27
May
Today I pushed out an update to WP-TwitterSearch that fixed a few bugs that were reported to me by email. The tweet date was not displaying correctly before has now been fixed. I do plan to allow you to format the date however you wish and will be included in the next release. You can also search hashtags now using the #hashtag format. Before this would cause problems. I still plan to implement all of Twitter’s Advanced Search options which include an actual hashtag query. Also fixed was errors with a tweet had quotes.
I’m working on v1.5 right now which includes adding profile pictures, the advanced search options and formating the date. I’m not sure if this release will have support for multiple widgets/template tags or not but its on my list next as its been requested a few times. Feel free to leave a comment with suggestions or if you’ve found a bug.
04
May
Recently I was working on a project at work where I needed to display search results from twitter on a WordPress site. Although there are a ton of great plugins for displaying your own twitter feed there was none that did what I needed for search. So, I started looking around at other rss wordpress plugins but that still didn’t render exactly what I needed. So, I started working on my own plugin just for twitter search. The plugin is available for download now from the WordPress Plugin Repo.
The Now
I released the first version over the weekend and an update shortly after. It currently works as a widget or a template code to allow you to use it anywhere. The options page lets you set what keywords to search twitter for as well as how many tweets are shown. You are also able to specify a username to limit the search to. I’m not sure how handy the username is right now but its there for a future feature (read below). The plugin displays an unordered list of the tweets returned leaving you to style however you wish. This plugin came about from a project that I needed it for so it may not be what your looking for.
The Future
The first feature I would like to add is the ability to tie it into your posts via The Loop. Basically you would add the template tag to your post loop and it would do a search for tweets you have made that include the tags you set for that post automatically. So, for example if you have a blog post about SXSW with the tags ‘austin sxsw’, it would do a twitter search with your username for those two tags and return any tweets you’ve made that match those. Kinda like a ‘tweets related to this post’ feature.
Another item on my to do list is to let you exclude tweets. For example being able to exclude @replies or ReTweets or tweets that were automatically posted (for example via twitterfeed, facebook, etc). I would also like to add the ability to let you include several search feeds in your template (if that would be useful to anybody). You would specify the options in the template tag or in the widget itself instead of an options page in that case.
Problems?
If your having problems with WP-TwitterSearch or would like to suggest a feature then you can either leave a comment here, email me on the contact page or post on the WordPress.org forums as I’m always hanging around there. You can also comment just to let me know how useless this plugin is or in the rare case that its what you were looking for.
09
Aug
Well I made it through the first week working at DigiMedia and I gotta say, I loved it. It is a bit of a big change from freelancing from home but I was expecting that. I love having to go to work each day and being around other developers and designers and working on larger projects. I spent most of this week in Photoshop cranking out graphics. The rest of the time was spent finishing a WordPress project that was already started. Fixing errors, setting up some new plugins, and other things of that nature. I got a crash course on their Ad Manager which is just massive and look forward to messing with it more and ending up giving a quick class on WordPress to some retail people. Overall it was a pretty good week and I think I will enjoy working there. Another plus with the new job is having to learn Ruby. As you know, I’ve wanted to for awhile but client work always got in the way. However, with most of the work at DigiMedia being done in Ruby this gives me a chance to finally learn it. I have some books that I’m going through and several people I can turn to for help if needed.
Besides starting the new job this month we will also be moving in the coming weeks. We are still debating on a house or apartment, either way we plan to rent. Between me just starting the new job and Melissa planning to change from online classes at Uni of Phoenix Online to local classes here at Midwestern State University for nursing starting in January we just aren’t sure what would be better for us. Either way it will only be for 2-3 years.
I am also attempting to finish my redesign. I posted a screen of it on flickr awhile back and got lots of great feedback. I have started coding it to WordPress and just about done with the main page but still have several things to do. The problem is client work is on top of my list right now and taking up most of my evenings and weekends so I’m having to make time for my projects which right now there just isn’t enough of. I would like to have it done by the end of the month. As next month is full as well between getting settled into the new place and taking a mini-vacation to Kansas to see Melissa’s grandparents.
