Plugin is tested with WordPress 3.3, and no problems were found. Some minor issues are fixed (warnings, nothing important). Plugin is split in two, so that the admin side code is loaded only when needed. This will improve overall loading speed of, already, lightweight plugin core. For WordPress 3.3, plugin uses new context help area to add important links and information.

As always, check out the Pro version of the plugin and many more features that are built into it.

GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro:
http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-taxonomies-tools/

Warning: Plugin is not yet completed, and it is not recommended to use it on the live websites. Right now, from all the planned features for 1.0.0 release, admin side is 95% done, and front end is 80% done. At this moment, plugin is very much functional, but bugs are to be expected.

Bugs fixed in this release are mainly caused due to the changes in the initialization procedure causing some of the important data to be missing. Plugin now checks for this. But, if you still have issues with templates or settings, you can use Tools panel Maintenance tab options to clear temporary data and reinitialize them. Some more rendering bugs are also fixed in the core rendering class.

If you want to test the plugin before buying, use contact form to ask for the demo website at xScape.info, where all Dev4Press plugins and themes are available for testing.

Promo coupon

If you decide to purchase plugin now, while still in development phase, a coupon is available that will give you 25% discount. This coupon is: PRODUCTSCBETA. To purchase plugin, visit the plugin editions page.

Resources

Theme Templates Integration:
http://www.dev4press.com/2011/tutorials/plugins/gd-products-center/theme-templates-integration/
Product Type Editor:
http://www.dev4press.com/2011/tutorials/plugins/gd-products-center/product-type-editor/

Plugin Info

Planned Features:
http://www.dev4press.com/2011/blog/development/planned-features-for-gd-products-center/
Plugin Information:
http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-products-center/
Editions & Purchase:
http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-products-center/editions/

Warning: Plugin is not yet completed, and it is not recommended to use it on the live websites. Right now, from all the planned features for 1.0.0 release, admin side is 95% done, and front end is 80% done. At this moment, plugin is very much functional, but bugs are to be expected.

Selecting Related Products

To complete set of features for individual products, plugin has expanded editors. One of the meta boxes is expanded with related products, so you can select other products from same product type or other product types as related to current product. They will be displayed on the product related page. Also, for each product, a third meta box is added where you will be able to set some important settings. Right now, this includes page visibility, so you can have some of the product pages disabled if you don’t want them for every product.

Rendering for products is improved, extra templates added. With all the current changes, plugin has most of the planned features completed. Right now, only one major feature remains: advanced products filtering. This will be done for 0.9 Beta version, and it is the next thing to develop for this plugin.

If you want to test the plugin before buying, use contact form to ask for the demo website at xScape.info, where all Dev4Press plugins and themes are available for testing.

Promo coupon

If you decide to purchase plugin now, while still in development phase, a coupon is available that will give you 25% discount. This coupon is: PRODUCTSCBETA. To purchase plugin, visit the plugin editions page.

Resources

Theme Templates Integration:
http://www.dev4press.com/2011/tutorials/plugins/gd-products-center/theme-templates-integration/
Product Type Editor:
http://www.dev4press.com/2011/tutorials/plugins/gd-products-center/product-type-editor/

Plugin Info

Planned Features:
http://www.dev4press.com/2011/blog/development/planned-features-for-gd-products-center/
Plugin Information:
http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-products-center/
Editions & Purchase:
http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-products-center/editions/

Fixes include: some of the dahsboard widget options broken, few invalid Perishable 5G HTAccess rules, full backup was missing on wp-config.php if it was outside of WP folder and broken tweak for hiding help tab on top of pages. Big thanks goes to Alasdair MacGregor and Michael Dorman for testing and confirming problem with Sucuri Scan that wasn’t working if the Perishable 5G tweaks are applied that were preventing Sucuri scanner to access the website. Notice about this is displayed on Sucuri page if the tweaks is active.

As always, please report any bugs you find in the forums, and I will get on fixing it. As for new things, I am working on improvements to HTAccess tweaking, improvements to restore script to allow for more flexibility and few other features that will go into next two minor revisions.

Links and Resources

Here is the list of tutorials that you might find useful:

How to backup and restore your website
Using GD Press Tools 4.2 Backup
Using GD Press Tools Auto Tagger

Comparing GD Press Tools Pro versus BackupBuddy:

GD Press Tools Pro versus BackupBuddy

To see the list of plugin features, overview and to buy the plugin, visit these pages:

GD Press Tools Overview
GD Press Tools Main Page
GD Press Tools Frequently Asked Questions
Buy GD Press Tools Pro

New Icons

Plugin already supports custom icons for the post types used for admin menu, but for that you need to prepare and upload image you want to use. And the way WordPress uses that image, it will never look like a built-in menu icon used by default. So, now plugin allows you to select from the icons that are built in with the plugin. There is a selection of 100 icons available from the great Fugue icons set created by Yusuke Kamiyamane. On the image on the right you can see few custom post types using these built-in icons.

To support WPML plugin and translation of custom fields names and descriptions, all print and echo functions used to render the meta boxes now use translation functions that WPML can pick up and filter.

Rest of the changes include improvements to widgets rendering, changes to JavaScript used to attach images to terms and loading and initialization of plugin. Export settings options is fixed to allow selecting parts of the data to export.

Please, report any problems with new icons or with attaching images (old code was causing problems in Firefox 6 and Opera 11), in comments or in the forums.

More about GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:

http://d4p.me/gdtt

Admin Bar: with Quick Backup

First minor revision for GD Press Tools 4.2 Pro is here adding several new features, has number of improvements and fixes several bugs. Admin Bar is expended with GD Press Menu and many useful options (including quick backup) beside shortcut links to main plugins panels.

Admin Bar can be expanded with the GD Press Tools menu. It will contain links to most important panels. But, it can also have special links: quick backup (yeah, you can run backup from ANY page on admin side or front end where the admin bar is visible) and cleanup. Cleanup links were expanded for dashboard widget also to include the trashed comments and posts cleanup.

Login Form in the Admin Bar

The code to control admin bar is not moved into separate file and class. For all users there is a option to force use of admin bar (we did this on Dev4Press, and added extra controls to it) from the Global Settings panel.

Another great new feature is for restricting access to the admin side of your website. You can set up redirecting for any of the user roles (not for administrators). You can set target URL’s, so when someone (a subscriber) tries to access wp-admin, he gets redirected to home page o something else you set. You can set additional targets for the dashboard and profile page.

Admin Bar: with Cleanup

Dev4Press website already uses this, so you can see it in action. Also, additional filters are added allowing you to control the redirection, check out the central documentation for details.

Now to backups. There is a design flaw in the WordPress cron execution that can cause same job to run more than once, because wp-cron.php lacks the proper locking mechanism. This can cause that you schedule the backup, and WordPress runs the same one twice with same parameters causing for duplicated operations that can break the backup process. This locking issue is not the problem for most tasks, but for critical operations like backups it is. In 4.2 plugin version I added a internal locking that was preventing this duplicated runs, but it was not enough, and in this version this protection is increased to 7 seconds sleep gap and 2 minutes transient locking. Hopefully this will be enough, since the problem is usually happening in periods with huge number of visitors in the short period. So, don’t schedule backups in time of day when you expect big traffic, and don’t schedule backups to run very close to each other, give them at least 5 or 10 minutes difference. Same locking protection is added to auto tagger jobs.

