Because “ThunderFire” and “SonicNoseBleed” were taken, we’re releasing a WordPress plugin called “TextBlurb”. It’s a simple one that takes a little texty-text and gives it a place to lay it’s unwanted head until you need it.
What itch does it scratch?
The one where you need to store little bits of text like phone numbers, addresses, section titles, etc for use on the site.
Example Time
Say your site is all about books and you want to have a “Reader of the Month” section on the homepage. The only monthly change to this section would be the name of the reader and a short description.
Common Solution:
Make a WordPress “Page” called “Monthly Winner”. You would then need to write a query to get this page, then some code to display that query on the homepage. Oh, because you stored this as a “Page” you now have to exclude it so it doesn’t show up in the top navigation, or search results, etc.
Cue black and white video of old lady opening a jar of pickles…”OH NO”.
TextBlurb Solution:
Go make two blurbs called “reader name” and “reader info”. On the homepage, use the handy template tag we’ve made and voila, there is the info.
Cue video of pretty lady with Jar Glove… “It’s just that easy!”.
Geeky Info
TextBlurb takes as many entries as you’d like and stores it. Then, when you need the info, use the template tag to slidetackle it into place. The first time you use the template tag it queries the wp_option entry. The rest of the calls on that page uses the returned info instead of querying it over and over.
Big Finish
I hope it helps you as much as it’s helped me. If you love it, hate it, find some bugs, want an update, or think “SonicNoseBleed” is a better title hit me up in the comments below… I, like that creepy guy accross the street, am watching.
Dude, of course “SonicNoseBleed” is a better name!
Nice plugin, much simpler than having to create a theme options page for every site you deploy.