Jtags – A Wordpress Plugin by Jeremy Duffy

For the most part, a code_chunk is just a bit of html. If you try to do something complex using php, function calls, and database queries, you're better of just making a new jtags function instead of using this.

Error Example

Note that this assumes that there's no code_chunk with an index of "nonexistant".

Parameter list

• link=x, If you want to link to a blog entry or page, x must be the post/page's post_name value (called a Page Slug in the "edit page" screen for some reason).

  If you want to link to one of your blogroll entries, then x must be the link-notes or description field.

  Important! A recent feature that I added lets you specify a "default write" value for posts/pages by adding a custom field called "default_write". Whatever you put for the value will be printed as a link's "write" value by default when you don't select a custom write value. If you don't specify a write value or "default_write" value, the link function will use the title of the post/page instead.

• write=x, where x is any word or phrase you want to printed. If the words you want printed includes a space, you'll need to surround x with single or double quotes. Ex. write=good, write=this-is-ok-too, write="Whoops! Need quotes now".
• target=x, where x is a valid link target like "_new", "_self", or other (whatever would work in an anchor tag). Note for pages that are on your domain (your own site), the default target is always "_self". For pages that are off-site, you can choose the default by altering the default_target value in the jtags_user_functions.php file. If you leave the setting alone (which is "_new"), then links will open new pages when the link is pointing off-site, and "_self" for pages that are on your same domain.
• name=x, where x is the value pointing to a named link (ex http://www.something.com/file.php#name).

Examples

The two most important reasons to use this instead of just an href tag (besides it takes less writing) are:

1. You won't get a pingback to yourself from linking to your own site because this isn't a standard link
2. If you change the location of the file, this will automatically point to the new location because it looks it up each time.

So what if you don't want it to print the post_title? What if you want it to say something else? Use the "write" parameter like this:

Which does the exact same thing, but it uses your specified text instead of the default. Note that you can specify a default_write value on a page using the "Custom Field" function so that a link will always write the value you want (for cases where the write value you want isn't the page title).

The default write value for this page. Now I can just do a jtag link=jtags to point to this page and it will write ''Jtags'' instead of the page title.

So if you specify a write value, that will be written. If not, it will use the default_write value for the post/page. If that isn't set, it will use the post/page title.

Note that this will also work for links in your blogroll, but since the links table has no equivalent to post_name, I used the link_notes field as a "post_name" equivalent. In other words, every time I add a link to someone (say cnn.com), I put a value in the link_notes field that makes it easy to call with my jtag function (probably just "cnn" in this case). Then I just call <jtag link=cnn/> and it's done!

One warning though. If you have a post/page with a post_name of "cnn" already, you'll need to come up with something else for the link or it will just point to the post/page every time.

Because it's easier and makes more sense, you can use the "description" field as the index for the blogroll instead of the link notes field. For backwards compatibility and because I couldn't think of a reason not to, it will work either way (in the notes or description field).

For links that you use frequently, but aren't one of your posts/pages, make a blogroll entry for it using the description or link-notes field as the trigger for the jtags_link function (in this case, jtags-plugin will link to the download file for the plugin)

Error Example

Once again, if I actually had a post, page, or link that used "nonexistant" as it's post_name/link_note, this link would suddenly work instead of showing the error

Jtag<jtag smile=':*('/>
Output<img src='/images/smiles/smile_cry.gif'/>
Result

The piont of this is that Wordpress does change smile shortcuts to smile pics, but only for some. There are plenty of smiles they don't cover and for that, I have this function .

Note that this could be easily changed to a more generic "icon" function and used for any number of pictures other than just smiles.

Honestly I don't use this function much, but you might….

Error Example

This is a fairly useful thing. It creates a hidden block of code that can be toggled on and off with a [+] and [-] sign. I use it to keep stuff out of the way that I think someone may not be interested in (but they can open it if they are).

Parameter List

hidden=x – This must be a unique id because it's what the javascript functions use to know which section to open when it's clicked. If you find that a hidden section isn't opening or is opening a different section, you probably didn't use a unique id for all the hidden sections. Generally single words or multiple words separated by underscores (not dashes!) is good as long as there are no two hidden sections on the same page with the same hidden value at the same time.

title=x – What you want the hidden section to be titled

h=x – A heading value to use for the title. The default is 3 I think, but you can make it anything you want. If you don't typeically use H tags for styling headers, all this means is that the lower the number, the bigger the text (down to 1).

closed_text=x – Any amount of text, html, and even jtags that you want displayed when the hidden section is closed. You can leave this blank if you want and it will still work well. For examples of how this works, check out this page.

And of course it supports a width and alignment value as do all jtag functions that use boxes.

