WordPress Blog Course Design Database Tutorial

Wordpress Blog Course Design Database Tutorial

As another follow up to … “This WordPress blog could benefit from a directed order of tutorials studied for a particular topic. This may not suit everybody, but it may suit some, and if a system is created that is optional, that can sit on top of what functionality is already there, all the better.” … how about we set up a WordPress database means by which the the administrator of this blog can control what order tutorials for a range of subjects or topics could be?

How about we allow for the WordPress MySql wp_posts table’s post_excerpt field be used to contain either …

• a degree of difficulty numerical rating
• the query string parts &pp=[blog id of previous blog post of interest to current one] and &pn=[blog id of next blog post of interest to current one]&title=[blog posting title]

… because the post_excerpt database column is currently not being utilized, and is easier to implement than WordPress custom fields.

So what changes to the landing page updater are required? For the background to it please read the blog posting called Extended Linux Crontab Curl Tutorial would hold the answer to where the most efficient solution to this lies, in adjusting the PHP code called tutorial_options.php here as below:

• tutorial_options.php … later the tutorial HTML Validation Primer Tutorial research and development led to more changes regarding HTML validation shown here

And did the PHP code in wp-content/themes/twentyten/functions.php off the WordPress Blog’s document root directory need to change … do fish swim? … see the bits in bold, in particular below:

… and you may want to compare this to the code of the previous WordPress Blog Course Design Follow Up Tutorial as shown below. Today’s explanation of a “live run” is to:

1. Access the rjmprogramming.com.au domain Landing Page
2. At the tutorial dropdown you’ll see the 3 blog postings that had their post_excerpt fields filled out up the top and you could “motor” down to the second one dated 20130722 … these are blog posts flagged as part of a course in the order from start of course through to end of course where the Course name is the first word of the blog posting title as shown on the dropdown (so you can tell where one course starts and the next starts)
3. Hopefully … voila (as per live run as was the “live run” from tutorial way below + a Course name inclusion functionality improvement so that it is like … live run again) … do the same for 20141006 (today’s) and you don’t get the new functionality, but hopefully it doesn’t cause any bugs (as you change code the top priority should be firstly not to break other parts that used to work, and to proceed successfully with new functionality that works)

By the way, the file methodologies of the tutorial below are still active, and we still have to explain how a user can control their own personalized Course Designs, and this file method will come back to the fore then, am pretty sure.

Hope to see you yet again next time.

Previous relevant WordPress Blog Course Design Follow Up Tutorial is shown below.

Wordpress Blog Course Design Follow Up Tutorial

As a follow up to … “This WordPress blog could benefit from a directed order of tutorials studied for a particular topic. This may not suit everybody, but it may suit some, and if a system is created that is optional, that can sit on top of what functionality is already there, all the better.” … how about we set up the means by which the user or the administrator of this blog (I knew it) can control what order tutorials for a range of subjects or topics could be?

If you’re designing this (and please don’t get any ideas that there is just the way suggested here) you set a “get parameters” way to express the fact that you want this “guided” Course Design help but don’t know what is a good tutorial to come before nor after, and what logic paths, in order …

1. accept last recorded &pp=[blog id of previous blog post of interest to current one] and &pn=[blog id of next blog post of interest to current one] advice for this current blog posting from this user (ie. use cookies)
2. accept last recorded &pp=[blog id of previous blog post of interest to current one] and &pn=[blog id of next blog post of interest to current one] advice for this current blog posting from this client using their IP address
3. accept last recorded &pp=[blog id of previous blog post of interest to current one] and &pn=[blog id of next blog post of interest to current one] advice for this current blog posting from the administrator of this blog
4. accept last recorded &pp=[blog id of previous blog post to current one] and &pn=[blog id of next blog post to current one]
5. disregard display of previous and next suggested tutorials

… to follow in order to come up with the blog posting display that you end up with.

Let’s just first concentrate on options 3 and 4 and 5 above … how about we use &pp=&pn= to mean that if no previous and/or next tutorial information is found anywhere you should (5) “disregard display of previous and next suggested tutorials”, whereas if you specify &pn=&pp= to mean that if no previous and/or next tutorial information is found anywhere you should (4) “accept last recorded &pp=[blog id of previous blog post to current one] and &pn=[blog id of next blog post to current one]”.

