<div class="rss-widget"><ul><li><a class='rsswidget' href='http://ios.wordpress.org/2013/09/20/wordpress-featured/' title=' It’s been an exciting few days for us working on the WordPress app for iOS. With the launch of iOS 7, the app ended up in the spotlight of a flurry of similar announcements and was listed among the best iOS 7 apps in several publications — one example:  “Here’s How iOS 7 Has Already Changed The Look Of Your Apps” (Business Insider). Today we’re excited to share another reason to celebrate. We just found out that the app is featured as one of the top apps in the Social Networking category in the U.S. App Store! This, along with the app being highlighted in the “Apps Designed for iOS 7″ section in 92 stores worldwide to date. Of course we’re extremely proud of this achievement. Major kudos once again to Hugo Baeta and Sendhil Panchadsaram who worked together making this release happen. The Beauty and the Beast While we’re super excited to see the app getting recognized in both App Stores and all around the web, the iOS 7 release still had some lingering issues — some more severe than others. We’re working hard on fixing these and have already issued a quick bug fix update (3.8.1) that, among other things, takes care of the annoying categories bug for those of you still running iOS 6. To see a full list of open issues and follow our progress crunching through them, check out the GitHub project. If you have any more details on any of the bugs or — heaven forbid — you find a new one, please let us know in the forums or directly on GitHub as soon as you see it. The more details we know the sooner we can get to work.    '>WP iPhone: WordPress Featured in 90+ App Stores Worldwide</a></li><li><a class='rsswidget' href='http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/7wQSVIW3OJE/introducing-wordpress-post-forking-version-control-for-writers' title='The WordPress platform has been helping writers publish their thoughts to the web for years. Though it now powers many large newsrooms and other organizations, the posting process still caters entirely to the individual writer working by himself on a post. Collaboration for multiple content creators is non-existent within the core right now. The WordPress Editorial workflow is one dimensional  in that only one person can be editing at a time. Although WordPress has a fancy new way of showing you who’s working on the post, you actually have to kick that person out to take over editing. The new Post Locking feature in WordPress 3.6, though useful to prevent overwriting, is actually the antithesis of collaboration:  There is also a limitation in the current WordPress publishing process that you may not have noticed. Once a post is published, the only way to make edits is to push changes immediately, which precludes scheduling updates to the content and/or further collaboration.  These limitations are what drove Aaron Jorbin and a small group of developers to create the Post Forking plugin. What is Post Forking? Post Forking is the solution to one-dimensional content creation. It opens the door for collaboration between multiple writers in WordPress. Essentially, the idea is that you can create a “fork” of the current post and make your own changes which can be submitted as a proposed revision and merged back into the final version. I had the chance to chat with Aaron Jorbin and asked him what inspired the creation of a plugin that would offer git-style version control for words. He replied, “The first person I heard talk about this concept was Greg Linch, who spoke about Journalism and Version Control at Bar Camp News Innovation Philadelphia. Fast Forward to my friend and former Google Summer of Code mentee, Ben Balter, mentioning that he had started coding something up and asking if I wanted to take a look. It was a working prototype of what became version 0.1.” The Post Forking plugin’s current features enable some new and interesting ways for online publishers to collaborate:  Allowing users without edit or publish post capabilities to edit and submit changes to content (similar to GitHub’s pull request system) Collaborative editing (by resolving two users’ conflicted saves – Wired’s example) Saving draft changes of already-published content Scheduling pending changes to already-published content  This is a basic set of features. Sure, it’s better than nothing but Jorbin recognizes the current usability defects in the plugin and has a vision for much more. Taking Post Forking to the Next Level The Post Forking plugin has been downloaded more than 1,000 times and the community is starting to become more interested in the potential of this new way to collaborate. But Jorbin wants to take the plugin to the next level.  He recently listed the project on Indiegogo and has chosen to adopt the patronage model to help fund improvements to the plugin. His reasoning is, “Creating software costs money.  I want to do user testing, which costs money and also want to be able to focus on it for a little while without needing to worry about how to pay my  rent.  When people contribute, in code, documentation, support or with cash, it makes them a part of the team.”  