• 4.0.1 – A hot fix to for allow_call_time_pass_reference problem. As for version 5, PHP passes function parameters by reference by default, thus eliminate the need of the prefix &. This shouldn’t be anything big, if it didn’t generate a warning with any attempt to use & and totally break my JavaScript’s eval().
• 4.0.2 – Some other hot fixes.
• 4.1.0 – “Related posts” feature implemented, and a tiny “Powered by Referrer Detector” line added into the welcome div. If you mind, both options can be turned off via Options panel – one-click. Also, the CSS was nearly completely changed.
• 4.1.0.1 – I accidentally (and stupidly) uploaded some 4.0.2 code in place of 4.1.0, and EVERYTHING was broken. This version is actually a quick roll-back, so the features were exactly the same with 4.0.2 – oops.
• 4.1.1 – This IS 4.1.0

So today I would like to announce the release of Referrer Detector 4.2.0.1 (code name: IE-PAIN). For this version we have another option on how to display the welcome box – in light box style. This is not a joke: I saw the light box in action in my dream, and started to implement it right when I woke up, basing on SimpleModal. Mendeleev‘s style, haha. Actually I’m not sure if this welcome style fits normal needs, but for advertisements it seems to. At least it has some cool effects.

If you wonder about its cool code name, here you go:

• First, version 4.1.1 has a serious bug (or is it IE?) which cause the whole admin panel to stop functioning. IE informally and informatively told me that at line 303, column 13, page ?rd.class.php there was a serious “Expected identifier, string or number” error. Actually it was a </tr> closing tag there… but I had some experience with it already: must be an extra comma in a JavaScript array. The problem is, I have like thousands of JavaScript lines within this plugin, and so it took me one hour for a single comma. Thank you, IE, for the extra headache!
• Then, I spent almost 2 hours to beautify the CSS. Everything was perfect, until I switched to IE. Then, I spent almost 2 hours more to beautify THE CSS on IE. Everything was perfect, until I switched back to Firefox. Then, I reverted back my files, and gave up, and went to sleep. Everything was perfect – damn it.
• After the CSS is ok on all major browsers, the welcome box disappeared on IE. Just the same eval() code worked on Firefox and all others! I tried execScripts(), I tried jQuery plugins, I tried alert(), I tried document.write() – hopelessly. PHP returned the correct string, Base64 plugin decoded it with no hassle, but IE failed to properly insert it into DOM. Stupid. One more night, and I discovered that in some Ajax circumstances, $(“element”).replaceWith(html) doesn’t work in IE. Stupid. When $(“element”).after(html).remove() does. Stupid.
• Troubles wouldn’t stop there. The message eventually showed up – kind of. It was there, but not visible. If the mouse was hovering a link – the line appeared. Moused out, and it’s gone. Have you ever imagined that? Do you have any clue why CSS display: inline fixed it? I’ve no idea.

If it wasn’t IE, I would have released this new version 3 days ago. So I say (sorry, parental control recommended): Curse you, IE, go die pig!

Almost forgot it: nevertheless, Referrer Detector 4.2.0.1 is here, that’s what important

1. The code has been COMPLETELY re-written from scratch. As of the previous versions, it was one big file that handled everything from admin to front-end control. Needless to say how inconvenient this approach had become when bug fixes and new features were added… too bad that I have decided to throw all away and build a brand new OOP Referrer Detector. Well, it was a looong and tough way, but I’ve never looked back!
2. The data are now in (ahem) database. I was thinking (and convincing myself) that a JavaScript file is faster, as it reduces the number of database requests. But with time, it becomes too bloat and too hard for me to track bugs as well as to add improvements. So I told myself: hell with this sacrifice, I better obey the power of MySQL.
3. The biggest new feature that I’m really excited of is the ability to add localized messages. In the past, your users were welcomed the the same (English) greetings regardless of which country they were from. Now you can specify a localized message for those from Vietnam, another for Brazilians, Portuguese, and so on. The plugin will try to detect users’ country and decide which message to show. Isn’t it cool?
4. The second new feature is the ability to backup and restore stuffs, including entries, excluded URLs, and options. For restoring, in order to keep the administration panel AJAX’ed, I go with Uploadify, a wonderful jQuery file upload plugin. This plugin uses a bit of Flash, but no worries, it will still works if your browser has no Flash player installed.
5. For the Stats panel, there were two problems that caused me much of headache. One is Google TLDs which are hundreds in number thus totally ruined the chart. The other is the chart itself: PHP/SWF Charts library is too darn heavy and often broke my SVN commits. So I wrote some code to group those annoying TLDs into one group, and use Google Chart instead.
6. In the admin panel, I added a “Support this plugin!” tab. Just a bit about myself, like “Follow me on Twitter”. Hope you aren’t pissed of with this change.

