Description
The Diffen comparison plugin allows WordPress bloggers to easily search for and embed a comparison on their blog.
You can compare anything on Diffen – baseball players, credit cards, computer processors, religions, countries, companies…you get the idea. We wanted to share with WordPress bloggers this ability to compare anything. And we wanted to do it seamlessly so you would not have to leave your editing interface inside WordPress to do this search.
So how does it work?
The plugin adds a new button to your editing dashboard. Geniuses that we are, we called it “Add a Comparison” because that is exactly what the plugin helps you do. This button is right next to the Add Media button and functions in a very similar fashion. Click on the button and an overlay pops up that allows you to search for the comparison. Simply enter the two things you want to compare and hit Enter.
If Diffen has the data you need (it usually does), you will see a nicely formatted comparison chart for your search terms. One click and the chart will be added to your blog post. WordPress does not allow iFrames (like YouTube embeds) to be viewed inside the editor but rest assured it’s there. Preview your post and you will see it. You might have to adjust the height attribute sometimes but for the most part, it just works. Like magic. Happy comparing!
Under the covers:
Technically-minded users may be interested in what happens behind the scenes. The plugin searches Diffen and when it finds the comparison being requested, embeds an iFrame into the blog post (just like a YouTube or Slideshare embed).
What if the search does not return anything?
This is v0.1 for the Diffen comparison plugin. We are working on expanding the feature set so that the service automatically pulls in content from Wikipedia if it’s not available on Diffen. We will launch this soon and the best part is that you will NOT have to upgrade the plugin to benefit from this feature. It will “just work.”