It is simply a place where people can browse, upload, and share beautiful cafes from all over the world.

I built it on the WordPress platform with a mountain of customisation. I used PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

View it here.

Plenty of WordPress, JavaScript, PHP, HTML, CSS.

I also built a mobile site targeting smart phones that reads from the same database, but looks sexy on your mobile. I did all the coding, but didn’t design the mobile site myself, so I won’t show it here.

WordPress, JavaScript, PHP, HTML, CSS, facebook and twitter widgets. It’s all there.

If you manually filter spam comments on your site, this is quite handy to differentiate between bots and legit commenters. If you don’t have a url field in your comment form and a comment is posted on your site with a url attached, it has been injected by a bot, so you can safely send it to the trash without questioning its validity.

Drop this into your functions.php file in your theme. Replace ‘yourthemename’  with…you guessed it… the name of your theme. Peace.

function yourthemename_fields($fields)
{
 $fields = array( $fields['author'], $fields['email'] );
 return $fields;
}
add_filter( 'comment_form_default_fields', yourthemename_fields );

I recently had to remove the username field from the register page so that users could sign up with just an email address and a password. The tricky part is WordPress still requires a unique username for every new member. The solution is to generate a random unique username and send it through along with the user submitted email and password when the form is submitted.

Remember, if you are going to do this, you need to also allow the user to log in with their email address as they wont know what their username is.
An easy way to do this is install and activate the WP Email Login plugin.

To generate the unique username we can place a php function into the functions.php file in your theme’s root directory. The function i used is this one:

function generate_random_username($length = 6) {

	$char = array("a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f", "g", "h", "i", "j", "k", "l", "m", "n", "o", "p", "q", "r", "s", "t", "u", "v", "w", "x","y", "z");

	$rand = array_rand($char, $length - 5);

	$str = "";
	foreach ($rand as $k => $v) {

		$str .= $char[$v];

	}

	$str .= substr(time(), -5);

	return $str;
}

Credit to Alex Beros for this script. Mad developer.

This function creates an array of all the letters in the alphabet and then creates a random string the length you define when you call the function.
To make sure it will be unique each time, we append the time to the end of it. Clever huh?

All you have to do now is go into your wp-register.php file which is located in the root directory of the WordPress install. Find the username input field and change the type to ‘hidden’. Change the value to call the function we just created. It should look like this:

<input type="h1dden" value="<?php function generate_random_username(14)" id="signup_username" name="signup_username">

14 is the length of the string. Making it that long is probably a bit extreme, but safe none-the-less.

Enjoy!

1/50 sec
f/4.0
ISO 100

1/1250 sec
f/4.0
ISO 100

1/2000 sec
f/4.0
ISO 100

1/1600 sec
f/4.0
ISO 100

1/800 sec
f/4.0
ISO 100

1/13 sec
f/4.0
ISO 200

Here are a few that I have found useful, and you might too:

BuddyPress

I am still amazed that this plugin is free. Out of the box, this plugin turns your wordpress site into a social network. It allows users to register, make a profile page, add people as friends, pretty much anything you do on facebook. The file structure is pretty logical, so you can customise like crazy. Get it here.

WP Email Login

Another simple plugin with a simple purpose. If you’re site has multiple users, it allows them to log in using either their username as usual, or their email instead. A nice little feature to improve usabilily around log in. Get it here.

Exec-PHP

If you’re a bit handy with PHP, this plugin will allow you to execute PHP code in in posts, pages and text widgets, hence the name. This is a simple plugin with a simple purpose. Easy. Get it here.

WP e-Commerce

I was on the fence about putting this one in, but when i think about it, there’s some great functionality this plugin provides for free, so it’s worth a mention. Out of the box, it provides basic shopping functionality, so it’s perfect for a small online store setup. For serious e-commerce solution, you will need to purchase addons for this plugin. The prices are pretty reasonable, however i did encounter a few bugs and headaches when setting it all up. On the up side, the support is pretty good and all bugs were solved. Get it here.

Contact form 7

A fantastic contact form plugin. This takes care of the validation and mailing side of the form. All you need to do is style it. Great time saver. You can also customise it however you like, so a great option for code handy cats. The form creater allows you to simple drop a shortcode onto whatever page or post you want the contact form. Get it here.

Maintenance Mode

If you’re making some big changes to your live site, or simply building a new site on a public server, then Maintenace Mode can be very helpful. It simply presents a splash page with your custom message and a countdown timer for scheduled maintenace to anyone that visits your site while you have it turned on. When you’re done, simple deactivate it and your site is back up with the changes. A good feature is that anyone logged in can still view the site to preview changes. Get it here.

Syntax Highlighter

For coders that like to write about it. This simple plugin allows you to publish code in it’s text form without it being executed. You may have some conflicts if you are using Exec-php at the same time. Get it here.

Hopefully this is useful to some people. I’ll continue to add to the list as I come across more useful plugins.

