But what if, as a plugin author, you could add a stamp, a “certified” mention that would indicate that your plugin or theme was carefully tested? And as a user, wouldn’t it be reassuring to see that the code you are about to install on your site has been tested?

While the official theme repo already has its own Theme review team (with great guys in charge, and you can join them), that is something that does not exist for plugins.

Introducing a theme and plugin review service

That’s where DevPress comes in. Aside from their Theme club, they have decided to start a theme and plugin review service. The system seems quite simple: you upload your theme/plugin, pay, and a ticket is opened on DevPress where the team will come back to you with their remarks and feedback.

While the prices and conditions are not decided yet, I think it would be a useful service for those of us who want to get an external point of view on our code, or a second opinion before to launch a plugin. However, the price itself will play a big role in the success of their product. Indeed, while it might be worth to pay for a review when you sell your theme or plugin, people will probably think twice before to pay for a plugin they will release for free to the repo afterwards.

On the other hand, if the DevPress team makets it well, and if you can advertize that your plugin has passed the review afterwards, your plugin might draw more attention, since it is “endorsed” by popular WordPress developers!

What do you think about it? Will you be trying this service when it will come out?

Source: Launching a theme and plugin review service.

If you want to avoid the numerous small issues you face with your different configurations between local and your prod environment, check his article, and try the plugin proposed at the end of the post.
WordPress local dev tips: DB & plugins « Mark on WordPress.

After a few days of work, here is what I came up with: WP Facebook Applications.

This WordPress plugin is simple to use: download it, install it and activate it on your blog, and a new “FB Applications” menu will appear. There you can create a new page for your Facebook tab, and you are guided through the process in order to keep it as fast and as simple as possible.

A few options are available: you define an image non fans of your page will see, then the content they will see once they “Like” your page. And you can decide to ad a Facebook comments form below that content.

Of course, this plugin is a work in progress: I would be happy to receive all your comments, remarks, ideas and bug reports in order to improve it and add new functionality if need. I actually have a few ideas and a small to-do list for future improvements:

• Limit the size of the images that are displayed on the Facebook pages
• Translate the plugin in my mother tongue, I have been lazy and did not deal with i18n so far;
• Somehow make it easier to create the app on Facebook’s side
• Allow the choice between the landing page for the non-fans, or the content directly
• Add more possibilites for other Facebook elements (like the comments)

What do you think? Will you be using my plugin for your next Facebook tab?

Useful links :

• Help me out with patches : WP-Facebook-applications sur GIThub
• Download the plugin : WP Facebook Applications sur wordpress.org
• Details, more information and documentation: WP Facebook Applications plugin documentation

If you want to follow the evolutions and news about the plugin, follow me on Twitter, or subscribe to this blog!

But today, Woothemes changes the game (once again!)

Tumblr dashboard is very easy to use: a menu proposes you different types of content, and you simply have to click to the one you want to post, and you are rbought to an interface where you have the tools to upload a photo, a video, add a link… This simplicity has convinced many users, and allows tumbler users to blog and reblog very quickly.

However, for those of us used to all the functionnalities from WordPress, and familiar with theme development with our favorite software, have wanted to port such features to WordPress instead of starting all over with a new blogging platform.

And today, the Wooteam introduces us with two great tools to do just that: an iPhone app and a free Tumblr plugin.

Using Custom taxonomies to transform the admin panel and the Front-end of your blog

Jeffikus from the Wooteam has released a free plugin that does a few things to transform your blog into a full tumblog:

• It adds new custom taxonomies to your backend
• It creates a new dashboard widget allowing you to post easily from your dashboard
• Thanks to the addition of a few template tags, the front-end of your blog will display the additional elements, and add an icon to show to your readers in which taxonomy you’ve posted.

I like this approach to tumbling, since it is much less hassle than previous attempts I have seen and tried myself: instead of using custon post types, and consequently have to mess up with the loop and with your feed output, it uses custom taxonomies and consequently integrates quickly and easily with your posts.

See the video of the plugin in action on the announcement post: Tumbling along | WooThemes.

