Hi,

Are we allowed to install our own plugins? I want to install a Calendar plugin so I can make a calendar for meetings and office hours. I don’t think this is possible through the Calendar on the widget. I downloaded a Calendar plugin on wordpress.org but I don’t think uploading is an option in the Admin page. I am about to use FileZilla to upload manually but didn’t want to proceed if there is an easier way to do this…

Thanks!

Hi,

Are we allowed to install our own plugins? I want to install a Calendar plugin so I can make a calendar for meetings and office hours. I don’t think this is possible through the Calendar on the widget. I downloaded a Calendar plugin on wordpress.org but I don’t think uploading is an option in the Admin page. I am about to use FileZilla to upload manually but didn’t want to proceed if there is an easier way to do this…

Thanks!

[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

Hi dwuebben (what’s your name?),

As a member of the Commons, you do not have the power to upload your own plugins, but you can definitely suggest new plugins to us and we will install them as long as the code looks safe. Can you give us a link to the plugin you’d like us to add?

Thanks,

Matt

[Luke Waltzer (he/him)]

I’d also suggest using Google calendar, which you can easily embed in your blog and to which multiple authors can add content.

[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

Perfect suggestion, Luke! Thanks for your input.

[dwuebben]

Hi Matt and Luke,

Both good suggestions. I made a calendar on google and copied the google calendar embed code but I am not sure where to paste this code? New widget? Addition to the index.html for the theme? None of the above?

Thanks,

Dan

[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

Hi Dan,

I’ve just installed the wpng-calendar plugin (http://code.google.com/p/wpng-calendar/), which will allow you to add a google calendar to your blog in a post or in a sidebar widget. Look for “WordPress Google Calendar” in your plugins.

Happy blogging and please let us know if you need any more help.

Best,

Matt

[Daisy (Domínguez) Singh (she)]

Is there any chance you might add this widget: http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/feedjournal or any widget that will allow a whole blog to be turned into a PDF in one shot (not post by post)?

[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

Hi Daisy,

Thanks for this suggestion. I just installed the “Blog as PDF” plugin ( http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/blog-as-pdf/ ) and tested it — it’s working fine. To use it, go to the dashboard of your blog and click on the plugins folder. Search for “Blog as PDF” and activate the plugin. Then, go to Settings > Blog as PDF and follow the directions you see to export your posts as a PDF.

Hope this helps!

Best,

Matt

[Daisy (Domínguez) Singh (she)]

Thanks very much, Matt. I wish it allowed for customization (not just post by post or entire site) but it’s something!

Is it possible to suggest themes, too? I’m trying to get a magazine theme up. I was thinking of this one: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/news-magazine-theme-640

Again, thanks very much!

Daisy

[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

Hi Daisy,

No problem at all — I’ve just added the theme.

If you find a Blog to PDF plugin that you’d prefer over the one I added, please share a link. But it needs to be a WordPress plugin that is located on the WP repository ( http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ )

Best,

Matt

[Daisy (Domínguez) Singh (she)]

Hey Matt,

Maura was right; you guys are great. Thanks so much. I will start looking for another blog to PDF plugin and get in touch if I find anything better. Thanks again!

Daisy

[Daisy (Domínguez) Singh (she)]

Hi Matt,
At the CUNY IT Conference someone mentioned CommentPress but I don’t see it as a plugin. Is that possible? I see on the website that it’s a theme as well as plugin so I’m not sure if I’d have to use it as a theme instead (I’m having trouble loading that URL so I can’t even read what the deal is right now).
BTW, I attended the Academic Commons panel on Tuesday where you presented and just wanted to say thanks for being so open to feedback. I haven’t logged on in a while and that made me want to be more involved.
Best,
Daisy

[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

Hi Daisy,

Thanks for getting in touch. We do have CommentPress installed as a theme on the site; if you go to Appearance > Themes, you’ll see that you can choose it for your blog. I’ve set up a test site that has it enabled: http://testblog.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

Having said that, our version of CommentPress is outdated, so we’ll include the newest version on our next site update. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

I’m thrilled to hear that the panel reinvigorated your interest in the site — welcome back! If you want to see our ticketing system, where bugs and feature requests can be submitted, visit this link: http://redmine.gc.cuny.edu

Of course you can always send in bug reports and feature requests by email, too.

In any case, please do let us know about your ideas for the site, and thanks for exploring it.

Best,

Matt

[Daisy (Domínguez) Singh (she)]

Thanks Matt! I am going to have to think about this some more. I thought I could add it as a plugin and not change the look of the theme I have now. Hmm…I think I read something about customizing themes. Will go see if I can find that. Thanks again! D

[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

Hi Daisy,

Please follow this ticket for our progress on this issue: http://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/issues/show/492

Best,

Matt

[Daisy (Domínguez) Singh (she)]

Thanks, Matt. : )