For each of the listed feature, you will see the plugin version number when the feature is added, and post will be updated over time to reflect the changes made to the plugin. All features in red are completed in the latest available version. Features in green are close to completion.

1. Product Type editor: main editor for the product type used to set name, labels, rewrite rules, images, videos and product specification properties. Product types are implemented through custom post types, but most of the parameters are generated by the plugin, user don’t need to set everything in detail. (0.7 Alpha , 100% done)
2. Product Type data: each product is a post for a custom post type. When creating or editing product, you will use standard WordPress post editor. But, this editor will be expanded with meta boxes generated by the plugin based on the settings for product type. So, you will get Product Properties meta box with all properties you have set for product type and you will get Product Media and Links that will allow you to add images, videos and external links to the product. All 3 can be limited in number on the product type editor. Images can be external or handled by Media Library. Videos can be external link for websites that support eEmbed: YouTube, Vimeo and many more. (0.7 Alpha, 100% done)
3. Product Type pages: each product will get several pages in the front end of the website. Right now plugin support 5 page types: specification, author review, user reviews, related products and media. Author review can have more than one page allowing for long reviews. User reviews is basically comments thread and media page is a gallery of all product images and videos. (0.8 Beta, 100% done)
4. Built-in product types: to make things easier to get started with the plugin, adding new product type will have templates. If you choose one of the offered template, plugin will create new product type from selected template will all predefined properties and settings. You can change things if you want and you will get working product type very quickly. Number of product types will be expanded, and first 0.7 Alpha has 4 of them. (0.9.7 Beta, 100% done)
5. Built-in taxonomies: one more convenient feature is creation of taxonomies. This is also simplified version for those that don’t use our GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools plugin. Also, creating new taxonomy here will give you choice of predefined templates for some useful taxonomies, similar to predefined product types. (0.7 Alpha, 100% done)
6. Custom permalinks rewrite rules: plugin has many customization options to create products permalinks and you can control the rules added with custom slugs for different page types, compare or products pages and more. (0.7.5 Alpha, 100% done)
7. gdT3 Templates System: for all rendering plugin uses Dev4Press own gdT3 templates system. Templates are stored into files, support mixing of HTML and PHP with special tags used for plugin specific features. Plugin has several types of templates: single product, archives, widgets, compare page. Themes and other plugins can replace default templates or add own templates. (0.9 Beta, 100% done)
8. Compare Products: template and rewrite rules for products comparison. Plugin allows comparing 2 or more products in the same time. Default styling for the plugin can support many products compared to make it easier to see wide lists. (0.8 Beta – 100% done)
9. Simple archive filtering: simple filtering of products will be done using taxonomies only with the basic sorting options. There are 2 different templates built in for this displaying products in grid or list. (0.7 Alpha, 100% done)
10. Archive filter Template: complex filter that allows use of product properties and taxonomies, filtering by date, sorting by different criteria. (0.9.7 Beta, 100% done)
11. Full xScape Theme Framework support: all themes have templates built in for this plugin. And, plugin will be able to create and preset templates automatically in one of the next versions. (0.8 Beta – 100% done)
12. Support for any theme: for default WP themes plugin comes with example templates you can use to make it work. Similar method will work with any other theme. Also, plan is to have plugin copy the templates over into theme folders. (0.7.5 Alpha, 100% done)
13. Widget for Comparing: to add products to compare you can use widgets. From many page, you can add products to the widget and than run comparison from it, leading to compare page. You can have more than one compare widget in the same time, and one compare widget can be used for only one product type, because you can’t compare products from different types. Compare widget can have limit of the most products to compare. (0.7 Alpha – 100% done)
14. Widget for Single/Random Product: show one product in the widget using own template to display product specification and image. Widget will allow options for filtering the product to display. (0.8.8 Beta – 100% done)
15. Widget for Products List: template based rendering for the products with basic filtering options. One list widget can display products from one product type only. (0.9 Beta – 100% done)
16. Widget for Products Search: add simple widget to allow searching for the products only with selectable product type. (0.9.7 Beta, 100% done)
17. Maintenance tools: to make the process of cleanup easier, and to have a way of clearing cached data, Tools panel has a tool that allows you to remove cached templates, registration data and rewrite rules. (0.7 Alpha, 100% done)
18. Import and Export: once you create product types and taxonomies, it will be useful to export that data from one website and have that imported on another website. These tools will make that very easy. (0.7.5 Alpha, 100% done)
19. Shortcodes and Functions: Shortcodes and functions that can be used to embed products into different posts. They will allow using products on any page on the website. (0.9.5 Beta, 100% done).
20. Export to file and Import Data from File: bulk export and import formatted data for multiple products using plain text CSV file that include full specifications for products. (0.9.8 Beta, 100% done).