Here’s a way to create a featured image slider, without a wordpress plugin.
I’ll assume you have a basic understanding of the following:

• query_posts() function (see query_posts() for custom wordpress loops)
• the_post_thumbnail() function (see Multiple custom featured image sizes for wordpress)
• A jQuery image slider gallery, e.g jQuery Cycle, jQuery easySlider, or similar

First, add a custom featured image size to your functions.php file to the exact dimensions as the images you want to appear in your slider. It might look something like this:

add_image_size( 'slider-image', 200, 200, true );

Make sure you have called the jQuery image slider script, and also included the controller script in the header template of your site. Depending on which slider you are using, it may look something like this:

<br />
&lt;script type='text/javascript' src='js/easySlider1.7.js'&gt;&lt;/script&gt;<br />
&lt;script type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;<br />
        jQuery(document).ready(function(){<br />
            jQuery(&quot;#slider&quot;).easySlider({<br />
                auto: true,<br />
                continuous: true,<br />
                vertical: false,<br />
                controlsShow: false<br />
            });<br />
        });<br />
&lt;/script&gt;<br />

Now we are ready to insert the featured image slider somewhere on the site. Most sliders have a containing div, and then an unordered list with each list item containing an image. The entire list shifts or cycles to rotate between the items in the list. The trick is to use a custom loop using query_posts() to order the featured images from certain posts in the list inside the slider. Here’s an example of how to do that:

<br />
&lt;div id=&quot;slider&quot;&gt;<br />
    &lt;ul&gt;<br />
    &lt;?php query_posts('posts_per_page=4');<br />
	if ( have_posts() ) while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?&gt;<br />
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;&lt;?php the_permalink(); ?&gt;&quot;&gt;&lt;?php the_post_thumbnail( 'slider-image' ); ?&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;<br />
	&lt;?php endwhile; ?&gt;<br />
    &lt;/ul&gt;<br />
&lt;/div&gt;<br />

This creates a list of the featured images for the latest four posts on your blog. I included the_permalink() in there so each image links to the post it represents. You can customise the loop with query_posts() to show only certain posts, etc. Now simply style it and you have yourself a nice simple featured post image slider with a minimal amount of code.

Well… sometimes.

For some, including myself, the experience plays a bit part in the overall satisfaction of my morning coffee. The attitude, the setup, the decor, and the feel of the place all contribute to starting your day on the right foot.

Here are a few that are on the money:

65 Degrees

160 Exhibition Street, Melbourne, Victoria.

The Bean
Gridlock Coffee

The Experience
These guys run a tight ship. Most mornings you can barely get in the door, but you still have a coffee in your hand within minutes. They roast the beans in a little red roaster at the back of the shop, which is pretty rare in the CBD.

Baraki

168 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, Victoria.

The Bean
Vittoria

The Experience
Once you get past the fact that you’re in a bar at 8am, you can relax knowing you’re in good hands. The same smiley barister has been here for as long as I remember, so he certainly knows this machine inside out. Visit when it’s busy and you can take a seat in the evangelical arm chairs while you wait. Leave with a smooth, creamy cup to find out what the barister is smirking about.

D’marcos Espresso Bar

Paramount Centre – Little Bourke Street, Melbourne, Australia

The Bean
Vittoria

The Experience
‘A diamond in the rough’ is probably the best way to describe D’marcos, not the traditional meaning, but literally. This place is cute and cosy, situated in a rather sad looking arcade. The coffee has always hit the spot in my experience, and staff are never short of a smile.

Pellegrinis Bar

66 Bourke Street, Melbourne, Victoria

The Bean
Vittoria

The Experience
This place is no secret, but it’s worth a mention none-the-less. Stop by for a good old fashioned cup.

Von Haus

1 Crossley Street, Melbourne, Victoria

The Bean
I’ll just run and check.

The Experience
This is one of those hidden places that are worth the expedition. The cafe / bar itself is absolutely gorgeous. Come here for a French country vibe, from rustic bread loaves to flaking paint on the walls. This place is also a good one to remember for an intimate candlelit drink with a special someone.

Babbo

Shop 7 50 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, Victoria

The Bean
Romcaffe

The Experience
Babbo is somewhere that you keep coming back to for the service. Each time I have been here, they have treated me like royalty, and I’m a pretty sorry sight some mornings. Any cafe that remembers your name and order after two visits gets my vote hands down. Follow that up with a creamy cup at just the right temperature, and you’ve got yourself one great start to the morning.

The European Cafe

161 Spring Street, Melbourne, Victoria

The Bean
Romcafe

The Experience
A nice traditional coffee here, complimented by cosy surroundings with a, surprise surprise, ‘European’ feel.

Brother Baba Budan

359 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne, Australia

The Bean
House Blend

The Experience
Again, this one is pretty well known, and rightfully so. Chairs stuck to the roof are a highlight for anyone who has ever fantasised about the possibility of zero gravity on earth, or read ‘The Twits’, by Roald Dahl.

Postal Hall

116 Russel Street, Melbourne, Victoria

The Bean
Bristot Coffee

The Experience
Open and accessible, Postal Hall is a low fuss option for a trustworthy morning coffee.