[wp-hackers] WP Connect:Connect the world! - GSOC proposal

[sutharshan balachandren]

WP Connect -Connect the world!
What I’m suggesting is that by creating a plug-in or by adding a new module
in the core of the wordpress and let all the wordpress users to publish
their blogs and wordpress website in all websites and other blogs just by
adding a piece of JavaScript.

The concept of this plugin is very simple. We can publish our articles and
webpages (which designed using wp) in other blogs or in websites easily by
adding a small code. We dont have to edit anything when ever we make new
posts. No changes are needed each time. The javascript itself will display
the latest posts in the websites which have that code.

The user who puts the code in his blog or website can change the font,
color, number of post etc… It’s very similar to Google ad sense code
fragments. The main advantage of the plug-in is that the code fragment will
be developed using Ajax technology, therefore in any web servers, in any
platform the code can run.

*Features*

Some of the changes that can be done by just editing the JavaScript values
are given below.

   1. Font size, font type, color and styles of each text
   2. Display panel width, height and background color
   3. Number of blogs to be displayed
   4. Blog arrangements (vertical listing | horizontal listing)
   5. WP website address which to be fetched.
   6. Display articles based on categories
   7. Able to view how many visitors came through each links (from each
   websites where the javascript is placed)
   8. Can display similar articles /diaplay articles based on web page
   content/ interest(keywords)

Not only this, lots of more features can be added in this module.

Just by having a module like this, there is no need to put links in all
website each time when we publish an article in our blogs. The latest
articles will be displayed automatically by this module in all web pages
which have the code fragment on it.

*The Functioning prototype*

My opinion is to add this module in wp as a plugin which can let connect all
wordpress users very easily and also by adding some other features in the
admin panel like favorite blogs to let all the users to stay connected
through wordpress. This is one of the better option to develop a community
by using wordpress.

I have just tried the prototype of this module in a standalone web
application and its works fine. The prototype only has the display unit
using Ajax and the backend was designed for my website (its not wp, but its
also a cms website-similar kind of wp in functionality). You can view that
in the following url

www.gsoc.izonedevelopers.com/test.html

In the prototype that i have developed, i have added only few features that
i have told before. This prototype is not the full plugin. What you can see
in that sample webpage is that there are 3 different blocks with different
styles and sizes. Those are generated just by changing the values in the
javascript. You can also try that just by copy the code that is displayed in
the right side of the webpage and paste it on the html page (in your web or
localhost). Also you can change the javascript values and create different
different output styles and different number of blogs as well.

*Benifits*

   - WP users will be able to display their blog anywhere in any websites
   just with a small piece of code.
   - Its purely done using javascript in front end, therefore it can run in
   any platform / server
   - It provides an opportunity to share our favorite blogs with our blog
   readers (display similar posts related to our posts)
   - Able to track from which website the user came to our site.
   - Can share our favorite blog articles in our webblogs or websites.
   - Makes javascript code generation very simple (Code generating wizard
   will be added with this plug in which can generate code for you, based on
   your selections).
   - And finally its one of the best publishing and advertising option for
   our blogs which can interact with other blogs and also bring more visitors
   towards our websites.
   - No changes in the core api.

*How it works?*

This plugin is based on php & javascript. Javascript for the front end and
php in the backend. When the user puts the javascript in any webpage, the
javascript passes the parameters to the php webpage inside the server where
the blog is stored. Then the php webpage will fetch the records based on the
parameters and checks whether is there are any images in each posts. if the
image is available in anywhere in the post, it will use that image,
otherwise it will use default image. Finally after fetching all the details
based on the parameter values, it will display them in the format that the
user requested.

It can be developed as webservice as well, but if it is web service then its
bit difficult to generate the code and add in the webpages since each
platform/server have different languages.

*Problem*

If the javascript is disabled in the browser, then it wont work at all.

I’m looking forward for all of your opinions.
-- 
with love

Sutharshan