This is current features list, and I expect few things to be added during development. As for the features beyond 1.0.0 version, this is yet not set, but here is the current preliminary list:

1. Integration with bbPress: assign topic to a product and display discussion on the product as a page incorporated with the plugin. (planned for 1.1.0)
2. Expanding Sitemaps: support for different XML sitemaps plugins to add products pages, comparisons and other new links and archives. (plnned for 1.1.0)
3. Additional product pages: for each product/product_type you can define extra pages that will be included in the pages list for the product navigation. (planned for 1.1.0)
4. Archive URL variations: specify different archive templates use based on the URL for the archive. This will allow special archive pages for different uses. (planned for 1.1.0)
5. Advanced search template: new template to include different page layout for searching products based all multiple multi value criteria. (planned for 1.2.0)
6. GD Star Rating 2.0: once the GDSR 2.0 is released, GD Products Center will fully support it and templates will be modified for direct integration. (planned for 1.5.0)
7. GD aZon FUSION Integration: get products data from Amazon via this plugin. Amazon auto added as the Seller with adding links to products in the system. (planned for 1.4.0)
8. Product Editions: one product can have variations like color, more or less memory… Instead having duplicate products, set up versions of same product. (planned for 1.2.0)
9. Vendors/Selers/Stores: setting up vendors and assign product types and products to them for pricing control for different product versions. (planned for 1.2.0)
10. Statistics Display: panel to show visits statistics for different product types and products. (planned for 1.3.0)

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/

New Year 2012 coupon for 25% discount is NEWYEAR2012. Coupon is valid starting now until Sunday, January 8 2012. All our products are eligible for this deal, and all prices on the website show the discounted price. For the next 3 days you can get all our plugins pack with lifetime (one payment only) license for only $300,00. And you can get GD Press Tools Pro lifetime license for only $126,50. GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro lifetime license is also only $126,50.

This year Christmas coupon for 40% discount is XMAS2011. Coupon is valid starting now until Christmas: December 22, 23 and 24. All products are eligible for this deal, and all prices on the website show the discounted price. For the next 3 days you can get all our plugins pack with lifetime (one payment only) license for only $240,00. And you can get GD Press Tools Pro lifetime license for only $101,40.

Don’t miss this great opportunity. Merry Christmas!

The biggest problem with current permalinks rewriting in WordPress is that custom post types can have only one permalinks structure that is practically hardcoded and can’t be changed in any useful way, it can contain only post type name and post name. With this new version of the plugin you can create any permalink structure you want, similar to default posts in WordPress now. Supported link elements are listed on the post type editor, check the image bellow.

Custom Post Type Permalinks

As for the post type – taxonomy intersections, this one is very interesting for simple posts filtering on the archives, not only by post type, but post type and taxonomy term in the same time. Usual post type archive URL will be like this:

http://www.example.com/document/

With taxonomy terms intersection active, you can create URL that will look like this:

http://www.example.com/document/product/plugin/

And this will show archive page for documents post type filtered by product taxonomy term plugin. And this works with hierarchical taxonomies also.

Other changes include new tagger methods for integration on post editor page for non hierarchical taxonomies like post tags. You can use internal tagger, Yahoo (as before), Alchemy and Zemanta, with last two require API key to access (both free). Custom fields for meta boxes got two new fields: listing and rich text editor. Rich text editor control doesn’t have all features main WordPress post editor has, right now upload/insert set of buttons for use of Media Library is missing, hopefully I will find the way to add that soon.