Examples

The neat part about this is that you can have any kind of code or html or other jtags that you want in between the two tags. Just make sure to call the hidden=end part or the whole rest of your page will disappear.

Error Example

Note that there's really no error code that I can put for this. If I tried hard enough, I could make it keep track of the uniqueIDs and warn you when you tried to reuse them, but I didn't think it was really worth the trouble.

If you forget and use the same id twice, you'll figure it out pretty fast when your page doesn't work.

It's useful to point people to related information now and then. Use this to make a nice box that works just like all the others. The width and alignment are optional, but the default is 100% width and centered.

It's cake to use. You can use anything the jtag_link function understands in the comma separated list. By default, it will just print the url (since it doesn't have anything to look up to use instead), but you can specify a custom write value by using a special notation (shown below):

Error Example

Since this uses jtags_link, the error will be the same.

As with all box functions, this will support width,height,align, and text_align.

Error Example

Since callout will just print out whatever you send, there's no error defined for it.

Parameters

• figure=x, where x is the url to an image to use. Because it saves a lot of time, figure will use relatives urls from your graphics_root (a value you set in your jtags_user_functions.php file). So if your graphics root is the default (http://yoursite.com/images) and your image was in http://yoursite.com/images/something.gif, you could write figure=something.gif instead of a full url.
• caption=x – Caption will be the text listed under the image. Note that by default, the caption is also used as the "alt" text for the image.
• url/link=x – Url (or link) can be anything that Jtags_link understands. For example, a post_name, a blogroll entry, or a regular fully formed url. Note that you can use either url or link. The result is the same.
• img_width=x In some cases, you will use an image, but it's too big for what you want on a particular page. Use img_width to modify the width of the image itself.
• img_height=x Used to manually set the height of the image.
• th – Used to manually specify that the figure function should search for thumbnailed versions of images. If this is set (or if you set the thumb_search value in jtags_user_functions.php), it will look for a thumbnailed file named exactly the same but with a _th or _s suffix and point to that instead (explained in an example below).

And of course box values work as well (height, width, align, and text-align).

Examples

Jtag<jtag figure="books.jpg" caption="This links to my books page" url="books" align=left/>
Output<div class='figure' style='float:left;margin-right:5px; width:78px'>
<a href='http://www.jeremyduffy.com/books/'>
<img class=figure_img src='http://www.jeremyduffy.com/images/books.jpg' alt="This links to my books page" width='78px' />
</a>
<div class=figure_text>This links to my books page</div>
</div>
End result

This links to my books page

One neat thing figure can do is automatically check for and use thumbnails.

Jtag<jtag figure="game_computer/xoxide_computer_case.jpg" caption="Since I set the th flag, this will automatically show a thumbnail that uses _th or _s in its name and link to the larger image" align=left th=1/>
Output<div class='figure' style='float:left;margin-right:5px; width:150px'>
<a href='http://localhost/images/game_computer/xoxide_computer_case.jpg'>
<img class=figure_img src='http://localhost/images/game_computer/xoxide_computer_case_th.jpg' alt="Since I set the th flag, this will automatically show a thumbnail that uses _th or _s in its name and link to the larger image" width='150px' />
</a>
<div class=figure_text>Since I set the th flag, this will automatically show a thumbnail that uses _th or _s in its name and link to the larger image</div>
</div>
End result

Since I set the th flag, this will automatically show a thumbnail that uses _th or _s in its name and link to the larger image

There are three keys for this to work properly.

1. The thumbnailed image must have _th or _s in the name. So if "big.jpg" is your image, your thumbnail must be named "big_th.jpg" or "big_s.jpg".
2. The thumbnail must be in the same folder as the big image.
3. Either the th=1 flag must be set in the jtag or the thumb_search value in jtags_user_functions.php must be set to 1.

If you want to avoid thumbnail search (to save processing time) for an individual image, use th=0. If you want to avoid it as a rule, change the value of thumb_search in the jtags_user_functions file.

Error Example

Jtag<jtag figure=nonexistant.jpg caption="Dude! Where's my image?" align=left url="http://www.jeremyduffy.com"/>
Error

Dude! Where's my image?

Note that in this case, the majority of the code works fine, just that it prints a blank image instead. The error is still logged in the error table, but the code will automatically substitute a "no image" of your choosing. For me, the file is called "no_image.gif" and is in my graphics root.

I've included the no_image.gif file in the plugin, but you can use any custom "missing image" pic you want.

setting up your blogroll to work with jtags

Once you have a link set up (with either the "description" or "notes" field as the "index/slug"), use HT like this:

So one more time, this jtag looks for a link in your blogroll with either a description or "notes" field entry of "slashdot". When it finds it, it prints a link with the url being the blogroll url and the printed text being the blogroll name.

Note that you can use the write= modifier just like everything else:

Error Example