This sounds a silly detail to worry about, but the fact is, if this detail is sorted out, this whole “guided” Course Design system can be automated from this domain’s landing page‘s tutorial dropdown, or any other dropdown you want to design to direct people to this WordPress Blog’s tutorials.

And where could we intervene to fix this up? Well, well, well (three holes in the ground … chortle, chortle) … you’d have to be an avid follower of this blog to remember, but the blog posting called Extended Linux Crontab Curl Tutorial would hold the answer to where the most efficient solution to this lies, in adjusting the PHP code called tutorial_options.php here as below …

• tutorial_options.php

… to enable an ID= on the links to allow for future Javascript DOM possibilities and a file arrangement for admin and/or IP user based tailoring of previous and/or next blog posting “get” parameters. Future tutorials on this “theme” will look at functionality to maintain and populate these files in a sensible way.

Another question occurs to me. Shouldn’t the name of the proposed Course a blog posting belongs to be part of the display? No, I wouldn’t do that! “Yeah, but who asked you? You’re a cat, remember?” No furry beastings were hurt during the creation of this blog posting.

Is the name of the Course a thing that the Course Designer should designate, or can it be derived from the WordPress blog? This will vary in people’s outlook. Some will be fine for (one of) the WordPress blog posting Category (or Tag?) (names) to suffice, and think I’d be in that camp. But I’m also in the camp that says this could be overridden by a user or administrator defined method … feel a “get parameter” coming on … so let’s see what the adjusted code for the “framework” of these new requirements looks like (the tutorial_options.php needed adjustment for this concept as well) … it panned out to be better to focus on the first word of the blog posting’s title as a better bet for what the Course name could be derived from … the PHP code (snippet) goes into wp-content/themes/twentyten/functions.php off the WordPress Blog’s document root directory …



if ( ! function_exists( 'get_tutorial_topic' ) ) :
/**
* Get tutorial topic (word).
*
* @since October 2014 by RJM Programming
*/
function get_tutorial_topic($thistopic) {
$words = explode(" ", str_replace(" ", "++", str_replace("~~", "#~", $thistopic)));
if (sizeof($words) > 1) {
return " " . $words[0];
}
return "";
}
endif;

if ( ! function_exists( 'previous_next' ) ) :
/**
* Allow for next and previous via &pn= and &pp= respectively.
*
* @since October 2014 by RJM Programming
*/
function previous_next($both = true) {
if (isset($_GET['pp']) || isset($_GET['pn'])) {

$prefix = " id='atop";
if ($both) $prefix = " id='abottom";
$topic = "";
$tget = "";
if (isset($_GET['title'])) {
$tget = "&title=" . $_GET['title'];
$topic = get_tutorial_topic(str_replace("_", " ", $_GET['title']));
} else {
$topic = get_tutorial_topic($post->title);
}
if (strpos(($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] . "&"), "&pp=&pn=&") !== false) {
$prefix = $prefix;
} else {
echo "<table style='width:98%; background-color: #F6F5F1;'><tbody><tr>";
if (isset($_GET['pp'])) {
echo "<th><a" . $prefix . "p' target=_blank title='Previous' href='" . str_replace("?" . $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], "", $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . "?p=" . $_GET['pp'] . "&pn=" . $_GET['p'] . $tget . "'>Previous" . $topic . " Suggestion</a></th>";
}
if (isset($_GET['pn'])) {
echo "<th><a" . $prefix . "n' target=_blank title='Next' href='" . str_replace("?" . $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], "", $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . "?p=" . $_GET['pn'] . "&pp=" . $_GET['p'] . $tget . "'>Next" . $topic . " Suggestion</a><th>";
}

if ($both) {
echo "</tr><tr>";
if (isset($_GET['pp'])) {
echo "<td><iframe src='" . str_replace("?" . $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], "", $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . "?p=" . $_GET['pp'] . "#content' width=400 height=800></iframe></td>";
}
if (isset($_GET['pn'])) {
echo "<td><iframe src='" . str_replace("?" . $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], "", $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . "?p=" . $_GET['pn'] . "#content' width=400 height=800></iframe></td>";
}
}
echo "</tr></tbody></table>";
}

}

}
endif;

… and you may want to compare this to the code of the previous WordPress Blog Course Design Primer Tutorial as shown below. Today’s explanation of a “live run” is to:

1. Access the rjmprogramming.com.au domain Landing Page
2. At the tutorial dropdown “motor” down to the tutorial at 20130722 … OOPs (chortle, chortle) … and choose this
3. Hopefully … voila (as per live run as was the “live run” from tutorial below + a Course name inclusion functionality improvement so that it is like … live run again) … do the same for 20141006 (today’s) and you don’t get the new functionality, but hopefully it doesn’t cause any bugs (as you change code the top priority should be firstly not to break other parts that used to work, and to proceed successfully with new functionality that works)

Hope to see you again next time.

