Magic Number Plugin
Though I haven’t made a post to this blog in about 10 days I have still been wortking on it behind the scenes. The most noticeable feature I have implemented is the magic number counter on the top of the page. It’s something that I wanted to do for a long time but I didn’t want to do it if it meant having to change the number manually since that could be a tedious task and would no doubt lead to days where I would skip the task and end up displaying the wrong number.
After much searching I found a site that maintains an up to date XML file of the baseball standings including the magic number of each first place team. So I created a plugin for WordPress, the software that powers this blog, that examines this XML file and extracts the Mets magic number for display. I simply uploaded and activated the plugin and then placed a placeholder for it at the top of the page. Now the magic number gets updated automatically when the standings XML is updated. No muss, no fuss.
What do I plan to do with this plugin? Currently it’s specific to the Mets. I plan on generalizing it so that it would work for the team of your choice. (Choose a team from the admin page and whenever the team is in first place you’ll get their magic number.) I’s also like to make a version that displays MLB standings. (Select a division to show in your sidebar or something like that.)
If you are interested in anything like this for your blog then please let me know. Knowing that there are other people who want these things will help me get them done.
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