As usual, the plugin is downloadable at WordPress Codex. Your comments are always welcome here and in the plugin page. Let me know if you’re happy with the new version, or about the bugs you encounter!

I have too little time for a new technique to share with you, but have never forgot this blog of mine. If you care about it, I’m completely rewriting my most popular plugin Referrer Detector from scratch. After 3 major versions, its limitations are going clearer and clearer each day, most of which cannot be just fixed easily with the current code. So I’m rewriting it into a pure better OOP Referrer Detector, ready for extending and maintaining. Of course there will be some new and improved features too. I won’t promise on the release date though – I don’t want to be a liar again.

I wanted to say I much appreciate for all of your compliments, suggestions, bug reports, and encouragement these days. So I am still here, please stay tuned

Btw, Referrer Detector is coming close to the next version with some real improvements. UPDATE: Version 3.2 is here with some serious improvements! Check it out!

It’s been a while… yes I know I’m feeding up your ears (or eyes) with this same old same old greeting, but I’ve never been a good speaker.

So it’s been a while, and I’m writing another small plugin for personal purpose. Remember, I have another site dedicated to Vietnamese poetry? Well, I’m trying to enhance it up a bit – with some plugins I write maybe…

However, something today made me (temporarily) pause the work. Something not so happy.

In case you don’t know yet, I’ll stress it again: I didn’t invent the [concept of] Referrer Detector plugin. Instead, I first saw a similar plugin in action on my favorite blog Smashing Magazine. As Smashing is more or less a commercial blog, I was thinking it was something they made themselves and thus may not be open source, so I decided to write my own. When I found out that it’s originally a great plugin from Thaya Kareeson, my Referrer Detector was nearly finished, and I didn’t want it to be left abandoned. Apart from that, I also thought that my plugin, while still young and lacked of some important features, had some advantages that I personally could make use of (at that moment). So eventually I registered it in WordPress Codex. That’s the story.

When Referrer Detector was out, I was very happy to see how welcomed it was. My [G]mail box were full of comment moderation requests, and I was continuously asked for bug fixes, implementations, even some not so relevant stuffs (like how to change theme ). These comments were the invaluable support that encouraged me to quickly release newer and hopefully better versions of RD, with visible and invisible changes as well. And it’s always been a joy for me to open my mailbox and see an unread message titled “[phoenix.heart - portfolio & more] Please moderate: “Here it is – Referrer Detector…”.

Thaya has noticed about my plugin, as he even left a comment on my blog entry – I was happy with it too. So it came to me as a surprise when today, I found out that it’s not that simple. Seems like he’s thinking I’m forking his code and is upset with the fact that RD is sharing the “fame” with his WP Greet Box. On a blog that promoted my plugin he left this comment:

Honestly, I am quite disappointed that my plugin hasn’t done better in the WordPress community. I am also even more shocked[upset] that Referrer Detector got the word out much quicker than WP Greet Box. I guess it really does matter “who” you knows in the blogging community.

I don’t want to sound biased, but as of right now (Referrer Detector version 2.1) I believe that WP Greet Box is hands-down better than Referrer Detector:

1. Referrer Detector has a security flaw in its administrative AJAX interface. I won’t say more, so hopefully people with Referrer Detector installed won’t get hacked.
2. WP Greet Box works with WPMU.
3. WP Greet Box has the ability to keep track of visitors, so the visitor referred from google will not keep getting the same greeting message if they have visited within the last X hours.
4. Exclusion rules have regular expressions support.
5. More solid default CSS.

The only pros referrer detector has on WP Greet Box are:

1. More default greeting messages
2. The ability to include WordPress attributes like url, title, author, category etc. into the greetings

Given the security flaw Referrer Detector, I wouldn’t even try it out on a production site until the fix comes.