I have added a backup advisor popup on the backup page that has few recommendations on how to schedule the backups and avoid potential cron issues and performance problems. Also, broken cleanup of old processes tool is now working.

There are many more changes in this version. Loading of additional JavaScript and CSS code is improved and few extra files used before for adding this code are removed. Contextual Help block is now made more visible, and all relevant tutorials are listed. Several misspelled words and missing translation strings are fixed. Sucuri scan request updated to disable SSL verification. Accessibility settings are expanded, and now you can move GD Press Tools menu to the top under the Dashboard.

And, if you find any bugs, there is a 4.2 thread in the forums for all the bugs and other issues. Plugin FAQ page is also update with more relevant information, please read it.

Links and Resources

Here is the list of tutorials mentioned in this post:

How to backup and restore your website
Using GD Press Tools 4.2 Backup
Using GD Press Tools Auto Tagger

Comparing GD Press Tools Pro versus BackupBuddy:

GD Press Tools Pro versus BackupBuddy

To see the list of plugin features, overview and to buy the plugin, visit these pages:

GD Press Tools Overview
GD Press Tools Main Page
GD Press Tools Frequently Asked Questions
Buy GD Press Tools Pro

Promo coupon

To get 30% discount for this plugin (for yearly recurring payments standard and developer licenses, coupon is applied to initial payment only): GDPT42PRO. Coupon can be used until September 5 2011, so hurry up!

New Backup Module

It’s not easy to summarize new backup module in the few sentences. It has a lot of features and compared to all other backup solutions for WordPress, GD Press Tools Pro the only truly complete solution for WordPress backups. And much more. Plugin has quick backup, tasks based backup, archive files protection, support for multisite/network installations, customizable backup tasks, CDN/FTP upload, email notifications and more.

To see all that in action, you can check out the video tutorial: Using GD Press Tools 4.2 Backup. And, plugin now includes restore and clone script that you can use to restore website from full backup archive or migrate it into another website. For a whole backup and restore procedure, check out this tutorial: How to backup and restore your website.

GD Press Tools Pro 4.2: Backup Panel

I got many questions about comparing GD Press Tools Pro to other plugins especially for the backup. So, I have prepared comparison table comparing GD Press Tools Pro versus BackupBuddy. As you can see, not only that GD Press Tools Pro offers much more for in terms of backup features, you get many more features for full administration plugin. And best part is that GD Press Tools Pro costs much less then BackupBuddy.

GD Press Tools Pro: New Tagger Form

Auto Tagger

Another new module is Auto Tagger. Previous versions of the plugin had a simple auto tagger. Now, you get very powerful tool that allow scheduling, support for custom post types and custom taxonomies, wide range of settings and filtering and support for 4 different tagging methods: internal extraction, Yahoo  API, Alchemy API and Zemanta API (last two need signing up for the API keys). To see how each method works, there is a test tool available.

All tagging methods can be used with single post tagging, that will be further improved with next plugin versions. If you want to see the auto tagger in action, check out the tutorial: Using GD Press Tools Auto Tagger.

Plugin Menu

Interface, SEO, Security and more

Plugin uses once again updated interface, refining look further using simpler color scheme. Plugin menu is now color coded that display items in different colors (for multisite menu, normal menu). New SEO panel is just start of the full SEO module that will be added later. Now has support for previous existing meta features, and added new Facebook open graph integration. Sucuri powered free security scan is added as a new panel, and you can scan any website.

Most other features are also updated: debugger, dashboard widget, new settings added, more WordPress 3.2 related changes, updated third party libraries and added about plugin page.

Bug fixes include: changing admin username works now with multisites, invalid archive status during backup, minor issues with building XML sitemaps, several new PHP warnings, download of files via file manager, missing nonce protection in some cases.

What’s next?

There are much more planned features for future versions. Roadmap is updated recently, but there are many smaller features not listed that will be added to minor revisions along with bugs fixed. If you have any suggestions, leave a comment here or in the support forum.

And, if you find any bugs, I have started new thread in the forums for this plugin version.

Links and Resources

Here is the list of tutorials mentioned in this post:

How to backup and restore your website
Using GD Press Tools 4.2 Backup
Using GD Press Tools Auto Tagger

Comparing GD Press Tools Pro versus BackupBuddy:

GD Press Tools Pro versus BackupBuddy

To see the list of plugin features, overview and to buy the plugin, visit these pages:

GD Press Tools Overview
GD Press Tools Main Page
Buy GD Press Tools Pro

Promo coupon

To get 30% discount for this plugin (for yearly recurring payments standard and developer licenses, coupon is applied to initial payment only): GDPT42PRO. Coupon can be used until September 5 2011.

New Interface

To keep in line with other Dev4Press plugins, interface is changed. Also, there were some issues with usability of old interface, so here is the image preview of the browse/search panel:

GD aZon FUSION: Browse Panel

Plugin Changes

Many minor bugs were fixed in this version. Amazon AWS support updated and some of the product properties are removed, because Amazon removed them from the AWS. Loading of the plugin files is improved and better optimized, JavaScript mostly rewritten and all interface icons replaced with ones made with Axialis IconWorkshop.

Third Party Libraries

Main phpSDK Cloudfusion library for accessing Amazon is updated to 1.4 with caching working again, Dev4Press gdr2 Library is now updated to 2.4.2, jQuery UI to 1.8.15 and several other jQuery plugins are updated also.

Promo coupon

If you decide to purchase plugin now, while still in Beta phase, a coupon is available that will give you 25% discount. This coupon is: AZONFBETA. To purchase plugin, visit the plugin editions page.

Demo Website

Demo website is in works and uses our lightScape theme, will use custom taxonomies and custom post types using our GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro. You can see it now, but expect updates as I update all the plugins used on the website. Website contains products (books, dvd, blu-ray, music) I purchased from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk over the years.

myCollection: Amazon Products:
http://my.gdragon.info/

Plugin Info

GD aZon Fusion, Plugin Information:
http://dv4p.com/10e
GD aZon Fusion, Editions & Purchase:
http://dv4p.com/10g
GD aZon Fusion, Screenshots:
http://dv4p.com/10j

xScape Core will be released today, with some themes also. Rest of the themes will be released in the next couple of days with all new templates and many changes and improvements. Standalone xScape Framework will also be release later today.

Again, xScape is updated for latest changes in bbPress 2.0. Right now you need RC1 version of the plugin for new xScape module to work, but just in case, I have uploaded latest code version downloaded from SVN today, you can find download link further down.

Google Web Fonts module got another 20 fonts. But, due to the changes Google made for Web Fonts, now you can’t no longer select font styles, module will include all styles supported by the font (most have only one) because format for the styles changed and is no longer practical to have as an option. Few fixes for this module are added for HTML validation and list of included fonts.

New, upcoming plugin GD Products Center is coming in the next 4-5 days, but already xScape supports it and all themes will get templates needed for it. Setting theme to work with the plugin will be easy, there will be tutorial on the subject soon. But also, once the final plugin version is released it will have some enhanced options to support themes directly without any need for manual themes changes.

Rest of the changes include updates for header for archives (too support GD Products Center, and soon some new features in GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools), support for post type archives templates, fixes for Twitter module/widget and some missing translation strings.

bbPress 2.0 RC1, Date: 2011-08-02

Promo Codes

During this and next month, you can take advantage of big summer sale and 40% and 50% discounts. Hurry up, offer is limited to number of licenses each promo code can be used: xScape Themes Big Summer Sale.

