Call for stripShow sites!

With the upcoming release of stripShow 2.0, I would like to compile a gallery of sites that use stripShow.

If you use stripShow, I would love to hear about your site. Please send an email to bhawkins@monkeylaw.org with the following information:

  • Site name
  • URL
  • Your name
  • Your email (will be private)
  • A brief description of what your site/comic is about

I already know about some sS sites, but I’d like to see what’s out there. Looking forward to hearing from you!

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Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

stripShow 1.6.1 released!

Hey everyone! I’ve just uploaded stripShow 1.6.1, which has a couple of bug fixes:

  • Fixed bug where initialization of storylines may take a while if timezone is not set under PHP 5.
  • Rewrote transcript code to be more tolerant of whitespace. In addition, equals sign is no longer required for non-character transcript tags.

If your transcripts were all messed up because of whitespace, this is the fix.

As always, the latest version of stripShow is available from the Download page.

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Posted in Announcements | 4 Comments

Slow performance under PHP 5

OK, so I’ve been neglecting PHP 5 for a while, and only recently updated a few of my sites to run on it. When I did, I found a problem you might run into with stripShow.

If you have a lot of strips and storylines, you may see a serious performance hit under PHP 5 — this is the result of a quirk in the strtotime() function. It is looking up the default timezone for your site, and that takes a moment — it’s doing that several times for each strip, multiplied by each storyline. The delay on my own site added up to about 14 seconds!

There is a solution. It only lags if the default timezone is not set on your PHP site. This is a known issue with PHP 5, and can be read about here.

For the next version of stripShow (which will be 1.6.1, a bug fix release) I’m removing the references to strtotime() from storyline initialization, as I’ve discovered they’re not necessary anyway.

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Posted in Bugs | Leave a comment

stripShow 1.6 released

I’m pleased to announce the release of version 1.6 of stripShow… this is mainly a bug-fix release, with only a couple of new features.

  • Improved XHTML 1.0 Strict compatiblity
  • Fixed bug where comment link was not shown on index page
  • Fixed bug where same blog entries were shown on every page when linked from index page
  • Current comic now has alt text encoded as HTML entities for validation
  • Overhauled storyline code to only do one MySQL query and to speed up operations. Previously, things got seriously bogged down the more stories and strips you had in your archive.

The main new feature is a set of additional parameters to the navigation links — now there is a second parameter, called always — normally, links won’t show if it’s not appropriate — for instance, there is usually no reason to have a “previous comic” link if you’re viewing the first comic. The always parameter, if set to TRUE, will show the link regardless. It will merely take you to the page you’re already looking at. The last_comic tag also has a new parameter to give a link to an absolute URL instead of the index page.

Also, navigation links now accept a parameter to show a tooltip (by way of the <img> tag’s TITLE attribute) when the comic is moused over. 

And that’s pretty much it. This plugin has been tested and seems to work well with WordPress 2.5.1, and actually appears to be pretty compatible with ComicPress 2.5-based themes as well.  

The next release (barring unforseen bug fixes) of stripShow will be version 2.0 and will include major overhaul to the theme… expect a complete modernization of the theme, with copious comments to aid in customization. No more table-based navigation bars. Complete WordPress widgetization.  Built-in links for social bookmarking sites. Etc. No ETA yet on 2.0, it’ll be done when it’s done.  

As always, you can download the new version of stripShow from the Downloads page, and always, I’m always interested in hearing about your stripShow experience in the forum.

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Posted in Announcements | 1 Comment

WordPress 2.5.1 testing

I’m currently in the process of testing whether stripShow 1.5 is fully compatible with WordPress 2.5.1 — so far, I have found no incompatibilities. The admin pages don’t match the look of the rest of the new admin system, but that seems to be a mere cosmetic issue. 

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Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Test

This is a test.

Blogged with the Flock Browser
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Posted in Tips and Tricks | Leave a comment

stripShow 1.5 Released!

Announcing the final release of version 1.5 of stripShow, my WordPress plugin for automation of webcomics.

If you create a webcomic, and you don’t use WordPress, it’s time to get with the 21st century. Blogging software and webcomics are a natural match. WordPress provides automatic features like RSS, notification of search engines, and easy content management… stripShow takes those features further, adding:

  • Conventional comic-navigation links (first comic, previous comic, next comic, latest comic, random comic)
  • RSS feeds with the comic image included
  • Searchable transcripts that can be added right in the blog, viewed or hidden at the webmaster’s or reader’s option
  • A simple and easily-customizable example theme
  • A full-featured nested storyline system, including the usual storyline dropdown menu, but also with an easy-to-use management page
  • Bulk import of existing comics into WordPress’s blog database
  • Support for GIF, JPEG, PNG, and even HTML and Flash files as comics
  • Flexibility in where to store your comic files and how to name them, all controlled by a standard WordPress-style admin page
  • Of course, since it’s a blog, each comic has its own “rant box” to go with it. Also, you can maintain a conventional blog on the same site, separate from your comic

stripShow is in heavy development, and I’m constantly getting new ideas from people on our forum. New features are constantly being added.

Check out the new version of stripShow, 1.5, at our downloads page, or see it in action at our example site. I think you’ll like it!

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Posted in Announcements | 2 Comments

stripShow 1.5 RC1 Released!

I’m pleased to announce the release of the first Release Candidate for stripShow 1.5!

There are a lot of bug fixes in this release, basically anything that’s been discussed in the stripShow forum. In addition, new features include the ability to add searchable transcripts to your comics, and the code has been updated to work with WordPress 2.3!

StripShow 1.5RC1 is available for download here.

This is still a Release Candidate, so caution should be taken… if there are no reports of bugs, this will be the final version which should come out in a few days.

If you have any problems at all, whether it’s an error message or simply problems parsing my horrible documentation, please post a note on the forum so I can know.

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WordPress 2.3 NOT compatible with stripShow!

If you’re considering upgrading to WordPress 2.3, and you use stripShow, DO NOT DO IT! Apparently, they’ve done away with one of the database tables that stripShow (like a lot of other plugins, apparently) uses. Until I find a way around this, stripShow will NOT work with WordPress 2.3. Please don’t upgrade!

UPDATE: stripShow 1.5 and later are compatible with WordPress 2.3.

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Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

Rollover images for comic navigation

If any of you have surfed over to my webcomic, Monkey Law, you may have noticed that the “First,” “Previous,” “Next,” and “Last” buttons are rollovers. I realize, though, that I never really give any instructions for how to make rollovers work in stripShow. One thing you might also wonder is, since stripShow doesn’t assign DHTML items like ID to the navigation buttons, how can you make them into rollovers, since JavaScript has nothing to grab on to?

The answer is I don’t use JavaScript. I use pure CSS.

So here, without further ado, is a tutorial.
Read More »

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Posted in Tips and Tricks | 2 Comments
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