Born On This Day

This plugin adds a sidebar widget that display famous people born on this day in history.

Download
Download the plugin here: Born on this day (81.94 KB)

Installation

    To install the plug-in:

  • Unpack the *.zip file and extract the /born-on-this-day/ folder and the files
  • Using an FTP program, upload the full /born-on-this-day/ folder to your WordPress plugins directory (Example: /wp-content/plugins)
  • Go to Plugins > Installed and activate the plugin.
    To add the widget:

  • Go to Appearance > Widgets, add the widget to the sidebar of your choice and save.

    To use the shortcode:

  • Simply add [born-on-this-day] to your posts or your pages.

Frequently Asked Questions

    Why is the widget displaying the wrong date?

  • Currently, the plugin uses your server clock to determinate today’s date. If there is a lot of difference between today’s date and what the plugin displays, your server clock is probably not set correctly. If there is a one day difference between today and what the plugin displays, your server is probably in a different timezone than you are. While it is not possible to fix an incorrectly set clock, there is a fix in the work to use the browser time to compensate for time zones differences.

    How can I support this plugin?

  • If you enjoy this plugin and would like to help with the development, please consider donating. Otherwise, spread the word, report bugs and give this plugin a good rating.

    How do I report a bug?

  • If you find any bugs with the plugin or if you have any suggestions, please leave a comment to let me know.

Version history
The current version of the plugin is 2.0
The plugin requires Wordpress to be at least version 2.5
The plugin has been tested with wordpress version up to 2.8.2

    2.0

  • Compatibility check with WordPress 2.8.2
  • Fixed a bug where there was no data for July 24
  • Minor localisation work
  • New [born-on-this-day] shortcode
  • New WordPress 2.8 widget structure
  • Use WordPress date format
    1.6.1

  • Keep settings after deactivation
    1.6

  • Fixed a bug where there was no data for May 31
    1.5

  • Minor localisation work
    1.4

  • Faster code
    1.3.2

  • Files are now UTF-8, no BOM
    1.3.1

  • Minor localisation work
    1.3

  • It is now possible choose alignment in the plugin
    1.2

  • Faster code
  • Fixed a bug where it is impossible to change the title in the widget
    1.1

  • Fixed a bug where the wrong date is displayed on some servers
    1.0

  • Initial release
    To do

  • Integrate French localization.
  • Modify the plugin to use the SQL database.
  • Add a page for easy customization of the data.
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33 Comments to “Born On This Day”

  1. 1. baron Says:
    March 30th, 2009 at 3:59 am

    Works great, thank you

  2. 2. Cheryl F. (The Lucky Ladybug) Says:
    March 30th, 2009 at 8:00 am

    I just saw this in WordPress plugins and installed it. I like it, but … today is March 30 and it’s showing birthdays for March 31. Also, it left aligns to the edge of the sidebar. It would be nice to be able to offset or center the widget.

    I’m deactivating the plugin for now. Looks stupid to say people born tomorrow are born on this day.

  3. 3. Joe Says:
    March 30th, 2009 at 10:47 am

    @Cheryl:
    What’s happening is that the plugin use your server current time and date to determinate today’s date and, most likely, your server is in a different timezone than you are. I’ll work on a fix tonight to use the timezone setting in Wordpress. I should have thought of that in the first place. Stay tune v1.1 is coming shortly.

  4. 4. Jan Says:
    March 31st, 2009 at 3:24 pm

    Hi
    It seems to be impossible to change the title in the widget “Born on this day”. ? or am i wrong ?