Further more, plugin has several bugs fixed, changes to some of the custom fields, removed some unused functions and other minor improvements. If you notice any problems or bugs with this one, leave comment or post in the forums. Also, clear the cache for admin side so that new JavaScript files are loaded properly.

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

New permalinks rewriting is improved, and more info added for the fields you can use. Right now, this works great, and I was testing with many different configurations and permalinks structure. New custom fields are added in this version: for rich text editor and values listing. Also, many minor bugs are fixed in the custom meta box system.

Rich Editor for custom field

Please, report any problems with this new rewriting methods in the comments or forum, or any other problem you may find. 3.2 Stable version coming next week.

More about GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:

http://d4p.me/gdtt

The biggest problem with current permalinks rewriting in WordPress is that custom post types can have only one permalinks structure that is practically hardcoded and can’t be changed in any useful way, it can contain only post type name and post name. So, new version of the plugin will change that and will allow you to create any permalink structure you want, similar to default posts in WordPress now.

New permalinks settings for custom post type

These new settings are added to Advanced tab for each custom post type. First option will activate support for intersection for archive of post types and taxonomies. For instance, if you have custom post type document, and taxonomy attached to it product. By default, archive URL for custom post type would look like this (can be different based on post type settings):

http://www.example.com/document/

But, if you want to filter posts in that post type by the taxonomy term, URL can look like this once you activate taxonomy intersections. This will get all posts for document post type that have plugin term in product taxonomy. New structure supports feed and paging, just like normal archives.

http://www.example.com/document/product/plugin/

Other major change is single post permalinks for custom post types. Right now a single post link for custom post type document will always have structure like this: document/%post_name%. You can change document part to something else, but that’s it. If you want to include taxonomy, or author, or date you can’t do it. So, now this also changes, and for each post type you can specify the custom structure that can include all those things. On the image above you have how the example structure can look like and what you an use.

There will be more changes in new version, but these are most important, and it would be great to test them before rolling out stable 3.2 version. Right now, permalinks rewriting works fine, but it’s not tested enough so I can’t recommend using this live until 3.2 is released. Please, report any problems with this new rewriting methods in the comments or forum.

More about GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:

http://d4p.me/gdtt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But, first thing first, the winners are:

I have contacted winners about this and they need to create free accounts on Dev4Press and plugin license will be assigned to them. Congratulations, and I hope you like the plugin, and also hoe to hear from them on their impressions about plugin and maybe some suggestions for future versions.

And, for everyone else, it’s not too late to take advantage and use the 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

GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools 3.0

GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools 3.0 Pro is released couple of days ago, and you can check out all the new features and videos showcasing plugin features. Now, here are top 10 reasons why using this plugin will help you with website management and speed up development process.

Before I get to the list, its very important to know that most of the features in this list are exclusive to GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro, and are not implemented with any other similar plugin available for WordPress, free or commercial. Plugin is always in development, and more features will be added making plugin more powerful.

1. No coding required. Custom post types and custom taxonomies are getting more and more popular, but default method to add can be very complicated for most WordPress users. With GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro, you have simple to use interface, with info on all options, and you need couple of minutes to create post type or taxonomy, no matter how complex the settings for it are. Avoiding manual coded function will save you time in case WordPress core gets changed and you get stuck with broken code. Also, adding everything manually to theme functions.php is never a good idea because change of theme can be very frustrated when the code added stops working.
2. Up to date with latest WordPress: Plugin is maintained to work with WordPress 3.0 and newer, and it will be fully compatible with all new WordPress versions. Whatever new is added into WordPress core for post types and taxonomies will be fully supported by GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro. And because of that, you don’t to worry about compatibility issues. Plugins supports ALL post types and taxonomies features WordPress allows for, including icon for the admin menu for post type, menu position and everything else.
3. Easy to use interface: jQueryUI powered interface with plenty of help for all options through convenient tool tips with additional lists of available tutorials through WordPress context help. Controls have validation that will help you fill all required fields for both post types and taxonomies and make sure that you don’t use protected and reserved names that can conflict with WordPress features.


