I wanted to do the same thing for a post’s modified date for a project, so I copied (so credit to Justin Tadlock) the shortcode from Hybrid Core and changed get_the_time() with get_the_modified_time().

It’s that easy. You can use this in your templates with the do_shortcode() function, or however you want to display them.

Here’s the gist.

add_shortcode( 'entry-modified', 'krogs_entry_modified_shortcode' );

function krogs_entry_modified_shortcode( $attr ) {

	$domain = hybrid_get_textdomain();
	$attr = shortcode_atts( array( 'before' => '', 'after' => '', 'format' => get_option( 'date_format' ) ), $attr );

	$modified = '<abbr class="modified" title="' . sprintf( get_the_modified_time( esc_attr__( 'l, F jS, Y, g:i a', $domain ) ) ) . '">' . sprintf( get_the_modified_time( $attr['format'] ) ) . '</abbr>';
	return $attr['before'] . $modified . $attr['after'];

}

The part that says $domain = hybrid_get_textdomain() can be replaced by whatever your theme’s textdomain is if you don’t use a Hybrid Core theme. Now you can simply use the entry-modified shortcode to show when a post was updated.

It can be quite useful if you have a lot of consistently updated content in your blog and want to show that a post is still up to date. I find it highly preferable to removing the post date entirely.

“The car shaped our environment in the 20th century in this huge, tectonic way. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the screen will be as important to shaping our environment in the 21st century. What goes on those screens is pretty important, because the things that we choose to surround ourself with will shape what we become. We’re not just making pretty interfaces, we’re actually in the process of building an environment where we’ll spend the most of our time for the rest of our lives. We’re the designers. We’re the builders. What do we want that enviornment to feel like? What do we want to feel like?”

Wilson Miner said this in this presentation called “When We Build” at a 2011 web conference. I didn’t know who Miner was before the video, but he had a lot to do with Apple’s first major redesign, and is also one of the original developers of the Django framework.

Not much of the presentation is about the web specifically, but it’s really a great talk about how our industry and work fits in with our world experience. He also discusses the relationship between users and the things they interact with, whether a magazine, a car, or a screen. There are too many good quotes in the video to put here, so I included the one that hit me first and hardest. It’s definitely worth the watch, and does a really great job expressing why I get excited about building things on the web.

(hat tip to my coworker, and Infomedia Creative Director, David)

It’s essentially the same concept as the “+ New” menu items in the WordPress 3.3 toolbar, except that it directs you to the main edit.php screen (or equivalent for non-Post post types), rather than the add new post screen. It essentially eliminates one click from the front end.

I often want to just go to the generic post / page / post_type / etc overview screens, and I find this extra toolbar menu useful. Maybe you will too.

Coding this was pretty darn simple. I essentially stole code from the admin-bar.php file from within WordPress’ wp-includes folder, except I used the new add_node function rather than add_menu to register the new items to the toolbar. My favorite part of this plugin is that it will automatically pick up your custom post types for inclusion in the “View” menu.

I’ve created an information page on this site for Toolbar Quick View for anyone that cares. You can download it from the plugin page on WordPress.org, or of course from your dashboard.

If you have any feedback for improvement, I’d certainly appreciate it. This was fun. I already want to do it again.

Well, this isn’t so good for my coworkers, or other WordPress users that could benefit from these.

Some other folks are more organized than me. Bill Erickson, for one, has an awesome list of snippets that he’s shared with the community. I found out about his list from the comments of this WPCandy post which notes that WebDevStudios will also have a snippet repository – which is awesome.

One advantage of sharing code snippets is you know where they are. The other is that it’s a small way to give back. For me, I found most of my code snippets in some original form or another somewhere else in the first place, and the best I can do is share working snippets with others.

So look out for some code snippets. In fact, it’s a big part of my upcoming project code named Happy, which I’m shooting to launch by the end of the month.

Contributions I’m pretty happy about

WPCandy Posts: 74 – I want to write these more consistently in 2012, but maybe not more. Definitely more in-depth and substantial when I do. Total post count on WPCandy is actually 100(nice milestone!), since September 2011.

WPCandy Podcasts: 15 – I hope to double this in 2012

WPCandy First Tastes: 4 + 1 unpublished – This is a fun little project. I’d like to do these a good bit as long as people are enjoying them.

Krogsgard.com: 25 – I want to triple this.

Theme Hybrid: 150-180 forum posts – Probably my most visited website. Kind of difficult to nail down the exact number, but this is close based on paginated archives on my profile page.

Sadface contributions

WordPress Stack Exchange: 0 – I definitely need to change this. I rely on it a great deal, but was slow learning in how to utilize the system.

WP.org forums: 4 – This speaks for itself in how pathetic it is. Going to start posting here more often when I come across things that are easy to help or I have input on an existing thread.

trac: 0 – One of my 2012 goals is to get myself on the 3.4 contributors list.

In Summary

I’m happy with my contributions to the WordPress community. However, I have plans to make these contributions better in 2012, and even a trick or two up my sleeve for other places and ways to write about WordPress.