いわゆるプレミアム・プラグインの普及が WordPress コミュニティにどのような影響をもたらすかというテーマでプレゼンをさせていただきました。10枚しかないですが、こちらが発表資料です。

以前このブログで Contact Form 7 の永久無償配布を約束しましたように、僕自身は WordPress プラグインやテーマの有料化にははっきりと反対のスタンスです。今回のプレゼンではその理由について、有償プラグインの普及がなぜよくないことなのかをお伝えしたつもりです。利害の分かれる問題でもあるので、いやな気分になった方もいたかもしれません。ごめんなさい。とはいえ、僕はこれが WordPress コミュニティにとって長期的に深刻な問題になると思っているので、嫌われるのを覚悟で敢えてお話しさせていただきました。一回で十分伝わるとは思っていません。今後も機会があればしつこくお話させていただきたいと思いますので、今後ともよろしくお願いいたします。

Update: Ust に録画が上がっておりました。自分で自分のプレゼンは、怖くて見れません。
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/25417830

Open-source code is the best educational material for developers. Open-source community is invaluable for the new generation of developers. The community grows by bringing new members constantly; I believe this is also how the WordPress community has grown.

The current trend is selling WordPress plugins and themes. Even if their license is compliant with GPL, wouldn’t it be difficult for developers to learn from them? This trend could weaken the WordPress community over time.

I don’t like to follow this trend. Now I’d like to repeat, I will keep publishing Contact Form 7 as a free plugin forever.

Also, I’d like to show my appreciation to everyone who has donated to plugin developers. With your support, we can continue development of free plugins. Your contribution defends the philosophy of the open-source community. Please keep supporting. As a member of WordPress community, I’m proud of you.

そのときに使用した資料をシェアしますので興味のある方はどうぞご覧になってください。

プレゼンのために調べているうちに自分でも面白くなってきてしまって1時間はしゃべれるくらいにボリュームが膨らんだのを20分枠にむりやり押し込んだので、早口だったしかなりわけわからん感じだったかと思います。伝えたかったポイントは次の2点くらいなのでここだけ覚えていってください。

• 世界には右から左に書く言語がある (アラビア語、ヘブライ語、ペルシャ語など)
• 現行のウェブ技術標準に従えば左から右、右から左が混在する双方向性テキストを適切に扱うことができる

参考資料

• HTML 4: Language information and text direction
• CSS 2: Text direction: the ‘direction’ and ‘unicode-bidi’ properties
• Unicode Standard Annex #9: Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm
• アラビア語版 Wikipedia の「Steve Jobs」のページ

Download | Support Forum

私の地元でもある福岡で初の WordCamp が開催されます! 2月27日土曜日、場所は西南学院大学です。今回、なんと Automattic から P2 や Monotone テーマでおなじみの Noel Jackson さんに来ていただけることになりました! すごい!!

Launching PhotoShop and drawing bad pictures with great effort, exporting the drawing to a PNG file, launching an FTP tool, uploading the file to my server, then checking its appearance with a browser, and quickly finding flaws on it — and then having to start the process all over again — that is awful and boring.

Recently, however, this issue has been fixed. I’ve started using a new web application called “Cacoo.” Cacoo is an online drawing tool that I think is greatly suited to creating illustrations for online documentations.

Actually, I have totally switched to Cacoo. I’m doing a great number of illustrations on Cacoo and putting them into my documentation for Contact Form 7. You can see these illustrations on ContactForm7.com.

The image files are served directly from Cacoo, so FTP is no longer required! And it also means that when you update the image on Cacoo, the update is reflected on your site at the same time. If you manage online documentations like I do, I think you will really like this tool.

I heard that the Cacoo team attended the recent WordCampNYC and demoed there, so some of you might have seen them.

Contact Form 7 2.0.7

Changelog

• Bug fix: Additional fields don’t show up.
• Bug fix: Backslashes disappear.
• Call $captcha->cleanup() if callable. Shorten cleanup period to 1h.

Download | Support Forum

Changelog

• The required WordPress version changed to 2.8 and higher.
• cleanup() method added. This method cleans up dead files older than 60 minutes (default) in the tmp folder.

Download | Support Forum

Download | Support Forum

I’ve developed the Support Tickets plugin based on my Contact Form 7 plugin, so there are similarities. If you are familiar with Contact Form 7, you’ll be comfortable with Support Tickets very soon.

Usage

1. After you have installed and activated the plugin, you’ll see a new “Support” menu added on the left side of the menu bar of the WordPress administration panel. The “Support” menu contains “Forms” and “Tickets” sub menus.
2. First, you need to create a form through which users can open tickets. To create a form, open “Support” > “Forms” menu. You’ll see an editing interface much like Contact Form 7. Actually, you can edit a form in this plugin just as you do in Contact Form 7. You can use the “tag generator,” too. You can add as many different kinds of input fields as you like, but remember that the default fields (“email,” “first-name,” “last-name,” “subject” and “message”) are a must, so do not remove them.
3. You’ll find a “Form Page” drop-down menu on the form edit page. With this setting, you can select a page which includes the form inside its page content. You can only put a form into page content. Putting forms into other places, i.e., posts, widgets or templates, is not supported.
4. After this step, you should see the form on the page you’ve selected. Now users can open their tickets through this form. When a new ticket is created, notification mails will be sent to the user who opened the ticket and the administrator (you). The notification shows you the URL of the ticket. A ticket URL includes a unique random “access key,” and only those who know the access key are allowed to access the ticket page.
5. On the ticket page, you can write any messages. You can also close or delete a ticket on the “Support” > “Tickets” menu. You can search for other tickets as well.

Multilingual Support

You will have the ability to make a “multilingual support ticket system” with this plugin. It is true — this plugin allows you to write messages in your language and ask a professional translator to translate your message to another user’s language. Actually, I’m using this feature for the Japanese to English translations in my support service. This feature utilize the WPML plugin, so you need to install the plugin beforehand. I’ll write about this feature in detail on another post.