Post Types List

4. Edit default post types and taxonomies: All default WordPress post types and taxonomies, all third party post types and taxonomies (added by other plugins) will be available for edit through GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro interface. There are two edit modes: full and simple. Full is only for experienced users, since some of the settings there can break WordPress depending on what you want to change. But, with simple edit you can enable use of plugin enhanced features, add different WordPress features and few other things. And even if you mess something up, you can always disable these customizations.
5. Enhanced features: For default post types and taxonomies, WordPress implements some useful features that are not directly available for custom ones. Plugin fixes that, and adds bunch of very useful enhanced features: dashboard integration, posts filtering, additional columns and more. And with all this, you can save a lot of time writing custom code to implement these extra features. For all default and custom taxonomies, and for all terms, you can use attach images using WordPress Media Library similar to post featured image/thumbnail. Plugin allows you to use these images in the front end to add very useful visual look to your archives for any taxonomy you use. And, if you need restricted/limited meta boxes for taxonomies, plugin adds them too, replacing default ones.


Metabox Post Editor

6. Custom meta boxes: WordPress supports custom fields for post types, but for most uses, they can be very frustrating to use and get consistent results. So, with GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro you can define in advance custom fields (date, image, bool, select list…) and than create custom meta boxes to combine custom fields. Each meta box can be attached to any post type and you will get easy to use meta box with descriptions and buttons to help you make the process easy to use. Also, you can use shortcodes to embed custom fields values into the posts.
7. Additional widgets: GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro implements several very useful widgets to display terms from any taxonomy (including custom ones) as a list or a cloud with support for wide range of settings: post type filtering, hierarchy, displaying of terms count and more. Also, you have a widget that can display list of post types links to archive pages.
8. Custom capabilities: For most uses, you are safe using default capabilities for all users roles. But, if you need something more, you can create your own capabilities base, and than GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro will help you to map all post types and taxonomies related capabilities to all active user roles. And that will also save you a lot of time you will need to manually code that.
9. Import and Export plugin setting: If you need to transfer custom post types and taxonomies definitions, meta boxes or plugin settings from one website to another, plugin can export selected options into file, that you can than import and transfer all settings you need. Very, very easy to use.
10. Import and Export terms: In most cases, adding large number of terms into WordPress can be very slow. Plugin will allow you to import terms from plain text file (even with hierarchy). And you can also export terms into the file. Again, good way to transfer terms to another website. This will work for any taxonomy, custom and default alike.
11. And yes, even more: As you can see, GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro goes to eleven. More features include: cache support for custom posts and taxonomies, caching of registration functions, enhanced default WordPress functions for terms, posts, generating tag cloud and list and enhanced default Walker classes. Also, you will get easy to use button into the post editor for terms. Plugin adds many, many functions you can use within the theme templates, or your own plugins to easily add features not directly supported by WordPress: improved filtering of posts, displaying terms elements…

So, there it is, list of 11 reasons to buy and use GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro. Check out links bellow and watch introduction video for 3.0 version, or see how the custom meta boxes work and look at the features overview.

Plugin Home:
http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-taxonomies-tools/
Introduction to 3.0:
http://www.dev4press.com/2011/tutorials/…/custom-meta-boxes-in-gd-cpt-tools-3-0/
Features Overview:
http://www.dev4press.com/gd-taxonomies-tools/

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

Plugin is still in development and bugs are to be expected. Do not use this version on your production website until the final version is released. 3.0 Final is expected next week.

Custom Fields Editor

Metabox Post Editor

Meta Boxes

Meta boxes editor allow for 7 different types of fields (for now). When displayed on the post edit page, these fields can have own controls. So, for image custom field you have options to select image from media library, for date field you will get the date picker. All fields have shortcode button to insert the code for the field into the content. Shortcode allows for the value to be wrapped into the tag with custom class and style. Image also can be displayed as image tag. And meta box works when in side area of the post editor or in the main area bellow the post edit content. There is no limit on how many fields you can add, or how many meta boxes you can have combining different custom fields. Meta boxes can be assigned to default or custom post types, and you can have more than one custom meta box for any post type.