Getting funding this way is a smart approach.  Rather than sit around being frustrated by a lack of time to work on the project, he is allowing the WordPress community to demonstrate its interest and become part of something larger. Collaboration is the whole idea, after all, and Jorbin said that he has been inspired by the response: “Seeing how the community has responded has felt amazing.  I know my goal isn’t low and getting 20% of the way there after one day validated the idea that the community can fund open source plugins and a commercial model isn’t the only way to develop great plugins.”    What new features will be added to the plugin with this round of funding? Jorbin’s first priority is usability, followed by better support for meta and taxonomies: The first goal is to make it more usable and easily understandable by writers and contents creators.  Unless you are a developer or have spent a lot of time around developers, the concept of forking and merging might be foreign. Features such as scheduling merges can be hard to find and the manual merging page is hard to use.  Once the usability concerns are addressed, the highest priorities are integration with revisions and forking/merging meta, taxonomies and everything else connected to posts and pages.  Practical Uses For Post Forking Wired Magazine once conducted an experiment wherein they put a story in process on github for anyone to contribute to and improve, resulting in their collaboration article: Lord of the Files: How GitHub Tamed Free Software (And More). Although the experiment was considered a success, the entry level geek knowledge of git required for contribution poses a definite hurdle in the daily application of story versioning. Post Forking is the answer to this. If the idea of post forking is new to you, perhaps you’re wondering how the average Joe might make use of it. The benefits of forking posts do not just apply to major news rooms. Jorbin envisions benefits for a wide range of WordPress users: On my personal site, I can imagine scheduling a fork to merge on my speaking page the day after I speak to move something from the future to the past.  A company could have their API documentation in WordPress and prepare forks that they merge upon releasing an update.  A team could write a book with all edits suggested by authors being cleared by the editor. It also could be used in many of the ways Wired has used it, to fix grammar and spelling mistakes and also for people to translate your writing for you.  If the idea of post forking catches on and becomes a more seamless part of the WordPress editorial workflow, Jorbin believes it could someday be a useful addition to the core.  If it’s highly usable and people are actually using it, it seems to me to be a natural fit for WordPress core.  WordPress is about democratizing publishing.  What is more democratic than participation and collaboration? The first step towards making this a reality for users of the plugin is to get funding. This will allow Jorbin to devote time to making this more polished and usable for a larger section of publishers who may not be familiar with git terminology. Help Fund Post Forking Improvements You can help this plugin become an awesome tool for the WordPress community. Can you imagine the days of writing code before git collaboration was a possibility? That’s where we are right now as writers, locked out of posts and waiting turns while the work is going on.  A fully featured and usable Post Forking plugin has the potential to radically change the editorial workflow for thousands of WordPress publishers around the world.  If you’re inspired by the possibilities of more collaboration in WordPress, please contribute to the Post Forking project on Indiegogo. There is also a bug tracker for feature requests and bug reports where you can contribute. Join the mailing list jump in at the #wp-postforking chatroom on IRC. Jorbin will be starting weekly chats to organize contributors.  '>WPTavern: Introducing WordPress Post Forking: Version Control For Writers</a></li><li><a class='rsswidget' href='http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2013/09/19/make-wordpress-site-talk-like-pirate/' title='It’s been 9 years since I first released me Text Filter Suite plugin.  The TFS is actually a collection o&#039; a “TFS Core” plugin, plus several sub-plugins, includin&#039; th&#039; infamous “TFS Pirate”, which will turn yer posts and comments into pirate-speak fer International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Over th&#039; years, I have been meanin&#039; t&#039; refactor th&#039; code.  It really should be one single plugin, with an options screen t&#039; enable individual components, choose which thin&#039;s t&#039; filter (titles, content, comments, sidebar text, pages/posts, etc).  Also, I’ve been wantin&#039; t&#039; add shortcodes t&#039; allow ye t&#039; apply filters (or exclusions) t&#039; specific portions o&#039; yer text, by Davy Jones&#039; locker.  But, th&#039; code has continued t&#039; work fine, only needin&#039; minor adjustments here and there o&#039;er almost a decade o&#039; use.  