Custom Post Types in WordPress with Gravity Forms

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Tim

We recently discovered the great premium plugin Gravity Forms at DTLT from the web group at UMW who purchased it to use with the redesigned UMW.edu site (running completely on WordPress!). One amazing feature of gravity forms is that it allows you to create a form that, when a user submits it, creates a post in WordPress. You can also link form fields to custom field data allowing for a lot of customization. Combine that with this plugin to allow the submission of a custom post type and you start to see the flexibility this tool can offer.

As it so happens I was recently asked by the Chemistry department to look into the possibility of having a form on their site that would allow alumni to post information that would be added to a forward-facing “Alumni Directory” similar to what Union College is doing here. I couldn’t have asked for a better excuse to put Gravity Forms to work! I’ve played with custom post types before but the best framework I’ve found yet to build off of was Kyle Jones’ Library Custom Post Types which comes as a pack of three custom post types meant for libraries (Databases, Staff Directory, and Journals). It was relatively easy to modify the Staff Directory component to become an Alumni Directory with the particular information that the Chemistry department wanted to collect. What’s great about this solution is that not only do we have a front facing directory (which I’m still working on the style of) and form for automatic submission to that directory, but we also have a beautiful backend interface for the directory that allows admins to search, add, and edit alumni directly from the WordPress interface. It’s one of those moments where WordPress ceases to feel like “blogging software” and shines as a full-fledged flexible content management system (and a shining example of why it’s so important that WordPress is powering UMW.edu!).

The final piece of the puzzle was adding sorting to the table of alumni data so you could sort by graduation year, alphabetical by name, and other columns. That turned out to be dead simple with this small piece of javascript that you simply link to and apply a class to your table. Once the new alumni directory is live I’ll be sure to link to it here, but for now I’ll leave you with these screenshots of the interface.

The 7:30 Project

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Tim

So Andy Rush came up with a great idea, document all the off-the-wall things I come up with in the early hours of the morning when I get to work. You see, for the time being my wife and I are commuting to Fredericksburg from Richmond. Since she likes to get to work by 8, that means I’m usually at the DTLT office by 7:15 or 7:30 in the morning. I’ve always tended to do some of my best thinking in the morning (when coffee is in the mix of course) so it’s typical for me to be waiting anxiously for Andy, Martha, or Jim to enter the office to excitedly tell them about what I’ve come up with.

Some time ago I decided I could get some cool things put together by simply telling myself “What will you do today, Tim?” and Andy suggested I start a site, “The 7:30 Project” to document it. Since I hope to not be doing this awful commute for too long I figure it’s best kept here on the blog so you will start seeing a new category of posts here where I will be documenting what my “7:30 Project” today was. If nothing else it’s a good excuse to keep me in the practice of regularly blogging and documenting some of the things I’m doing at UMW. If you love them or have ideas to expand on them hit me up in the comments. If you hate them, blame Andy. Easy peasy, let’s do this.

This American Life Sex Tape

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Tim

This is possibly the best parody I’ve heard, and I think it’s a perfect example of how students can use just audio to create a compelling new narrative.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Tim

Today, just one day after announcing a slew of new gadgets and showing off yet more amazing software that seems futuristic, Apple replaced their homepage with an image none of us wanted to see.

At the age of 58, Steve Jobs lost his battle with cancer and passed away. I’ve never cried for a celebrity before, but then again I’ve never had such a high-profile figure so deeply impact my life like Steve Jobs’ work has done with mine. I’m truly at a loss for words right now as I try to articulate what a loss I feel from this. Steve Jobs was the Thomas Edison of my generation, an innovator and thinker that I had the incredible privilege to experience in my lifetime. The products I use every day exist because of the passion and vision of this one man. He changed the level of the game every other marketer was playing by changing the way we see and use computers, phones, movies, and more.

In 2005 Jobs gave a notable commencement speech at Stanford and almost every line of it resonates in my life right now.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Thank you Steve. Thank you for having the courage to stand by your convictions. Thank you for refusing to settle for “good enough”. Thank you raising the bar.

Thank you.

Born This Way

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Tim

The great @scottlo is back on the radio and doing some great things, one of them being timed #ds106 assignment. ~24 minutes where he plays a few songs and challenges you to finish an assignment. Don’t think, just make.

I saw it this morning and rose to the challenge, another Big Hip Hop picture. It’s a fun assignment to do and I’m glad I got the nudge from scottlo to do it.

Going Home

Posted on September 24, 2011 by Tim

I grew up in a small town called Fairborn that was situated close to Dayton, Ohio. We moved when I was 11 and haven’t been back in a very long time. From what I understand the town is suffering with job loss and many folks having moved out of the area. I found a ds106 assignment that asks you to create a postcard of where you come from. I had no idea how important this assignment would become for me this evening.

I apologize for the large size of this file but I wanted to have some motion to my image so animated gif it is, and it’s a big one. I happened to find a video of someone driving through Fairborn on Youtube. To you this moving image will mean very little, to me it’s my childhood and I can’t look at it without a wave of emotion coming over me.

Where did that guy come from?!

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Tim

Spending some time this evening in Photoshop with another fun ds106 assignment. Pretty basic, photoshop a guy into odd scenes. I’m focusing on film scenes. Enter our volunteer stage left:


Photo courtesy of Rob

Let the games begin….





I’ve got quite a few more planned, but I want to open this up to more folks. To make it easier here’s an image file with the background removed.

Photoshop File
PNG File

Go forth and remix!

Math is hard

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Tim

You know what’s cooler than a million dollars? Me neither.

Sorting Hat

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Tim

The Messing with MacGuffin asks you to choose a pivotal point in a movie and alter the plot with a single line. It turns out to be a hell of a lot of fun!

Collective Collaboration

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Tim

These are notes we took at the DTLT office yesterday while brainstorming ideas for 2 courses we have the opportunity to create for the Spring Semester under the American Studies discipline of the History Department at UMW. But yesterday we did things differently. Rather than simply erasing the whiteboard and writing down our ideas, we fired up the video camera and started broadcasting on DTLT Today feed. I sent out the invitation for folks to collaborate with us by joining the chat and brainstorming live in realtime with our office.

We had people everywhere from Arkansas and California to Canada jump into the chat and start giving us ideas. It was a ton of fun and while live broadcasting is nothing new, this was an example where the technology had gotten out of the way to the point where we felt comfortable saying “Let’s turn it on and invite others”. It was living, it was real, and it worked. We got a lot of great ideas from that session and I know we’ll do this again.

Collaboration doesn’t have to be a roundtable discussion between you and your coworkers. It doesn’t even have to be a Google Doc with your network. It can be a personal, intimate live broadcasted conversation. Services like Google Hangout would even add the element of audio and video to the people participating with you. It’s an amazing time to be working as a collective.