More information is available on the Simple CMS plugin page.

The simplified WordPress administration panel after installation of the Simple CMS plugin

If you answered yes to both of those questions, then install the excellent “No Self Ping plugin” by Michael D. Adams. It disables that annoying functionality from WordPress and keeps your comments uncluttered by irritating self-pings.

Alternatively, you can simply copy and paste the following code into your themes functions.php file:

function no_self_ping( &$links ) {
	$home = get_option( 'home' );
	foreach ( $links as $l => $link )
		if ( 0 === strpos( $link, $home ) )
			unset($links[$l]);
}

add_action( 'pre_ping', 'no_self_ping' );

We needed a pretty picture to beautify the page. So we 'borrowed' this image as it seemed like a good visual representation of the sound of a 'ping'.

We have fixed the following bugs since the last beta version:

• 1.0.6 – Stable release
• 1.0.5 beta – Folder permissions bug fixed (problem which afflicted most users)
• 1.0.4 beta – Fixed path error in admin panel code
• 1.0.3 beta – Fixed function name clash with PixoPoint menu animations plugin (copy and paste error)

There is also a minor bug in how the admin page adds new sections for removing code on updating which we will correct in a future release.

If you find any extra bugs, please post them in our support forum and if you would like assistance integrating your WordPress theme into another software, please contact us for pricing information.

For more information and download links, please visit the PixoPoint Theme Integrator page.

Admin page

The initial alpha versions of the plugin required manual editing of a configuration file within the plugin whereas this new one can be controlled directly from the WordPress admin page.

The administration page for the PixoPoint Theme Integrator

String removal

If there are any strings within parts of the code you have integrated with your other software which are not required, you may now remove them via the admin panel. This is useful for small snippets of unneeded code such as page specific meta tags.

Page or post specific

For various reasons, you may want to have the integrator fire on a specific page. This is often a good idea if you are unable to remove all the unnecessary code snippets via the admin page. If this option is left blank, it will operate on all pages.

Location of HTML

The admin page is now able to give you the exact PHP code necessary to load your code chunks into your other software.

Modifications needed for WordPress theme

The previous version required new HTML to be added to your theme, however this new version allows you to simply load the necessary code via functions (template tags) added to your theme.

PixoPoint Theme Integrator page

As you can see below, their WordPress powered blog has a very attractive design.

However their forum was not so beautiful. It was sporting the basic default theme which came with the SMF forum software.

However, a quick visit to Dziner Studios and implementation of the PixoPoint Theme Integrator to grab the header and footer of the WordPress theme, along with a few minor changes here and there resulted in the stunning forum design you can see below.

The final design can be seen at:
GreekBerry.com and GreekBerry.com/forum

SMF widget

We also implemented the PixoPoint SMF Widget to show the latest forum posts in the WordPress sections of the site.

Interested in a similar integration?

If you are interested in a similar integration of your WordPress theme with another piece of software (this system works with pretty much any forum, wiki, gallery software etc) then please get in touch with us for pricing information or if you know some HTML/CSS, then download the PixoPoint Theme Integrator and you can do it yourself for free.

To get around this issue, we created a new function which allowed them to specify only the top level menu items that they wanted to display, the result of this is the PixoPoint List Nested Pages plugin. This was built with a specific use case in mind, but in case anyone else has a use for it, we have released as a WordPress plugin.

Visit the PixoPoint List Nested Pages plugin page for more information and to download the plugin.

We will not be providing any free support for this plugin. If you require assistance with it, please sign up for Premium Support and we will be happy to assist you in using it or custom building a new version designed to meet your requirements.

This new plugin adds a smooth animated effect to your dropdown menu. It was originally part of the PixoPoint Menu plugin, but was becoming too bloated and was only useful when using the other parts of the PixoPoint Menu plugin, not just the animations side of it. For a demonstration of it in action, just visit the menu on this very page!