Demo Website

Test all themes, and try them with a free test drive, for both front end and back-end before deciding what is right for you. Free registration is disabled, so you need to send the request for the test account using the contact form.

Demo Loader: http://xscape.info/load/
Demo Home: http://xscape.info/

When you added column for a taxonomy to appear on the post type editor grid on the admin side, it was working fine everywhere except for the pages and other hierarchical post types due to the differences in WP filters for these columns. This is now fixed. JSON function were failed to load for PHP older than 5.2 if they are not in the system already.

Few more things were changed and improved, and more new features will be coming soon.

More about GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:

http://d4p.me/gdtt

More custom fields in meta box

New plugin version includes several improvements: more widget options and more rendering changes to widgets used functions, color custom fields for meta boxes with easy to use color picker control and several minor changes and fixes with more updates for WordPress 3.2.

For all 3 widgets there is an option for adding ‘current’ class to currently active term page or post type (archive or single). With this, if you have terms cloud displayed, and you are on the term archive page (any taxonomy), that term will be marked with current class in the cloud, and you can style it differently. This works with terms list and post type list. For terms drop down, such term will be selected in the list.

Custom fields are expanded with 3 more fields: color, select using radio buttons and select using checkboxes. Also, custom fields editor has option copy to duplicate any field definition so you can easier add more or similar fields. Few more fields are coming, including: rich text editor, Google Maps for addresses and embedding, time selection field, autocomplete fields (for users or some other things).

Preparations for 3.2 version of the plugin are in motion, and I will update roadmap soon. New major revision is epxected in about 3 weeks.

More about GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:

http://d4p.me/gdtt

Rewrite options for post types now have additional custom slugs and extra options for feeds and pages extra rewrite rules. All rewrite options are organized in separate fields on the editor for post type. Registration procedure is update to better handling different capability options settings. Few things on the user interface are updated for compatibility with new WordPress 3.2, and new panel is update with upgrade to Pro edition info about features in the Pro edition of the plugin. Due to many changes in this version, please test it and report back any problems with it.

As always, check out the Pro version of the plugin and many more features that are built into it.

GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro: http://d4p.me/gdtt

From now on, WordPress requires PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0.15. All respectable hosting companies are already up to date with PHP and mySQL (some even running latest PHP 5.3), but you better check to make sure that your hosting company is upgraded, or you will be surprised when after upgrade you end up with broken website. All modern browsers will do fine, and from what I have seen IE7 will work for the most part with some minor problems, IE8 is also fine.

Image below shows the new WordPress admin dashboard. New interface uses space on the page a bit better and widgets and other elements are looking more compact and cleaner. For the most part I like the new look, with exception of the top header section, I think old one was better. On the image here you can see pretty much standard dashboard content with addition of GD Press Tools Pro widget and execution stats in the footer.

WordPress 3.2: Dashboard

Interface changes also include improvements to post editor that now supports new full screen Just Write mode. Editor expands to the full browser window with toolbar on top. Once you start writing, all controls will be gone leaving only empty space with no distraction. I am not going to use it much, but I am sure that many users will welcome this clean and simple approach.

WordPress 3.2: Just Write Editor

New theme replaces TwentyTen, and its called TwentyEleven. Theme is HTML5/CSS3 based, and its faster than earlier one, but I don’t like it very much to be honest. I think that it would be better to improve on TwentyTen than go with new theme, but here it is.

Admin bar is improved with more options and menus added. It would be nice to have some extra control over what is in the admin bar, but plugins will take care of that. Next GD Press Tools Pro will have more options for admin bar control. Other changes are many minor visual improvements: login form changes, new links in the footer and more. jQuery is updated to 1.6.1 with jQueryUI to 1.8.2.

But, the most important change in this version is performance improvement. WP 3.2 is faster than previous versions (especially 3.1), and you will feel this difference as soon you upgrade. Better JavaScript code make loading of pages faster, and this is most noticeable if you use fast browsers like Opera or Chrome. All upgrades will be faster (especially if you use FTP for uploading upgrades, that was very slow before). Other optimizations include improved functions, partial cleanup of PHP4 specific code and more. During next week you can expect 2 posts with benchmarks of WordPress 3.0.4, 3.1.4 and 3.2 for both admin and front end side.

WordPress 3.2: Post Editor in blue

But, as with any new WordPress there are some downsides. Many of the updates will for sure break many plugins and themes that use jQuery due to changes in jQuery 1.6. I hope that plugin and theme developers are going to check everything and fix potential problems. I have tested my plugins and they are all OK, with some Lite versions coming next week to make sure everything is OK. Some users I talked to recently expressed their disapproval of new interface, but that is expected with any interface change. For me, I like the new WP look (for most part).

What’s next for WordPress? Now that requirements are sorted out, and interface improved, there are still several areas where WordPress is lacking. Most important problem is content management. I have said it before 2.9 and 3.0 and 3.1, and I am saying again, WordPress is not equipped to work with large amount of content. If you have few hundred posts and 20 categories, it’s not bad, but for large websites that use custom post types and custom taxonomies, this is a real problem. Changing taxonomies for large number of posts in the same time is slow using current batch approach, and still impractical. We need better, and easier to use drag and drop interface for handling posts and taxonomies with AJAX filters and pagination. I really hope that this will be one of the things we can expect in 3.3, and I will try to push the suggestions once the WP 3.3 gets in development.

For now, WP 3.2 is great upgrade to the platform, and I strongly recommend that you switch to it as soon it is released. Speed of the new WP alone is reason enough. Add better interface and other minor changes and WP 3.2 is the version to use. All core developers and contributors deserve big thanks from the growing WordPress community for all the work to make this new version.

GD CPT Tools 3.1: Updated Interface

So, new interface is as on the image on the right, making everything look cleaner, with more uniform coloring. As usually, all plugins will get this style in the future.

Big thanks goes to Roberto Scano for providing Italian translation. New version contains updated jQueryUI (to 1.8.13). As for the bugs, minor problems with meta box editor are fixed and major bug with adding styling on the post editor page is also gone. Plugins own AJAX handler file is finally gone, and now TinyMCE plugin operations are also handled by WordPress built in AJAX handler.

If you find more bugs with this version, please leave comment or post in forum, and it will be fixed as soon as possible. And if you have suggestions for future version, please leave a comment.

More about GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:

http://d4p.me/gdtt

xScape Core will be released today. For the rest of the themes, you can download and update framework only. Again, best to use Dev4Press Updater to take care of that for you. To use new comments.php template you can find more info at the end of this post.

Once again, xScape is updated for latest changes in bbPress 2.0. Right now you need RC1 version of the plugin for new xScape module to work. Google Web Fonts module got another 10 fonts. WP 3.2 adds some changes to the login form, and that is now followed for xScape login styling, also now including new options for shadows for the login box.

Most important change is with the comments.php template. Template is handled by the framework, and has several improvements for better translations support and few other changes. All themes will still work with own comment templates, but if you want to take advantage of new file, you can just replace that one file. No need to release full theme for this minor change that is not even needed at this point. You can download replacement comments.php file bellow.

Replacement comments.php file

Promo Codes

During this and next month, you can take advantage of big summer sale and 40% and 50% discounts. Hurry up, offer is limited to number of licenses each promo code can be used: xScape Themes Big Summer Sale.

