Plugin Name: Snowfall
Version: 0.9.1 rc1
Plugin URI: wpplugins.info/category/plugins/snowfall/
Description: Snowfall creates the effect of falling snowflakes, leaves, hearts, flowers etc.
Author: Andy Beard
Author URI: www.wpplugins.info
I thought this would be a nice Wordpress plugin to knock together for the holiday season.
It is based on code from DynamicDrive.com thus I had problems with writing a license that comply with the original authors requirements and those of Wordpress which is under GNU GPL.
Release Notes:-
0.9.1 release candidate 1
The code is fully functional on an estimate 50% of themes.
Tested on:-
Wordpress 1.5.2
Wordpress 2.0
HACK: This code currently contains a hack for themes that don’t contain footer.php
< ?php wp_footer(); ?> within the footerThe hack will not take effect if a theme cannot be written to, e.g. CHMOD 666
December 23rd, 2005 at 3:22 pm
Great job. I just removed the javascript code I put into my header and activated your plugin. It works great.
Thanks.
Since you appear to be a wiz at creating plugins, could you help me with one I am trying to create? Please email me, if you can help.
Thanks again, jim
December 23rd, 2005 at 5:27 pm
Cool…nice effect..
Merry X-Mas!
December 23rd, 2005 at 6:33 pm
Love it! Very festive, indeed.
December 24th, 2005 at 4:53 am
[…] is gonna hate this. I’m such a resource pig… [link] Relatedposts: […]
December 27th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
[…] あまりにも切ないので、せめてこのブログだけは夢を見ようと、「Snowfall Plugin RC1」で雪を降らせてみました。 […]
December 27th, 2005 at 10:01 pm
[…] By Popular Demand… Here’s the snow ! (Thx to Andy Beard) (0) […]
December 27th, 2005 at 10:39 pm
Hi,
Snowfall isn’t working on Arzel XT2 theme and WP 2.0, what should I do?
December 28th, 2005 at 6:22 am
Have you tried with a clean Wordpress 2.0 installation and just the theme?
Please elaborate on “isn’t working”.
I can’t access the theme to test it (the author’s server bandwidth is exceeded)
Was the theme applied normally, or did you have to CHMOD the theme files to patch the footer?
(If you are not sure you can check the dates of the files to see when they were modified).
Is the code actually being inserted in the rendered pages?
Did you test with multiple browsers?
December 28th, 2005 at 11:13 am
Neat plugin, thanks!
January 3rd, 2006 at 1:45 am
Cool plugin, Andy! I’ve got a question: it works fine when I have the default theme enabled, but doesn’t work on my custom theme at all. Mine’s a holdover from WP1.2, and I haven’t “themeatized” it yet — I’m just using one big index.php file for now, so I don’t even *have* a footer.php. Is that what’s breaking it? Is there a way I can hack my page manually to make it work?
January 3rd, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Hey! Nevermind that last comment! (I just peeled the bottom of my page off into footer.php and added the call at the end of index.php, duh. Works beautifully now.)
So *here’s* a more difficult question — I’d like to use some beautiful .png snowflakes, with drop-shadows (you can see them running at www.ferrellweb.com). Of course, that’s going to give IE fits. I’m terrible with Javascript; is there a way I can adjust the script in the plugin so it simply doesn’t display in IE?
January 3rd, 2006 at 3:48 pm
It might be easier to just use the javascript code straight from Dynamic Drive, and then put the graphic file definition within the NS and IE specific logic, for instance where it calculates the width.
Then you could have a version of the graphic for FF and a version for IE.
A modification within the plugin itself is going to be a little messy/
January 3rd, 2006 at 3:52 pm
Heh. That’s what I was afraid of. Just so nice to have a plugin, though. I’ll take a swing at the javascript. Thanks!
January 3rd, 2006 at 5:00 pm
Making the change within the plugin isn’t any more difficult, but it would still be effectively hard coding a graphic location for one of the browsers.
It is not something I would want to do for general distribution, because to make it user friendly with a fallback routine and an easily understandable interface just adds too many complications.
The declaration for the graphic is
var snowsrc=”‘.IMAGE_PATH.’”
You would need to move that into the browser logic
if (ns6up) {
doc_width = self.innerWidth;
doc_height = self.innerHeight;
} else if (ie4up) {
doc_width = iecompattest().clientWidth;
doc_height = iecompattest().clientHeight;
}
Within one of these you would have to have a hard coded image, either your png or the original gif, and use the interface for changing the other one.
January 5th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Awesome! Thanks! I didn’t like the way the .gifs looked in IE, though, so I just hacked them out altogether — what they don’t know won’t kill ‘em, I suppose.
Those .png’s sure look sweet, though. Thanks again for the plugin!