Previous relevant WordPress Blog Course Design Primer Tutorial is shown below.

Wordpress Blog Course Design Primer Tutorial

This WordPress blog could benefit from a directed order of tutorials studied for a particular topic. This may not suit everybody, but it may suit some, and if a system is created that is optional, that can sit on top of what functionality is already there, all the better.

When you want to add PHP (or HTML, for that matter) functionality, with web work, I personally find the get parameters useful, and this is usually fine as long as the data required of this functionality …

• is not too long
• is not sensitive (ie. not a password or username)

… otherwise it is better to use post parameters or a database or a file arrangement of some sort.

Step one in our Course Design ideas is to introduce two new ideas with two new get parameters, so that:

• &pp=[blog id of previous blog post of interest to current one]
• &pn=[blog id of next blog post of interest to current one]

Here’s a first (and later changed) draft of a PHP snippet of code to use (that has changed over time):


if ( ! function_exists( 'previous_next' ) ) :
/**
* Allow for next and previous via &pn= and &pp= respectively.
*
* @since October 2014 by RJM Programming
*/
function previous_next($both = true) {
if (isset($_GET['pp']) || isset($_GET['pn'])) {
$prefix = " id='atop";
if ($both) $prefix = " id='abottom";
$topic = "";
$topsuff = "";
$tget = "";
$isuff = "#content";
$isiPad = (bool) strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],'iPad');
if ($isiPad === false) {
$isiPad = (bool) strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],'iPhone');
}
if ($isiPad === false) {
$isiPad = (bool) strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],'Android');
}
if ($isiPad) $isuff = "&content=y";
if (isset($_GET['title'])) {
$tget = "&title=" . $_GET['title'];
$topic = str_replace("~", " ", get_tutorial_topic(str_replace("_", " ", $_GET['title'])));
if ($both) $topsuff = "  <a href='#content' title='Back to " . str_replace("~", " ", $_GET['title']) . "'>^</a>  ";
} else {
$topic = str_replace("~", " ", get_tutorial_topic($post->title));
}
if (strpos(($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] . "&"), "&pp=&pn=&") !== false) {
$prefix = $prefix;
} else {
echo "<table style='width:98%; background-color: #F6F5F1;'><tbody><tr>";
$cbackto = "";
if (isset($_GET['backto'])) $isuff = "&content=y";
if (isset($_GET['backto'])) $cbackto = "&backto=" . urldecode($_GET['backto']);
if (isset($_GET['pp'])) {
echo "<th><a" . $prefix . "p' target=_blank title='Previous' href='" . str_replace("?" . $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], "", $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . "?p=" . may_be_obsolete(get_other_one($_GET['pp'], "&pp=", $_GET['p']) . "&pn=" . $_GET['p'] . $tget . $cbackto . "'>Previous" . $topic . " Suggestion") . "</a>" . $topsuff . "</th>";
$topsuff = "";
}
if (isset($_GET['pn'])) {
echo "<th>" . $topsuff . "<a" . $prefix . "n' target=_blank title='Next' href='" . str_replace("?" . $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], "", $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . "?p=" . may_be_obsolete(get_other_one($_GET['pn'], "&pn=", $_GET['p']) . "&pp=" . $_GET['p'] . $tget . $cbackto . "'>Next" . $topic . " Suggestion") . "</a><th>";
}
if (isset($_GET['backto'])) echo "<th><a target=_top href='" . urldecode($_GET['backto']) . "' title='Back to Learning Programming'>Learning Programming</a></th>";
if ($both) {
echo "</tr><tr>";
if (isset($_GET['pp'])) {
echo "<td><iframe src='" . str_replace("?" . $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], "", $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . "?p=" . $_GET['pp'] . $isuff . "' width=400 height=800></iframe></td>";
}
if (isset($_GET['pn'])) {
echo "<td><iframe src='" . str_replace("?" . $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], "", $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . "?p=" . $_GET['pn'] . $isuff . "' width=400 height=800></iframe></td>";
}
}
echo "</tr></tbody></table>";
}
}
}
endif;


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