Demo Website

Test all themes, and try them with a free test drive, for both front end and back-end before deciding what is right for you. Free registration is disabled, so you need to send the request for the test account using the contact form.

Demo Loader: http://xscape.info/load/
Demo Home: http://xscape.info/

Bug fixes include minor problem with auto generating one of the labels for custom post type (Parent item with colon), it was using plural instead of singular label. You might wanna fix that with your post types. Taxonomy registration procedure had a minor bug with non cached registrations, now fixed. Registered meta boxes were not properly displayed on the post type panel.

As for updates, custom field shortcode has a new filter that can be used to change the output for the custom field value. A function is also added as alternative to WordPress default get_post_meta that uses shortcode method to get value. As for the meta box, you can select default location where to display meta box on the post editor page. And custom field has a new content type: select box that gets data from predefined functions. You can register functions for this field. Function needs to return array with keys and values, and they will be displayed as a choice. Tutorial on this is coming tomorrow.

If you find more bugs with this version, please leave comment or post in forum, and it will be fixed as soon as possible.

More about GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:

http://d4p.me/gdtt

GD Affiliate Center: Code Builder

Here is the version of the ads management plugin with several bugs fixed and improvements that include visual changes for the new soon to be released WordPress 3.2. Most updates in this version are for code builder and shortcodes support, with more changes coming soon.

Main issue with previous version was a bug in code builder that was creating shortcodes with extra quotes that were causing problems. Also, code builder is improved and new parameters are added to the shortcode for alignment and extra CSS class for embedded ad.

Many more changes and features are coming soon.

Demo Website:
http://www.gdaffiliatecenter.com/
About Plugin:
http://www.dev4press.com/gd-affiliate-center/

Bug fixes this time are connected to limited meta boxes replacements that were not working properly for non hierarchical taxonomies. This is fixed now, along the invalid height for this new meta box if there are too many terms. Deleting taxonomy with delete terms option enabled was acting up, and that is also fixed now.

GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro 3.0.2

WordPress 3.2 is coming soon, and one of the changes is updated interface. So, plugin now have additional styles for new WordPress. Also, some general styling changes are added to improve the way the plugin looks. In the next few versions, interface will get updated styling and better color scheme with less color contrast. Other changes include improved JavaScript code.

If you find more bugs with this version, please leave comment or post in forum, and it will be fixed as soon as possible.

More about GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:

http://d4p.me/gdtt

There was a minor problem with flushing rewrite rules when adding new post type or taxonomy, and that is fixed now. Also, flushing of rules is added when post type or taxonomy is deleted. Each post type or taxonomy adds many new rules into the system, and if you experiment with them, its a good idea to remove them if no longer in use. With Front option for taxonomy rewrite options was broken, and it was always set as true. This is now fixed. Also, displaying post type or taxonomy function was incomplete and some of the settings were missing. That is also now fixed.

If you find more bugs with this version, please leave comment or post in forum, and it will be fixed as soon as possible.

More about GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:

http://d4p.me/gdtt

bbPress is a big step in bringing forum into the WordPress powered website. There are several other forum plugins available, and over the past couple of years I have tried all of them. But, even with plugins to choose from, I have still decided to use old bbPress standalone installation on Dev4Press. It was still easier to implement and merge into WordPress than any of the plugins I tried. Most forum plugins use own templates system that can’t be simply added to any theme, and they always look out of place, unless you want to spent a lot of time to rebuild these templates.

But now, bbPress plugin changes all that, and plugin uses standard WordPress templates approach to integrate with any website and any theme. Even if the theme doesn’t have bbPress specific templates, its very likely that templates built in with the plugin will work fine. Plugin is not very complicated, and it doesn’t have all the features like phpBB or other standalone solutions, but as with anything WordPress, I expect that many plugins will be released to expand current features.

bbPress with R8 theme

To make bbPress work with xScape themes, we now have a module to handle templates and styling. Each theme can add own styles for color schemes, and practically change anything. Right now, basic styling is same for all themes, except for the colors and some minor elements. Fully restyling everything is a big task, but you can expect stying improvements for individual themes over time.

But, unlike original bbPress theme, module in xScape will allow for some interesting customizations to allow for different forum table layouts and visible columns. More customization options and better templates will be added, and all suggestions are welcome.

Right now, xScape module uses latest bbPress code that is more recent than latest Beta 2. Current development version of the plugin has most of the templates related code done, and all that is used in the xScape module templates. So, to use xScape themes with bbPress, you need more recent version of bbPress. You can get it from official SVN, but I have packed the latest code version, and you can download it from link bellow:

Download: bbPress 2.0: Beta 2011-06-03

Over the weekend I will publish 2 bbPress related tutorial to help set up plugin, theme and website to use new forum features. I would also like to announce new plugin to add new features into bbPress plugin. More details and features for that plugin will be released soon, but I can confirm that plugin will be available for free.

Suggestions for xScape module and also upcoming plugin are welcome. Use comments or forum to discuss this great new addition to WordPress.

In WordPress, you can have a theme that is based on another theme and using parts of that time. Child themes share much of the code with its base theme and if a template or file is missing from child theme, parent theme file is used. When xScape development started, unique structure of the framework wasn’t working for child themes. But now, that has changed.

All the latest improvements that will be in xScape 1.7 will allow for two things: creating child themes and using new xScape Core. When current themes get updated with xScape 1.7 you will be able to create child themes for them, pretty much as with any other WordPress theme.

I will also release xScape Core Theme that will have only framework inside, base template files and standard styling. xScape Core will not work on its own, and will be used by the themes. Some themes will get ‘Core’ versions that contain only theme specific files: templates, styling and layout. They will use xScape Core to load the framework. So, Core themes will be child themes to xScape Core. You can’t create child theme of a child theme, but this will help separate framework from individual themes. So, you can use xScape Theme Framework for child themes in two way: create child theme of a full, normal xScape based theme as they are right now, or make a copy of the Core theme and create own xScape Core Theme child theme.

Once the xScape 1.7 is ready next week, I will post a tutorials how to make both types of child themes.

GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools 3.0: Front Page

Plugin is compatible with WordPress 3.0 and newer, including upcoming WordPress 3.2. Still, as with all major versions, please recheck all plugin settings, post types and taxonomies definitions to make sure that all features are set properly.

Post Type Editor

New Interface

Plugin uses new, easy to use, interface similar to one used by xScape Theme Framework. Many more information is added, help for options using tooltips, improved validation.

Custom Meta Boxes

You can add as many meta boxes as you want, each one with any number of custom fields, and each one can be attached to one or more post types. Custom fields are defined based on type: number, date field, image, select, html, text and more are to come yet. Also, shortcode is added for easier integration into the post, and post edit meta box has additional options to help with use of the meta box.

Custom Capabilities

One of the advanced features is for plugin to create and add custom capabilities for post types and taxonomies, if you want to use non-standard capabilities that are not the same as for default ‘post’ post type. This is not something you will need (or have to) use in most cases, but its very important to have simple way to add special capabilities to default or extra roles for more complex data management.

Meta Boxes

And More

There are many more minor changes, and enhanced features, improvements and fixes. One very important background feature that you will see only as checkbox setting is cache. If you have many post types and taxonomies, plugin can take some time to generate function based on settings. But now, plugin has cache support that will store generated function into database for fast deployment. When you change post type or taxonomy, cached value is regenerated.