February 14th, 2006 at 10:42 am
[…] XSPF Player Plugin : Une adaptation du lecteur multimédia en Flash XSPF Player, pour Wordpress : facile à installer, il fait appel à la base de données pour organiser les chansons (exactement comme les articles). Le tout au travers d’une interface parfaitement intégrée dans le tableau de bord. Que demande le peuple ? Snowfall : Un petit délire qui me trottait dans la tête depuis quelques temps, histoire d’égayer un peu les pages du blog. Après avoir testé une dizaine de JavaScripts (et étant un newbie en Java, ce ne fut pas chose facile !), je suis tombé sur le plugin WP, ça marche tout seul ! Ah oui, le principe : des flocons de neige qui tombent sur le blog ; suivant la saison, vous pouvez les remplacer par des feuilles, des fleurs, des bombes… :S […]
March 7th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Is there a reason why the js sometimes displays the snowflake beyond the visible width of the browser causing a horizontal scrollbar to appear briefly? That’s really the only problem I’ve seen with you great plugin which I have been using for a couple of months. I’m currently displaying 4-leaf clovers.
March 9th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
Funny plugin, but I have 2 issues:
1. Your flakes concentrate on the mddle of the screen. On my test site I have one flake that is falling directly to the ground (with the same velocity as the others but not with the side movement of falling flakes). Beside that it shows a border and a black background (the other flakes have a transparent background and no borders).
2. The velocity of the falling flakes is on IE very fast, on FF 1.5.1 it’s o.k. Can I / you change this?
Could you provide more images (e.g. hearts etc. as mentioned or is there a good source for this stuff?
emeff
August 29th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
I can’t figure out how to make it work. How do I tell if it’s one of the 50% themes it doesn’t work in?
Is there an installation instruction that I can’t find?
Thanks for any help. I would love to get this working!
August 31st, 2006 at 7:20 pm
How do you swap it to leaves instead of snowflakes?
September 13th, 2006 at 12:50 am
Sorry for the delay in response
Installation information is within the archive
As to which themes, it is really down to trial and error. Initially instal it on a basic theme, maybe on a test site, and then try it on a theme on your main site once you are comfortable. The most frequent error is for the snowflakes to appear somewhere off the main viewing area.
For leaves just change the graphic file being used.
November 29th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
Is there a way to call the function from an individual post? I’d like to have this run on any page (index or indiv.) that a post shows up on, but not on every single page of the site.
I am using a plugin (runPHP) that allows PHP code in individual posts, if that helps.
Any ideas? Thanks.
November 30th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
[…] Since it has been very cold the last couple of nights, I’ve decided to turn on the snowflakes plugin. A number of flakes will come down at varying rates simulating a very, very cold wintery day. It’s time to bundle up. Fire up the old chimney and drink some hot chocolate. […]
December 1st, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Hi Mike
You could just use the original code from Dynamic drive and echo it to the page.
Doing this with the plugin, you could wrap the code with some logic based on specific post numbers, or checking for a specific custom variable, date or category.
December 5th, 2006 at 3:19 am
[…] I’ve decided to change things a little bit by changing the color scheme of this website. It’s a far cry from the original Black-Letterhead theme, but it still uses the same framework. My new theme now uses a dark-red color scheme similar to the colors of the old Roman Empire. The biggest change is the use of a PHP script that converts text to graphic images. The header, page and post titles are actually graphic images generated on the fly whenever a page is requested. To top it off, I turned on the WordPress Snowflakes plugin to mimic the upcoming winter season. […]
December 8th, 2006 at 2:57 pm
Works really great.. first time.
I assume you just deactivate when you don’t want it on?
I plan on trying to modify it to make the snowflakes random sizes (probably just a random width field).
Love the way you made one of the flakes a clickable link back to your site.. I may modify to do the same with making snowflakes links to other winter/christmas based sites!
December 8th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
[…] Want to join in the Christmas mood? Go get your WordPress snowfall plugin from Andy Beard. It is easier than making a snowball. […]
December 11th, 2006 at 4:04 am
Hi Shawn, glad you got it working easily.
I can’t take any credit for the link idea, it was part of the original code.
Yes just deactivate it when you don’t want to use it.
When I do an update, it will probably have a few additional effects (not just vertical scrolling), multiple graphics, etc.
Random size shouldn’t be too hard to achieve, and it is always possible to put a little emphasis on the one to be clicked.
December 13th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
Cool! I have this plugin on my blog www.mrdefinite.com. Thanks so much!
December 13th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
I am glad to see it working well on your blog Kenneth
December 19th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
[…] The obligatory link to the author. […]
January 21st, 2007 at 5:12 am
[…] And to those who wanted to know where I got the pink, flying, flowers…It is the Andy Beard snowfall, Wordpress plugin. (download link changed to here) I changed his snowflake .gif file to pink colour. I want to make gold coins but I don’t know how to make .gif file that small. You can make the thing fall right to the bottom of your page but I didn’t do it, just leave it fall down to the top screen ‘cos it is annoying as we read. Digg it […]
January 28th, 2007 at 7:14 am
Polishing up my blog Day 2…
*Ding ding* Round 2 of WP mod craze… Go!
Blog button maker: I’d planned to do this for quite some time, but didn’t realize there was a button generator til I visited BlogFlux.com. So I replaced the text RSS feed link in the footer wi…
March 16th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
[…] The obligatory link to the author. Related Posts:The office […]
July 25th, 2007 at 5:24 am
I love this! I had a website waaaayyy back in the day that was aviation-related and for Christmas one year I did something similar, but I made it from scratch. I don’t know a lick of php, so that took about a month to get working…wish I would have had this plugin then!