On further Googling it seemed that there were issues with the XRegExp library and jQuery 1.7.1, reported by other uses on IE 6 to 9. Schabse Laks posted a fix to the problem on his blog, though this gave me a new error, so I have modified it slightly, modification on line 271;

RegExp.prototype.exec = function (str) {
	if (typeof(str) !== "string")
		str = String(str);
	var match = real.exec.apply(this, arguments),
		name, r2;

Download the resolved SyntaxHighlighter files here
shCore.max.js
shCore.js

After using it to create and test more than one extremely complex regular expression, I thought it was time I gave RegexBuddy some ‘big ups’.

So what is so good about RegexBuddy,

Firstly, it allows you to create regular expressions using layman’s terms, “Non printable character”, “Match between zero and unlimited times”, “Create back-reference”, etc, no longer is there a need to remember the regular expression syntax.

Secondly, I can test my regular expression with extreme ease, I can show the full matched text and any matched groupings.

Thirdly, I can directly translate the regular expression to the programming language of choice, VB, PHP, JavaScript, etc, and not have to worry about the specifics of how to form a regular expression for that specific language.

I use RegexBuddy for PHP and JavaScript, I no longer need to ‘guess’ what the regular expression will be and constantly have to upload my code to the server to try it out.

Here’s an example expression I recently used in my WordPress plugin Slimbox2 Slideshow;

Download it from the WordPress Plugin Directory

Remember to enable “Link thumbnails to: Image File” on the WordPress Gallery settings page.

Download it from the WordPress Plugin Directory

Remember to enable “Link thumbnails to: Image File” on the WordPress Gallery settings page, and

to enable “Automatic Gallery Image Link Tagging” on the Slimbox2 Slideshow Options page.

Functionality

The main advantage of Slimbox2 Slideshow plugin is being able to show a slide show of ALL images in every single post.
Click here to see it in action (notice the slide count).

Additional functionality;

• automatically add rel=lightbox’ tags to images.
• automatically re-size images to fit in browser window.
• based on jQuery library, no need for additional libraries such as script.aculo.us or Prototype.

Examples
Slide show of all blog images (click me) – notice the slide count.

Standard images, showing grouping.

Image Map – yes it works

Installation

1. Upload folder ‘thydzik-slimbox2-slideshow’ to the  ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory.
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
3. Under ‘Plugins’ > ‘Slimbox2 Slideshow’, you will find the ‘Slimbox2 Slideshow Options’ page. Next section will explain the options.

Configuration/Options

The following configuration settings are available with meaning;

• Automatic Image Link Tagging – automatically add the HTML to image links to show images in a lightbox. Leave it at default ticked.
• Automatic Resize – automatically resize images in the lightbox to fit the browser window. Large images will be shrunk and small images will be expanded.
• Image Scaling Factor – used to determine how much of the browser window an image will be automatically resized to. The default value of 0.75 means the image will be scaled to 75% of the browser window. This value does not take into account border and caption.
• Enable Slimbox on Image Maps – enable lightbox affect to be enabled for Image Maps.
• Enable Slideshow on All – when ticked, all images and Image Maps will start in slideshow.
• Slide Time – the seconds between images during a slideshow.

Slide show of all blog images

Simply create a link with url “#slide” or just “#s”. For images to appear in the slideshow, they must have a title attribute.

Why was Slimbox2 Slideshow created?

My wife and I were in a situation wanting  to show our photos to our friends, we had Lightbox but every photo needed to be ‘Next’ manually and that would only show photos in a single post. Slimbox2 Slideshow allows for one-click to start a slideshow of all your photos and sit back and enjoy.

Navigate to sonyaandtravis.com/#slideshow to see it in action.

Download Slimbox2 Slideshow from the WordPress Repository here

The following examples use the included example.xml file.

<markers>
<!-- Marker Z has no html to show nonclickability-->
<marker lat="-31.9554" lng="115.85859"  icon="Z" color="c89bff"/>
<marker lat="-32.053128" lng="115.745869" html="Fremantle"  icon="1" color="6b98ff"/>
<!-- Standard marker with html-->
<marker lat="-32.036036" lng="115.92724" html="Lynwood&lt;br&gt;Residence of the author" color="ffed5c"/>
<marker lat="-31.963013" lng="115.836239" html="Kings Park" icon="KP" color="97ec7d"/>
<!-- Character marker with html that includes link-->
<marker lat="-31.956659" lng="115.869906" html="&lt;a href=&quot;http://perthmint.com.au&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Perth Mint&lt;/a&gt;" icon="$" color="ffffff"/>
<line colour="#0000FF" width="2" opacity="0.75">
	<point lat="-32.027579" lng="115.751266" />
	<point lat="-31.987404" lng="115.769463" />
	<point lat="-31.957697" lng="115.852203" />
	<point lat="-31.963814" lng="115.879326" />
	<point lat="-32.026415" lng="115.942154" />
</line>
</markers>

• Marker Z – no HTML, nonclickable.
• Marker 1 – standard maker with some text.
• Marker Default – no icon defaults to standard Google Maps marker.
• Marker $ – some symbols can even be displayed on a marker and links in the HTML.
• Marker KP – up to two characters can be displayed.