All data: settings, definitions, meta boxes can be exported into file, and than imported from file. With this you can transfer everything from one website to another, quick and easy.

Win the plugin license

If you don’t already have license for this plugin, here is the chance to win it simply by using Twitter. So, two lifetime standard licenses will be given on May 31 2011. To participate:

1. You only need to follow us on Twitter.
2. Tweet this:
   

   GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools 3.0 Pro giveaway. For a chance to win, follow @milangd and retweet http://d4p.me/gdtt3

3. You can tweet as many times as you want, all tweets will be counted, tweet more to increase your chances to win.

Promo coupon

To get 30% discount for this plugin, Dev4Press Plugins Pack or Themes Club Membership (for both standard and developer licenses, coupon is applied to initial payment only): GDCPT3PRO. Coupon remain active until June 4 2011.

More about GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:

http://d4p.me/gdtt

Module: Side Scroller

xScape 1.7 will have two new modules. One, is already mentioned bbPress plugin support (that one is currently in beta) and the second one is called Side Scroller. This module adds a floating box outside of the content area, that will move along with the page scrolling, and will always remain on top of the visible part of the screen. It can contain different things, it can have 3 different widths and will be styled by the theme. Share This module is changed to support this new module (as on the image), but also, xScape theme settings will allow adding major share buttons to this area and freeing some space in the content for the post.

Beside two modules, new framework will feature many minor changes and improvements, more fonts will be added to Google Web Fonts module, Clicky tracking code is updated… Also, few more changes are expected for the interface to complete the cycle of changes in the past couple of versions.

This framework version will also mark end of (development) life for three themes: baseScape, airScape and photoScape. Next week they will get full support for all new xScape features including bbPress and Side Scroller modules. They will still work with new versions of the framework, but if some framework features come along that require changes to the theme files, they will not support these themes.

But, as previously announced, new photo/media theme is in development, and it will be called Liquid. It’s expected some time in June. Also, another theme is in planning stages, it will be blog oriented with interesting layout.

File Manager editor now has one extra option that will, if enabled, will create backup copy of the file you are editing. Backup file will get extension BAK. If backup copy is already present, old one will be removed.

In the next couple of days I will announce plans for two next major revisions: 4.1 and 4.2. There are a lot of features on the list, so some things need to be prioritized. Most important changes to come are: SEO module, improved backup, restore backups script, actions logging, improved posts views statistics and updates to file manager. All suggestions are welcome.

GD Press Tools 4.0 Pro: http://www.dev4press.com/gd-press-tools/

Admin Bar Controls

For both global settings (multisite) and normal settings you can set which user roles will be able to see the admin bar. You have it on the image on the right. Additional filter is added to documentation, so check it out there, it’s quite simple.

Pinning posts to dashboard is improved for full custom post types support and it’s now using only one dashboard widget for all types. Numerous fixes are included for pins code.

Other fixes include file system backup initialization procedure changes to fix the issue with overlapping exclusions in multi tasks backups and problem with metabox sitemap initialization before it’s used first. Still, please test backup with some more complex tasks to see if this change did the trick.

GD Press Tools 4.0.6/4.0.7 should get few more changes and improvements for generating sitemaps in multisite environment and first round of improvements to backup. Brand new SEO module coming in 4.1.

GD Press Tools 4.0 Pro: http://www.dev4press.com/gd-press-tools/

Themes are updated with new xScape, and they will be released in the next two days after a round of testing. Later tonight, new theme Focus will be released. newsScape and lightScape are coming tomorrow, with rest of themes following after that.

Settings: archive headings

New features in 1.6 include customization of archive heading elements, allowing you to specify what each heading will say for  tags, categories, custom taxonomies and all other archive types. There is also basic support for different search engines, and right now you can switch to Google Adsense powered Search. You can specify the form and results block (as the Adsense generated them), create new page where results will be embeded in iFrame and set that new frame to use provided template.

Global: Comment Form

WordPress 3.0 added new comment form function that is used to build form with different settings. Now, xScape has both comment forms built in, and you can switch from old one to new one.

As for the other changes in this version, there are a lot of improvements to date functions, breadcrumbs rendering, CSS and JS code cleanup and more. Also, several bugs are fixed, including some with shared templates, replacing meta images, tabber JavaScript problems, missing processing for login form and few other things.

Over the next 2 weeks I will go through my lists of planned features to make a new roadmap for the next major xScape releases. If you have any ideas, please share it in comments or in forum.

Test all themes, and try them with a free test drive, for both front end and back-end before deciding what is right for you. Free registration is disabled, so you need to send the request for the test account using the contact form.

Demo Loader: http://xscape.info/load/
Demo Home: http://xscape.info/

Ad Block Widget

Widget got two more options to control HTML added before and after each ad in the block. With number of options rising there, widget controls now have new layout.

JavaScript code is now fully compressed, and several small bugs in that code are fixed.

For info about the major 1.3 version, check out previous post.

Win the plugin license

If you don’t already have license for this plugin, here is the chance to win it simply by using Twitter. So, three lifetime standard licenses will be given on March 29 2011. To participate:

1. You only need to follow us on Twitter.
2. Tweet this:
   

   GD Affiliate Center 1.3 Pro for #WordPress giveaway. For a chance to win it, follow @milangd and retweet http://dv4p.com/gdac13

3. You can tweet as many times as you want, all tweets will be counted, tweet more to increase your chances to win.

Promo coupon(s)

To get 40% discount for this plugin (for yearly recurring payments standard and developer licenses, coupon is applied to initial payment only): GDAFFC13. But, that’s not all, here is one more coupon for 30% discount for Dev4Press Plugins Bundle that includes all our Pro plugins (again, for yearly recurring payments standard and developer licenses, coupon is applied to initial payment only): DV4PMARCH11. Coupons can be used until March 31 2011.

Demo Website:
http://www.gdaffiliatecenter.com/
About Plugin:
http://www.dev4press.com/gd-affiliate-center/

Metabox

For each content sitemap type you can use numerical priorities and calculated ones. Calculations can be done differently depending on the content type: using comments count, using posts counts, using date ranges. Also, for each link added to sitemap, filter now allows overriding url, last modification date, priority and frequency allowing for fine tuning of each link. Also, meta box for each post shows XML Sitemap options: to exclude post or set override priority. Override priority will be used regardless of global priority set for that post type.

Disable admin bar option works again. Other fixed bugs include single post auto tagger retrieval, and some sitemap initialization problems with duplicated options loading.

GD Press Tools 4.0.5 or 4.0.6 should get few more changes and improvements for generating sitemaps in multisite environment. After that there will be more improvements to backup and brand new SEO module coming in 4.1.

GD Press Tools 4.0 Pro: http://www.dev4press.com/gd-press-tools/

Plugin Changes

Interface is updated to match our other plugins, context help specific info added, bookmarklet is improved and there are many minor styling improvements. Several bugs are fixed included minor bookmarklet issues and problem with updated of prices procedure.

New database table is added to track each price change. This will be used with next version for charting prices changes over time, monitor prices of specific products and other things. New tools panel for cache cleanup is added also.

Third Party Libraries

Main phpSDK Cloudfusion library for accessing Amazon is updated to 1.3 (with caching temporarily disabled due to some bugs in library cache class), Dev4Press gdr2 Library is now updated to 2.2.5, jQuery UI to 1.8.11 and several other jQuery plugins are updated also.

