existed — scorning those who had the audacity to still use HTML. Time passed. People began realizing that XHTML wasn’t the save all and be all that it was supposed to be: some popular browsers (cough: IE) couldn’t even properly render its content type of application/xhtml+xml, so developers were stuck calling it XHTML and pretending that it was truly XHTML+XML, but they were really just dishing out HTML that was properly formatted.

I’ve been getting ready for WordPress 2.3, so in preparation I’ve started cleaning up my database. My first order of business was to clean up the tags database. Over time I’ve used several different methods of separating words: all spaces, hyphens and underscores have all been used which really makes the nice names ugly. Fixing this was easy, I just used the MYSQL replace command: UPDATE table SET field =

The average WordPress theme has different files for pages, single posts, archives and the front page; however, most of them are almost exactly the same except for inside the_loop. This is a quick tutorial on how to do the most with the fewest files, and includes a few methods to have custom templates by separating content display from structural elements. WordPress looks first for special files and then defaults to the index.php file (as shown in this diagram).

XHTML specifications provide three types of lists ordered lists , unordered lists and definition lists . Ordered lists are meant for content that must be arranged in a specific order — things like instructions, or lines of code. Unordered lists are meant to be used for content that can reasonably be displayed in any order such as navigation menus or shopping lists. The rarely used definition lists is meant to be used where one list item is logically defined by a subsequent item (a definition term followed by a definition description ) it functions the same way as a FAQ or glossary.

If you have tried to use AJAX with WordPress, most likely you have stumbled upon the wp_die() function which completely kills the response you expect to get. However, we can trap the wp_die() by using PHP’s output buffering and the ob_start callback function to process the output of wp_die() even though a die() is called. This is a very special case, and will only work when you are able to ensure output buffering can be called before the die is called.

Aside from a brief flirtation with a couple payed projects, I’ve been heavily focusing on rewriting the code for INAP 3.0, and it has almost reached the point of a private beta (which means I start running it on this site.) I have selected the new name for INAP 3.0, but I’m not going to reveal it just yet. Here is a small preview of what you can expect from INAP 3.0: INAP 3.0 is now truly modular with a main Javascript/PHP core that other features hook into to function.