When I am working on the plugin I find that I frequently need to populate the database with a bunch of user and swimmer information. It is easy to add a few opponent swim clubs and some other information but adding a bunch of dummy users and swimmers takes a while.
This past weekend I started working on a separate plugin that will populate the database with a random number between 25 and 100 dummy users each with between 1 and 4 swimmers, each registered for the current season. This generation of users and swimmers happens when the plugin is activated. The plugin can be deactivated and then activated again to add additional users and swimmers.
This plugin was used to populate the database on the new wp-SwimTeam Demo site.
Development, Progress, demo
demo, plugin, wp-SwimTeam
I have noodled on how to handle wp-SwimTeam’s dependency on phpHtmlLib on several occasions. Today I was at the gym with my mind wandering while I was on the elliptical machine, I started thinking about it again.
I am considering pulling it into the plugin as SVN external. This would allow me to ensure it is always installed. Doing this will greatly simplify the download and installation process for the end user as well which ultimately will make it easier to support users of the plugin. The more I think about it, the better idea I think this is. I need to read up on SVN externals!
Miscellaneous, Progress, SVN
install, phpHtmlLib, plugin, SVN
The overhaul of phpHtmlLib is largely complete, I just need to validate a few more things before I call it done. One of the things I did during the overhaul was to add some things to the library so it will load as a WordPress plugin. This will make installation and configutation much easier. The changes to phpHtmlLib made the migration from PEAR to the WordPress database abstraction class much easier.
Development, WordPress
PEAR, phpHtmlLib, plugin, WordPress
While trying to get a demo site up and running I ran into an issue that has taken me down a path I didn’t expect to head down at this time. But now that I have run into it, I have decided to fix it correctly.
The wp-SwimTeam plugin depends on phpHtmlLib and the 2.x version of the library requires that it be installed in the web site’s root directory. This typically isn’t a big deal but in some cases can be inconvenient. It also requires the library be named phphtmllib as the path is (was) encoded into quite a few of the widgets.
When I uploaded the library to the new demo site, it didn’t run correctly. The demo site is running PHP5 which I immediately suspected as the problem. So I loaded PHP5 and phpHtmlLib into a new virtual machine (I love VMware, it is wonderful for configuring different environments) and all the examples ran just fine. Odd, very odd. Digging into it further, it looks like the hosting provider’s PHP virtual directory support setting is different than what I had locally and affects how include files are handled.
A couple of tests confirmed my suspicions. Since this hosting provider is large, I suspect this PHP configuration is pretty typical and it provided sufficient motivation to go back and fix phpHtmlLib 2.x so it can be loaded with appropriate configured PHP define() statements. If you look through the phpHtmlLib forums you’ll find this is a fairly regularly requested item (including by me) and phpHtmlLib 3 (which requires PHP5) is configured this way.
Over the last couple days I have been updating the phpHtmlLib 2.x branch to support this configuration method and now have it all running correctly in my development area. Before I commit all the changes, and there are a lot of them, I need to verify it all works in the suspect hosting environment.
The trickle down of setting up a demo site resulted in an overhaul to phpHtmlLib. It needed to be done anyway and doing it will allow phpHtmlLib to be loaded as a WordPress plugin eventually.
Development, PHP, Software
demo, phpHtmlLib, plugin, WordPress
I have had a couple ask recently about a demo site for wp-SwimTeam so I think I am going to set one up that people can play with. The plugin is current live on the MacDolphins web site but since that is a real team and real data, it isn’t a suitable sandbox for people to explore.
If I can set up another instance of WordPress underneath this one to demonstrate the plugin, I will make it available for play with. I am not sure how to assign new users the necessary permission to admin the demo site since that would provide them a fair amount of control over the actual WordPress install itself. Hmmm … need to think that through before I turn it on!
WordPress
demo, plugin, sandbox, WordPress, wp-SwimTeam