    I would prefeer to put in a “norwegian” title :-)

  5. 5. Joe Says:
    March 31st, 2009 at 11:29 pm

    @Jan:
    That’s a bug. It’s fixed now. Install version 1.2 and you should be fine. Thanks a lot for reporting it :)

  6. 6. Sunny Says:
    April 3rd, 2009 at 8:33 pm

    I am using one of your plugins “Born on this day” I keep getting the update, but it no matter what I do I get this error message “Plugin upgrade Failed” What should I do?
    Sunny

  7. 7. Roger Says:
    April 4th, 2009 at 8:44 am

    You can change the title if you know how to edit php files, just open up the “born-on-this-day.php” file and replace every single reference of “born_on_this_day”, “born-on-this-day” and “Born on this day” with “new_title”, “new-title” and “New Title” respectively, including the name of the PHP file itslef and the containing folder. I even changed the comments to reflect this change, altho I did leave the URI (line 6) unchanged.
    I uploaded the new folder into the plugins directory, right alongside the original unaltered “born-on-this-day” plugin, and after activating the plugin, I now have “Born Today” on the left of my blog, and “Born on this day” on the right side.
    I don’t recommend it unless you have some idea of what you are doing, but even a php beginner like myself was able to figure it out, with some trial and error…
    Thanks for the great plugin!

  8. 8. Joe Says:
    April 4th, 2009 at 3:27 pm

    @Sunny:
    It’s probably a permission problem. Either wordpress can’t delete the old version or can’t write the new one. I’ll follow up with you by email.

    @Roger:
    That would work but I wouldn’t recommend doing that. An easier way is to get version 1.2 or newer of the plugin as that bug has been corrected.

  9. 9. pammy Says:
    April 28th, 2009 at 3:19 pm

    Hello Joe,
    what about showing the age of the person between parenthesis, e.g.:
    1980 John Doe (29)

    and… making the current day bold or centered aligned??

    tia, and many compliments. Byeeeeeeeeee

  10. 10. Tamas Says:
    May 1st, 2009 at 12:40 am

    Hi!
    Great plugin, worked immediatelly. Thanks.

    Question: I would like to ADD people to the list for my site. So, my family members and my friends would be listed on my site, as well among the famous people…
    How could I add my own data?

    Thanks

    Tamas

  11. 11. Joe Says:
    May 2nd, 2009 at 1:43 pm

    @pammy:
    I’m not sure about adding the age of the person as a lot of people on the list are dead. But, I certainly will add some formatting options for the day in the next version.

    @Tamas:
    It’s possible to add people by modifying the .dat files. For each month, there is 2 .dat file. For example, for January you will have l01.dat for left align data and r01.dat for right align data. Each line in the .dat files correspond to a specific day. Just make sure that you respect the format. In a future version, I will add a configuration page to do that easily through the Wordpress administration panel.

  12. 12. Dick van der Velde Says:
    May 8th, 2009 at 1:20 am

    Just installed the plugin and it’s great. I want to modify the .dat-files by adding some entries myself, but was wondering if it works if I change the name of the month on each line to the local name, for example January would be januari in Dutch. Would that work?

  13. 13. Joe Says:
    May 8th, 2009 at 1:33 am

    @Dick van der Velde:
    That would work :)

  14. 14. Phil Says:
    May 11th, 2009 at 7:02 am

    Hi,

    I’m pretty new at this. I added “Born on this day” to my plugins but it does not show up in either column on my blog. Can anyone give me any options to try? Thanks.

    Phil

  15. 15. Joe Says:
    May 11th, 2009 at 8:21 pm

    @Phil:
    1. Go to Plugins > Installed and activate the plugin if it’s not done already
    2. Go to Appearance > Widgets and add the Born On This Day widget to one of the side bar. Don’t forget to click Save Changes.
    If that doesn’t work, send me an email to contact@joeswebtools.com.

  16. 16. Proinsias Says:
    May 18th, 2009 at 12:32 am

    Is there a plan to make it possible to add other dates, like friends and family, so we can feed from two sources: your list of dates, and our customized one?

  17. 17. Joe Says:
    May 18th, 2009 at 1:20 am

    @Proinsias:
    Yes, I’m currently working on that. It’s on the to do list as “Add a page for easy customization of the data”.

