Just a quick post to say Merry Christmas to my readers and any passers by. Had a good but busy week off, trying to sort various things out whilst down at my parents. We're back home tomorrow then I've got more admin (plugins to fix, letters to write) to sort out before being back at work!

However, for now, the dinner is cooking on the BBQ (just how it should be), and the wine is calling out to me, so have a good Christmas and New Year where ever you are

Since version 2.5 of WordPress, we've had that very useful banner across the top of our admin screens reminding us that a new version of WordPress is available and to upgrade. It's a really great feature, but the ability to not display it to non Administrators has been something I've been wanting since 2.5 came out.

We run quite a few client sites on WordPress, and let's face it, sometimes you don't want to upgrade immediately, perhaps other work needs doing to the site theme before you want to upgrade everything, or you have another reason (client's paying up is usually a major one!). If you're like me then you'd rather your client's didn't see this notice about upgrading. Some can start contacting you asking why it needs upgrading and if the site is safe to use, others request the update there and then.

Why the notice is shown to non Admins I'm not sure. However, after a quick check and a few lines of code, I've now released a plugin to just hide this message from anyone who isn't a level 10 (i.e. Administrators). Once I've got time I'll probably add an options page to allow people to hide it altogether, or to perhaps allow Editors and Admins to see the message, but not Subscribers through to Authors.

You can view the official plugin page or just download it from WordPress.

It's been just work, work, work lately. Christmas is creeping up so quickly, I just don't know where the time has gone this year.

A quick wrap up of what's been happening:

WordPress 2.7 was finally released this week, and not a moment too soon. WP 2.7 is the best version yet, the admin is beautiful and the features are great.

We finally took a day off work (on an exceptionally cold but sunny day) and got to the zoo, something we'd been planning to do since October. It was all worth it when I got to see what I went for – the new lion cub. I could have just stood and watched him for hours!

Work has continued to be busy, which is obviously good from a credit crunch / recession point of view. I'm just a tad bit tired and need a break! However, come Friday I'll be stopping work (well client work) for Christmas, and certainly can't wait! Although I seem to be arranging to sort out so much stuff over Christmas that I'll probably be busier than ever!

I won a competition the other week and got a premium WordPress template for free, so I need to get around to injecting my own personality into that, plus the 2.7 code (yes another job for Christmas). So I'll be updating the design of this site soon.

Both Dave and I won a bit of cash off the BloggingTips.com forum competition, so we put our winnings together and put it towards a new Sigma 10-20mm camera lens. I've not had a chance to get any shots with it yet, however I hope to have a play next week and see what I can capture.

I've been eying up Sam's iPhone with a major amount of jealousy! Frustratingly, I've got over a year left on my current contract (yes the one that had no improvement on it whatsoever!). I'm quite tempted to take on a second contract just to get the iPhone, and use that for business, then keep my other for personal for the time being until the contract runs out. But I do keep trying to tell myself to just wait!

And I've finally got Family Ski (We Ski) for the Wii, a bit of an early christmas present off Dave. It's not as good as the real thing, but it's good fun anyway. I've only spent about half an hour on it due to lack of time, but it's quite surreal shussing down, round the trails and paths, avoiding the silly people standing having a chat on the slopes (it's just like real life!).

However, hopefully I can take a long weekend here and there next year and get up to Scotland to do the real thing

WordPress 2.7 RC1 was released earlier this week, and this was the stage at which I was happy to upgrade this site to the new version. It's been a hard wait as I've had the beta version of 2.7 running on some smaller sites and also on my local install. Having to return back to 2.6.X version on my own site has been frustrating! However, finally I've upgraded, and uploaded my updated theme files to make use of the new features.

Most of it has gone pretty smoothly. I've not only updated to use the new comment pagination (after 25 comments, which is a rarity on my posts!), but I've also still kept my own comment styling and markup, using the comment callback function.

I have spotted a couple of issues or concerns however, but I'm not sure if this is down to the code I've used, so I'll be checking on these more in depth first.

The first is the comment count using the comments_number() tag. I noticed when I first added my updated theme files that one the post I happened to check, there was one comment displaying however the count said 2. On further investigation I did have a second comment on the post but it was unmoderated. Obviously not the outcome I'd prefer, as sometimes I just don't have a chance, or forget to moderate comments, so it would be confusing to some to see perhaps a heading of '4 Responses' yet only one displayed!

The second issue, or not really an issue but a strange finding, is that in the callback function you effectively rewrite your comment markup. You start with a list item so essentially you should finish with a list item. On the codex page for the wp_list_comments() tag, the callback function example has the closing list item tag, however, when you use this code in your theme, you actually get two closing list items. It looks like the template tag automatically adds the closing list item regardless of what you use. Obviously this is strange behaviour as it's assuming that you're using a list for your comments (which you should, but plenty of themes out there don't), and it leaves you with incomplete code in your function, which is not usually the case.

Hopefully the first issue mentioned will be fixed before the final release, and the second is more a case of whether it's considered normal behaviour or not. To me it isn't, and who ever wrote the codex page thought it wasn't either, but perhaps to the WordPress developers it's how it should be!

However, they're only minor issues, and the advantages and beauty of WordPress 2.7 far outweights those that's for sure.

All I'm now waiting for is the release of WordPress MU 2.7 for a couple of sites!

With the release of WordPress 2.7 just around the corner, I've had a chance to look at the new features and the updates needed to your theme to make use of these new features. Whilst older themes will continue to work with 2.7 (just as old themes worked when widgets / dynamic sidebars were introduced, and when other various features such as built in gravatars have been introduced), there are a couple of additions that will improve your control over your site, and to use the new pagination or threaded comment system you'll need to add in the new, necessary code.

I've written about the new features and the comment code for the pagination over at Blogging Tips:

WordPress Theme Enhancements I
WordPress Theme Enhancements II
WordPress Theme Enhancements III

And I'll be writing about the code for threaded comments next week. Added the 3rd post above

I've already made these changes to my own theme in anticipation of the release of either the full 2.7 version or at least the release candidate version, that I've read is to be coming soon. For my comments file I still wanted comments and pings/trackbacks separated, so with a bit of alterations to the code on my post at Blogging Tips, I've now got this working. The only slight difference is the layout, however I've got a couple of final changes to do and then my theme is ready for 2.7.

So, if you want to make use of the new features in WordPress 2.7, mainly the comment pagination and/or threading, then I recommend making these changes ready for its release.