Download

PixoPoint Menu Animations 0.2.1 beta

Features

The primary feature of the PixoPoint Menu Animations plugin is the addition of a smooth animated effect to your dropdown menu, but as always, the truly helpful stuff is in the details and this plugin has plenty of details (ie: options) to let you set your menu up the way you want it.

• Slide down or slide-out effect
• Speed of fade-in effect
• Mouseover delay to control the delay time before the dropdown appears
• Hide delay time to control the delay time before the dropdown disappears
• Sensitivity to control how easily the menu appears or disappears. On low sensitivity, instead of immediately displaying the dropdown/flyout menu on mouseover, the menu will wait until the user’s mouse slows down before displaying it.
• Arrow mark-up may be added to display any menu option which contains children.

The settings page for the PixoPoint Menu Animations plugin

Installation

After you’ve downloaded and extracted the files:

1. Upload the complete `pixopoint-menu-animations` folder to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. Visit the “PixoPoint Animations” page in your WordPress settings menu to control how the menu animations behave via a plethora of different options
4. Ensure that your theme uses a class of `sf-menu`

If your theme does not use a class of .sf-menu, you will need to add that class yourself. The Hybrid, Thematic and Genesis theme frameworks are supported automatically as is the PixoPoint Menu plugin.

Supported Themes

Any themes which use a class of .sf-menu on their menus unordered list will work with this plugin, however many themes already include the Superfish jQuery script which is used by our plugin. To avoid clashes with these other themes, we have intentionally deactivated the dropdown menu scripts in these themes. If you know of any themes which we could also add support for, please let us know!

The themes which are currently supported are:

• All themes which use a class of .sf-menu and do not include the Superfish jQuery script
• All themes utilizing the PixoPoint Menu plugin
• Theme Hybrid by Justin Tadlock
• Thematic by Ian Stewart
• Genesis by StudioPress

PixoPoint Menu plugin (where it gets confusing)

Those of you who have used our PixoPoint Menu plugin or Multi-level Navigation plugin will likely recognise many of the features of this plugin. We were slowly adding so many features to the PixoPoint Menu plugin that it was becoming bloated, and many of those features (such as animations) were suitable for people who did not need the extra features of that plugin. So to simplify things, we have extracted out the code, turned it into a separate plugin and the final result is the PixoPoint Menu Animations plugin.

The current beta version of the PixoPoint Menu plugin includes the PixoPoint Menu animations plugin inside it for compatibility with previous versions, however in the future this will be removed and users wanting animation effects will need to install this plugin directly.

How come it’s not in the repo?

We are holding off adding this plugin to the official WordPress plugins repository until it and the new PixoPoint Menu plugin beta are ready for stable release. Rest assured, that once they are ready, they will be added into the official repository.

Support

All free support questions will be dealt with via our support forum. For paid support, please sign up for our Premium Support service.

Download

The latest download is only available from here: Download PixoPoint Menu plugin v0.8.24 beta (updated 10/6/2010)

Note: As this is only a beta release, this version of the plugin is not recommended for use on production websites.

List of changes

• Total rewrite of the plugin
• Checks for correct path of wp-load.php. This allows the plugin to work even when the plugin folder is moved relative to the WordPress root folder.
• Restyled admin page
• wp_enqueue_styles() used to load the stylesheet. This is useful for other plugins which may concatenate/compress the various CSS files used in your plugins
• All WP Options collated and added into an array inside a few options
• Options whitelisted for security
• More validation checks used in the admin page for improved security
• Some unnecessary global variables removed
• Contants used to define URL’s and paths
• PHP Doc comments added
• Tabber script to jQuery version
• Collated jqanimated scripts into single chunk of code
• Added ‘library’ folder including common functions and legacy support
• Added legacy support to upgrade from other/older plugins
• Changed ‘Help’ section to read in data from PixoPoint.com. This is useful as it ensures that the same information is available on both our site and inside the plugin itself.
• Moved “Update Options” button to inside each tab
• Depreciated second menu functionality and added support for loading it via a plugin. Many users found the number of options in the plugin confusing, so by moving the second menu functionality to a separate plugin this problem will hopefully be reduced
• Depreciated Superfish functionality and loaded it via a separate plugin (currently provided in the core download). This plugin will eventually only be available as a separate download. Many users don’t require the full functionality of the PixoPoint Menu plugin, so by extracting this functionality out into a separate plugin makes it more useful to a broader range of users.
• Another animation option called “Basic” was added to the separate animations plugin.
• And a bazillion other things we’ve forgotten to mention here

