Over the last year Amazon is changing product advertising API and many of the elements are removed. This include customers reviews and few more additional fields. GD aZon FUSION now has fully updated code for latest Amazon specifications. Also, search index list is updated with latest info for all Amazon websites. Biggest change is in the Node Browsing search method. This is now much more limited and it will return only one page with results (max 10 results as usual), and it has only 4 node browse methods.

GD aZon FUSION: New Search/Browse Grid

Fixed bugs include some issues with the new interface. Interface is also a bit updated with better color coding, all functional buttons and improved settings and tools pages. Widget is improved a bit, and plugin menu item are changed to more logical titles.

Roadmap is updated with two more features that will be part of the 1.0.0 version. Check it here: http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-azon-fusion/roadmap/.

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

So, nothing new in this version, just a regular cleanup and interface changes. But, roadmap is updated with plans for the next two major revisions (3.2 and 3.3). Lists are not finalized and there should be one more rewrite related feature added if the testing I am conducting goes OK.

More about GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:

http://d4p.me/gdtt

Extra Menu Items

Another quick update that adds two very interesting enhanced features for post types (both custom and default) to add menu items for quick link to scheduled and draft posts. Also, this version includes few minor features and updated jQuery UI library to version 1.8.14.

To enable scheduled and drafts menu items, you need to enable enhanced features for post types you want to have them. It works for custom and default post types. If there are no drafts or future posts, these items will not be displayed at all. Click on the menu item will open list of posts filtered by the status, much quicker than doing it from main editor page every time. You can see it in action on the image on the right for Post and for one custom post type (Documents).

Roadmap is updated for next 3.2 version of the plugin. This new major revision is expected in about 3 weeks. Future versions will be coming maybe quicker than usual, and they will not have so many new features, but the main thing is to have stable and well tested versions.

More about GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:

http://d4p.me/gdtt

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/

Widget: Ads Block

New major version of GD Affiliate Center is here adding new features, improving plugin and fixing some bugs. Plugin now has ads widget, and uses latest version of gdr2 library, some parts of plugin core are rewritten and improved and editing of ads is working.

Widget is called Ads Block, and it allows simple filtering of ads by size and affiliate, allows setting number of ads to display, adding of HTML before and after ads block. Widget supports display and cache features implemented with gdr2 base widget class.

Big parts of admin core code is rewritten and improved and editing bugs fixed. Roadmap is updated, and next version is expected in the next couple of weeks with updated interface (like GD Press Tools), priorities for ads and affiliates and support for BuySellAds integration.

Demo Website:
http://www.gdaffiliatecenter.com/
Premium Tutorials:
http://www.dev4press.com/category/tutorials/plugins-tutorials/gd-affiliate-center/
About Plugin:
http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-affiliate-center/

xScape 1.5.4

I am currently working on xScape 1.5.4 that is planned to be released on January 1 2011. This one will fix several reported bugs, and will add one major feature: styling of WordPress login form. Work on that is partially based on work done by Kerry Webster. xScape will get full settings tab that will allow you to show or hide different elements on login form, to position the form on the page, set logo image, set background image and colors. For each theme login form will mimic the look of the theme. Also, I will leave enough customization potential to expand on this in the future versions.

Post formats (I don’t like them one bit) are coming to WP 3.1, and xScape will support them if needed.

xScape 1.6

After that, work toward next major release will continue with few more minor releases adding features as well, pretty much the same development cycle as with previous milestone versions. Very flexible login/register/lost_password tabbed form will be high on list of priorities, and it will be in widget form and also as a popup/dropdown element to use in different ways depending on the theme.

xScape 1.7 and beyond

I have some ideas on the roadmap already, but that will change for sure, since it will be at least 5-6 months before I need to think on that. As usual, features will also depend on WordPress.

Themes

This year 7 themes were released. I had to dedicate a lot of time to framework, and I feel that having a lot of themes is not that important as having a lot of features available in them. Next year will see similar trend and I think that at most 10 themes will be released in 2011. Quantity rarely translates into quality, and I want to offer versatile themes that are not rushed just for the sake of releasing more of them. I am working on few ideas for new themes, and first theme will be released in January or early February.

As usual, all suggestions are welcome. Leave a comment and tell me what you would like to see in the xScape, and what type of themes I should build…

Major features are already outlined in the roadmap for xScape, but here is the more info on what to expect. The only new theme related feature in next WordPress 3.1 will be post formats support. One of the next couple of versions of xScape will add support for post types, I am not sure exactly when, still waiting to see how that will work in the first place.