Promo coupon

If you decide to purchase plugin now, while still in Beta phase, a coupon is available that will give you 25% discount. This coupon is: AZONFBETA. To purchase plugin, visit the plugin editions page.

Demo Website

Demo website is in works and uses our lightScape theme, will use custom taxonomies and custom post types using our GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro. You can see it now, but expect updates as I update all the plugins used on the website. Website contains products (books, dvd, blu-ray, music) I purchased from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk over the years.

myCollection: Amazon Products:
http://my.gdragon.info/

Plugin Info

GD aZon Fusion, Plugin Information:
http://dv4p.com/10e
GD aZon Fusion, Editions & Purchase:
http://dv4p.com/10g
GD aZon Fusion, Screenshots:
http://dv4p.com/10j

Sitemap Exclusions and Extra Links

Brand new version, GD Press Tools 4.0.3 Pro, brings many improvements to XML Sitemap Generator (exclusions of posts and terms and extra links list), improved plugin front page boxes, added more descriptions to some of the options and fixes several bugs.

New Extras & Exclusions tab is on the image on the right. So, you have list of additional links to be added to sitemap. They will go into Core sitemap file, and you have new entry added to the Content Settings panel for these links.

Exclusions of posts can be done by post ID, and all post types are supported. You can exclude posts belonging to terms for any taxonomy. But, if you use WP 3.0, only categories and post tags will be used, for all the taxonomies you need WP 3.1. You can also exclude terms links from taxonomy archives sitemaps, for each taxonomy individually.

Also, now you can see the sitemap status on plugin front page. Cron jobs counts are also displayed there with few more quick links to different plugin panels.

Bugs fixed in this version include: adding attachments to sitemap wasn’t working, date archive splitting wasn’t working as expected, renaming admin username failing in some cases and few other minor problems.

Next version will add more XML Sitemap Generator changes that include priorities calculations for links added to sitemaps and post exclusion controls on the post edit panel. 4.0.5 or 4.0.6 should see few more changes and improvements for generating sitemaps in multisite environment. After that there will be more improvements to backup and brand new SEO module coming in 4.1.

GD Press Tools 4.0 Pro: http://www.dev4press.com/gd-press-tools/

Settings panel is displaying info on WP version for custom post type archives, so change it depending on version of WP you use. Still, you can enable type based archives for post types for WP 3.1 if you need them, but be careful so that rewrite rules don’t clash with something else. Custom post types registration procedure is updated a bit, and also new filters are added to override the settings and options plugin generates for post types and taxonomies. Terms list and term cloud widgets are updated with random and  slug added for ordering terms beside names and counts.

gdr2 library is updated with latest version that has some improvements to widgets, core classes and functions.

GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:
http://dv4p.com/gdtt

Bug fixes include: inconsistent dates in the backups now fixed with new functions, duplicated action for unloading jqueryui, minor issues with debugger printing of arrays and objects and broken loading of translation files. gdr2 library has several new functions and many improvements to some of the core functions also.

Win the plugin license

It’s not too late, yet and if you don’t already have license for Pro version, here is the chance to win it simply by using Twitter. So, two lifetime standard licenses will be given on March 4 2011. To participate:

1. You only need to follow us on Twitter.
2. Tweet this:
   

   GD Press Tools 4.0 Pro for #WordPress giveaway. For a chance to win it, follow @milangd and retweet http://dv4p.com/gdpt4

3. You can tweet as many times as you want, the more the better are chances to win.

Promo coupon

To get 40% discount for this plugin (for yearly recurring payments standard and developer licenses, coupon is applied to initial payment only): GDPRESSTOOLS4. Coupon can be used until March 7 2011.

More about GD Press Tools Pro:
http://dv4p.com/gdpt

If you still use WordPress 2.9, do not update to this version of GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro. If you need new features added by the plugin, you will need to updated to WordPress 3.x to be able to use them.

Updated Interface

Plugin interface is refreshed with latest jQueryUI 1.8.9 and new color scheme as you can see on the image on the right. Same color scheme will be used in upcoming GD Press Tools 4.0 Pro.

New features in 2.6 Pro include Export Terms on Tools panel, that can export into text file all terms in a taxonomy (with hierarchy), in the same format as used for import.

Taxonomy Filter

Taxonomies now can be added as a filters to the post edit panels similar to categories filtering, as displayed on image on the left. Other improvements include updated context help to include list of relevant tutorials, brand new version of gdr2 shared library is added, and some changes are made to taxonomy terms edit panel columns adding.

Updated gdr2 adds some very interesting features, and plugin widgets now use gdr2_Widget core class that implements 2 more options for each widget: display (to all, visitors or users only), and cached (allowing use of gdr2_Cache class to store rendering results in database).

Number of bugs are fixed including: minor problems with saving simple override options for default post types and taxonomies, problems with displaying post template meta box, registering of some custom taxonomies special features and several PHP warnings.

If you have any more problems, please report them in the forum or in comments. Always include exact version of WP you are running, especially if you are using development versions of WP.

GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:
http://dv4p.com/gdtt

List of added tags will depend on the taxonomies registered and it will be available in the list of tags, so you can try it our. Main tagger class is updated and cleaned up a bit to remove some old, duplicated and outdated code. Please, test new features and changes and report problems in the forum or in comments.

Initial release post:
http://www.dev4press.com/2010/blog/development/modded-plugin-headspace2/
gdHeadspace4:
http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-headspace4/
Original Headspace2:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/headspace2/

xScape Context Help

Context help shows a list with links of tutorials that are relevant to that panel. List of tutorials will be updated with each xScape version. Next version of xScape will add context help extensions for some native WP panels like Widgets or Posts.

Experimental support is added for upcoming WordPress 3.1 post formats. Right now, you can enable it from Global Settings panel, Integration tab. If active, xScape will register theme support for all commonly used post formats. Formats add CSS styles to post blocks, and it can be used to style them differently. On a later date, I will rethink the way xScape can use post formats in full capacity.

Widgets are improved, and now each one includes the option for displaying widget to everyone, logged in users or visitors only. This way you can have ads widget hidden from registered and logged in users. Similar option is added to Ads Manager and each ad space can control display in the same manner. Also, video widget is improved allowing display of more than one video in the same time. Contactable module now can include URL of the page from where the contact message is send in the message, with new template tag. Other widgets have updated options to include display option as all the other xScape widgets also. Images icons used by xScape  interface are now merged into a single image for better reuse and a bit faster loading of the interface panels. CSS files are also improved and optimized.

Main update in this version is change in layout manager blocks that allow display of thumbnails (sliders for instance). Before, you could choose only xScape custom field image. Global settings could be used to override it and display post featured image or first image from the post. Now both these options are allowed as a choice in the layout manager, making the use of images much easier and comfortable.

All themes will be released during the day with new framework. Some of them have some fixes and improvements also.

Test all themes, and try them with a free test drive, for both front end and back-end before deciding what is right for you. Free registration is disabled, so you need to send the request for the test account using the contact form.

Demo Loader: http://xscape.info/load/
Demo Home: http://xscape.info/

How the File Manager looks, you can see on the image bellow that shows quick navigation and breadcrumbs navigation on top, with buttons for upload and folder creation on the right. Grid displays all files and folders with file sizes, options and extension. When completed, grid will display CHMOD value, and will have checkboxes to allow deleting of multiple files and changing CHMOD.