New Interface

Interface is fully rewritten, and more inline with the trend used in all other of our plugins. This includes post types and taxonomies editors and lists displaying differently registered post types and taxonomies. All data is saved using AJAX and that allows for improved validation before saving and better flexibility of the editor.

Post Types List

List shows custom post types created by the plugin, default post types, but also custom post types that are registered by third party plugins or theme. Same layout is used for taxonomies.

Post Types Editor with Errors

Other changes

Another much requested feature was restricted terms selection meta box for post editor. Right now you can add terms through these meta boxes, and in some cases its needed to limit that to only existing terms. Now, you can have that with two box configurations: single and multi terms selection.

Post types specification is updated once more, allowing for selecting menu icon and few other things. JavaScript files used by the plugin are improved and compressed.

What is still missing?

Only feature that is still in work is import and export of the settings. You will be able to export all definitions for post types or taxonomies, settings for the plugin and later import them into another installation. That will be added to final release.

If you want to test it, please report any problems with this current development version. Hopefully, final version is coming soon, depending on the reported bugs. Translation strings on http://translate.dev4press.com/are updated, and few more changes are expected before final release.

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

You will be able to define custom fields. Each field can be of a different type (select list, boolean, number, text…), and for select list you can define possible values for the field. Custom field name is the name that will be used to save data into post meta table. Once you have the fields, you can create meta boxes. Each box can have one or more custom fields. And you can attach meta box to one or more post types.

GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools 3.0: Metabox Editor

On this image you see list of few meta boxes and opened meta box editor for assigning custom fields to it. You can rearrange list of custom fields in the order you want them to appear in the meta box.

Beta #1 is expected sometime this week. It will have all planned features implemented.

With more and more options added for post types and taxonomies registration, current editor is not very user friendly, with tons of settings put together. New interface splits settings into tabs and adds tooltip information about options. Also, it will use AJAX to save settings with improved validator.

GD CPT Tools 3.0: Editor for Post Type

Styling and layout is similar to one that will be added to GD Star Rating 2.0, and is evolution of interface used in xScape Theme Framework.

This first Alpha #1 still has old interface, but Alpha #2 (planned for Monday) will have new interface and second wave of new features. Changes in this version include already many new features and many more changes.

Major new feature is caching of registration objects.  If you add many new post types and taxonomies, every time page loads, plugin needs to assemble registration arrays for each one, and it’s a fast operation, but still takes time that can be saved with cache. So, registration objects are cached in database, and when you make a change to post type or taxonomy, cached object will be deleted so it can be recreated with new settings. One of the most requested features is limiting of terms assigned to posts to an existing list without possibility to add new one. Now, this is a special feature for all taxonomies, and will replace default post_tag or category meta box with new one that allows selection of terms only (one term or more then one). More changes are included with registering of post types and more options added, several bugs are fixed and several files are removed as obsolete.

So, if you want to test it, please report any problems with this current development version.

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

For custom taxonomies there are two ways to create permalinks, and by default even for hierarchical taxonomies, URL is non hierarchical. Now, you have option for this, and by default is set as automatic and will generate such links. You can turn them off. Also, there is another rewrite option: with front, to add base rewrite prefix for taxonomy.

Expanding RSS feed with custom post types implementation is changed due to some conflicts with previously used method, and it should be working fine now. Plugin will not change feed if the feed has previously set post type, so it will only affect normal feeds.

Development of 3.0 Pro plugin version is starting soon with features announced last week. Lite version remains in maintenance, but as you know, no new features will be added to id beyond support for registering post types and taxonomies. So, hurry, and upgrade to Pro to get some really cool features with more coming in 3.0.

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

There are no new features this time, just a code maintenance. Pro version got accessibility options as all our other premium plugins, and styling for plugin panels is a bit improved and updated. Lite version has some minor code cleanup and changes, and everything should be working fine with WordPress 3.1.

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

Plugin adds date year, month and day based templates for archives and adds ID based post templates, that, as far as I know will work fine. But, post types templates for archives are a bit of a problem.

