wp-heartbeat-notify

WordPress realtime new post notifications based on heartbeat API

Based on WordPress 3.6 heartbeat API, Wp Heartbeat Notify, display a realtime custom message to your visitor each time a new post is published with a link redirecting to it. Still in beta version, this plugin has been full tested only on WordPress 3.6-beta3.

Install

Just upload wp-heartbeat-notify to your WordPress wp-content/plugin/ folder. Go to Plugins->Installed plugins WordPress menu and activate it. That's it... You just have to write a new article to see it in action (Clearly, the notification will not be displayed to the user who created the event. So, for the purposes of testing, I suggest you open another browser where you're not logged in).

Purpose

This is probably the first, or at least one of the first WordPress plugin that makes use of the Heartbeat API. Its purpose is almost purely didactic and I hope that the solution that I have implemented it can be useful for developing new ideas.

The plugin, however, is fully functional and can increase the functionality with a few lines of code, as described below.

Under the hood

The functioning of the plugin is quite simple.

• All scripts and styles necessary for the functioning of heartbeat are queued
• To generate a notification you hook onto an action or a filter of WordPress and you create a transient that match the length of the heartbeat rate
• wp-heartbeat-notify, every few seconds, check the presence of transient and output the content as a notification

Easy... Isn't it?

Add new notice

To add a new notice, as stated before, you just have to hook into an action or filter and run Wp_Heartbeat_Notify::notify( $args ) as in the following example:

Add a notice on registered users comments

// Let's hook into Comment publication
add_filter ( 'comment_post', 'notify_new_comment' );
function notify_new_comment( $comment_id ) {
  
  // Retrieve the comment
  $comment = get_comment( $comment_id );

  // Check if the user is registered
  if ( ! $comment->user_id > 0 )
		return;
  
  // Get the comment link
  $comment_link = get_comment_link( $comment_id ); 

  // Here's the magic
	Wp_Heartbeat_Notify::notify( array(
		'title'		=>		'New Comment by ' . $comment->comment_author,
		'content'	=>	 	'There\'s a new comment, why don\'t you <a href="' . $comment_link . '">give it</a> a look?',
		'type'		=>		'info'
	) );
	
}

Support and contacts

If you need support you can find me on twitter or comment on the dedicated page on my website.