A Random Pattern

As you can see by my last test post, I do have the arc90 lab javascript code working. Now I just need to clean it up (it’s a mess!) There are several things I want it to do differently, but hopefully you’ll just notice the improvements and not all the work (frustration) going on behind the scenes.

I’ve just been looking through some buttonsnap and moresmilies php code, and it looks like it might take me a little longer than I hoped to make my first plugin. So for now I’m going to manually insert my sidenotes by hand-coding.

While I’m on the subject, I’ll list the other things I want to accomplish with this plugin. But first, I’d really love your feedback on whether these sidenotes are useful or distracting, and what could be done to improve them.

1. Change the colors. I want to tone them down quite a bit. The free colorpix tool will help tremendously here.
2. Make them behave more like the other hyperlinks on this page. That is, red text until you move the mouse near them, at which point the sidenote shows up.

3. Behind the scenes, I want to make it easier to create sidenotes. Instead of manually typing a bunch (ok, a little) code, I just want to click a button and type in the sidenote. Even better, I hope to have it handle urls (web addresses) and perhaps images gracefully. Cross your fingers.

4. Finally, I’d like to clean it all up into one or two nice little plugins, then yank it out of my code and use it properly as a plugin. This is probably me dreaming, because I doubt I really have the know-how to finish this. Hey, if anyone wants to mentor, answer questions, or even just help out a little….

Last thing on WP plugins. Here are a few of the articles that helped me get started.

Good recommendations on software tools to use

How to write a simple WordPress plugin

Tons of useful WP articles. Tips, tricks, you name it she’s got it.

The codex (official WP documentation) on plugins. It’s all greek to me. :p

This is a test, this is only a test. You can ignore this post.

In fact, please do ignore this whole thing. Skip ahead to the next post. More unnecessary text to test some more display type things.

So here’s some more text.

Family and friends, my brother Michael has started a blog. Check it out, and leave him a comment. Everyone needs a comment now and again to keep them encouraged that they’re being read.

Speaking of blogging, this is a good time to mention that I’ve got several posts scheduled to come out over the next several days, spanning almost all my favorite topics. Next up is a post on the recent conversation about “A-list link getting” that happened in the blogosphere. (The blogosphere is a geeky term for the conversation that happens amongst a bunch of nerds bloggers that all link to each other, sort of like an adult nerd version of myspace.)

So make sure to come back around for some news, tips on Ubuntu, pictures, and other cool stuff.

Peace.