Blog from your mobile in a few steps

What about mobile will you say; and you’re right: those of you who have experimented with custom post types and custom taxonomies before know that it is not handled by the iPhone application developed by the Automattic team. No problem, the wooteam planned everything, and releases an iPhone app together with their plugin:

These two new products will surely bring more users to Woothemes in the future. And you, will you try this plugin? Do you use another similar tool to customize the way you blog?

While I am not a big fan of this feature, it seems the WordPress team has decided it was worth including into the core engine, maybe as a first step towards a front-end editor.

In my opinion, this should have been available as a plugin, or rather as a core plugin, since the dev team planned to develop several plugins themselves and insure their maintenance.

That’s why I will be looking for a way to disable this admin bar as soon as 3.1 will come out. Luckily , OZH has already provided us with a plugin to disable this bar.

How To Remove WordPress’ Admin Bar « planetOzh.

Of course, this code he provides us can be included into your functions.php directly.

And you, what do you think of that admin bar? Will you be using it?

News First!

• Yummthemes debacle and what we think – From The Couch | CSS Videos | Video Tutorials | Video Interviews
  Yesterday we saw quite a bit of activity on twitter about a new theme company, yummthemes, coming as a competitor to woothemes and Thesis among others.
  One theme has been introduced so far, osea, and it seems interesting even if we have no notions about the price or the conditions attached to that theme coming up in the middle of July.
  However the landing page announcing this new theme club seems a bit wrong to me, simply because it shows other WordPress theme developers as competitors when the WordPress community tries to avoid such approach by linking to each other and maintaining good relationship between themselves.
  Here is the opinion of the guys from the Couch! Make sure you check the comments as well as yummthemes’ owner has expressed his opinion about all this!

Then some nice tutorials:

• 10 incredibly cool WordPress shortcodes
  Introduced in WordPress 2.5, shortcodes are a very easy way to display lot of things on your blog posts by inserting a very simple code.
• Creating Dashboard Widgets in Two Easy Steps | WooCamp
  Creating Dashboard Widgets is an easy thing to do, and can add some professional finish to your theme! Check how to do on WooCamp!
• WordPress Theme Template & Directory Structure
  It’s time for another episode of the WordPress theme tutorial series by themeshaper.com. Today, we will speak about what has to be in your theme.

And a nice WordPress theme:

• ElegantThemes – ePhoto WordPress Theme
  ePhoto was created for those looking to turn their blog into a photo gallery

It reminded me of my article about the 10 mandatory plugins for a good WordPress start. What if these plugins were to be included into WordPress?

Some may say that by adding more and more features we will end up with a bloated and inefficient WordPress. I totally agree with that: WordPress is known as a do-it-yourself software for everybody. You should always be able to use it normally and it should stay as light as possible. After all WordPress was built as a blogging software and it should that way even if it has so many CMS possibilities.

Still there are some plugins out there that are used by almost everyone because they are the key to go from a basic WordPress installation to a complete and running blogging software.

Here below are the list made by Kyle and then by Mayank:

1. All-in-One SEO Pack

2. Google XML Sitemaps 

3. No Self Pings 

4. Popularity Contest

5. Database Manager

1. WP Super Cache

2. WPvideo

3. Similar Posts

4. cforms

5. WordPress Newsletter Plugin

I am happy to see we all value the very same plugins as part of our core installation! So here is my personal list, based on my personal usage and as you will see quite similar to Kyle’s and Mayank’s.

1. I definitely think that All In One SEO Pack needs to be included. That is THE SEO plugin you need for your website.

2. The Google XML Sitemaps plugin is as important as the first one and should be included as well.

3. Then I would include a security plugin such as WP-DB Backup that allows me to manage and schedule database backups on a regular basis. I did not know about Database Manager but I will give it a try.

4. After optimization and security, a social plugin could be useful. As social bookmarking websites keep growing up I think they have become tools used by everybody and one should be able to find social-related options when he installs WordPress. Sociable is in my opinion the perfect plugin for that, though there are many others this one stays simple and supports a lot of different social bookmarking websites already.

5. WordPress Automatic upgrade is so easy to use and would be useful for every user I think. If people do not like to play with ftp softwares, do not read WordPress news that often, what is better than offering them a software that updates by itself.

So here are my five plugins. of course depending on the use you make of WordPress it can be completely different, so do not hesitate to share it with us in the comments!