And on his official WP Great Box plugin blog, he changed the Upcoming Features to something below:

Maybe I’m a little over-sensitive, but nevertheless, it seems that I’m just one of those “kiddie coders” who’s “forking [his] code”.

To be fair, he was right about the pros and cons both plugins have – although still I believe that mine has something more that that. Also, I agree about the possible security flaw (and have fixed it in the latest version of WordPress). More or less, I’m not a hacker, so I can’t tell if it’s really a security flaw and if someone can make use of it, since first, AJAX calls across domains are very limited in terms of usability, and second, the person who may control the plugin and the admin panel, if not yourself, must be someone you totally trust.

What made me feel weird are:

1. He seems to be thinking that all I (and some other plugin developers) have been doing is forking his code. This is not so correct To me, the code I was forking, if any, came from another plugin called ShareThis. Actually, this is the plugin I was learning from when I developed Digg This O’ Mine, and can be seen as my WordPress plugin tutor. Other than this, except for the concept that I learned from Smashing Magazine, I built my Referrer Detector from the scratch, as you can see if you take a look into the source code (of both RD and WPGB).
2. He’s upset just because “Referrer Detector got the word out much quicker than WP Greet Box”. If it’s something really matters, then my answer will be “Digg”. I posted a story about RD onto Digg, that’s why it gets known rather quickly. Moreover, the more people get to know RD, the more they’re announced about WPGB, since on my official plugin entry and here again, I give all the initial concept credits to Thaya Kareeson. If his plugin is better, it will simply be used more widely. So why he got upset, I honestly don’t get.
3. Seems like from his upset, he called other developers who share the same concept with him “kiddie coders”. Of course he is a great developer, as anyone can see from the concept and the way he’s writing code. But just because he’s great doesn’t mean others are bad, yes? And correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t writing various softwares with the same concept and purposes something we see everyday in this open source world? If not, then why so much Linux distributions?
4. The “dark side”

So, as a conclusion, the concept credits go to Thaya, and I’m sorry if what I do is causing him some inconvenience. And let’s face it, everyone has his choice, so if my plugin doesn’t work for you for any reason, I always recommend WP Gree[a]t Box.

P/S: Have you noticed yet? Referrer Detector 2.1.1 which includes the security flaw fix is out!

For, the most significant change compared to previous versions is the admin (aka Options) panel. With the help of the great jQuery UI library, all the options are now divided into much much clearer tabs!

Then, from the suggestion of iTalal, I’ve added an option to specify a list of “excluded” URLs. If the user is coming from one of these URLs, the greeting box won’t be shown. This comes handy with, for an example, Google Reader. Please note that the URLs should come in a separated list, each following the same rule with the entry URL – no “http://www” prefix.

The next visible change is, now it’s 100% AJAXed – well, it was not with the Generic Options, but now even that conservative old guy is convinced by the AJAX power Now you won’t need to reload the page – ever!

Then, we have some more improvements under the hood:

• As Study Babes suggested, there should be an option to display the welcome message in the theme itself. Well, not until now – now you can place this template tag somewhere in the theme files (most likely index.php):

  <?php if (function_exists('referrer_detector')) referrer_detector(); ?>

  In case you ever wonder, there is at most one greeting box each page. With that said, this template tag has the highest priority, when the lower goes to the “Automatically add to every post blah” settings, and the least is for the custom tag {referrer-detector} if any in the post.

  There is one drawback with the template tag though. Since in such a case, the greeting box is shown in a page with many different posts at once, the tags such as {author} and {categories} become ambiguous. So, please keep in mind that if you use template tag, only the most common {title} and {url} are available.

• Some of the javascript files are now packed to save some bandwidth and loading time.

That’s all! And is it redundant to add that you can, as usual, grab it at the WordPress Codex?

But, here is another proof to prove that 3 days is such a long long time: I’ve managed to release 4 versions of Referrer Detector! Huh, shocked? Here you go:

1.0 – Initial version

1.0.1

A quick fix for caching problem (if cache is enabled and the first user has no referrer, the plugin will fail). This serious bug is found by me.

