18
Aug
My First WordPress Plugin: “Zap Read This Post”
I just finished writing my first plugin for WordPress! It’s called “Zap Read This Post” and it places a button before each post that says, “Zap Read This”. When a user clicks on the button it will open a new window and load the text of the post into Zap Reader so that visitors can quickly read the text of that particular post. Do you see it? Well, what’cha waitin’ for? Go ahead, click it, and try it out!
Writing this was much easier than I initially expected. I looked at the code for a couple other plugins that added something before or after the post, and reviewed the WordPress Plugin API. I was up and running in no time.
I had initially hard-coded a button last weekend when I made the site live. That was certainly more challenging than using the APIs and doing it right. 
If you have a WordPress blog, know a little bit about PHP (or are willing to learn), and want to make your blog do something new and interesting, then I strongly encourage you to spend a little time investigating how to create your own WordPress plugins. You’ll have a lot of fun, learn a lot, and contribute to your neighbors on the web as well.
Find out more about the “Zap Read This Post” plugin for WordPress.
Color me confused. I thought I was reading your post. The Zap Reader thing does bring it up in a new window, and when I press play it scrolls it back one word at a time. Is that what it is supposed to do? Anyway, congrats on writing the plug-in, that’s an accomplishment…
August 24th, 2006 at 3:59 amTerry – Yes, that’s what it’s supposed to do. It loads the text of the post into Zap Reader so that you can speed read the post. What were you expecting? I don’t want to confuse people.
August 24th, 2006 at 8:26 amNeat! Good luck with it, Ricky.
September 3rd, 2006 at 2:07 pmAny way to add a “zap read this” button without using a browser-side plugin? For instance, two of my clients would like to use the ZapReader on their websites.
By the way, ZapReader is a wonderful creation.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:45 pmJoseph – This WordPress plug-in isn’t a browser-side plug-in; it’s a server-side plug-in. I also provide code to several other server-side plug-ins for popular blogging programs on the Zap Reader Tools page. Your clients can feel free to use those. If they aren’t using any of those blogging systems, you can still code your own. It just needs to store the text in a field named “PastedText” and post that field to http://www.zapreader.com/reader/
I’m glad you’re enjoying Zap Reader! Good luck with your client’s integration.
March 9th, 2008 at 7:46 pm