WP GeSHi Highlight Redux works with WordPress's Classic Editor to convert Markdown to syntax highlighted code.

That allows me to write:

```php
$a = "Hello";
$b = 5 * 2;
echo $a . str($b);
```

And have it displayed as:

$a = "Hello";
$b = 5 * 2;
echo $a . str($b);

I've previously written about the WP GeSHi Highlight plugin. My plugin is a fork of that. It has the following changes:

• RSS & Atom feeds - disable code highlighting
• Remove extra style wrappers
• Markdown support
• Remove line-numbers
• Remove escape option (escape now permanent)
• Remove TinyMCE changes
• Remove custom CSS options
• Improve default CSS
• Improve HTML detection

These changes work for me, with my weird blogging set-up. If they work for you, feel free to use it. If they don't work for you, please fork and write your own code.

You can download WP GeSHi Highlight Redux or get the original plugin.

Sadly, there are all sorts of ways plugin authors can abuse their privileges. Dodgy code and user-hostile features sometimes make plugins more trouble than they're worth.

Recently, the normally excellent Blubrry PowerPress plugin pissed me off. It's a useful plugin for publishing podcasts on WordPress. They had a new feature - some kind of embedded audio player - and introduced it with a "New!" banner on the main menu.

That's... Fine I guess. You have to let people know about new features. And it wasn't too obnoxious. I took a look at their new stuff and decided it wasn't for me. I expected the banner to disappear.

It did not.

Look, this is a trivial thing but annoying to me. The red text on a white background is designed to be noticeable. And I kept noticing it while I was writing. Because it is a bit distracting. I asked in their support forums about removing it - but they said it would stay until a future update.

Well, the best thing about WordPress is that the plugins are hackable! There's a build in code editor which lets you change the functions of any plugin.

So I found where the "New!" banner was coded - powerpressadmin.php line 5282 and changed:

return '<sup style="'.$style.'">'. __('New!', 'powerpress') .'</sup>';

to

return '';

Hit save, refreshed the page, and the annoying thing was banished.

Maybe it'll come back in a future update. And maybe I'll fix it again. Or maybe I'll disable auto-updates. Or maybe I'll remove the plugin. Or maybe Blubrry will realise that annoying users isn't a great strategy.

Either way, if that's been bugging you, I hope you found this blog post to be useful.

By liberating, I mean that one isn't tied down to the product roadmap and release schedule of the developers.  If I find a bug, not only can I report it, I can fix it myself.  If I can't fix it myself, I can often find someone to fix it for me.

Imagine writing to MicroSoft and saying "Please can you make this change to Office - just for me?"  If you ever got a response, it would be "No".  To be fair, you may also get the same reply from OpenOffice - the free replacement for MicroSoft Office - but because OpenOffice is Open Source, you can scratch the itch yourself.

If your itch-scratching is useful, others will benefit from it.  If you are the only one benefiting from it, so what? You're happier and more productive.

I use WordPress Mobile Pack.  It creates a mobile version of this blog.  It's a very easy to use and very powerful plugin.

Unfortunately, like all software, it has bugs.

WPMP Bug

What you're seeing in the screenshot is WPMP picking up a shortcode and, rather than ignoring it, rendering it as human readable text within the teaser.  It's ugly and confusing.

So, I raised a bug report and though "I bet I can fix this!".  Now, I'm not the world's most talented programmer - but with my knowledge of PHP and WordPress plugin architecture, I was able to locate the problem, fix it, test it and deploy it within half an hour.

if(strpos($content, '[')!==false)
{
   $content = "Read more";
}

That's it.  Judicouly applied in the correct place made my problems disappear.

So, that's why I love Open Source.  It places my destiny in my hands.