1.1

Better support to work with cache plugins. Now the generic options take effect without the need to delete the cache. The reason behind this is now all options are saved into the file data.js, and this file is executed every time a page is loaded, regardless of your blog has a cache enabled or not.

And today, version 1.2 is released! Basically this version just includes several important fixes and improvements, but I decided to change the minor number to make that look somehow more important . Here is the changes:

• Fixed the bug when multiple greet boxes are stupidly shown if the page is filled with multiple full posts (such as homepage). This is a serious bug that was found by Kelson (thanks, Kelson!). I decided that in such a case, no greet box should be shown.
• Fixed the bug in the initial SQL data where the default RSS feed url is set to mine. It’s so embarrassed to confess that with the old versions, upon installing all the RSS links in the entry would point to *my* FeedBurner url. This was my problem – I forgot to change the RSS link when publishing the plugin to WordPress Codex.
• Fixed the javascript error when the page has no referrer.
• Update the installation and FAQ section.
• And some little stuffs…

If you’ve installed my plugin, you should have been announced about this version in the Plugins panel. Or you can always grab the latest version here.

Update: I’ve managed to complete version 2.0 which I’m going to blog about tomorrow. Stay tuned!

The story is (ssh!), I was too busy writing this plugin: Referrer Detector! EARTH BREAKING!!! There! Tada!!!

Ok, since that doesn’t seem to impress you much, let me introduce a bit about it.

Introduction

Here, if you do a quick search on Google for the terms “smashing magazine”, you’ll get a bunch of great articles (naturally). Clicking on one of them, for an example “100 Excellent Free WordPress Theme”, will take you to the site. Then, the most interesting part is you will be welcomed with a greeting box, like this:

If you’re a Digger, and you’re coming from Digg.com, you’ll be welcomed with this box instead:

As you may have guessed, it’s not only cool but also a very good way to attract and keep loyal visitors on you blog. Personally, I would tend to digg the story right away if the blog welcomes me with something that sweet.

If you’re wondering, Smashing Magazine is a WordPress-based blog, though I’m pretty sure that they have greatly modified their WP installation to fit their needs. And if you’re still confused, those greet boxes were brought to us by a great WP plugin called (yes) WP Greet Box perfectly done by Thaya Kareeson. Well, actually it’s something that I’ve just discovered not long ago. When I first saw noticed the greet box in SmashingMagazine, I was thinking they did it themselves and thus the thing may not be opensource. I was totally wrong, as said, but I knew it only after half-finishing my own plugin that mimics that greet box. So despite of the fact that WP Greet Box is so great already, I’ve managed to complete my own after one week.

Features

To be fair, what my Referrer Detector and Thaya’s WP Greet Box have in common are:

• The targeted purpose: Displaying a greet box to welcome users who come from different sources.
• The technique behind: using JavaScript’s document.referrer property.
• The look-and-feel: from the beginning I was heavily influenced of the box on Smashing Magazine.
• The basic configuration: both offer the ability to add/edit/remove multiple greet box instances (I call them “entries”).
• The ability to work with caching plugins: both use JavaScript for the boxes, which is normally not cached.

What WP Greet Box has that are far better than Referrer Detector are:

• The ability to display a message for a new visitor, regardless where he comes from.
• The ability to specify a time interval to “forget” a visitor.
• The ability to use Regular Expression to exclude some URLs.
• The ability to customize the HTML code before and after the greet box.
• The author’s skill!

What my Referrer Detector have which may be a bit more convenient for users are:

• The AJAXed admin interface. Entries can be added/modified/(de)activated/deleted without the need to reload the entire page.
• The greet box position can be set to before or after the post. A custom tag can also be used in case you don’t want to show greetings on every post.
• The ability to include WordPress attributes like url, title, author, category etc. into the greetings
• More installed-by-default entries. Upon installing, you will have these entries available:
  • 9 rules
  • Del.icio.us and Delicious.com
  • Digg
  • Gizmodo
  • Google Search
  • Lifehacker
  • Live Search
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • TechCrunch
  • Technograti
  • TechRadar
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo Search
• It works for me Yes, I don’t know why WP Greet Box didn’t.

