[wp-hackers] Back on the plugin scene -- some questions

[Stephanie Booth]

Hi folks,

I'm back in the WordPress plugin hacking world, with a few questions.

1. Print CSS

I noticed that WP does not provide a print stylesheet out of the box
(I thought it used to, but I may remember incorrectly -- depends on
the theme, I guess). Anyway, I started looking around for existing
plugins to add a print stylesheet before writing my own. I found WP
Print <http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-print/> but it adds a
print link and seems a bit heavy. All I want is basically to insert
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/blah/print.css"
media="print" title="Normal" /> in the header and provide a CSS file.
So, sub-questions:

- is there a plugin I missed that does roughly what I want?
- does anybody know of pre-existing print stylesheets for the Sandbox theme?
- I see a few filters containing the word "stylesheet" here
<http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Filter_Reference#Template_Filters>
but honestly, what they do seems a bit fuzzy according to the
description (I'm not very knowledgable in how WP deals with
stylesheets); what would the best way be to insert my line of HTML in
the header -- assuming that editing the template manually is not an
option?

2. Is feed or not?

As described in this post
<http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/12/04/ridding-wordpress-plugins-of-template-tags/>,
I've modified the Similar Posts plugin to automatically add the
similar posts links. I want them at the beginning of the content in
the blog, but at the end of the post content in the feed. So, I wrote
two different functions for that and then used this code for the
hooks:

if(is_feed()) {
	add_action('the_content', 'sp_embed_feed_similar_posts');
}else{
	add_action('the_content', 'sp_embed_similar_posts');
	}

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work. In the feed, the similar
posts are placed like in the main blog page, which means the second
function was used. What am I missing here?

3. Sandbox drop-down menu problem in IE/win

This isn't exactly a plugin problem. The drop-down menus in the
sandbox theme down behave correctly in IE/win -- they drop /next/ to
the parent menu, instead of /under/ it, making access to the next item
on the menu bar impossible.

- has anybody already solved this problem?
- is this the right place to try to find help for this?

4. Using ob_start()

I've been told this could be a bit nasty, but it seems a solution for
my Basic Bilingual plugin (updated last night in the plugin
repository, btw!), which I would like to make capable of inserting
lang="xx" attributes in various pre-existing elements in templates.

Can somebody tell me if I'm on the right track with the following:

function bb_replace($buffer) {
	$search = blah blah
        $replace = blah blih bloh
	return preg_replace($search, $replace, $buffer);
}

function bb_buffer() {
		ob_start('bb_replace');
}

add_action('template_redirect', 'bb_buffer'); // is this the correct
hook to use?

I guess I could also use this method to add my stylesheet link
(problem #1 above) but I guess there is a more elegant solution for
it.

Thanks a lot for your help -- feels nice to be "coding" again!

Steph aka bunnywabbit_
-- 
web: http://stephanie-booth.com
blog: http://climbtothestars.org
skype: steph-booth or +41 44 586 42 74 | cell: +41 78 625 44 74
ICQ: 23836265 | MSN: gummywabbit at hotmail.com | AIM: Gummywabbit
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