Tag: WordPress

Translating WordPress with Zero Tech Skills: My Talk at Patras Tech Talks

lenastergLeave a comment

Last Saturday, November 15, 2025, I had the absolute thrill of speaking at Patras Tech Talk 2025.11 – Going International about how anyone—yes, even with absolutely no tech background—can pitch in to make WordPress fully Greek.

From my own mom, Kyra Chrysoula, scratching her head at “Login” and asking, “What on earth is that, dear?“, to those pesky “Add to Cart” buttons scaring off customers from Greek online shops, we unpacked why translation isn’t just nice to have—it’s a total game-changer.

We dove into the amazing WordPress Polyglots team, the three super straightforward ways to contribute translations to WordPress.org, some hilariously epic (and cringeworthy) translation mishaps, and how you can jump in and start translating in under 5 minutes right here.

  • My full presentation – translated in English is up for grabs right here.

Huge shoutout to the Patras Tech Talks organizers and everyone who showed up with killer questions—the Greek WordPress community is leveling up because of you all!

#WordPressGR #Polyglots #PatrasTechTalks #Translation #WordPress

Παρουσίαση στο Patras Tech Talks: «Μετάφραση WordPress με 0% τεχνικές γνώσεις»

lenastergLeave a comment

To Σάββατο 15 Νοεμβρίου 2025 είχα την τιμή να παρουσιάσω στο Patras Tech Talk 2025.11 [Going international] το πώς μπορεί ο καθένας, ακόμα και χωρίς ίχνος τεχνικών γνώσεων, να βοηθήσει να γίνει το WordPress 100% ελληνικό και γιατί αυτό είναι σημαντικό.

Από την κυρά Χρυσούλα, την μητέρα μου, που βλέπει το “Login” και απορεί «Τι είναι αυτό παιδί μου;», μέχρι τα κουμπιά “Add to Cart” που διώχνουν πελάτες από ελληνικά e-shop, δείξαμε γιατί η μετάφραση δεν είναι πολυτέλεια – είναι αναγκαιότητα.

Μιλήσαμε για την ομάδα Polyglots του WordPress, τους 3 τρόπους που μπορεί κανείς να μεταφράσει για το WordPress.org, τα επικά (και τραγικά) μεταφραστικά λάθη, και πώς ξεκινάς σε 5 λεπτά στο https://translate.wordpress.org.

H παρουσίαση στα ελληνικά είναι διαθέσιμη εδώ:

Login τι είναι αυτό παιδί μου; Μεταφράζοντας το WordPress, με 0% τεχνικές γνώσεις;Λήψη

Μεγάλο ευχαριστώ στους διοργανωτές του Patras Tech Talks και σε όλους εσάς που ήρθατε και ρωτήσατε – η ελληνική κοινότητα WordPress μεγαλώνει μαζί σας!

#WordPressGR #Polyglots #PatrasTechTalks #Μετάφραση

Φυσικά μετά ως γνήσιοι Έλληνες είχαμε και συνέχεια σε ταβέρνα

Fixing Greek Filenames for og:image Compatibility in WordPress

lenastergLeave a comment

While working with WordPress and social media, I noticed an issue when sharing images on Facebook. Specifically, images with Greek characters in their filenames wouldn’t show up as og:image thumbnails, even though they were properly uploaded.

To address this, I developed a simple WordPress plugin LS Sanitize Greek Filename, that automatically sanitizes Greek filenames. It converts Greek characters into their Latin equivalents, making the filenames compatible with platforms like Facebook, ensuring that images appear correctly when shared.

This plugin is useful for WordPress users dealing with Greek filenames, helping ensure their images display as thumbnails in social media previews. It’s also multisite compatible!

You can find the plugin on https://wordpress.org/plugins/ls-sanitize-greek-filename/

Plugin “All Sites Columns for Multisite”

lenastergLeave a comment

The new plugin available at https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-sites-columns-for-multisite/ is Multisite specific for the superadmin and adds the columns:

  • blog_id
  • public
  • archived
  • mature
  • spam
  • deleted
  • site_id

into the ‘Sites’ admin table in Network administration page, allowing this way the superadmin to sort blogs by the desired column and spot sites which are for example deleted by their owners.

The superadmin can hide the Columns, which are useless for her/him via the ‘Screen Options’ tab.

New plugin released: Easy search and use CC-licensed images for WP

lenastergLeave a comment

The Creative Commons image search plugin for WordPress we created in Greek School Network is now available as a plugin in WordPress.org with the name “Easy search and use CC-licensed images for WP”

The plugin helps you search millions of free photos using the Creative Commons Catalog API then insert the original image into content or set as featured image very quickly.

screenshot-3

The plugin’s features are:

  • Works in WordPress editor and add a button above the content text area and into the “Add Media” pop-up window.
  • Via a pop-up window, allows searching through millions of images using Creative Commons Catalog API power.
  • Allows filtering by a provider
  • Paginated results
  • Quick insert original image or thumbnail with a link to the image URL
  • Use image as a featured image for the blog post
  • WPML compatible
  • Multisite compatible
  • Translation ready (it’s already translated in Greek)
  • Tested up to WordPress 5.2 with Classic Editor plugin

As intended, we already use the plugin in https://blogs.sch.gr, which hosts more than 50.000 blogs. The plugin is available to all its blogs and users since middle May, who has been using it without any issues reported yet.