For WP 3.0, plugins added type-{post-type}.php and type.php templates support for archives of custom post types posts. WP 3.1 added standard archive-{post-type}.php template and for various reasons, type templates stopped working. Plugin implements several functions and enhancements that don’t play well with WP 3.1 due to conflicted functionality, so last plugin version 2.6.2, added some warnings and more info on how to use the templates.

GD CPT Tools: Settings

Many users of Pro version liked the idea of custom post types archives and used them with the plugin long before WP got them, and now is the problem compatibility of using both. So, on the plugin Settings panel you see options, and first two are now clearly marked as WP 3.0 options. So, if you use WP 3.1, disable these.

Third option from the top is to add type based templates to WP 3.1, but that is not working as you expect it now. On some installations is OK, but not on all. It all depends on the existing rewrite rules and on some installations is conflicted. I still have no idea why this happens, and I am trying to determine what is happening with WP template loader to cause problems.

Solution to problem is simple, and it involves renaming the existing template. So, if you have custom post type movie, and your existing template is type-movie.php, simply rename it to archive-movie.php. WP 3.1 will now load this template and everything will work, and all the code you already have will be used.

But, I will still try to determine why the loading of additional template for custom post types fails in WP 3.1, and you can expect solution in some of the following plugin versions.

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

WordPress 3.1 will include (and it does in current RC versions) support for archives for post types. GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro added support for that a while back and it works with WP 3.0 and WP 3.1. But, if you use WP 3.1 already, you might wanna use official archive support, so you can choose what you prefer. If you used templates supported by GD CPT Tools plugin, they will still be available since plugin will expand support for them in case has_archives is used.

Plugin is tested with WP 2.9.2, WP 3.0.4 and latest WP 3.1 RC3. 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 CPT Tools

Notice:  GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools 2.6 Pro will be out soon with few new features (including export for taxonomies). But, this new version will drop support for WP 2.9. No new features will be compatible with WP 2.9, so while you are using that version there is no need to upgrade to newer version than this current 2.5.3.

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

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/

First important thing is that post types and taxonomies specifications are updated with new capabilities and labels so you MUST update all your custom post types and custom taxonomies and make sure that all new elements are filled, and than save them. Plugin will display notice to remind you to do that after you install new version.

General Changes

Big parts of the plugin are optimized, old code removed and plugin now runs faster, and uses less resources that before thanks to new code division and loading. Also, plugin panels are improved and got new look and better navigation. Front page for the new plugin is on the image bellow. Other changes include updated styling for jQuery UI elements, contextual help links are added (Help tab on the top of each admin page) and several minor fixes.

GD CPT Tools Pro: Front Page

Terms List with Image field

Taxonomy Terms Images

Each taxonomy got a new special feature: attaching images to terms. Image on the right shows the list of categories with image controls. Images are handled by WordPress media library, and you can upload new images or use already uploaded. Plugin handles attach/dettach operations, and provides functions you can use to do it through code and to get image or thumbnail of any dimensions you might need to display in the theme.

xScape Themes can use the images attached directly and display them in the terms lists, or on the archive pages, without any additional coding. Late tonight, new framework and all themes will be updated to use this feature.

Edit any post type or taxonomy

Another major feature is possibility to edit default post types (yes, posts and pages), default taxonomies (categories, post tags) and any other custom post types and custom taxonomies that are not created with this plugin but added some other way. There are two ways to do this: full edit and simple edit. Full edit gives you same level of control as with custom post types and taxonomies and you can change all options.

Post Type Simple Edit

Simple edit allows you to change only some things, for post types: features, taxonomies and special features added by the plugin, for taxonomies: post type and special features added by the plugin. The reason to have two ways of doing this is to give you full control if needed, but I don’t really recommend changing default post types since other plugins and themes may depend on the way they work. Simple edit allows you to add special features plugin adds to those types and taxonomies too.

In any case, I strongly recommend that you check out the video tutorial for this. There will be another tutorial for use of terms images and xScape integration of them, and use of terms images inside any theme through use of functions.

