[wp-hackers] New Approach to Asides

[Mark Jaquith]

Another good way, and a way that doesn't abuse something, the way using 
the category to designate size is an abuse, is to use the post meta to 
store a size=short value.

What I would really REALLY like is the ability to hardcode meta choices 
in, so that you could make post size a dropdown list instead of having 
to type it in, like Expression Engine has.

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 2:36pm, Mathias Bynens wrote:
> Asides is a great feature, of which I think it should be included in
> the default WordPress installation.
>
> However I don't completely agree with the way Matt started (and now
> everybody is) handling his short posts --- by filing them under a
> special category. I'm convinced categories should reflect the subject,
> the content of a post --- not its size. I mean, an Aside can be a post
> about everything. Of course, you can tag a post with multiple
> categories, but still it's not the same.
>
> Nick [ http://mtdewvirus.com/ ], for example, created his Link It
> category lightyears ago. Check his site now; it's full of these short
> posts without even a link in them. "Link It"? Right.
>
> The problem is that Asides categories are used as tags, not as 
> categories.
>
> Maybe that's even one of the reasons why there aren't any plans of
> implementing something like this in WP, I don't know.
>
> Anyway, I wrote my own Asides script. First, I ran this MySQL query
> (mind the table prefix):
>
> ALTER TABLE `wp_posts` ADD `post_type` ENUM('normal', 'short') DEFAULT
> 'normal' NOT NULL AFTER `post_category`;
>
> Basically, this created a post_type field in the posts table, which is
> set to NORMAL on all posts.
>
> Next, I made some PHP-wise changes to the Write/Edit Posts page, in
> order to add "[checkbox] This post is a Shorty(tm)". The code I used
> for that isn't clean enough to post here. I'm sure you guys can do
> this way better.
> Anyway, you could manually edit the data in the posts table through 
> phpMyAdmin.
>
> Then, it was just a matter of tagging my short posts, and editing my
> index.php template. That part was real easy, as the code is similar to
> Matt's [ http://photomatt.net/2004/05/19/asides/ ].
>
> <?php if (('short' == ($post->post_type)) && !$single) { ?>
> <ul class="asides">
> <li><?php echo wptexturize($post->post_content) . ' '; ?><span><a
> href="<?php comments_link(); ?>" title="View the comments on this
> post"><?php comments_number('(0)', '(1)', '(%)'); ?></a> <a
> href="<?php echo get_permalink(); ?>" title="Permanent Link: <?php
> the_title(); ?>">&#182;</a><?php edit_post_link(' (e)');
> ?></span></li>
> </ul>
> <?php } else { ?>
>
> Then, of course, throw in Mr Mullenweg's Stupid Hack:
>
> function stupid_hack($str) {
> return preg_replace('|</ul>\s*<ul class="asides">|', '', $str);
> }
> ob_start('stupid_hack');
>
> And we're all set. (By the way, I don't think that hack is stupid ---
> it would surprise me if there was a better way to achieve something
> like this.)
>
> The reasons I'm posting this on here, and not on my blog, are:
> a) the wp-hackers mailing list actually has a readership;
> b) I'd love to see Asides get implemented into WP somehow.
>
> You can see all of the above in action on my blog, though there's not
> much too see; it looks exactly the same as category-based Asides,
> except for a special category to appear in div.meta of course.
>
> P.S.: I am fully aware of the fact that a lightyear measures distance, 
> not time.