1. The Manual Method

The “proper” way to do this would be to edit your theme and remove the code that displays the post dates.

1. Backup your theme, just in case
2. Go to “Appearance > Editor” and repeat the following steps for each of your theme’s PHP files
3. Look for these function calls in your theme’s code: the_date(), echo get_the_date(), the_modified_date(), and the_time()
4. Surround the function calls with PHP comment markers (/* and */); here are some examples:

   <?php /*the_date();*/ ?>
   <?php /*the_date('F j, Y');*/ ?>
   <?php /*echo get_the_date();*/ ?>
   <?php /*the_modified_date();*/ ?>
   <?php /*the_modified_date('', 'Last modified ');*/ ?>
   <?php /*the_time( get_option('date_format') );*/ ?>

5. You may want to remove other text surrounding the function call. For example, if your theme has this code…

   <div>Published on <?php the_time( get_option('date_format') ); ?></div>

   …and you replace it with this…

   <div>Published on <?php /*the_time( get_option('date_format') );*/ ?></div>

   …your theme will output “Published on,” but not the date. Deleting “Published on” from your theme file will remove it from your site. Just be aware that you may have to remove text like this from your theme files to get a clean-looking result.

6. Click “Update File”

2. The Automatic Method

If you’re looking for a quick fix, just go to “Appearance > Editor” in your WordPress admin and add this code to your theme’s functions.php file. Put it at the top of the file, but after the opening <?php line.

function jl_remove_post_dates() {
	add_filter('the_date', '__return_false');
	add_filter('the_time', '__return_false');
	add_filter('the_modified_date', '__return_false');
} add_action('loop_start', 'jl_remove_post_dates');

(Note: This method requires WordPress 3.0 or above)

Now check your site and verify that the post dates are gone. If they’re not, try replacing the code above with this more “aggressive” version:

function jl_remove_post_dates() {
	add_filter('the_date', '__return_false');
	add_filter('the_time', '__return_false');
	add_filter('the_modified_date', '__return_false');
	add_filter('get_the_date', '__return_false');
	add_filter('get_the_time', '__return_false');
	add_filter('get_the_modified_date', '__return_false');
} add_action('loop_start', 'jl_remove_post_dates');

Version 2.0 adds 5 new tweaks, removes 13 outdated tweaks, fixes a few tweaks that broke between WordPress 2.5 and 3.1, adheres to new plugin development best practices that have emerged since WP 2.5, adds an instant search bar, and ups the minimum WordPress requirement from 2.1 to 3.1 (quite the jump!).

For those who aren’t familiar with the plugin, WordPress Tweaks gathers a plethora of assorted options into a convenient list of checkboxes and dropdowns. (WordPress Tweaks is in the same vein as Microsoft’s abandoned TweakUI program, for those who remember it.)

Here’s the current list of supported tweaks:

• Admin
  • Automatically scroll to the post editor
  • Disable the admin bar
  • Disable the Dashboard
  • Disable the “Search Engines Blocked” notice
  • Disable tag autocomplete
  • Disable WordPress’s admin footer text/links
• Comments and Pings
  • Disable self-pinging
  • Dofollow comment author links
  • Dofollow comment body links
  • Open external comment links in new windows
• Media
  • Disable the Flash uploader
  • Default media inserter tab
    • From Computer
    • From URL
    • Gallery
    • Media Library
  • JPEG Quality
• Posts
  • Disable post revisions
  • Force excerpts on archives
  • Open external post links in new windows
  • Add a “Continue reading” link to excerpts

Install Now

Ready to start tweaking? Just enter the homepage URL of your WordPress site:

The fix:

1. Go to “Appearance > Editor” and repeat the following steps for each of your theme files
2. Look for instances of this code:

   <?php the_date(); ?>

3. Replace that code with this code:

   <?php echo get_the_date(); ?>

4. Click “Update File”

The explanation:
Most WordPress template tag functions that start with “the_” will merely output the values returned by their equivalent “get_the_” functions. However, “the_date()” is an exception to this standard because it adds functionality that’s not present in “get_the_date()”, namely, not outputting the same date more than once per page, which can be a feature or an annoyance depending on your desired functionality.

For you RSS subscribers out there, the RSS URL will remain the same for now, and if I do change it, I’ll be sure to 301-redirect it so you don’t have to update it manually.