Some features I was planning for previous milestone were bumped to this one because I didn’t had time for them, or some other features have been bigger priorities. But, I am not adding anything not already on the list, so all the features on the milestone roadmap will be done while the xScape reaches 1.6.

Also, very important change for next milestone is fading support for WordPress 2.8 and WordPress 2.9. xScape 1.6 will support only WordPress 3 and higher. From xScape 1.5.3 I will start removing code that deals specifically with WP 2.8. Based on WordPress official usage statistics, WP 2.8 has only 10% of websites running on it. WP 2.9 is with 25% of websites, and WP 3.0 on over 50%. xScape 1.5.3 will be released by the end of this year.

That’s it for now, more info on the xScape development progress will follow.

xScape 1.4.2 will have several new features:

• Use of WordPress media manager. With this you can use images you might have in media manager already. This will work for all images used by theme.
• Upload of Gravatar default image to replace default images in WordPress.

lightScape detail

As for lightScape, image on the right shows a detail from one of the current two color styles. This one is called Autumn. You can see transparent content area (this will be used for some styles, not all), and there are two menus. Top header area for now can have menu and search box, and I plan to add rss feeds, twitter and similar links there.

There will be slider on the page, and layout supports one sidebar and one widgets footer area.

So, very soon, all current themes will get new framework, and demo of lightScape goes on xScape by the end of the week.

xScape roadmap is updated from time to time, and you can always use it as a reference to see what’s coming. I can’t guarantee the dates of releases, and that’s why plans are milestone based. Next milestone is 1.5.0 and at least 6-7 versions will be released until it’s reached. So, the features in the roadmap will be split in the releases leading to the milestone.

For the 1.5 milestone, current list of planned features is as follows:

• Gravatar: you can upload custom gravatar to use instead of default ones.
• Breadcrumbs and archives customizations. You can specify the format used to display what these heading blocks display.
• GD Press Tools Pro Maintenance Mode: themes can add templates for maintenance mode.
• Improvements to templates dealing with custom taxonomies and custom post types.

For the 1.6/1.7 milestone, current list of planned features is as follows:

• GD Affiliate Center: custom locations to place banners into each theme.
• Conditional layouts control based on taxonomies.
• Login form drop down or widget like to be integrated on the each page.

As for the Lite version of the framework to be used in free themes, it’s not happening any time soon, so xScape will remain exclusively premium framework and all themes only premium. Once I get time to make lite version, some themes will get free versions, but I have no idea when that’s gonna happen.

This is not set in stone, and I am sure that many other things will be added also. If you have any suggestions, leave a comment.

User Columns

Users panel grid is expanded with one more column for last recorded user activity. This tracking is added few weeks ago, so you might not have too much data recorded yet, but over time you will have clear picture when users have been active on the website.

GDP_R print function and CSS and JS it uses are now embedded into the page. Both these are very small, and it’s not really good to link two additional files, it’s better to move them into the page.

WP Hooks panel is gone, and added to Environment panel. Hooks will be improved soon with more debug usage and added to footer like SQL queries. Dashboard widget is updated and styled better, and number of minor bugs are fixed.

In about 2 weeks time, 3.5 will be released, that’s a bit later than I first expected, but it will be worth the wait.

Maintenance Mode Settings

To control maintenance mode, new tab on Settings panel is added with many options. You can select template for rendering mode message that will be displayed to users who are not allowed during maintenance period. Right now there is only one template and more will come. Also, xScape themes will all support this and will hook into the plugin to add on templates for this mode.

You can set timer and restrictions. Timer is only there to inform users when will be site staring normal work, it’s not used by the plugin to stop maintenance mode. You need to do it yourself. You can use GD Press Tools dashboard widget to enable or disable maintenance mode.

Default Maintenance Template

Restrictions will be expanded later with IP options, specific user ID’s… Info about mode is always visible in the footer and if you want with notifications on top of every page.

Default template is very simple as you can see from this image on the right.

If you notice any problems with this new feature, please leave a comment or forum topic and describe what the problem is.

Post Editor Tool

All fixes from Lite are also in this one, but there are some interesting features added. On the image on the right. If you decide to purchase Pro edition, you will be able to access already posted video tutorial about this feature and how can you use it to add terms from the actual post content and to make them into hyper links.

All Pro editions have Roadmap and suggestions page and you can see what’s ‘cooking’, and again if you purchase membership license you will get access to Suggestions page and influence the development.

Plugin Page: http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-taxonomies-tools/