The desired functionality plugin is a collection of .. well .. desired functionality that wordpress for whatever reason either is lacking completely, or in my opinion does poorly. Much of it will be things that I wanted to fix in the wordpress core, but I don’t want to hassle with the source repository (as it’s a mess and things don’t seem to get done in a timely fashion).

Note; If you’re using any of my Theme’s you will need this plug-in. As of this writing I have only tested this plug-in on wordpress 2.05. It should work on all though, please let me know if it doesn’t.

Latest Version: v0.4 for WordPress 2.05+
Download Plugin: Link Removed.

Instructions:

If something in wordpress doesn’t work the way you think it should, or you wish it had better functionality, LET ME KNOW! Send me an email and I’ll add it to the desired functionality plugin.

You will note that ALL functions in the desired functionality plugin are prefaced with “PAL_”; This is intentional and is intended to be a way to keep function names from colliding, think of it as the poormans name space.. Also note that while all functions are meant to either augment or replace the wordpress equivelant, it may not be a one for one transition, and arguments may change. In other words, read the instructions below.

function pal_list_categories

The pal_list_categories function is meant to ultimately replace the wp_list_cats and list_cats functions that come with wordpress. Some functionality isn’t present yet, but the important stuff is as well as a couple additional features.

Arguments:

• start – User may start anywhere in their category “tree” be designating a single point as the TOP and navigate down from there. Defaults to 0
• exclude – A comma delimited exclusion list, excludes at the db level, defaults to nothing.
• orderby – User may order by ID or NAME of the category at the db level, defaults to ID
• orderdir – User may order ascending or descending, defaults to asc
• depth – How many parent child levels do you want to display? 0 means only display top most level starting at start and no children. Default is 1. (so start=0&depth=1 means show top parents, and their first children)
• show_count – A user may choose to display in the category link the number of posts, default is true
• show_count_zero – A user may choose to not display those counts that would be (0), default is false (hide (0))
• use_desc_for_title – Show the description as the title of the link (mouse hover), false by default
• hide_empty – hide categories that are empty at the database level. Note: empty parents that have a child with content will be hidden, so be careful with this one.
• parent_style – Defines the style name of the immediate parent of the currently selected category, defaults to “parent-cat”
• current_style – Defines the style name of the currently open category, defaults to “current-cat”
• children_style – Defines the style name of the UL block for children, defaults to “children”
• show_count_style – Defines the style name of the count span when enabled, defaults to “cat-count”

Example Usage:

The side bar of this site uses this;

pal_list_categories(‘depth=1&show_count=1′);
which says show be the entire list of categories starting at zero (start defaults to zero), and show me just their immediate children (depth = 1), and display the count after the link in the menu item (show_count = 1), but hide those that have a count of zero (show_count_zero defaults to false).

The Archives page of this site uses this;

pal_list_categories(‘start=’.$_REQUEST['cat'].
‘&depth=0&show_count=1′);
which says to show all categories starting at the level of whatever category we are viewing but none of their children.

function pal_getCategoryByName

As of this writing, the wordpress “get_the_category” function is completely broken. It will return very very wrong results based on the order the children are in, in the database. I needed a way to get a categories ID and this was a quick solution.

 

In the works ~ Desired Functionality:

• IP Denial – I want to create an IP denial system that will completely deny the entire website OR individual parts of it (like comments) based on IP addresses.
• Comment Signal or Noise – I’d like to create a system where by users can mark posts and comments as either signal or noise. You would then be able to search by signal and noise levels. It will also hide those posts and comments from users that have a noise level at a certain level. So if 10 others have marked someones comment as noise, then that comment will be hidden from future users – if it gets 20 or so, you can mark it for auto-pruning..etc..

Revisions:

v0.4 ~ Added a function

• Added getCategoryByName

v0.3 ~ Additional Features

• Added Parent_Style, Current_Style, Children_Style and Show_Count_Style

v0.2 ~ Bug Fixes

• Caught a couple errors that would be cause by attempting to parse an array that wasn’t
• And the incorrect category wont be highlighted when you’re viewing a page
• Exclude list is now sent to children as well

v0.1 ~ Initial release

• Creation of “pal_list_categories” and associated private functions to facilitate its function.