The syntax is as follows;

thydzikGoogleMap(example.xml, width, height, zoom, maptype)

where;

• example.xml is your xml file, and example xml file is included with thdyzikGoogleMap in the plugin directory.
• width is the optional width parameter, if left out the default width defined in the thydzikGoogleMap options will be used.
• height is the optional height parameter, if left out the default height defined in the thydzikGoogleMap options will be used.
• zoom is the optional zoom level from 0 to 17 (0 being the furthest away), if left out zoom will be calculated automatically to fit all points.
• maptype is the optional map type parameters, which can be (Normal, G_NORMAL_MAP, N), (SATELLITE, G_SATELLITE_MAP, S), (HYBRID, G_HYBRID_MAP, H), (PHYSICAL, G_PHYSICAL_MAP, P, TERRAIN or T) if left out Normal is defined.

Normal, G_NORMAL_MAP, N or left out; i.e. thydzikGoogleMap(example.xml), thydzikGoogleMap will produce a default styled map;

SATELLITE, G_SATELLITE_MAP, S; i.e. thydzikgooglemap(example.xml, 4, S), thydzikGoogleMap will produce a satellite styled map. Note I have included a zoom of 4, and used the abreviation ‘S’;

HYBRID, G_HYBRID_MAP, H; i.e. tHyDzIkGoOgLeMaP(example.xml,hYbRiD,450,225), thydzikGoolgeMap will produce a hybrid styled map. Note I have included a width and height, and proved that capitalisation is not of concern;

PHYSICAL, G_PHYSICAL_MAP, P, TERRAIN or T; i.e thydzikGoogleMap(example.xml,TERRAIN), thydzikGoogleMap will produce a terrain styled map;

Reading XML from different folder
The XML can be in any location, as long as the whole path is specified i.e. thydzikgooglemap(http://thydzik.com/geocaching/karratha-mar08/karratha-mar08.xml). Yes, even links in the marker text are preserved.

Reading XML from different domain
The XML can even be on a different domain, as long as the whole path is specified. i.e. thydzikgooglemap(http://sonyaandtravis.com/maps/our-nullarbor-adventure-clare-melbourne08.xml).

Unfortunately, it now requires FreeType being compiled into PHP. If FreeType is not installed only the default marker and markers A-Z will be usable, with anything else being replaced with the default marker.

Download the latest from the WordPress Plugin Directory.

• The Google Maps Javascript and thydzikGoogleMap Javascript is downloaded only as needed, speeding up page loading of all pages without maps.
• Removal of <head> code means thydzikGoogleMap will only be present when called.
• Compressed thydzikGoogleMap code.
• Multiple maps can now be created in a single post!
• Map type can be changed from default by providing an additional ‘map type’ parameter.

thydzikGoogleMap produces valid XHTML and allows for easy creation of Google Maps in your WordPress posts from XML map data.

Grab the latest from the WordPress repository.

Examples of the newest functionality below:

Using either: Normal, G_NORMAL_MAP, N or left out; i.e. thydzikGoogleMap(example.xml), thydzikGoogleMap will produce a default styled map

Using either: SATELLITE, G_SATELLITE_MAP, S; i.e. thydzikgooglemap(example.xml, 4, S), thydzikGoogleMap will produce a satellite styled map. Note I have included a zoom of 4, and used the abreviation ‘S’.

Using either: HYBRID, G_HYBRID_MAP, H; i.e. tHyDzIkGoOgLeMaP(example.xml,hYbRiD,450,225), thydzikGoolgeMap will produce a hybrid styled map. Note I have included a width and height, and proved that capitalisation is not of concern.

Finally, using either: PHYSICAL, G_PHYSICAL_MAP, P, TERRAIN or T; i.e thydzikGoogleMap(example.xml,TERRAIN), thydzikGoogleMap will produce a terrain styled map.

As always, comments and suggestions welcome. In a future update I will try to incorporate rounded corners :)

1. Manual zoom parameter added. Google uses an integer value from 0 to 17 (where 0 is the furthest away), to determine the map’s zoom level, this value can now be incorporated into thydzikGoogleMap as follows: thydzikGoogleMap(example.xml, 4). The zoom is an optional parameter and if left out the automatic zoom calculation will be used as before. The width and height of the map can still be added if desired as thydzikGoogleMap(example.xml, 4, 480, 640) or thydzikGoogleMap(example.xml, 480, 640, 4).
2. The thydzikGoogleMap code is disabled if the site is viewed from a proxy, i.e. Google cache. Before a user viewing the blog would receive ‘The Google Maps API key used on this web site was registered for a different web site. You can generate a new key for this web site at http://code.google.com/apis/maps/.’ thydzikGoogleMap now detects this and disables the maps.

Example with the new zoom functionality

Future improvements will include

• Option of choosing Map, Satellite or Terrain
• Disabling all code if no thydzikGoogleMap are present
• Creating multiple maps in a single blog post

Grab the latest from the WordPress repository.

1. Fixed a problem with cross domain xml files. As reported by Erik on thydzikGoogleMap support forum.
2. Added improved output for when directly calling thydzikGoogleMap.php

Before Google bots would have picked it up as

Fatal error: Call to undefined function get_option() in /home ...

Now Google will see:

thydzik.com are proudly using the WordPress plugin thydzikGoogleMap
 to display inline Google maps on their blog.

Where thydzik.com is the WordPress user’s domain including link.

Finally, a small note about upgrading thydzikGoogleMap. WordPress has the option of automatically upgrading, which is very handy; unfortunately this overwrites any XML files you may have been storing in the plugin directory. So it is a better idea to keep all your XML maps in a separate location.

thydzikGoogleMap version 1.3.1