In this episode we’re speaking with Max Sweet (TimeStampStudios.com), a WordPress plugin developer and web designer for WebmasterRadio.FM. Max discusses why his employer moved to WordPress and how the custom plugins he’s developed meet specific needs for the online radio station.

Max explains why they’re using WordPress and a briefly explains the plugin he developed that manages the images that scroll across the top of the WebmasterRadio.FM web site.

We talk about Yoast and his Sociable plugin. Yoast is a plugin developer who has created a lot of very powerful WordPress plugins. Yoast also hosts the Press This podcast.

Further into the discussion Max explains WordPress MU and how to can be used for hosting multiple WordPress blogs.

We go into detail about some plugins that Max has developed that he may be releasing in the future. One that sounds very useful is a Module Switch plugin which would allow you to switch content on a page from say an advertisement to a live stream embed.

Max impresses me greatly because he is not only a plugin developer but also a graphic designer. Max explains the advantage of being both a designer and a web developer, which is useful when planning the development and coordinating CSS with the design.

If you have any suggestions, comments or feedback, please email angelo [at] pluginspodcast,com, use our contact form, or call (614) 859-9007 to leave a voice message.

Today we’re covering the  NextGEN Gallery WordPress plugin.

The NextGEN Gallery plugin adds image gallery functionality to your WordPress blog. Click here for a demonstration.

Features include:

• Flash Slideshow
• Flash Viewer (as an additional addon)
• Templates
• CSS styling
• Watermarks
• JavaScript Effect (Web 2.0 feel)
• Custom Media Gallery RSS feed
• Sidebar Widget
• Tag images
• Detailed descriptions
• Multi-language support
• Administration
  • Copy/Move images
  • Upload zip file of multiple pictures
  • Integrates to Post/Page editor (TinyMCE)

The NextGEN Gallery plugin makes it easy to add a modern gallery to your blog. Users knowledgeable in CSS and HTML can take further advantage of this plugin, though knowledge of CSS and HTML is not necessary to use this plugin.

Plugins Podcast Skill Level: Any

To learn more about the NextGEN Gallery plugin, please go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/.

Have you ever added an image to your blog post to find that the width of the image exceeds the width of the column of the page? Here’s a simple fix you can add to your theme’s style sheet to solve this problem. The fix below assumes that you have a class for your blog post entries called “.entry”. This class may be called something different depending on the preference of the theme developer.

.entry img {
max-width: 500px;
height: auto;
}

The max-width: is the maximum width the image can be within the .entry class. In this example the maximum width for an image is 500 pixels. We set the height: auto so the height of the image is auto adjusted to maintain the aspect ratio. Images that are smaller than the max-width will not be resized.

Note that this will not work for Internet Explorer 6 or older.