Installation

As usual

1. Download the plugin,
2. Extract into a folder,
3. Upload it to wp-content/plugins/ directory of your WordPress installation,
4. Enable it via Plugins panel,
5. It should now work out of the box. If you want to tweak a bit, head to Settings->Referrer Detector.

Configuration Usage

Add/Edit an entry

To add or edit an entry, you’re provided with a simple form with 5 fields.

• Name: The name of the entry. Digg, Google, Yahoo… are good names.
• URL: The URL of the site where your users come from. For this to work, the URL must not contain those prefix and suffix like “http:/www” and “/?q=etc.”. To be clear, it should be “digg.com” instead of “http://digg.com”, and “google.com” instead of “http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=some+keywords”. Furthermore, the domain and subdomain are treated differently, which means different greeting boxes (if any) will be shown for “yahoo.com” and “search.yahoo.com” users.
• Message: The greeting text for this entry. These HTML tags are allowed: <div><h1><h2><h3><p><span><a><ul><ol><li><hr><br><table><thead><tbody><tfoot><tr><td><th><strong><em> Also, these tags may be used:
  • {url} - Full URL to your WordPress post, for example http://yousite.com/2008/10/my-first-post. Very handy if you want to ask your users to digg your post.
  • {title} - Title of the post, for example My First Post.
  • {link} – Link to the post, for example My First Post. It’s just an combination of {url} and {title}.
  • {categorynames} – Names of the categories under which the post is listed, separated by a comma. Example: Cats, Dogs, Pets.
  • {categorylinks} – Links to the categories under which the post is listed, separated by a comma. Example: Cats, Dogs, Pets
  • {authorname} – Name of the author of the post, for example Mr. Cool.
  • {authorurl} – URL of the author, for example http://mrcool.com.
  • {authorlink} – Link to the author, for example Mr. Cool
  • {search-terms} – The search terms user used to find your posts, as shown in the referrer.
• Icon: The URL of the icon to display beside the greeting text. If this is left blank, a default RSS icon will be shown. Though any image will do, it’s recommended to use a small one (48×48 px should be perfect).
• This entry is active: The name says it all. Naturally, this should be checked.

Generic Options

Those options are used to specify if you want to show the greeting box on every post, page, before or after… Notice that if you can include a {referrer_detector} anywhere in your post to show the welcome text. If the visitor didn’t come from any of the referrers, don’t worry, the plugin is smart enough to hide that ugly tag from your post.

Screenshots

The entry list.

Edit an entry.

Referrer Detector in action.

FAQ

Q: It just doesn’t work!
A: Sorry to hear that. However, I can only help if you provide me with more information, like under what circumstances, what are your settings etc. If it’s a bug I will try to fix it.

Q: Will it work with my cache plugin?
A: It should – just make sure you delete the cache right after plugin activation. As I mentioned before, a cache plugin only caches the server content as a static HTML file. As Referrer Detector uses client-side JavaScript, it should work regardless if the page is cached or not. If in any case it doesn’t work with a specific caching plugin, please let me know. And FYI, I’m using Wp SuperCache right now

Q: How do I change the default icon? I’m sick of that RSS thing!
A: The default icon file is wp-content/plugins/referrer-detector/images/icons/default.png. Re-decorate however you want.

Q: How about the CSS styles of the greeting box?
A: Check wp-content/plugins/referrer-detector/css/style.css

Q: Where did you get the icons?
A: Instead of grabbing them from FastIcon, I did them myself for my own sake If you want to create more icons with the same style, here is the original PSD file.

Q: Just curious, how did you test this plugin? You don’t have back links from all of those referrers, yes?
A: Of course I don’t – I’m not that famous. Instead, I use the great Firebug to inspect and modify a link on those sites to link to my post, and there I have a good referrer If you have a better and quicker solution, please let me know.

Q: What do you have in mind for the next version?
A: A default greeting for those that don’t have a matching referrer – configurable. Maybe something more.

Q: I like this plugin. How do I support its development?
A: Thank you! Please consider putting a link back to this blog. And please note – the initial credits go to Thaya Kareeson and his great WP Greet Box plugin.

History

To save myself from some extra work, the history is now available only here at the WordPress codex. Sorry if this makes any inconvenience!

Download

Referrer Detector can be downloaded at WordPress Codex here. If you find it useful, please give it a 5-star rating

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