GD Press Tools Pro 4: File Manager

Upload File and Create Folder use jQueryUI powered popups, same will be used for CHMOD. If you have any suggestion for this new feature, please leave a comment here or in the forum.

WP 3.1 RC2 and later builds are testing fine with the plugin and I don’t expect any problems when the final WP 3.1 is released. But, please report any problems you may have with the current releases.

Pro version fixes some issues with context help added to pages. Also, brand new functions for working with images attached to terms are expanded, and you can specify term with ID or with the full term object. One more thing I forgot to mention 2 days ago with release notes for 2.5 version: some of the new features require at least WP 3.0, including editing default taxonomies, attaching images for default taxonomies since the way WP 2.9 handles all that doesn’t allow for modifications we need for that. So, upgrade to at least WP 3.0 to get the most of this plugin. 2.6 Pro version of the plugin will support WP 3.0 or newer.

Lite version got all the core changes added to Pro already: expanded list of used labels and capabilities and improved editors for custom post types and custom taxonomies. Notice about upgrading saved custom post types and taxonomies is also included. Plugin is tested with WP 2.9.2, WP 3.0.4 and latest WP 3.1 RC2.

GD CPT Tools

If you have any more problems, please report them in the forum or in comments. Always include exact version of WP you are running, especially if you are using development versions of WP.

GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:
http://dv4p.com/gdtt

Theme Settings panel, Advanced tab got 2 more groups of options for page HEAD tag and page BODY tag. Each group has two new blocks and HTML you add there will be added to very beginning and end of HEAD or BODY tags. This is very useful if you need to add some tracking code not supported directly by the framework, links to some CSS or JS file and many different things.

Terms with Images

Term attached images are added by GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro 2.5, and that plugin is required if you want to use that with xScape themes. Image on the right is example of the lightScape theme and page with listed terms that have images attached. Video tutorial on how to set all that up without writing a single line of code will be published in next couple of hours.

To improve page template used for that, I have added more options that include pager allowing you to display number of terms on each page, and navigate through large lists. If you have more suggestions how to imporve this template, or add more similar templates, please leave a comment here or topic in the forum.

Test all themes, and try them with a free test drive, for both front end and back end before deciding what is right for you. Free registration is disabled, so you need to send the request for the test account using the contact form.

Demo Loader: http://xscape.info/load/
Demo Home: http://xscape.info/

Increased number of visits, but also increased number of spam requests and even malicious attacks (server login attempts, port scanning…) caused that at some periods website became slow and unresponsive due to too much requests. So, it’s best to get a second server that will allow more power and resources to solve the current problems. Transfer will start at noon (Central European Time), and should be completed in 2-3 hours max. DNS should resolve new IP by the time the transfer is complete.

I have set a separate VPS server where only Dev4Press website will be hosted. This server is also hosted by VPS.NET cloud hosting. It wruns on CentOS 5.5 (x64) with Apache 2.2, PHP 5.3.4 and mySQL 5.1. Since VPS.NET cloud hosting allow easy upgrade and increased CPU power and RAM, it will be used in the future to add more power to both servers.

If you notice any problem, please report it in the forum or using the contact form. If that fails, you can send email directly to me: milan at gdragon dot info.

WordPress 3.1 includes jQuery 1.4.4, and that caused many troubles. xScape was using jQueryUI 1.7.3 for the interface that should be, but is not, compatible with jQuery 1.4.4. Also, some other jQuery libraries xScape used, needed old jQueryUI. So, to make all that play nice, a lot of changes were needed.

So, xScape now uses jQueryUI 1.8.7. Because of that, DropdownCheckbox jQuery plugin needed to be updated, NestedSortable control replaced with one powered by jQueryUI 1.8 (used for Menu Designer), Colorbox is updated for jQuery compatibility. jQuery/Interface library is removed (it was very large one), some smaller jQuery plugins compressed and merged, so that less files are loaded. Big parts of our custom JavaScript code is rewritten to support all those changes.

Slightly updated Menu Designer

Downside of all these changes is that xScape no longer supports WordPress 2.8. WP 2.8 uses old jQuery 1.3 library, and most of the new jQuery plugins we now need don’t work with it. Also, some of the WP core function changes are making things complicated with WP 2.8. Supporting both is now impossible, so WP 2.8 support had to go. Official WP statistics says that less than 10% of WP installations run on WP 2.8. Our internal statistics have less than 2% of WP 2.8 installations.

All my testing last few days was successful with WP 3.1 RC2. If you still have problems after update, clear browser cache to make sure that new libraries are loaded. If there are still some issues, please report it in the forum, or leave a comment. Themes airScape and baseScape are released with new framework included. Other themes can be updated with framework only through Dev4Press Updater, or download it from your Account/Download panel.

xScape 1.5.6 will add styling support for the Contact Form 7 and GravityForms plugins, and will add support for new comment form functionalities included with WordPress 3.0. There will be some more core improvements based on changes in WP 3.0/3.1. Also, login page theme support will be improved with a footer area added to the mix.

Test all themes, and try them with a free test drive, for both front end and back end before deciding what is right for you. Free registration is disabled, so you need to send the request for the test account using the contact form.

Demo Loader: http://xscape.info/load/
Demo Home: http://xscape.info/

Maintenance Mode

New versions of lightScape themes includes updated xScape framework 1.5.3. There are many changes in this version, and they include GD Press Tools Pro maintenance mode template, support for new layout manager options, improvements in styling and many minor fixes and changes.

Maintenance mode is on the screenshot on the right. Theme will use settings from the framework: logo, ads and color style as the case was with previous themes that got this template. Many layout elements are improved and got new settings, new filters and actions to help with customizations. Slider is now much more flexible with post selection.

Promo coupon

Starting now, until the December 14 2010 you can get 25% discount for individual xScape themes and xScape Theme Club Membership. For this discount you need to use coupon: LIGHTSCAPE.

xScape Theme Club:
http://www.dev4press.com/themes/xscape/purchase/

And more

To see the theme and framework in action, visit the WordPress MultiSite powered demo website and get your own blog to see who the framework back-end works:

Demo Site:
http://xscape.info/

In the next 2-3 days lightScape 1.2 will be released, and new theme version brings many more improvements that are there to make customizations easier through use of actions and filters. I have added some of them to make my own customization that will power Dev4Press website starting next week. But, I am sure that more can be done, so if you need something specific, just open a topic in the forum for a specific theme, or for the framework, and I will add it.

New Dev4Press Detail

Also, the idea with all this was to allow for easy upgrade-ability of the theme when new version is released, so the whole process is helped with built in upgrade/backup system allowing you to isolate what you need to keep, what files you added for your customization.

On the image on the right you can see a detail of the Documentation Central built into the new website design using lightScape. Right now bbPress forum is also integrated into the theme and user account panels. To make all that possible, I am using custom page templates and upcoming enhanced Layout Manager that makes all that much easier and more powerful. New xScape 1.5.3 is coming out on monday, with all themes updated to use it.

Also, I want to announce that based on my work on new Dev4Press, I will release number of tutorials explaining some of the things done, with code examples. For now, stay tuned to see how the new Dev4Press looks like, and see how powerful xScape really is, and that no other WordPress theme framework can’t really come close to the level of customizations and features xScape has.

