Dooodl misery!

Let me start this post with a big…

I really screwed up yesterday. I updated the Dooodl plugin and commited it to SVN. After having done that I wanted to wait until the changes reflected on the Wordpress site (which sometimes takes a few minutes). However I had to go over to Ward for dinner, so I took my laptop…

When arrived there I checked the site back and saw the changes. I updated the plugin on my site immediately using the WP-plugin auto-update functionality. That’s when all hell broke loose…
I saw that all the doodle-images on my site were gone, but the userdata (in the database) remained. When checking the FTP I realized what happened… The images are saved inside the plugin folder in a folder called ‘doodls’. Once you let Wordpress update the plugin automatically it tells you it ‘removed the old version of the plugin‘, before it ‘upgraded the plugin succesfully‘. It actually removes everything in that directory. I did NOT know that! I expected the plugin to replace all the existing files with new files and add the missing files/folders. And that’s why everything saved by the plugin was was lost once updated…

In my case I immediately lost about 120 doodles you guys submitted. Lucky for me I took a backup only half an hour before running the upgrade . In the end I only lost 11 images. I hope I’m the only one who ran into this misery.

But now…
There’s a new version online (1.0.5) (1.0.6  featuring smaller brushes ) which will not have that issue anymore. But before running off and installing this version please take a look at this and please be absolutely sure to have a backup of your doodles before installing ANY other version of the plugin…

1. Before updating, download the /wp-content/plugins/dooodl/doodls/ folder. This folder contains all doodles your users saved. If you don’t, you will lose all images your users saved.
2. Create a folder in /wp-content/uploads/ and name it ‘doodls‘.
3. Upload the images to this(/wp-content/uploads/doodls/) folder.
4. Now you can upgrade the new version of the plugin.

Again: I’m terribly sorry about all this and I really hope you didn’t lose (too much) of your doodles. I already tested 1.0.6 and it’s working perfectly. If you safely copy/backup the folder with doodles (using the steps above) then you should be safe

Having said all this…

If you got any feedback or information on how Wordpress updates itself and plugins, do let me know. I really wouldn’t like running into this kind of trouble again…

Dooodls for everyone!

A few days ago I presented the Dooodle application I built. You guys created some cool doodles and I totally love it!

But it’s still an independent application hacked into Wordpress using basic widget.  That means I can’t just share the code so you can use it too on your website (since you’ll have to set up a database, fill in config files, etc… Boring stuff). So yesterday I decided to compact this into a handy Wordpress plugin.
And this is what I did: I give you Dooodl!

[UPDATE] Mark asked me to share the source of the Dooodl Creator App, so I did Feel free to send me links to your own creator. I might add different creators to the plugin, and let you choose in the WP-admin which one you’d like your visitors to use

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Dooodl(e) fun!!

When Dorien and I were in Denmark, back in June, we stayed at a bed & breakfast. Before leaving we signed the guestbook. That made me think back of the days when I had a guestbook on my site. I remember building tons and tons of those things. The more I kept thinking about this, the more I started to realize I really liked it back then. And to be honest: I still love the idea of a random visitor leaving you a message… However, a good old fashioned ‘guestbook’ is kinda ‘out’…

I have been thinking about this for some time. A few weeks ago I was browsing Kris‘ site and found the answer to this guestbook-problem in the sidebar: A Doodle-wall. He allows his visitors to draw a little doodle and save it to the sidebar. Better yet: He built a history-browser too which allows you to browse all doodles through time. Read the rest of this entry »

Supermini showcase

A few months ago I re-released Supermini, a simple Wordpress theme. After some time I started running across the first sites actually using it and, like every other theme, Supermini was personalized by everyone who used it. However since Supermini is such a simple and basic theme, minor changes make a big difference. I found that a lot of these changes looked great. Here are some of them.

Hackerlab.de

Pervart.net
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SuperMini wordpress theme update

I just uploaded an updated version of the SuperMini Wordpress theme. If you encounter any bugs, feel free to tell me

You can check it out at ikDicht.

Oh and while I’m at it: Removing the footer links to Patrick and me is totally uncool… Because some people still do that in 2009.