Huzzah fer th&#039; stability o&#039; th&#039; WordPress Plugin API! Anyways, even though TLAPD is well past th&#039; half-way mark in most places, it’s still not too late t&#039; get in on th&#039; fun.  Install th&#039; plugin, and enable TFS-Core and TFS-Pirate.  Boom. BTW, me plugin has been ported t&#039; Drupal and Joomla, if ye happen t&#039; swin&#039; that way.   Original Article: Make Your WordPress Site Talk Like a Pirate Dougal Campbell&#039;s geek ramblings - WordPress, web development, and world domination.  '>Dougal Campbell: Make Your WordPress Site Talk Like a Pirate</a></li><li><a class='rsswidget' href='http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordpressTavern/~3/vmrcAGAZpbw/automatically-add-google-authorship-to-wordpress-posts-with-jetpack-2-5' title='Jetpack 2.5 was released today with a staggering array of new integration features for Google products and services. On top of all that the team has added VideoPress integration and the handy ability to embed Facebook posts directly within WordPress posts/pages. The exciting additions for all the Google junkies out there include:  Post comments via your Google+ account Connect Google+ Profiles to authors A new Share to Google+ Button Embed Google content in posts/pages, including  Google Calendars, Google Documents, and Google Maps  I can understand not caring a bit about these features if you’re not big on Google products or Facebook posts. However, one feature in particular stands out as being very valuable for online publishers. Even if you’re not active on Google+ and could care less about embedding Google products, I’d like to highlight the benefits of turning on authorship.  Jetpack Makes It Easy to Add Google Authorship to Your Posts Jetpack now provides one of the easiest and most convenient ways to add the Google authorship feature to your WordPress posts. The 2.5 release makes it simple to connect your profile. If you’re not familiar with authorship, it’s the way by which Google determines the author of a post and then shows all the fancy extras in the search results:  Google authorship in action This extra information is very valuable for getting people to click on your posts in their search results. The best part is that Jetpack creates this official connection between your posts and your profile, without you having to add another plugin. When you activate the Google+ Profile connection in Jetpack, the plugin will do the following, according to the docs:  The display name that appears on your posts and comments will display your Google+ Real Name (the name you have on your Google+ Profile). A link to your site is added on your Google+ Profile under the ‘Contributor To’ section. On single Post/Page views only, a Google+ section is added to the Sharing/Like details on your posts that includes a link to your Google+ Profile, a button so people can Follow you on Google+, and your Google avatar (the picture you set on your Google+ Profile). Verification code will be added to your posts to confirm to Google that you are the author of those posts.  All of the above actions are done automatically for you, which is a huge improvement over other ways plugins have attempted to add authorship in the past. SEO Benefits for Linking Your Google+ Profile to WordPress Posts When you link up your Google+ profile to your website, you’ll receive a number of benefits that make your content appear more official when found in search engines:  See analytics for your content in search. Distinguish and validate your content in search results. Get more followers on Google+. Help readers discover your other content on the web.  Google Authorship can actually improve your rankings. It’s something you want to have in place, especially if you have a frequent problem with other sites on the internet reprinting your content as their own. Support For Multi-Author WordPress Blogs Jetpack’s new feature also works smoothly with multi-author blogs. Each author can link up his own Google+ profile, without having to go through the email verification process. When you navigate to the Settings -&gt; Sharing page, it may appear that you can only link up one Google+ profile. That is not the case. Jetpack actually recognizes who is logged in and will offer the option for each author on the site.  Turning this feature on also adds your profile to the sharing buttons, as shown here where we’ve turned it on:  As an avid Android user, Google products practically run my life and I am thrilled to see that Jetpack 2.5 is more tightly integrated with Google services. I realize that may not be the case for everyone. While you may not be crazy about embedding Google calendars or letting people comment via Google+, you can still take advantage of the solid SEO boost that you will get from adding authorship to your WordPress posts.  '>WPTavern: Automatically Add Google Authorship To WordPress Posts With Jetpack 2.5</a></li><li><a class='rsswidget' href='http://wordpress.tv/2013/09/18/erik-wolf-grow-your-business-now-maximize-marketing-efficiencies-with-wordpress-2/' title='     '>WordPress.tv: Erik Wolf: Grow Your Business Now: Maximize Marketing Efficiencies With WordPress</a></li></ul></div>