For the first time ever I created my own plugin. Starting out as a hacking attempt, it quickly changed into a prototype plugin.

What it basically does is list the articles that haven’t been read yet by a logged in user. Whenever a change to the post is made or a new comment is posted, the post moves to the top of the unread list.

Download
Get the plugin!

Functionality:

Mark as Read makes it easy for your users to keep track of changes on your blog. Whenever a post is published or updated the post will show up in this list. When a new comment is posted, the post will also go up in this list and will be marked as “unread”.

Features:

• Keeps track of which articles a logged in user has read.
• Posts bump on new comments
• Posts bump on published / updates
• Customizable output
• Lists per category or all categories
• Usable non-output functions

Installation:

1. Download the plugin
2. Upload contents of the zip-archive (the folder) to the plugin directory of your WordPress installation (default: wp-content/plugins/)
3. Enable the plugin through the plugin admin panel
4. Paste code inside template file
5. Enjoy!

Usage:

To output the list all you need to do is to put the following code inside a template file of your theme:

<ul>
<?php the_unread_posts(); ?>
</ul>

This will output all the unread content of all categories.

The following parameters are accepted:

the_unread_posts($categoryID, $noPostsMessage, $updateText, $rowStyle);

$categoryID (Optional, default: “all”):
Supply this parameter if you want to show unread messages from one category only. Give the string “all” if you want to display all categories.

$noPostsMessage (Optional, default: “<li>No unread posts</li>”):
Sets the output of an empty list.

$updateText (Optional, default: array(“New comment(s) and changes”, “Changes”, “New comment(s)”)):
Sets the output of the different types. Give an array with 3 values; first one being the output when a post has new comments and is updated, second for updates only and third for new comments only.

$rowStyle (Optional, default: “<li><a href=’%link%’>%type% on: %title%</a></li>”):
The HTML in which each post has to be shown. Use %link% to insert a permalink to the post, %title% for the post title and %type% for the type of change.