Customizations of the new theme will include many changes and improvements and some of them will be part of lightScape 1.2 theme that will be released on monday with new xScape 1.5.3. Also, new version of bbPress forum will be on the new website (1.1-alpha-2539), with new theme that now integrates with lightScape. This also means that a new theme, only for bbPress called bbScape is in works, and this theme will include integration steps that will allow full integration with any of the xScape themes. This is still some time away (2-3 months). This theme will be free for all that have any of the xScape individual themes or club membership.

Forum will still go through styling updates over the next 2-3 weeks so that it can be integrated better with WordPress theme running the website.

New version of shared gdr2 library is included with several new functions for detecting MS IE browsers.

There will be more new features coming to plugin soon, but main focus is on backup features for 4.0 version. I still don’t have specific timetable, but I want to take time and make add as many options as I can to make backup more flexible and powerful.

More about GD Press Tools Pro: http://dv4p.com/gdpt

Promo coupon

Starting now, until the end of November 2010 you can get 40% discount for xScape Theme Club Membership (includes all current and future themes) and GD Affiliate Center plugin (both with yearly recurring payments only). For this discount you need to use coupon: XSCAPE15.

xScape Theme Club:
http://www.dev4press.com/themes/xscape/purchase/
GD Affiliate Center:
http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-affiliate-center/editions/

And more

To see the theme and framework in action, visit the WordPress MultiSite powered demo website and get your own blog to see who the framework back-end works:

Demo Site:
http://xscape.info/

Right now we are only waiting for DNS servers to get the new IP for the domain, and that can take up to 24 hours.

Since new server is VPS, it will be much faster than shared hosting on BlueHost was, and will have much less downtime. Current server had no downtime for the past 2 months, and not only that, but full control over the server settings will allow many more improvements and optimizations to make loading of website much faster.

If you notice any problem, please report it in the forum or using the contact form. If that fails, you can send email directly to me: milan at gdragon dot info.

Many improvements and features added to xScape 1.5 included and few bugs that are now fixed. They include: broken initialization of meta elements, problem with overriding width for oEmbed elements, broken display of full code ads, some invalid names of groups on the Settings panel and problems with front layout caused by new Blueprint class.

All the other themes will be released in the next couple of days. Don’t try using new framework with those themes, it will break them, best is to way for the proper updates.

Promo coupon

Starting now, until the end of November 2010 you can get 40% discount for xScape Theme Club Membership (includes all current and future themes) and GD Affiliate Center plugin (both with yearly recurring payments only). For this discount you need to use coupon: XSCAPE15.

xScape Theme Club:
http://www.dev4press.com/themes/xscape/purchase/
GD Affiliate Center:
http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-affiliate-center/editions/

And more

To see the theme and framework in action, visit the WordPress MultiSite powered demo website and get your own blog to see who the framework back-end works:

More Info:
http://www.dev4press.com/themes/newsscape/
Demo Site:
http://xscape.info/
newsScape:
http://xscape.info/newsscape/

xScape: New Interface

Interface

xScape settings panels are fully reorganized. Some panels are removed and merged for more logical organization. Number of panels was too big and I think that is better to have less panels with more options. But, too many options need better control, so now each group of options is collapsible. Cookies are used to stored states of opened and closed groups.

But, if you don’t like to use the toggle, you can switch back to displaying groups always opened without toggle button. Option for that is on the Global Settings panel, Interface tab.

Ads Manager

One of the most requested features is a way to easily change and embed ads. Without changing the templates that is always difficult task. But now, xScape has a panel where you can set ads for various templates. Not only that, individual themes can expand it and add more ad spaces. Even better, there is an easy way to add more ad spaces, and I will make a tutorial next week showing how to do it. Documentation entry on the registering/displaying the ad is already added.

On the xScape Tools panel there is new panel for Ads only, for now only one tool: to disable all ads without deleting settings. Reset tab got option to delete all ads also.

And to get full flexibility with ads displayed I recommend using GD Affiliate Center plugin that will allow more options: ad blocks with more than one ad per block (small ads in a row, for instance). Tutorial on that is also coming next week.

Video Widget

Video(s) widget

New widget will display one random video (using oEmbed that is part of WordPress) from a list of multiple video links you can set. Video width will be auto sized to the sidebar.

Other new features

Global Settings got new option (last tab) to attempt auto setting of oEmbed width for objects embedded in the post content so that they are same width as the content area. Another change on global level is that widgets from modules are registered through framework and can be disabled as other framework widgets. It works in most cases, but some plugins can cause problems. Networks accounts links got options to set REL and TARGET for each link. They are preset to ‘me noffolow’ for REL and ‘_blank’ for TARGET.

All loops in templates are expanded with more CSS classes for additional manipulation and styling (first, last, number of post). Post/comment date functions are expanded and can be controlled from settings panel allowing display of date or both time and date with option to set separator between.

Global settings got new option to override location of storage in multisite/network environment.

And more changes

jQueryUI is updated to 1.7.3. To retain compatibility with older jQuery, we are not going to use jQueryUI 1.8.x for now. Few things were changed for better load performance and less memory usage. Some widgets are improved, and several new core functions are added.

All themes will be updated to use new xScape. newsScape will be released tonight, and other themes will follow on Monday.

Promo coupon

Starting now, until the end of November 2010 you can get 40% discount for xScape Theme Club Membership (includes all current and future themes) and GD Affiliate Center plugin (both with yearly recurring payments only). For this discount you need to use coupon: XSCAPE15.

xScape Theme Club:
http://www.dev4press.com/themes/xscape/purchase/
GD Affiliate Center:
http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-affiliate-center/editions/

Try themes with a free test drive, for both front end and back end before deciding what is right for you:

Demo Loader: http://xscape.info/load/
Demo Home: http://xscape.info/

Google Storage is new CDN added to backup. FTP is also supported now. But, mirror based CDN systems will not be due to nature of mirror CDN mode. So, no MaxCDN or NetDNA for backup and copy to CDN. If you use CDN other than currently supported ones, please send me info on it and I will try to add support for it also.

Many new functions are added to the plugin, and some of the existing functions are improved.

You can expect one or two more minor releases of this plugin, and get ready for GD Press Tools 4.0. Work on that one will begin soon and will bring a lot of changes and new features.

Notice: gdr2 library is finally completed, and all other plugins and themes are going to be updated this week with it. There could be an issue with the new version and older plugins, so please report any problems. Right now xScape themes, GD aZon Fusion and GD CPT Tools use gdr2.

When you create new post type or taxonomy, plugin will check name against the list of restricted keywords to ensure that there will be no conflict with default WordPress features. I accidentally create taxonomy AUTHOR, and it wasn’t working properly because WP uses same word for rewriting author pages. With new version of the plugin, these things will not happen.

New panel Tools is added, and has one tool: Import Terms. From plain text file you can import terms for selected taxonomy. Taxonomy can be hierarchical. In the info folder with the plugin you have a two example files for both flat list and hierarchical list. List can contain existing terms, they will be skipped (or used to identify hierarchy). Some things in the interface are improved and cleaned up. There will be some more changes soon to change some of the strings and make the more consistent.

I got question from many user of Lite edition about adding some of the Pro edition features into Lite edition. I say one more time: that’s not going to happen. Lite version will be maintained, fixed when needed and updated to support new versions of WordPress. But no new features will be added. All that will be for Pro edition only.

Please, test new features and report problems in the forum or in comments.

GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:
http://dv4p.com/gdtt