Released WordPress plugin bbRedirector

I’ve just released another WordPress plugin. This one is called bbRedirector:

bbRedirector makes it easy to redirect a page to another location using absolute urls from within WordPress. No mod_rewrite nor .htaccess is needed. You just create a page, add a specific customfield and choose the redirect template included with this plugin. It even allows you to set the required http status code (302 or 301). You can also set a default sitewide redirection or setup your own custom redirection.

The included templates should give you an easy start using this plugin.

Download the plugin from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbredirector/

WordPress Mu pages overriden by new blogs

When using WordPress Mu (WP MU) 2.8.4 or 2.8.5.2 (not tested on older versions) with sub directories it seems one can override the main blog’s pages by creating a blog with the exactly the same name without any warning. Causing visitors to be redirected to the newly created blog instead of the page with the same name. I presume most people would not expect this and in fact it can become quite nasty. So I filled a bug report.

Assume this situation:
You have a WPMU site set using sub directories available at http://mywebsite.dev/. You’re using the primary blog as your website with mostly pages. One of those pages is called “Donation”. You allow other people to register and create a blog. Someone creates a blog called “Donation” and without warning the previous existing page “Donation” has been redirected to the blog “Donation”.

Obliviously, this should not happen.

As I understood from Donncha (lead-developer of WP MU), in earlier version there was a check to prevent this from happening. I haven’t tested older versions so I cannot confirm nor deny this. However in the current and previous stable version of WordPress Mu this unexpected behavior does happen. There are some solutions in order to prevent this from happening:

• Use sub-domains instead of sub-directories. Since each blog will become a sub-domain instead of a sub-directory it will not clash with any pages created in the
  main blog.
• Prevent any blogs from being created with the same slug (path) as a page in the primary blog. This fixes the issue with WP MU and sub-directories

I created a plugin called “bbMuAutoBanPage” for the latter, which uses the “Banned Names” option in the site admin. Basically it keeps track of the pages created in the primary blog and adds the slugs to the illegal_names options which is used for the “Banned Names” functionality. This is a temporarily fix until this issue is properly fixed in the core WP MU code. Until then you can use my plugin, which I highly recommend if you allow people to register their own blog on your WP MU install. DOWNLOAD IT HERE

In my humble opinion this would be a great moment to have a closer look at the way WordPress Mu deals with routing, since I would like to see it allow for more fine-grained control.

Add-ons for Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird

(source: http://www-archive.mozilla.org/party/2000/mozilla2.gif)

I’m an avid user of Mozilla Firefox for browsing the web and Mozilla Thunderbird for reading up email when I’m not in a commandline Mutt kinda mood. Out of the box these applications are already great to use, but by installing some add-ons it gets even better. So I made a list of all the add-ons I regularly use.

Frankly, without these add-ons I would not be able to do my work as a web developer nor would I enjoy the web as much as I do. In fact, without the Thunderbird add-ons I would not be able to keep track of appointments nor would I be able to archive emails in a sane and time saving manner. In other words these add-ons are lifesavers and perhaps you might find them just as useful as I find them. So have a look at:

• Burobjorn Webdeveloper Tools
• Burobjorn Powertools
• Burobjorn Email Essentials

I plan on updating these collections with future add-ons when I come across new add-ons.

If you know of great add-ons which should be part of the above mentioned collections feel free to leave me a comment below. I won’t promise to make them part of it, but if I find them useful to me I will add them. Otherwise you can easily create your own collections at Mozilla and ignore me