Whalesalad

I've got something I am very proud to release today, that I hope many of you can be thankful for. For the past week or so I have been hard at work with the next version of SocialGrid, and it's ready for all of you to enjoy today. SocialGrid 2.0 is a free WordPress plugin that you can download today and install on your blog to add a nice grid of social media icons linking to your various profiles on the web!

To enjoy the full SocialGrid effect, click on the full screen button in the Screenr player

The first version of SocialGrid was part of my Tasty WordPress theme and made it very easy to add links to sites like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook to your site. SocialGrid is now separating itself from my themes as a WordPress plugin, which means you can get all of the same functionality regardless of the theme that you use. Not only that, but SocialGrid has been expanded to offer links to over 25 different social networks including popular requests like LinkedIn, Vimeo, and now Posterous.

Download it Now

Ready to get your hands dirty? Download SocialGrid and read more below on how to get started with it.

Getting Started

Installing and using SocialGrid is as easy as installing any plugin. Once you've downloaded the plugin from above, unzip and upload via FTP to /wp-content/plugins/ or click on Add New under the Plugins menu in your WordPress admin to upload the zip directly.

Once SocialGrid is installed you configure it under the SocialGrid Options menu item in the Appearance menu. Here is where you'll add or edit services, and change their order. After customizing your SocialGrid, click on the Widgets menu item and drag SocialGrid into your sidebar. This is how you position the actual SocialGrid on your site.

Tasty Users

SocialGrid was birthed out of the Tasty theme, so it's only fitting that it continues to be integrated and developed as a core part of Tasty. With SocialGrid being such a drastic change, I decided to build it as a separate component to prevent a big nasty bess inside of Tasty. SocialGrid (SG) 2.1 will most certainly become integrated back into Tasty, I am just not 100% sure how yet. It's also important to note that SG is a very young product and still has bugs and kinks that need to be worked out, so that's another reason why it hasn't been integrated into Tasty just yet.

There is good news, however. SocialGrid works with any WordPress theme, so you can install it and use it with your Tasty theme! Simply uncheck the Enable SocialGrid checkbox in your Tasty Theme Options area, and follow the instructions in this post to install, configure, and use SocialGrid as though you were using any other WordPress theme.

Problems? Questions? Concerns?

SocialGrid is a young plugin. While the idea has been sitting in my head for a couple of months, It was developed in about 3 days from start to finish. It's gonna have problems, and I expect all of you to help me find them! You can contact me directly or if you feel that you've found a real problem with SocialGrid you can create an issue on Github (this is definitely encouraged).

Speaking of Github

While I do offer certain WordPress products for sale, I also like to give back and share with the wonderful WordPress community. I am hosting the SocialGrid project on Github for all of you developers and tweakers to fork and play with.

I've worked real hard on finishing what I think is a real great WordPress plugin, and I hope that you enjoy it! Happy Thanksgiving!

SocialGrid Changelog

• v2.3 (12/30/09) - Added a feature to disable tooltips completely.
• v2.2 (12/29/09) - Implemented a simple check to ensure that PHP4 users are notified that their servers are out of date, with instructions on how to switch to PHP5.
• v2.11 (12/28/09) - Added Technorati to the mix of new icons. It behaves similarly to the RSS icon, in that it doesn't require any input and generates your Technorati profile link automatically.
• v2.1 (12/22/09) - Added a TON of new icons (including Posterous) as well as new features like a master reset and the ability to display smaller 16x16 icons rather than the traditional 32x32.
• v2.02 (12/15/09) - Improved compatibility with many themes with some !important action on the CSS and fixed an issue where services could be added more than once.
• v2.01 (12/03/09) - Fixed a minor issue with the RSS feed url, and css styling.
• v2.0 (11/26/09) - This is the initial release of the SocialGrid plugin!