This is the logo of Facebook, in case you haven't seen it before.
At the request of a user, I’ve been exploring ways to integrate stripShow with Facebook. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I think the best thing to do would be to see if I can integrate sS with one of the existing WP plugins that allows Facebook posting. I’m testing WordBook now.
I’m having a lot of fun playing with a plugin called RoleScoper. This is pretty cool — it allows you to create your own WordPress roles and exercise fine-grained control over what users can do. It allows you to restrict content, for example.
How might this affect webcomics creators? Well, let’s say you want to sell memberships on your site — only members who pay you money get to see certain strips. Take Joyce & Walky for example — the general public gets to see only the Saturday strips, whereas paying members get strips all week.
ComicPress has some support for this idea — you can tag a user as a Member and add content in your blog posts that only members can see. My idea was to see what plugins already exist that can manage user roles, and RoleScoper seems to be the best.
Think about a situation beyond just paid/unpaid. Say you want to sell three levels of service — silver, gold, and platinum for example. Silver members get to see some strips, gold members get to see even more, and platinum members get to see ultra-special exclusive strips. OK, so maybe most webcomics creators don’t get that deeply into the marketing, but it would be nice to be able to do.
So I’m rewriting some of stripShow’s code to be more compatible with RoleScoper and other plugins. Version 2.5 will have full compatibility.
I’ve been curious recently about WordPress MU — a branch of WordPress that allows multiple blogs to be run from one installation. Seems to me like using stripShow with this software would be useful — you could be your own DrunkDuck or Keenspot, for instance.
So I downloaded a copy of WordPress MU, and installed stripShow on it, wondering what kinds of changes I’ll have to make to the latest (development) version of stripShow to get it to work… I’d laid out a block of time to explore and figure things out. Much to my surprise…
… it works fine.
I’m still exploring, but from where I’m sitting, there have yet to be any issues. I’m very impressed with the transparency that WordPress MU seems to afford. It works just like WordPress, but keeps your blogs and the settings for them separate. No changes to my code seem to be necessary. I’ve got a test site up with multiple comic blogs and they all seem to work OK.
More on this as testing continues.
Zelda Johnson is just your average suburban hausfrau, struggling with parenting, dieting, housework, and all the problems of modern life. Except, of course, for the fact that Zelda is a practicing witch (complete with pointy hat and black robes) whose friends include fairies and werewolves.
Life’s a Witch, a lighthearted look at fantasy characters integrating into the modern world comes courtesy of Samantha Wikan, one of stripShow’s earliest adopters. Here’s a small art sample:
Life's a Witch
One feature I may have overlooked from the announcement of stripShow 2.1 is one some users may find confusing. I thought I’d mention it here for clarification.
stripShow Sandbox now has an Options page. Here it is:
The options page for the stripShow Sandbox template
Here, you can configure a few options for the stripShow Sandbox template, without having to edit your child theme’s files. You can rename or remove the blog header, for example.
One thing that has changed significantly is that you can now configure your column layout from this page. Previously, every stripShow Sandbox child theme had to import a stylesheet like so:
@import url('../stripshow_sandbox/library/styles/columns/3c-b.css');
What this means, practically, is that if you have such a line in your child theme, you should remove it, and use the dropdown menu in stripShow Sandbox to select your column scheme. The line has already been removed, in 2.1, from the included child themes and from stripShow Sandbox itself.
I look forward to using this option in the future to include more layout possibilities.
I’m inordinately pleased to announce the release of version 2.1 of stripShow, the all-in-one solution for running a webcomic on WordPress!
New features in 2.1 include:
Obviously, all the great features that made stripShow the finest solution for WordPress webcomics, such as searchable, formatted transcripts, nested, low-maintenance storylines, easy upload of comics, and an awesome theming template, are still present, and ready to propel your webcomic into the 2010s.
Download stripShow today from the WordPress Plugin Directory today, or visit our support site and join our community!
Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts
Because I’m a little obsessive about thoroughness, I spent the day (yes, the whole day) figuring out how to get all the old forum users and posts into the new forum. The good news is, it worked! Now all the old support issues and announcements are there for all to see.
If you had an old forum account, and you ever posted, you have an account here on this blog now. However, you don’t have a password. So what you need to do is hit “Login” (either on the sidebar, or on the forum page) and it will take you to the login page. Hit “Forgot password” and it will send you an email with a link — follow that link, and you’ll get a second email with a temporary password. Use that password to log in, then change it in the Profile page.
Since I did this conversion myself, I expect some things may be a bit wonky. Let me know if you have any issues. Private Messaging works, or if not, email bhawkins AT monkeylaw DOT org.
Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts
I have created a brand-new forum for stripShow support… well, OK, not totally new. All the posts and user accounts are still there. But now it’s located right here on this site. So if you have any support questions, feature requests, or other concerns, come in and post about it!
Oh, and yeah, I know right now it’s kind of ugly. Trying to integrate phpBB and WordPress isn’t all that simple. I’ll have it worked out soon.
UPDATE: OK, about the whole keeping-the-existing-posts thing? Uh… well, not so much. The phpBB system I installed had some wonky weirdnesses with WordPress that I didn’t feel like dealing with, so I installed Simple:Press instead. So if you want to post in the forums, you’ll need to register. Sorry.
To aid in modifying stripShow Sandbox, through the addition or removal of actions, I have created a reference diagram showing the important structures at play in stripShow Sandbox.
You can download a copy of this diagram in PDF format here.
What I’m working on for 2.5
Hi, everyone. stripShow 2.5 is nearing completion, and I thought I’d update you on what I’m working on. These are some new features: