Productions plugin: Two steps forward, one step back
I've made a lot of progress on my plugin. All of the content can be created and edited directly within the plugin. Site administrators can add and edit seasons, venues, and plays. They even have the ability to update cast lists, production and audition dates, and upload publicity photos. The only things left to do were to enable the ability to delete some of those items when needed, and then make the code more "generic" so it would work on another server, instead of only on my specific server.
Or so I thought.
Unfortunately, a user doing a perfectly reasonable thing pointed out a big hole. Somebody posted a comment on a page for a specific show. Unfortunately, the way Wordpress manages comments, those comments would appear on EVERY show's page. So now I have to see if I can figure out a way to tie comments to specific shows. Until then, I've disabled comments on the show page, as I think it would cause more confusion than it's worth.
I also want to see if I can tie into the Wordpress search system, so that, when somebody does a search, it will check all of the plays in the database, and not just the "normal" posts.
A programmer's work is never done. *sigh*
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Hi Dwayne
How easy would it be to include the roles that the actor played in the search? Could I not use the season field as the role therefore show me all actors in season (role) 'Pop'?
Perry,
As the code is written right now, the search returns information about the show as a whole, not the individual roles within the show. It could probably be modified to accomplish what you want, but it doesn't do it today.
Once I get the docs done, I'll see what would be involved in accomplishing something like that.
Dwayne
Hi Dwayne
That would be amazing, thank you. I would be happy for you to use my site as a working example of what can be achieved from the plugin.
I really do appreciate your help.
Perry
Oh, oh. Sounds like I'm going to actually have to DOCUMENT this thing, if somebody else is going to use it.
Day to day updating of the data isn't too bad, though there are a few minor bugs I haven't cleaned up yet. But the initial setup of the pages to DISPLAY the data is esoteric at best.
There's no functionality to directly handle the actor pages that you mention, and, while I have a search facility which allows a list of shows by search for the actor's name, it doesn't currently return the role they played - just the show and the season. That would not be too useful for you, since every show is the same in your case. ;)
Hi
This plugin sounds EXACTLY what I am looking for. I am writing a blog detailing all my visits to a musical based on the songs of Queen - We Will Rock You.
I have an events plugin that does 9-% of what I am looking for (show dates, location etc) but I have no way of adding cast to the events in a dynmaic way. I would also want to be able to list all the shows that a certain actor has performed in and in which role. I would also like to have a page dedicated to each actor with photos, biography etc.
I am happy to test this plugin on my site and iron out any bugs if that will help you.
Regards
Perry