Ikiru Design

Weeks have a way of getting away from me. Last weekend I was thinking I’d get a post up about my first WordPress plugin, a stand-alone implementation of the Kaleidoscope Mini Quilt, by Tuesday. Suddenly I look down and realize that it’s Sunday and I’ve not written such a post and not updated the plugin’s page beyond a goofy first draft.

If you’re familiar with Kaleidoscope, you know it’s most unique feature is the algorithm that takes the date a post was published and determines a color that, based on some vague ideas of what colors fit what time of year, seems appropriate.

My original implementation of that was a large quilt-looking series of patchs that you can find on my archives page. And while I do like that — and the fact that it gives post names as well as colors — it requires someone to create and click to an archives page to see the best use of the algorithm.

The Mini Quilt was a way that I could have the quilt-looking array of posts, but offer it on every page of any WordPress blog, regardless of the existence of an archives page.

Well, I like the Mini Quilt, and I got a few requests from people who liked it too, so I built a plugin to allow anyone to add it to any widgetized WordPress theme. If also features simple but useful controls that allow you to quickly change patch size, and the number of patches in it to fit any size and show any number of posts.

To use it, you just need to search for the Mini Quilt plugin from inside your WordPress dashboard and install it (still from your dashboad — you’re using WordPress 2.7+, right?). Once it’s installed, activate the plugin and add the widget to your sidebar. It couldn’t be much simpler.

If you’re looking for more information before you take the above steps, you can try the plugin’s page here at Ikiru Design, or at the WordPress plugin repository.