  18. 18. Joe Says:
    May 21st, 2009 at 12:54 pm

    @Everyone:
    I’ve been toying with the idea of creating custom data files for the plugin. For example, I was thinking of creating a range of sports data files (NBA, NFL, etc). That way, people who own a sport blog have data that is directly relevant to their audience. It’s a rather large effort and I’ll have to hire someone to do that. So, I was planning to sell the custom data files for a modest fee. Would that be interesting to anyone? Please give me your opinion using the poll in the right sidebar.

  19. 19. HDS Says:
    May 30th, 2009 at 11:49 pm

    No birthday dates on this day (today).

  20. 20. Joe Says:
    May 31st, 2009 at 1:19 am

    @HDS:
    Thanks a lot for reporting that. I just uploaded version 1.6 that fix the problem.

  21. 21. HDS Says:
    May 31st, 2009 at 11:42 am

    @Joe
    Great!
    Thanks for me and my readers at HDS home.

  22. 22. HDS Says:
    June 14th, 2009 at 3:27 pm

    Many thanks for the new version.
    But the birthyear from Courteney Cox Arquette is the year 1964 not “198″. ;)

  23. 23. Aurelian Says:
    June 15th, 2009 at 12:52 am

    I think you should make the plugin to be able to bold/underline use different styles on date/names.

    Great plugin after all

  24. 24. Joe Says:
    June 16th, 2009 at 12:11 am

    @HDS:
    Thanks a lot for reporting that. That will be fixed in the next version.

    @Aurelian:
    Thanks for your feedback. That will be in version 2.0 along with some other new features (check the todo list).

  25. 25. Peter Lurie Says:
    August 10th, 2009 at 11:50 am

    Hi!
    Is there any way to substitute the database of famous people, for a custom database (like for a family website, and show family member’s birthdays?

    Many thanks
    peter

  26. 26. Joe Says:
    August 18th, 2009 at 11:47 am

    @Peter Lurie:
    It is possible to add / modify the database. I will be providing an interface to do that in the future but for the moment you will have to edit the plugin files. Check the data directory. Every month correspond to a file (January = 1.dat, February = 2.dat, etc…) and in each file every line correspond to a day. Just make sure that you use the same exact data format.

  27. 27. web design constanta Says:
    September 18th, 2009 at 3:29 am

    Very useful plugin. Thanks !

  28. 28. find way Says:
    October 18th, 2009 at 9:59 am

    Thanks , But I want to ask how can I edit plugin CSS ? ..
    so it will them as other !!! .

    Thanks,
    FinWay.

  29. 29. Margo Says:
    November 16th, 2009 at 7:54 am

    Joe,
    Thanks for the great widgets. You are a fun guy. I appreciate it becasue it gives people more reasons to visit my blog. I like Born on this Day and Fun Facts. Thanks so much.
    Margo

  30. 30. find way Says:
    November 17th, 2009 at 7:26 am

    Thanks , But I want to ask how can I edit plugin CSS ? ..
    so it will looks as ohter !!! .

    Plaese I hope you Repley to my Comment

    Thanks,
    FindWay.

  31. 31. find way Says:
    November 17th, 2009 at 9:59 pm

    Thanks , But I want to ask how can I edit plugin CSS ? ..
    so it will looks as ohter !!! .

    here link where is Born On This Day
    http://find.trytop.com/

    Plaese I hope you Repley to my Comment

    Thanks,
    FindWay.

  32. 32. Graham Says:
    November 23rd, 2009 at 9:25 pm

    Hi.
    I am confused. When I install this widget, and it happens with others as well, everything in that side bar menu dissapears except that widget.

    What am I doing wrong.
    I changed themes just in case it was that, but no it still happens.

    Help

    Thanks

  33. 33. Joe Says:
    November 24th, 2009 at 12:23 am

    @find way:
    The plugin doesn’t have a CSS file. It uses the CSS of your theme.
    What are you trying to achieve?

    @Graham:
    A lot of themes have default widgets in the sidebars. The default widgets disappear as soon as you customize the sidebars. You can easily recreate what you add by manually adding the widgets.

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