The objective of this proposal is to develop enhancements to WordPress to make it easier for freelance programmers to use the software as a tool to showcase and publish their work and manage client contacts.

Project Proposal

I propose to create a suite of WordPress plugins and package it as a piece of software named "FreelancePress" (FP). FreelancePress would contain at least four different plugins or enhancements that would work together to create the perfect freelance portfolio and resume site:

Portfolio Component

The portfolio component will be one of the main attractions of the package and allow freelancers to share their past work with prospective clients. The portfolio component will include at least the following functionality:

• Image Upload and Gallery: FP would provide an image upload and gallery function for displaying screen shots and other graphic portfolio objects. The gallery should be powered by Light Box for added effectiveness and to allow for flipping or paging through the different portfolio entries.
• Categories: FP will allow for unlimted category nesting.
• Portfolio Custom Fields: FP would allow for the creation of custom fields to be added to portfolio entries. By default, users would be able to enter details for "Description", "Client", "URL", "Agency", "Title" and "Date". By allowing custom fields as well, users would not be limited in terms of what or how much they could write about their portfolio entries.
• Widget: The FP widget system would allow a recent entry or selected entry or entries to be shown in the sidebar, footer, etc.

Contact Component

A contact component will be created to allow potential clients to easily contact the owner of the site. There will be two options for contact:

• Contact Information: Allows the owner to quickly list IM names, emails and phone numbers.
• Contact Form: To cut down on the effort needed to contact the freelance programmer, there will be an extended contact form. The form will allow custom fields including attachments. This would allow a client to send any information the freelancer might need, such as a design specification at the time the contact is made.

Testimonials Component

This would be a small FP plugin to share and manage testimonials from other clients. The plugin would include pagination and ordering capabilities. The plugin would allow linking from a testimonial comment to a portfolio entry.

Social Network Integration

FP will contain enhancements to enable tighter social network integration. For instance, a freelancer's Twitter, LinkedIn account, and Facebook accounts and selected content could be showcased in the portfolio and used to supply updates on the freelancer's activities, credentials and accomplishments.

For these reasons, the WordPress search system needs an overhaul and enhancement. Members of a blog need to be able to find what they need quickly and efficiently. The search capabilities of WordPress should allow for a greater flexibility and power in search configuration and strategy so that blog users retrieve optimal relevant search results.

Project Proposal

My proposal is to create a basis for a new search engine to replace the simple input box search currently employed. The new plugin to power the backend search would support advanced search capabilities such as boolean search, multiple content searches (posts, tags, pages, authors and any available metadata) and flags (finding posts with A string in category C).

The main feature/power of the plugin will lie in its extensibility: The plugin I propose will include the ability to drop in extension plugins (which is essentially introducing a new file in the search plugin's own plugin folder) to extend the search system. This feature will allow a user to select the search software to power the backend. This ability to customize search resources will provide a blog owner with the ability to manipulate the blog's search capability and power.

Default search components

My proposal would include several different default search components:

• a MySQL/Database plugin as the default database plugin. The new MySQL searching will offer improvements over the current search system, including multiple content searching and some flag search options.
• A Sphinx plugin that requires minimal configuration. The Sphinx searching will include multiple content type searches, flags, and advanced search types such as extended and boolean.
• A Google search module which uses Google as a backend for searching. I feel that some people would prefer to hand their searching tasks over to Google; this plugin module also allows for advanced searching capabilities as well. This module will also demonstrate that WordPress search capabilities can be supplied by third party services and APIs.

If none of these three types of default search engine enhancements are adequate for a user's needs, then a new plugin can be created by following the developer documentation to be supplied with the project, and then dropping the new plugin into the search folder.

Once a search plugin is uploaded, the user can manage it from the admin control panel; the control panel will include an enable/disable option to select which search engine to employ as well as the ability to configure any settings that might be associated with the search plugin.

Search modes

In addition to the search functionality described above, the search enhancement will provide three ways to search:

• A live search mode using AJAX to search quickly on the current page using the new search syntax.
• A basic input box that supports the new search syntax which will appear if JavaScript is disabled or if the live search mode is disabled.
• An "advanced search" page (depending on which search plugin is selected) which provides all the available search options such as search by category, posts by a certain author, etc.