Category: Widgets

First non-Lib Dem WordPress widget…

February 21, 2008: Version 1.2. Bug-fix to ensure that it works with the new datastructure in the latest versions of WordPress. A huge thank you to Will Howells for fixing this.

September 16, 2006: Version 1.1. Bug-fix to ensure that it ‘remembers’ your root page when the Widget page is updated.

Here’s the first of two new WordPress Widgets, and, for the first time, it’s not Lib Dem specific.

It lets you show a subsection of the pages of your WordPress blog. The options page for the widget shows a drop-down box of all the pages in your blog. Select one of them and only pages below that will be displayed by the widget on the menu.

I’m using it on Make IT Policy to have a menu section that only shows the pages of the Make IT Policy policy paper.

You can find the Widget here on the WordPress website.

If you already have widgets installed as part of your WordPress installation, you can try this widget out yourself. All you need to do to use it:

  1. Download the ldpagehierarchy.zip file, extract the ldpagehierarchy.php file and save it or upload it into your widget plug-ins directory.
  2. Go into the ‘Plugins’ area of your WordPress installation and activate the ‘Sub page hierarchy’ widget.
  3. Go into the ‘Sidebar Widgets’ section of the ‘Presentation’ area of WordPress, and drag your new ‘Sub page hierarchy’ widget to the desired location.
  4. Hit the configure icon, select the page that is the parent of the pages you want to show in your page hierarchy and then close the configuration box.
  5. Hit ‘Save Changes’

er, that’s it.

If you don’t have widgets installed, head off to Automaticc’s Widgets project page and follow their extremely helpful instructions on how to install widgets and add them to your blog template.

You can find lots of useful widgets via the WordPress Widgets blog.

perbandingan smartphone

Video frenzy

Following all the other video activity on other Lib Dem blogs, I’ve been going on a bit of video frenzy to see what might be the best way to make Lib Dem videos. I’ve also used the Democracy Plug-In and Democracy Widget to set up an online poll to get your point of view.

So here goes…

First we have the mobile phone video:

Closely followed by some video on a Canon Digital Ixus 400.

I then experimented with supplementing the video with separately recorded sound using a Sony Microphone and an Olympus Digital Video Recorder.

And finally, I recorded some video on my webcam

Let me know what works best for you. Personally I think the digital camera with separate sound recording appears to deliver the best results – although the video on the webcam is higher res running at 25 frames per second rather than 15 fps on the Canon. From my own perspective, I find the better sound makes a bigger impact than having better video (although I suppose I could have done a synchronised recording on the webcam too). I’ll be interested in what other people say. The obvious missing category of video is video shot using a proper video camera, but unfortunately I don’t have one! You may need to go back to the home page to enter the poll.

Welcome to the third Lib Dem widget…

Another widget!

This one puts the party’s campaign buttons on a WordPress site and gives you the option to change the number of buttons that are displayed.

If you already have widgets installed as part of your WordPress installation, you can try this widget out yourself. All you need to do to use it:

  1. Download the ldbuttons.php.txt file and save it or upload it into your widget plug-ins directory under the name ‘ldbuttons.php’
  2. Go into the ā€˜Pluginsā€™ area of your WordPress installation and activate the ‘Lib Dem Buttons’ widget.
  3. Go into the ā€˜Sidebar Widgetsā€™ section of the ā€˜Presentationā€™ area of WordPress, and drag your new ‘Lib Dem Buttons’ widget to the desired location.
  4. Hit ‘Save Changes’

erā€¦ thatā€™s it.

If you don’t have widgets installed, head off to Automaticc’s Widgets project page and follow their extremely helpful instructions on how to install widgets and add them to your blog template.