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

GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro 2.5 will be released this Sunday, with xScape Theme Framework 1.5.7 following on Monday.Basic idea about the new feature is very simple: add images to terms belonging to a taxonomy (any taxonomy including categories and post tags). A while back (two years almost), I have made TVScape.NET website that for taxonomies displays images. Images are pulled from the folder based on the term slug name. It was effective, but it needed a lot of coding. Result is here. Each series is a term in a series taxonomy. It looks really effective, and it is a great addition to website.

Image for Terms

So, GD CPT Tools Pro is adding new special feature that allows you to use WP Media Library and assign images from the library to individual terms. Plugin implement functions you can use in own themes to get the images attached. You can see that on the image on the right.

But, xScape implements all that and can use these images starting with new framework version. Basic templates for taxonomies and for archives are updated to use new features. New options are added to layout manager so you can control what is displayed (display or hide term image, and set it’s size). Getting all that now can be done without a single line of code written using only GD CPT Tools Pro and any xScape theme.

Terms with Images

End result in the taxonomy terms page template is on the image on the left. New template supports paging if you have many terms, and number of terms is controlled from layout manager.

So, in the next few days I will further improve GD CPT Tools Pro plugin and new features include: editing default post types and default taxonomies, improved interface and many more code changes and optimizations. For now, users with Dev4Press Bundle License can get current development version of the plugin from SVN (contact me if you didn’t get your SVN access info). All themes will updated with new framework and will have updated templates. I will publish a video on using the feature in both plugin and theme, and updated documentation to include added functions.

Discounts: I have expanded the Christmas and New Year Discount coupons validity, and they can be used until January 18 2011. So, you can still get big discount for and get both plugin(s) and theme(s) and take advantage of the great features already in them, or coming soon. Coupons are here.

If you have any suggestion about the new feature and how it can be improved, please leave a comment.

Examples bellow are for WordPress 2.9 or newer. This is re-revised version of last years tutorial, this time with added meta info links block. New method is used that doesn’t require for you to check if the filter is executed for your plugin only. New filters already include plugin name in the filter name.

Additional options

Each plugin row on the Plugins panel has several standard actions. You can add more actions like the link to the settings panel or anything else. You need to add filter function that will be used to add this action(s).

<?php
add_filter('plugin_action_links_$plugin_file', 'add_plugin_links');

function add_plugin_links($links) {
  $links[] = '<a href="index.php">Dashboard</a>';
  $links[] = '<a href="edit.php">Posts</a>';
  return $links;
}
?>

Lines 5 and 6 are adding new action to the plugin row. This example adds link to the dashboard and to post edit page, you can change it to whatever you need. Don’t forget to return $links because this is a filter not an action.

Very Important: On line 2 filter has $plugin_file. You need to replace this with the relative path/name of the main file of your plugin. For instance, my plugin GD Press Tools has a $plugin_name: gd-press-tools/gd-press-tools.php. It has folder name, slash, main plugin file name (with extension), and full filter name will be than: plugin_action_links_gd-press-tools/gd-press-tools.php. Same method will be used in the last expand examples.

Plugin Meta options

Description column in the plugins grid have also number of links. This can be expanded similar to additional options from previous block.

<?php
add_filter('plugin_row_meta', 'add_plugin_meta_links', 10, 2);

function add_plugin_meta_links($links, $file) {
  if ($file == "$plugin_name") {
    $links[] = '<a href="index.php">Dashboard</a>';
    $links[] = '<a href="edit.php">Posts</a>';
  }
  return $links;
}
?>

Lines 5 is there to ensure that you add settings only to your own plugin. Lines 6 and 7 are actually adding new action to the plugin row. This example adds same links as previous one, but, you can add whatever you want leading to your own plugin. In the case of this filter, you must check on your own if the filter is run for your plugin.You must $plugin_name on line 5 with the string as described in the first example above.

Additional plugin info

WordPress shows description from your plugin file. And when the new version is available for update, there is no detailed info about the the update. Adding that is not very hard.