Drag and drop

Some minor bugs have been removed from the drag and drop facility, but it pretty much works the same as the original PixoPoint Menu plugin.

You can modify the menu contents via the same drag and drop method as the original PixoPoint Menu plugin

Settings Tab

Many of the users of the original PixoPoint Menu plugin found the number of settings too off-putting, so we have simplified things as much as possible for them.

The settings page is now simplified in comparison to the original PixoPoint Menu plugin.

Advanced Tab

The CSS editing area is now present in the advanced tab.

You can upload/modify your CSS directly via the 'Advanced' tab. As always, this system works well with our dropdown menu CSS generator.

PixoPoint Animations plugin

On upgrading or installing a fresh new version of the PixoPoint Menu plugin, an extra plugin called “PixoPoint Animations” will be activated. This plugin includes all of the dropdown menu animation functionality originally included in the core plugin, along with an extra option called the “Basic” animations which creates a different animation effect with slightly less code than is required for the Superfish script. This plugin will be eventually extracted and released as an entire separate download. For the mean time, it is bundled with the original plugin to ensure that upgrades go smoothly.

On upgrading, or installing a fresh installation of the plugin, a second plugin called 'PixoPoint Menu Animations' will be activated. This will eventually be available as a separate download.

Known Bugs

• The PixoPoint Animations plugin is detected as being the PixoPoint Menu plugin and so immediately says it needs updated, except instead of updating, it gets deleted and is replaced by the original PixoPoint Menu plugin. A solution to this is being sorted on WP Tavern.

Multi-level Navigation plugin

This plugin is intended as a replacement for both the PixoPoint Menu plugin and the Multi-level Navigation plugin. If installed while the Multi-level Navigation plugin is running, it will deactivate that plugin, then transfer all of your settings (including your CSS) over to the new plugin and then clean your database of all of the old Multi-level Navigation plugin data (that plugin added lots of pointless junk to your database).

Future versions of the Multi-level Navigation plugin will automatically upgrade themselves to the new PixoPoint Menu plugin. This will not be happening until extensive testing has been undertaken to ensure there are no glitches during the upgrade process.

When the WP DB backup plugin is activated, you can navigation to “Tools” > “Backup” in your sites admin panel and from there you can select any extra database tables you would like backed up, and then either choose to download a copy of the database immediately, or schedule to have the database emailed to you periodically.

Screenshot from the WP DB backup admin page. Click to zoom in.

I generally have most of my sites email me a copy of their database every day. If you don’t like receiving lots of backups to your main email account, then you can have it sent to an address that you rarely use. This way you always know that your data is backed up to a reliable place. It also pays to periodically download a copy to your computers hard drive so that you have it triply backed up in case of a double catastrophe of data loss.

Note: If you database is larger than the largest email attachement your server can send, then you won’t be able to send the entire database. Most databases are less than 1 MB in size so this is rarely a problem for the average site owner.

Since this is an alpha launch, we do not recommend using this in a live environment just yet. There are likely to be bugs and we haven’t written a lot of documentation on how it works just yet. Plus we are likely to change some things before it is officially released as a stable product.

• More information about the integrator
• Preliminary Installation Instructions
• snip – the stable version is out now so download that instead.

We use the PixoPoint Theme Integrator in our support forum.