The new design isn’t anything too fancy since I’m definitely more a developer than a designer, but if you have any comments I’d be interested to hear them. It’s my first time developing a WordPress theme from scratch instead of basing it off another theme (e.g. Sandbox).

Here’s what an inline changelog looks like when implemented:

As you can see, a small notice like this helps users know at-a-glance what’s new in your plugin update.

Here’s the code you can incorporate into your plugin:

<?php
function my_plugin_update_info() {
	if ( $info = wp_remote_fopen("http://www.example.com/my-plugin-updates.txt") )
		echo '<br />' . strip_tags( $info, "<br><a><b><i><span>" );
}
add_action('in_plugin_update_message-'.plugin_basename(__FILE__), 'my_plugin_update_info');
?>

Of course, to keep plugin users happy, be sure that your inline changelogs are informative and unobtrusive. Happy coding!

(Plugin users, if you’d like to see this feature implemented in your favorite plugins, you could try sending the plugin author a link to this post! You could also check out the new Changelogger plugin.)

That’s the goal of SEO Ultimate, which is a free plugin I’m developing on behalf of SEO Design Solutions.

Right now the plugin is in its early stages (currently at version 0.6). There are many more features yet to come; as more functionality is added, I expect SEO Ultimate to become the all-in-one WordPress SEO solution of choice for more people as time goes on.

Features

Current functionality includes the standard All in One SEO Pack features:

• Title rewriting
• Noindex checkboxes
• Meta editing
• Canonical tags
• Post meta box

SEO Ultimate also has these additional capabilities:

• 404 monitoring
• Linkbox insertion
• Settings import/export functions

Upcoming features include robots.txt editing, 301 logging, XHTML validation status monitoring, and much more. (If you install the plugin now, you can get these features delivered to you on a regular basis via WordPress’s semi-automatic plugin updater!)

I’ve also incorporated these extra features into SEO Ultimate:

• Inline changelogs
• Readme changelog
• Footer branding
• WordPress 2.7 menu integration
• Integration with WordPress’s Help system
• Inline phpDoc documentation

Auto-Installer

Also, be sure to check out this cool auto-installer system I invented. Just type in your blog’s URL, click “Launch Installer,” then click “Install Now,” and voila, SEO Ultimate will be installed on your blog! You can then enable it by clicking the Activate link.

Try it out:

You can also download the zip file. SEO Ultimate requires WordPress 2.7 or above.

Let me know what you think!

• Added the “Automatically scroll to the post editor” tweak (based on the WriteScroll plugin)
• Removed unnecessary JavaScript HTTP calls (hat tip to user Doug)
• Removed unused code
• Added a POT file to the plugin distribution
• Fixed a WordPress 2.6 compatibility bug (reported by user Chris)
• Other minor enhancements

Learn more about WordPress Tweaks or download the latest version here!

1. Broken Link Checker — Automatically checks your posts for broken links and images and reports its findings in the dashboard. Its AJAX capabilities even allow you to fix the offending links without editing the posts!

2. WP-Project — This plugin adds lightweight project management to WordPress. If you want the ability to track clients, projects, and tasks from within your blog, this plugin is for you.

3. WP SEO Master — The WordPress SEO arena is usually dominated by plugins like All in One SEO Pack, but this plugin provides some unique functionality, including keyword autolinking and comprehensive noindex/nofollow options.

What’s on your top list of cool plugins that aren’t mentioned that often? Let us know in the comments!

This would also make a cool blog meme: if WordPress-using bloggers could post a list of plugins that they think should have more limelight, we could promote plugin authors’ works and help each other discover some cool plugins.

I’ll tag the following bloggers: Kyle at Hack WordPress, Richard at WP Project (not to be confused with the plugin listed above), and Ian at ThemeShaper. If others would like to participate, feel free to do so! (If you don’t blog about WordPress, perhaps you could discuss plugins related to your niche.) Just post your list on your blog, link to this post if you want to register a pingback, and then tag additional bloggers.

Update: Robert posted a comment pointing out an alternate demo site.

July 7 stretch with July 14 fallback

That’s pretty terse, but I’d interpret it to mean “we’ll try to get it done July 7; it would be a stretch though, so we’ll have July 14 as a fallback.”

Considering the new release date is only 2 weeks away, and the Trac only shows 12% progress on WordPress 2.6 so far, I’d say it’s likely that many changes previously planned for 2.6 will be bumped to version 2.7.