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/

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/

Very important: Before you install this version, check the system requirements. GD Press Tools 4.0 Pro requires WordPress 3.0 or newer to work. Do not attempt installation on older WordPress versions, it will not work. Also, do not install this Beta version on your production websites, it’s still not ready for live use due to some still unfinished features and potential bugs. Plugin is tested with WP 3.0.4, WP 3.0.5 and WP 3.1 RC4, with both multisite and normal installations.

Plugin can be downloaded through Dev4Press Updater, but you must set it to get Beta versions also, not only stable. For his check out the settings in Dev4Press Updater plugin.

Backup

Due to the way PclZIP class works, adding file by file was slow, since PclZIP opens and closes archive for each file added, and that takes a long time. For file backups, plugin now prepares the list of files to backup and than sends all file the the archive. Also, many servers now days have native PHP extension for ZIP built in, and plugin will use this extension if found, if not, it will fall back to the PclZIP.

There were couple of bugs with upload procedure, and they are fixed now, and further improved. Now, you can select more than one destination to upload archive too, and also, Dropbox support is added. Interface is fixed so that delete buttons for files and jobs work. Among default file backup tasks, I have added two more for backing up the error_log files. Most servers are set to create these files in website folders where errors occur, and with this task you can create archive from them. Second task for this is the same, but will also delete this error logs, so you can have regular backup jobs that only deal with error logs, make the job upload to Dropbox and that is the easiest way to have daily report of all errors on the website without the need to go through logs manually through server control panels.

Also, as you can see on image below, if you have backup running, you can’t access the file that is in creation or upload process, and you can see what is the progress on that specific backup process.

Backup Progress

Here is the new stats for backing up GD Star Rating website. 3852 files and 582 folders, full database are backed up in archive of  87.4MB in size. Backup time was 4.2 seconds. And 70 seconds were needed to copy backup archive to Dropbox.

Other Changes

As it was expected, some plugins and themes don’t play nice with others, and can cause problems with displaying interface panels, especially to visually rich plugins such as GD Press Tools. GD Press Tools will attempt to disable all extraneous JavaScript and CSS loaded on own panels, but still, too many plugins and themes are poorly coded and interfere with other parts of WordPress. Latest problems were caused by Thesis theme that was causing all jQueryUI to fail all over WP. GD Press Tools will disable that for own panels.

Also, most cache plugins can cause problems with some features due to overrides they add for many WordPress functionalities. Major issue was problem downloading large backup archives due to problems with W3 Total Cache plugin. I have made some changes in attempt to prevent these problems, and for now it’s OK, but if you notice any more problems, please report them, and also include which cache plugin you use.

Debugger is improved with more relevant data and easier access via dashboard widget. Sitemaps and Security also are improved and few minor problems fixed. Overall, I think that this is very stable build and I expect only minor problems that will be fixed before the final version is released this week.

Release plans

Final plugin version will be released on February 24 2011.

Currently known issues

There are no known issues at this moment. Please, report any problems or bugs you find.

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 is active now, and can be used until March 1 2011.

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

With each backup, plugin is saving the log file with backup job details and backup progress and status. This file can be included in the archive file. Running backup now is not creating one time only job, but it’s running job in the background, and plugin is waiting for the response on the job process and if the backup is successful it’s adding it to the list without reloading the page. Scheduling jobs allows you to set how many old archives to keep, so you can set daily backup job that will keep last 7 archives only, and remove backups older than that.

Backup works for normal WP installations and with multisite/network installations allowing super admin to backup everything, and individual websites admins can only backup their own files and database tables. GD Press Tools is the only backup plugin for WordPress that supports backup in multisite environments!

List of archives is displayed on the image below. You can now delete and download archive, you can upload it to CDN or FTP manually and you can see the log file.

Backup Archives

If you use job scheduling, all schedules for backup you make will be available on the Jobs tab. For each job you will see list of job tasks, next run date and time, schedule interval. You can delete jobs in the list.

Backup Jobs

Backup for files is unlike anything seen in any of the WP backup plugins (both free and commercial). You can backup full installation, only files belonging to individual blogs (in multisite environment), or you can do partial backups. There are several predefined partial backups: only plugins, only themes, only htaccess and wp-config, wp-contents folder. Using filters, more partial backup tasks can be registered. Also, exceptions can be defined (name of files and folders to match, like SVN or CGI-BIN folders), list of exclude files and folders to skip during backup (no need to backup W3 Total Cache plugin cache storage, or similar folders).

New backup is fully functional already, but if you have any suggestion for it, you can leave comment here or in the forum. There is still time to make more improvements to Backup system.

For multi sites, new panel is added for site admin to set what panels can be accessed by the individual blogs. This includes database, server info, wordpress hooks and cron scheduler. More elements will be added if needed. At this point, this is tested with WordPress 3.0 with multi site enabled and also with WordPressMU 2.9.2.

Database backup is improved, and additional options are added to allow partial backup and select only some tables in the database. This works with immediate backup and for scheduled jobs. All individual blogs installations now have own backup locations. And, another debug tool is added that will allow you to visualize the JSON strings. JSON will be converted into PHP object, and this object displayed using print_r or gdp_r functions. To ensure that this works on every version of PHP, JSON code is added into the plugin to be included if PHP is older than 5.2.

In the next day or two Lite version 2.4.3 will be released with few more improvements (already part of this 3.2 Pro) for backup in multi site environments.

Since WP 3.0 is still in development, some changes can potentially break GD Press Tools. So, please, report any problems so that I can fix them before WP 3.0 is released.

Pro version Database tools are updated and expanded. Now, for each table you have optimize and repair options. Also, cleanup tools is split into two: one for optimization of database only, and other for repair. Sending email after backup is fixed, with few minor typos and errors displaying list of backups.

Most important new addition here is use of mysqldump program to create backups of the database. For this to work, plugin needs access to mysql program and also some PHP functions. New mySQL panel on Database panel is there to set and check all prerequisites. For manual and schedule backup jobs you can choose which backup method to use. If the mysqldump can’t be run, classic method will be used. Also, GZIP mysqldump method can’t be used on Windows servers.

Also, both versions are now fully compatible with latest build of WordPress 3.0.

After this, next step is to add sending backup archives via email and to add restore options for archived database files.

Most important fix is change in lock website option (only logged in users can access the website). This option breaks flash uploader. But now, that’s fixed and credit goes to Frank P. Walentynowicz (http://fw2s.com) who figured out the proper way of doing this. Also, for Pro version, debug print function will include jQuery for blog pages if it’s not loaded by the theme.

Due to the problems with WordPress 2.9 and broken cron in this WP version, auto tagger tool in GD Press Tools got also broken. And for some users there was no way to run it again. So, now you have forced cleanup tool for tagger that will reset it and allow you to use it again. Also, plugins Cron Scheduler panel allows you to run all jobs in there whenever you want. Now you can safely run update check jobs whenever you want. This will work only with WordPress 2.8 and 2.9.

Pro version got new tool allowing you to change the WordPress core update so that you can use auto update to update to beta and nightly versions. This is not something you want to use on production blogs, and it’s only for development. To change this, option is located on Settings panel, Administrator tabs.