mencoder out.ogv -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame -xvidencopts pass=1 -o out.avi

This will produce a video of good enough quality so that people can see what you are doing.

Here’s an example:

Please notice that mouse and click highlighting aren’t recordMyDesktop features.

In your theme’s functions.php add something like the following code:

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function mytheme_addmenus() {
	register_nav_menus(
		array(
			'main_nav' => 'The Main Menu',
		)
	);
}
add_action( 'init', 'mytheme_addmenus' );
 
function mytheme_nav() {
    if ( function_exists( 'wp_nav_menu' ) )
        wp_nav_menu( 'menu=main_nav&container_class=pagemenu&fallback_cb=mytheme_nav_fallback' );
    else
        mytheme_nav_fallback();
}
 
function mytheme_nav_fallback() {
    wp_page_menu( 'show_home=Start&menu_class=pagemenu' );
}

In line 1 we add support for the navigation menus. The mytheme_nav() function is what you will use in the theme to display the menu. Inside that function we check if wp_nav_menu() exists, that means if we’re running WordPress 3.0 (or later). If not we’ll use the fallback function mytheme_nav_fallback().

Notice that the fallback also gets called if no navigation menus have been created in the admin area. That’s what the fallback_cb parameter on line 4 does.

To keep the HTM markup and the CSS consistent you’ll have to use the container_class parameter on wp_nav_menu but the menu_class parameter for wp_page_menu.

In your template use the following code to use your new custom function:

<?php mytheme_nav(); ?>

Resources

• wp_nav_menu() reference
• wp_page_menu() reference
• Informative article on nav menus by Justin Tadlock

Ramblings

What’s good about the new menu system:

• Total control over what appears in the menu
• You can add posts, pages, categories and tags in the menu
• Very nice drag and drop interface

What’s bad:

• You will have to teach your users how to use the system properly.
• If you create new pages they won’t be added to your existing menu (except for top level pages).
• You can not control your page menus through the navigation menus interface. I think it is… very very odd that WordPress doesn’t have a simple drag-and-drop interface to arrange pages.
• The previous point means that the new menu system is useless unless you update your theme.
• The wp_nav_menu() call is inconsistent with the existing wp_page_menu() function.

By the way, I use the Ozh admin menu plugin. You might need two clicks to switch if you don’t.

Download the plugin.

A client of mine wanted a plugin to log what users type into forms. I kind of didn’t see the point at first. But a few days later I was a little annoyed that there was apparently no free alternative to websites like clixpy, clicktale and similar services.

It occured to me that recording movies of visits isn’t really hard to do. And so i started a new plugin, loosely based on the unpublished form input tracking plugin.

I am very pleased with the results so far. Of course it’s no match for the professional services mentioned above. But it is good enough to gain a few insights into what can be improved on your website.

The recording script is pretty lightweight but has a rather hefty dependeny: jQuery. It also loads json2.js. I’m sure the logging could be rewritten without the jQuery dependency but that really wasn’t a priority for the first public release.

This plugin probably needs WordPress 2.8 and PHP 5. I didn’t bother to test older versions and won’t support them in the future.

Here is a sample movie of what a recorded session can look like. As you can see mouse movements, clicks, form input, select boxes, checkboxes and radio buttons are recorded.

Important: For the playback you should always use the same browser as the visitor. If you don’t, the mouse position will probably be very wrong. The plugin also doesn’t save a page’s state at the time of recording. This means if comments are added or the content changes, you will see the old movements on a new website.

Downloads at WordPress.org.

• Pages can’t be tagged
• Pages don’t have categories
• Pages and posts don’t mix too well in custom loops
• Pages don’t appear in your RSS feed
• Posts are better for usability and SEO

I converted the pages with the help of the excellent p2pConverter plugin. Converting the pages is very easy. The plugin adds a “convert to post” button to every page on the page overview. Just click it, confirm, and you’re basically done. Of course, having more features for posts makes it necessary to perform a few additional steps after the conversion to get the full benefit:

• The category will be your default category, you probably want to change that
• The new post has no tags. The whole point of converting the pages (for me) was to add tags.
• As a safeguard I added 301 redirects to my server config from the old page address to the new post. The plugin or WordPress seems to do this anyway, but I wanted to be 100% sure nothing breaks in the future. Besides, doing this in the webserver saves a few PHP calls.

One thing that isn’t ideal is that all converted posts were added to the top of my RSS feed, even though their publishing date is the same as that of the former page. I’m not sure it’s possible to work around this, but I don’t think it’s a big deal if you’re only dealing with a few pages.

tmp.templateFile = COA
tmp.templateFile {
	10 = COA
	10 {
		if.isFalse.numRows < styles.content.getRight
		10 = FILE
		10 {
			file = fileadmin/template/1col.html
		}
	}
	20 = COA
	20 {
		if.isTrue.numRows < styles.content.getRight
		10 = FILE
		10 {
			file = fileadmin/template/2col.html
		}
	}
}

The ifs check if there is or isn’t content in the right column and the COA returns the correct cObject, FILE in this case.

And then in your main typoscript something like:

page.10.template < tmp.templateFile

instead of the more usual

page {
	10 = TEMPLATE
	10 {
		template = FILE
		template {
			file = fileadmin/template/1col.html
		}
	}
}

That’s all.

# Add a float if we have content in column 2
foo = COA
foo {
	wrap = <div>|</div>
	200 = CONTENT
	200 {
		table = tt_content
		select {
			where = colPos = 2
			orderBy = sorting
		}
	}
	# conditional to test if content exists in column
	if.isTrue.numRows {
		# check current page page
		pidInList = this
		# in the table tt_content
		table = tt_content
		# colPos = 2 (right)
		select.where = colPos=2
	}
}

This example shows a very simple flexible template using a float.

$allowothersizes = true;

Now, you get the full list in the dropdown.

Here’s a little more context:

--- zone-advanced-orig.php      2009-02-02 07:46:45.000000000 +0100
+++ zone-advanced.php   2009-01-21 15:22:04.000000000 +0100
@@ -228,6 +228,7 @@
     $doZones = OA_Dal::factoryDO('zones');
 
     $allowothersizes = $zone['delivery'] == phpAds_ZoneInterstitial || $zone['delivery'] == phpAds_ZonePopup;
+       $allowothersizes = true;
     if ($zone['width'] != -1 && !$allowothersizes) {
         $doZones->width = $zone['width'];
     }

Kind of funny that this setting exists but isn’t exposed anywhere in the UI… Yes, it’s a quick hack, so test it before running it on anything in production. Works for me though.

display: block;

Other display configurations seem to create the same problem. Opera’s behaviour is incorrect, see the specs as Dave points out.

<?php
if ( have_comments() ) { ?>
    <ol class="commentlist">
    <?php
    wp_list_comments();
    if ( get_option('page_comments') && (
        get_query_var('cpage') > 1 ||
        get_query_var('cpage') < get_comment_pages_count() ) ) {
            ?> <!-- pager HTML --> <?php
            next_comments_link();
            ?> <!-- pager HTML --> <?php
            previous_comments_link(); 
            ?> <!-- pager HTML --> <?php
    } ?>
    </ol>
<?php
} ?>

If you want to get started with 2.7 theme migration have a look at Otto’s or Matt’s posts on the new comment system and ping/comment separation.

Update: No, get_previous_posts_page_link() is incorrect and get_previous_comments_link() doesn’t exist (yet).

Update 2: Thanks to Viper007Bond for pointing me in the right direction.

Update 3: trac ticket

Update 4: Additional conditional to not show the pager at all if paging isn’t enabled.