Please, when developing your plugins, be sure to always use the full opening tag for PHP:

<?php code goes here ?>

On some servers—maybe even your own—you can shorten this to just the opening <?. The following line in php.ini will disable this “feature,” and many web server administrators do so to simplify things like generating XML with PHP:

short_open_tag = Off

When this option is set, PHP will ignore <? and assume it’s simply part of the template… along with all the code following it. If you’re lucky, it means a bunch of PHP code gets sent to the web browser. If you’re not lucky, it results in invalid syntax, and PHP grinds to a halt, spitting out a blank page and a PHP Parse Error.

So please make sure you always use the full opening tag so that your plugin will be compatible with everyone’s system. If you run your own server, set that option in php.ini so that if you miss one, you can catch it before you post it.

I decided to try out a few WordPress plugins. Here’s the status:

  • WayPath for WordPress: List related posts on other blogs. Nice, but cluttered and slows things down. If we keep this, we’ll need to get caching to work. Active, seeking comments.
  • Spell Check: Only for posts so far. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to actually work. Disabled.
  • Link Relationships: Adds next/previous post elements for search engines and browsers that support them. Painless to install, simple and elegant. Active.
  • Staticize Reloaded: Cache each page so that the server doesn’t have to regenerate it every single time. Very nice, but unfortunately isn’t compatible with HTTP compression right now. Disabled.
  • Live Preview: Add an instant preview to comments. A bit of tweaking to install, though I managed to modify it to play nicer with WP’s plugin API, but very cool! Active.
  • Random Posts: Add a list of random posts to the sidebar. Simple and possibly interesting. Active.
  • SameCat: List posts in the same category as the current one. Combined with the Related Entries plugin, this provides a good set of links to similar posts. Active.

Other ideas I’m looking at (some of which I’ve seen plugins for):

  • Comment threading (Katie suggested this, but the last time I looked for plugins the only one I found required serious database changes)
  • Email notifications
  • Polls
  • Category and author icons
  • True-a-Day sidebar

So, any opinions on the new features? Any suggestions for others? In particular, any thoughts on the WayPath feature? I’m not sure whether it’s worth keeping around or not.