New Plugin: Blogroll Updater

Andy, you are my hero! Thank you so very much!!!

Cheers,
Michael.

This plug-in has ended my obsessive quest to see the little alt text say “Updated”, so I am quite pleased with it!

However, I did have to make a change within the plugin to get it to work, I’m running WordPress version 2.0.1, but I really have no idea what difference the change makes, I just know it makes this plug-in work for me.

Change line 71 (the WHERE part of the query) to the following:
WHERE link_name = "'.$wpdb->escape($rss->items[$i]['title']).'"

I have no idea if this is a problem only I am having with it for whatever reason, but perhaps it’s worth a try if everything is right but the DB just doesn’t get any times updated. DOn’t forget to back-up the plug-in before you edit it.

Cheers,
Michael.

Wow, this looks like something I’ve been waiting for for a while!

Is there a way to make this plugin work with the stock WP links manager?

I don’t use blogrolling.com

Thanks!

My quick and dirty solution was to download the link export script and then just use Blogrollings import feature – just point it to the exporter URL and it should import. I have no idea if it automatically updates it or not though, hence why it’s quick (it really is) but dirty (updating could be a pain).

Cheers,
Michael.

Hmmmm. Then if I change links I’ll have to redo it…

Not really the kind of fix I was looking for, but thanks.

??

So if you don’t use blogrolling it won’t help correct? I just add my links straight thru wordpress to my blog.

I was under the impression it wont help…

If you export your links via the script I references above, you can import those into Blogrolling.

I fully admit that this is a very undesirable situation. Unfortunately, there has been no replies from Ping-O-Matic regarding these problems and when or if they will be solved (at least not that I’ve found, and believe me, I’ve spent a lot of time looking!).

Perhaps being more vocal about this unacceptable lack of communication and the non-availability of the service. The Ping-O-Matic blog might be a good place to post to, though any comment attempts asking these questions have never been allowed or replied to.

Regardless of who is the master-mind of Ping-O-Matic, the choice is simple: if Ping-O-Matic is incapable of providing the service it is supposed to, it should not be included in WordPress, period. Either find a service that does work or remove the option all together, so no one will have the expectation of it. Though I am hardly a programmer, I’ve been attempting to unify a few of these types of plug-ins together. There are a few older plug-ins which query things like weblogs.com or can read RSS feeds from other services, however none of these seem to work on WP 2.0.X. If there are any PHP geniuses around, I think this would be a great problem to help solve ??

Cheers,
Michael.

I agree with niziol: If pingomatic won’t be fixed, then the update-links function should be dropped.

Ok I did the whole export/import of links to blogrolling and then setup the plugin. Not only does it not seem to be doing anything but when I delete blogs from the blogrolling.com list it doesn’t change it on my site…is it supposed to or am I missing the whole point?

https://fragilemusings.net

I agree with niziol: If pingomatic won’t be fixed, then the update-links function should be dropped

Or another service should be used… I like this feature and don’t feel it should be dropped completely.

I too would like to see the feature work, but if it can not be made functional, it should be dropped, as this may create some motivation for someone to create a plug-in to replace it.

It appears that Ping-O-Matic has acquired some new servers, hopefully this may fix up the problem. If anyone finds a fix for this or if any PHP guru wants to write a plug-in, I think a lot of people would be very happy! ??

What service to use, though? It used to weblogs.com, but it got to the point where it was down as often as it was up.

I’m really not sure. The plug-in that Andy commissioned is th e only one that seems to work with 2.0+. There are a few others, but none seem to work with 2.0, I’m sure if you’d sit down and go at them for awhile, they could be made to work, but I haven’t had time to do that yet.

Maybe I’ll give it a go again this weekend and see if I can’t butcher the code enough for it to “work”. If anyone else has any suggestions, I think we’re all eyes!

Cheers,
Michael.