Related posts? Used to be fairly easy back in the day…I recently had a need for a related posts plugin for WordPress on another site I’m working on, but I couldn’t find something that was quick and easy to implement. Or work for that matter. There’s a lot out there that seemingly don’t work these days. I did the cursory quick look through Lorelle’s Related, Recent, Most Popular Posts and More post from February and came away uninspired. No, the post was great — kicking the tires on the plugins listed left me looking for something more.

Enter Denis‘ WP 2.3 Related Posts — was just what I needed. Since I typically use the bleeding edge stuff, I wanted to utilize the built-in WordPress tags (I think WordPress 2.3 is coming out in a week, so I won’t be that bleeding edge anymore) to link my posts together. This new plugin does just what I want now.

Throws my related posts at the bottom of the article. Pefect. Though 0.2 doesn’t document it, there’s an Options > WP23 Related Posts screen that will allow you to adjust a few settings such as the default ‘Related Post’ text, what to say in the event no posts are related and the number of related posts to show. You can even add related posts to feeds, but I haven’t explored that option.

I think with a few more tweaks, this plugin could be very solid and find a niche out there in the related posts plugin area.

Nice work Denis.

Don’t ask me how or why, but I stumbled upon blog + wiki = blicki today. Nothing is there yet — just a pretty place holder proclaiming that the blicki is coming soon. Not sure how soon this, I presume, service will be rolled out to the masses or what exactly it will entail, but there you have it.

One of these days I’ll have to grab the Blicki plugin and run it on a local development blog to kick the tires. Been meaning to do that for some time now…just need to set some time aside.

Once upon a time there was a conflict between WordPress 2.2 and the theme, K2. The issue started when Widgets were integrated into the core of WordPress. This move hosed K2′s Sidebar Modules. I created the very simple plugin called, Disable WordPress Widgets — bringing order to the universe again.

That is until: r335 – in trunk/app: classes display includes – K2 Subversion | Google Groups

This elegant little fix essentially wiped out the need for this plugin and its use with K2 in an instant.

I have no idea whether this plugin will be useful to anyone now. Maybe to K2 users that don’t stay current with their theme, but make upgrades to their WordPress installation. I guess I’ll leave it up for a while at Extend › Plugins where it die a quiet, non-downloaded death. And then I’ll have it removed.

Update: As of r336, the need for the plugin is back in play.

Update: As of r480 (Issue 280), K2 now incorporates the code to disable WordPress’ widgets.

Update: For users of WordPress 2.5.x and beyond, this plugin is no longer necessary.

Today I updated WordPress via subversion and there, just below the Post textarea on the Write > Post admin page, is a new tag inclusion area.

Granted I’m not on wp-hackers and have been definitely out of the loop lately tracking WordPress developments, but I think this is the opening volley for including tags in the WordPress core.

This February discussion on wp-hackers, Tagging, Categorizing, Labeling, Classifying: Taxonomics and Folksonomics in WordPress, seems to indicate that it was a possibility and this March 26, 2007 changeset shows the inclusion of a tagging backend for WordPress 2.2.

I think this is a good thing. Ultimate Tag Warrior is great. I like it, but I haven’t looked into all the bells and whistles it has to offer. I’m sure it can jump through hoops and make me a nice ham sandwich, but I don’t think I need it to make me that sandwich.

Having some basic UTW-like tagging options available immediately from a base WordPress install would be a very nice addition to the core. We’ll have to see how things progress.