Another TCW update has been posted in WordPress.org’s Plugins Repository to include two new additions based on user requests.

Show top commentators between certain dates: This option was requested by James Pearse of Avon School District, MA. In his e-mail, he included a link to his school’s blog, demonstrating the idea that having your name displayed in the site and getting listed in the top commentators’ list not only can be used to increase traffic to your blog, but more so to help generate interest and participation on the posts among your site visitors. What a delight it is to see how something as small as TCW can contribute so much to learning and education. It makes developing WordPress plugins that more worthwhile for me.

Open links in a new window: I received a surprising number of requests lately, both through the WP.org Support forum and e-mails, asking me to include this option in the widget, so there you go – pretty straight forward at that.

As always, feedback and bug reports are appreciated. Do so in the WP.org’s Support Forum (preferably) and remember to tag your post with the words top-commentators-widget, or drop me a line via my Contact Form.

I’ve finally come around to fixing the bugs in this version of TCW. I have added in most of the codes that support Gravatar, thanks to the work of Sergio Nascimento.

Hopefully the next update would include the ability to add multiple TCW to more than one sidebar within a blog, as suggested by someone via Facebook. I’ll do what I can

Top Commentators Widget users rejoice! Thanks to my heartburn and insomnia, I finally managed to fix and test the TCW and made some improvements as promised earlier. The updates are as listed in the readme file:

1. Re-arranged functions to avoid redeclare error in WP 2.5.
2. Modified widget control form to repair unclickable control form.
3. Added NoFollow option to links.
4. Added show comment count option.
5. Fixed the reset period. It’s not tested extensively, but it should be working better now.
6. Fixed the URL filtering.
7. Include option to list users by e-mail or user names. This is for you folks who worry about the hijacking matter as reported in various other sites in the blogosphere.
8. Include option to filter users by e-mail.

Get the updated version from the WordPress Plugins Directory, or click on the Update Automatically option if you’re already using WP 2.5. I’m glad it’s done and over with for now. I’m waiting on those bug reports to make TCW a stable 1.0 which I plan on doing so within the next three months.

I apologize for taking so long to update this; can you believe that my greatest challenge was actually figuring out how to update the widget in the Plugins Directory using Subversion, adding to a couple of weeks’ delay at least on the update? It kept getting stuck under the Development Version which I didn’t quite understand. I almost surrendered on it around 10 minutes ago when suddenly — a little Update here, a little Clean Up there — and the dang thing finally updated in the repository! That really helped cure my insomnia, ’cause I’m feeling pretty sleepy right now.

Till next time.

Yes, my friends, the Top Commentators Widget is now officially part of WordPress.org Plugin Directory. I was driven to finish the setup for the widget’s hosting to WordPress.org, especially after seeing the built-in plugin update notifier in WordPress 2.3.

I am SO GLAD I finally completed what I had planned to do since June, but as you have read in my previous post, the tedious work that is Subversion was what made me chickened out of doing so sooner. I’m grateful that Ronald at Weblog Tools Collection did that tutorial on TortoiseSVN and explained in painstaking details how I should go about setting everything up. The slightly intimidating part of hosting in WordPress.org was actually the preparation of the ReadMe file — I’m glad the WordPress team prepared a readme validator to make sure I formatted it well.

Of course, I’ll still be maintaining the Top Commentators Widget page in my blog, but I’ll recommend everyone to start visiting the Top Commentator Widget in WordPress.org as the information in that page is more easy on the eyes.

Updated 06/Jan/2010: Download Top Commentators Widget v.1.3 (refer to the README for customization). And, yes, it works with WordPress 2.9.1.

Holy Molly, I never thought I’d make one so soon, but it’s true! I’ve created my very first WordPress Widget!

Yeah, well, not exactly. I adapted this Top Commentators Widget from the actual Show Top Commentators (hereto known as STC) plugin by PFA. Here’s actually what happened:

1. Went to Giuk.Net as usual, saw MrBadak talking about his newly installed plugins, and I hopped by.
2. Excitedly surfed into Personal Financial Advice to download the STC plugin.
3. Followed the instructions to the dot, only to find out later that it won’t work if you have Sidebar Widgets activated.
4. Googled for a widgetized version of STC, only to find that the download links don’t work.
5. Desperately needed to install it, so I did the next best thing a desperate grrrl would do — build one.
6. Accidentally sacrificed a few other widgets due to carelessness, but nevermind as I always back-up.
7. Destabilized my site with countless access error messages and loads of SQL warnings.
8. Trying so hard to stay true to the original codes, only to surrender at the last minute and decided to strip down most of the original codes off, therefore FINALLY COMPLETING MY MISSION!

But wait…. (more…)