I was recently inspired to write my first Wordpress plugin, Friday Photos. The Friday Photos plugin will access your Flickr account and create a weekly post of a specified number of pictures based on username and tags. The first release will require a Flickr API Key, Flickr Secret and Flickr Username to be entered on the Friday Photos Options screen. (see screen shot below) Future releases will pull the description field and tags from Flickr, improve photo selection options, and add Flickr video support.

The plugin draws on the code and ideas of two great plugins, the Slickr Gallery and Yet Another Daily Delicious. As this was my first attempt at writing a plugin the challenge of learning phpFlickr, the Flickr API, the basics of Wordpress Plugin design, and how WP Pseudo Cron works all at once was challenging but with these well done plugins to look at it proved a very doable project.

A sample post can be seen live on the blog Milwaukee Development Update and starting Friday April 25th 2008, the site Friday Photos, will use the plugin to display weekly photos. The Friday Photos site will be the place to look for new releases and additional documentation for the Friday Photos Plugin.

To try out this plugin yourself:

1. Download Friday Photos
2. Upload the plugin into your wp-content/plugins directory
3. Extract the .zip file
4. Activate the plugin in the plugin administration page
5. Open the plugin configuration page, which is located under Options -> Friday Photos and enter your Flickr username, Flickr API Key, Flickr Secret and additional paramaters. To obtain a Flickr API Key click here
6. The plugin will automatically create a Friday post of pictures from your Flickr Account