Things will be a little quiet here this week. I am working to get my theme finished off but also have some other, non-WordPress-related stuff to do so I probably won’t get time to post. To bide over the time here are a few questions I have been mulling over for a few days.
Over at Reader Appreciation Project a little while back I posted about weekend blogging. About the fact that I don’t but am disappointed when others do.
That sparked a discussion about how to educate readers to expect content on the weekends and time limited content is something that has since occurred to me as a way to do that.
Here’s the idea:
A post is published. Unlike regular posts the feed contains only a brief introduction and a statement that the post will be available to read for 24 hours.
If you click through and read it within those 24 hours you get to read the post, and you get a cookie which means that you can keep viewing it. So any conversations in the comments can keep going.
If you click through outside of 24 hours the post content is not available to you. You can register to get it when it is released, which could be in a week, (presumably the e-mail notification will also arrive on a Saturday), but you can’t view until then.
My question to readers here is: would this just piss you off? or would you get it and run with it? would it make you unsubscribe?
The second question relates to my Fun with WordPress Plugins tool.
I have in mind a major overhaul for the next version, lots of UI changes, much more integration with filters and actions; however, there is one thing I have in mind for the actual back end code, but I am not sure if there is a demand for it.
I have it in mind to develop some objects for widgets, admin pages, and possible even actions and filters and keep these outside the main plugin class. The idea would be that these would function as a limited form of MVC, with each object including pages in specific foldersl; for example:
Your plugin creates a new admin page object, sets the parent, and registers it. It looks for a specified file within the html folder to get the content of the page, and within the code folder to get the processing instructions.
This invariably makes the plugin more complex, possibly even more complicated, but I like the idea of keeping the plugin itself as empty as possible.
My question on this is, what do you think? good? bad? do you have a better solution? Do you think there is a best practice for WordPress plugin architecture irrespective of its function?
I appreciate any comments you have on any points.
P.s. I am also on Twitter now.
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Ronald @ RA Project
Andrew,
I’d have to agree with Christoph here and say that the extra complexity might deter those who would use the plugin generator, which ideally I suppose would be those wanting a shortcut.
A possibility could be a structure option and have a basic and advanced option, but that would be much more work on your part.
As far as the 24 hour thing, I’m also with Chris on this. I foresee broken links and more broken links. However, I can see a potential for premium content to be used this way. Post it for 24 hours, and if you want indefinite access to it, pay for it.
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Andrew
As a general rule Christoph I absolutely agree; I don’t subscribe where there are no full text feeds and I suspect I would bail if someone routinely time restricted content; however, it may be that there is something to be said for small amounts of content being provided in different ways.
I can see an argument that by time-barring content your are actually restricting it to your loyal readers, and therefore providing them with something that others won’t get.
I can’t see me actually doing it, but if it were shown that it isn’t a bad thing then perhaps I would produce a plugin.
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Christoph Voigt
Wow, are you serious with the 24h-thing? Isn’t it exactly this blogs are not meant to do? Provide information only to a limited audience/for a limited time?
On another note I tend to unsubscribe to feeds that do not send the complete text. There are really good reasons for not doing so (like ads on the blog to keep the cash flowing) but too many bloggers tend to write just blabber in the first lines without coming to the interesting stuff. If you only read the first 3 lines of a blog-post, how could you judge if it’s important to you now/later? Information should be accessible without having to click again/open a new tab.
About the plugins, well, guess there are as much opinions on this matter as there are programmers, huh? :) I prefer cleaner plugins in terms of structure but as you said, it could become quite complex which might scare away non-plugin-authors to have a look at how plugins work. Not quite sure which way is “the best” – if there is any.