Read the complete story behind the creation of this plugin at CC Open Source Blog

 

 

WP CC Search plugin – 0.10

lenastergLeave a comment

Inspired by the new CC Search tool https://search.creativecommons.org/ I decided to try and make a WordPress plugin based on it. The goal was to have an image search functionality from CC licensed images into the post editor.

Test site

You can test the resulting plugin functionality at http://users.sch.gr/stergatu/wordpress/ by login as testuser, testuser and let me know what you think of it.

Plugin source

You can find the code, contribute and report bugs at  https://github.com/lenasterg/wp_ccsearch

What the plugin does:

WP CCSearch helps you search millions of free photos using the CCsearch API (https://api.creativecommons.engineering/#tag/image) then insert the original image into content or set as featured image very quickly. The plugin is inspired and based on the https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org/ and it wouldnt’t be possible without the Creative Commons Catalog API https://api.creativecommons.engineering/

After the plugin’s activation, you can see the “Image via CCSearch” button above the editor and as option into the “Add Media” pop-up window. By pressing it you can search using Latin characters for an image, browse the returned images, preview an image and its license and adjuct the image settings:

  • use of thumbnail or original image,
  • set the image link (if any).
  • Insert the image into the post or as featured image.

Screenshots:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

You can try the plugin and let me know what you think of it.

https://github.com/lenasterg/wp_ccsearch

Build it with scratch.mit.edu. Show it in your WordPress site

lenastergLeave a comment

icon-256x256With Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/), you can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations – and share your creations with others in the online community. Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively – essential skills for life in the 21st century.

Now, with LS oEmbed support for Scratch Mit  you can just copy-paste the URL from a scratch project into the content area of a post or page
and it will by transformed to oEmbed.

This oEmbed functionality was initial build for the Greek Schools Network blogging platform (http://blogs.sch.gr) and now it is available for all via the WordPress repository in https://wordpress.org/plugins/ls-oembed-support-for-scratch-mit/

The plugin is a useful addon for educational WordPress sites.

The Greek Schools’ Network goes (more) WordPress – Its 1st plugin is here

lenastergLeave a comment

The Greek Schools’ Network (GSN – http://www.sch.gr) is the educational intranet of the Ministry of Education, which interlinks all Greek schools and provides high quality electronic services.

Among other services (such as blogging platforms), it allows teachers, schools to upload and share videos and slideshows using the http://vod-new.sch.gr and http://mmpres.sch.gr sites.

Now we go a step further.

Its 1st WordPress plugin Sch.gr Commons plugin. adds oEmbed support in WordPress posts, pages and custom post types for videos, presentations etc from the vod-new.sch.gr, mmpres.sch.gr sites of Greek Schools Network. There are no settings.

Simply, add the URL in your content editor. Just paste the given “Απευθείας σύνδεσμος” link from the “Κοινοποίηση” section of a video from vod-new.sch.gr into the content area and it will by transformed to oEmbed into your post, page or custom post type.

You can find the Sch.gr Commons into the WordPress.org repository https://wordpress.org/plugins/schgr-commons/

Copy the url from a vod-new.sch.gr video

Paste a simple url in post

The resulted embed video from vod-new.sch.gr into the post.

Embed SlideSnack presentation into your wordpress post with LS Snacktools plugin

lenastergLeave a comment

SlideSnack.com is a great presentation sharing tool that enables you to easily upload and share presentations online.
But there was a small “gap” if you wanted to embed your presentation into a WordPress site. You had to use iframe.  NOT any more.

With the LS Snacktools plugin you can just copy-paste the given “Link to this post” from Slidesnack.com into the content area and it will by transformed to oEmbed into your post, page or custom post type.

You can find the LS Snacktools plugin in the WordPress.org repository: https://wordpress.org/plugins/ls-snacktools/

Ls Gtrans Widget: New simple widget with selectbox to Google translation for the current page.

lenastergLeave a comment

Simple drag and drop the widget to allow your visitors to translate the viewed page in google translate. The plugin is created, due to security restrictions of WordPress. It simply displays a select box with more than 25 European languages. When a user selects a language a new window in http://translate.google.com/ opens.

  • The original language is autodetected.
  • Multisite ready.

Widget code available at: 

https://wordpress.org/plugins/ls-gtrans-widget/

 

Widget drag and drop

Widget in frontend