WordPress Link-O-Rama

Some links to WordPress articles I’ve come across recently that may be of future benefit. Post them here so I don’t forget.

Creating Custom Write Panels in WordPress (tutorial) – how to create a write panel (in a metabox) to gather very specific, categorized information. Could be handy if, for instance, a Service Overview or Product Overview template were to be built as a custom entry screen in place of the standard WP page content dialogue.

FAQ for Universities Interested in WordPress – no explanation needed.

Wpazo – The Best of WordPress Stuff – links, news, announcements … all related to WordPress.

Users, Roles, and Capabilities in WordPress – Great explanation of how these components work in WordPress, with some common assumptions debunked.

Members – a WP plugin for creating custom roles and assign capabilities to those roles. Integrated with Gravity Forms, which is how I found this link.

WPshout – another links, news, announcements site for WordPress-related stuff.

Published
Categorized as WordPress

ScreenFlow bug report / vent

ScreenFlow, at version 1.5.4, still occasionally gives me that Beta feel. While working on the overview screencast for Restricting Access today, I found two bugs. It was not a fun day. TGIF. I’ve reproduced my error report/vent to the ScreenFlow support team below.

Two major, unrecoverable errors were encountered today and I lost hours of work.

1)

I had 3 text items selected and changed the font size on all of them at the same time. The text itself was not highlighted — the bounding boxes around each were selected because I had Command+clicked them to make a multiple selection.

Well apparently applying a font size change to a multiple selection (all text items) is a VERY BAD THING. While it appeared to work visually, I was then unable to move the items, or delete the items, or save my file, or anything else without a whole host of runtime errors.

I had saved the file before attempting this multiple-item font size edit, so I force-quit the application, rebooted and re-started Screenflow. When I attempted to re-open the file, it started to open (I see stage and timeline, with all my items in place) but then Screenflow just crashes with a standard MacOS alert box “The application ScreenFlow quit unexpectedly…” with the Ignore, Report, and Relaunch options.

——

After starting again from scratch and working a couple more hours (saving the file regularly) on the same presentation (and vowing to never attempt to apply font size change to multiple text items) I encountered another error.

2)

I needed a small, static screen capture included in my screencast. I used Skitch (which is a great screen capture tool) to do a small screencap. I changed the file type to PNG, and dragged the screencap from Skitch into my ScreenFlow media library. I then placed it on the stage and began editing it in the timeline (video transition, etc.).

When I attempted to save the file, it would not save. I regret not writing down the specific error message, but it was general in nature and did not refer to a specific error (cannot save your file for unknown reason, or something along those lines).

As before, I force-quit the application and rebooted, thinking I could open the file and at least get the previously-saved version. But no, when I attempt to open my file the same thing is happening as in error #1 — it begins to open the file, I see stage and timeline, but then ScreenFlow crashes with the same “application quit unexpectedly” error.

I AM able to open and edit several other ScreenFlow projects I have previously worked on.

——

This is indeed frustrating because I think ScreenFlow is a fantastic program and there is nothing else out there that compares.

I’ll keep using it, but I’ve got a growing list of quirky things I need to avoid doing because of these bugs. Don’t apply changes to multiple text items at once. Don’t copy/paste from Skitch. Apparently I should just copy any and all content into the project folder and ONLY add it to my library via the tools in ScreenFlow. And only edit one thing at a time. Etc. And I’ll be saving multiple versions of each project in the hopes that if I can’t open my previously-saved version, maybe I would be able to open another copy that’s a half hour old.

</vent>

Ron Yeany
ryeany@bu.edu

Too Many Queries

I've never seen this one before ... while trying to put together info our Department ID search tool, I have managed to exceed my query limit to BU Directory. I didn't even know there was a limit!

querylimit

Published
Categorized as BU web

Handwritten fonts

There are a lot of really, really BAD handwritten fonts available out there. If you need a handwritten font, you have to sort through the 95% of crap to find a few that are useful. Here's another list that offers a lot of crap and a few gems.

Published
Categorized as fonts

Free font for coding

I don't particularly like a lot of fonts included with applications as the "code" font. Attractive, monospaced fonts are few and far between, so I'm happy to have found Anonymous Pro, a free, professionally-designed monospace font that looks great for working with code.

Published
Categorized as fonts