This morning, I fixed an annoyance in the Hellotxt plugin I use on this WordPress blog that would resend a notification to hellotxt.com every time one updates a post (to correct a typo for example).

I sent a tweet about this and, much to my surprise, I immediately received a series of direct messages on Twitter asking for the code. So here it is:  hellotxt.php.txt , as well as the diff to the original file: hellotxtpress.php.diff

There are actually four changes:

• Added configuration option for URL shortener, so you can use your favourite URL shortener service. It defaults to mine.
• Added configuration option for post prefix. By default, it is “New Blog post: “

• Replace WP smart quotes by plain ones.  This is to prevent that some microblogging sites print out the HTML entities value, instead of the quotes themselves. Copied straight from WP Laconica Tools.
• Don’t resend a post that was already submitted.  The inspiration came from the WP Laconica Tools.

I will submit my changes to the plugin author, who may decide to incorporate them in a future release.