Information

Current Version 1.1
Copyright 2006 Cindy Moore
License GPL 2.0
Download Zip file
Md5 Sum: 3385474a55f3a1bb1aceed5059a09029

This is a small plugin that lets you create a dynamic blogroll in your Wordpress leveraging off your Bloglines account, or even any publicly shared Bloglines blogroll. You can customize the title to appear in the sidebar, the Bloglines username, optionally specify a particular folder, and choose whether the links should open in another window.

Updates

22 Jan 07: Minor updates to documentation plus checked for any deprecated code. All looks good.

23 Jan 07: Verified that it works fine with WP 2.1.

Installation

1. Download the gzipped file to your plugins directory and unpack. You should have a single bloglinesblogroll.php file now.
2. Activate the plugin from the Plugins panel.
3. Add the code to make it all happen. Edit your current sidebar.php file. You need to add the following line where you want it to appear in your sidebar:
   
  <?php if (function_exists('printBloglinesBlogroll'))
               printBloglinesBlogroll(
                  '<h2>' . __('Bloglines Blogroll') . '</h2>',
                  'username',
                  'folder',
                  'window');
  ?>

   By protecting it with the function_exists check, your WordPress blog won’t go south if you deactivate this plugin.

Bloglines Blogroll

This is just the default blog roll name. You can call this whatever you like.

username

This is your Bloglines username. You have to specifically set up your Bloglines account to share. Alternatively, you can use any publicly shared blogroll username here, if you’re so inclined. For instructions on how to set up the Bloglines username, look here.

folder (optional)

If you don’t use this, leave just a plain pair of single quotes ''. If you have a particular folder on Bloglines you want to restrict this plugin to, put in the name of the folder (exactly how it’s spelled). This plugin will list only the contents of this folder if you specify one, whether or not other items in the shared Bloglines blog are public or not.

window (optional)

This option allows you to have the links that appear in your sidebar open in new windows. If you leave it empty (''), then the links will open in the same window.

Set Up

There are two ways you can set this up. On your Bloglines side, you might set things up so that all items you want to appear here are public, and the rest you create as private subscriptions (which will not show up on the Bloglines Bloglist). On the plugin side, you give the username and no folder. In this case, if you organize your public links into multiple folders, they will all be listed in single file (no nesting) on your sidebar, but they will list in order from your folders, so related links will be clustered together.

Another way to set this up is to create a particular folder in your Bloglines account that you want to appear over here (no need to list your comic strips or other mind candy material, eh?) and move all the subscriptions you want to appear in your blog into that folder. On the plugin side, you specify the username and the particular folder. In this case, public links outside that folder will not show up in the sidebar.

The list created is very simple, and is designed to integrate with the overall appearance of other items in the sidebar. However, the list is wrapped in the class blogroll so you can control its appearance in your css style (if you want/need more class wraparounds, just let me know.)

Remarks

Any feedback or commentary are appreciated. This is my first plugin, and I did it mostly for the experience (the original code was directly in sidebar.php until I realised I could just break it out into a plugin).

It’s extremely simple, so I doubt much support is needed. I’m happy to help out if you have questions, though, provided I have the time.