<?php
add_action('after_plugin_row_$plugin_file', 'add_after_plugin_meta');

function add_after_plugin_meta($file) {
  $current = get_site_transient('update_plugins');
  if (!isset($current->response[$file])) return false;

  $url = "http://www.yoursite.com/info.txt";
  $update = wp_remote_fopen($url);
  echo '<tr><td colspan="3">'.$update.'</td></tr>';
}
?>

Function checks to see if you add row to your plugin as the previous function does. Lines 5 and 6 will check if there is an updated found for your plugin. If no update is found, additional row will not be added. You can remove this part, and added row will be always visible. My intention with this code is to display details about the plugin update, you can change it to anything else. You need to echo only TD part of the row, WordPress already echoes TR tag. Function will get contents of the file from $url variable and will echo that file in the row.

Example

Example above shows both functions used in GD Press Tools plugin. First row is a standard plugin info, and you can see Settings action added by first function. Second row is WordPress info that plugin upgrade is available. Third row is info displayed by second function that has retrieved this changes notice from my website.

This example uses same $plugin_name method that is described in the first example.

Since the WP 3.1 is still in beta and many things need to be done yet, I expect that there will be problems with this WP version until final is released. I have noticed a lot of changes each day, so as always, don’t use WP 3.1 for production websites, only for testing.

Setting Capabilities for Post Type

Custom post type editor has new options for using capability type instead of individual capabilities list of options, and you can choose what to use. Individual capabilities use in WP 3.1 are still broken, so check out settings for each custom post type if you are using WP 3.1 and set Capabilities option to use type instead of list as displayed on the image, showing custom post type editor.

Also, plugin is limiting length for custom post types names to 20 characters and for custom taxonomies names to 32 characters as these are the lengths used in database scheme for WordPress.

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

When you first install WordPress, you can do it manually or you can use some sort of install script that is usually offered by the shared hosting companies. In my experience, those scripts usually do a good job in setting at least initial file permissions to all files and folders. But, on the other hand that may not always be the case, and you can end up in problems.

Main issue is to allow WordPress to access files and folders it needs to be able to work properly, and in the same time not to set permissions too loose so that it can be exploited. To change the file permissions, Linux uses CHMOD command. Permissions for files and folders are represented by three values controlling access for file owner, for owner group and for everyone else (world). And each of these controls 3 rights: read, write and execute. There are different ways to display file permissions, and most common is to use 3 numbers: first for owner, second for group and third for world. File system and file permissions can be very complex, and more info on how all that is working can be found on URL’s at the bottom of this articles.

Since we are talking about file system on your server, referring to users and groups has nothing to do with WordPress. User or owner is your account on the server not in WordPress.

Recommended permissions

Before you check and set CHMOD for files and folders, it’s recommended that owner for all files and folder is your user account on the server. If, when you copy new files or add new files, this is not the case, and if server is setting someone else as an owner, then, there is something wrong with your server settings. In my experience, this usually happens if you are installing and setting server on your own (VPS hosting) and you missed configuring file system ownership, that depending on OS you use, can be set to Apache process or something else. Make sure that all files and folders in your WP installation are owned by your user. All other recommendations are based on this one, so make sure it’s set as it should be.

FTP View of Permissions

For all folder in the WordPress installation, recommended permission is 755. This means that owner (first number, 7) can read, write folder and execute content in it. Group and world can’t write. This makes folders safe from anyone beside your main user adding new files, or deleting existing files. Files should be set to 644, the same as 755, but with no execute set. For folders you need owner, group and world to be able to at least read from the folders, or your website will not be publicly accessible, so that’s why 5 is set for group and world.

If you are using FTP or command line tools, you will usually see permissions displayed like on the image on the right with string with 10 characters. First is telling if it’s file or folder, and 9 are flags for all 3 groups, 3 rights each. Here you can also see owner and group. While they are named, here are codes representing the names on your server.

Specific files permissions

For some files and folders you can use different permissions to make sure that they are extra secure. So, for wp-config.php, recommended permissions is 640 or even 600. Same goes for .htaccess files. In shared environments, you can also have PHP files present (php.ini and/or php.cgi). For these files you can set even more restrictive permissions: 100, and only owner can execute these files, nothing else.

File Permissions in GD Press Tools Pro

GD Press Tools Pro

To do all this, you can use command line on your server, FTP access or file manager you have in the control panel for your hosting account. But, you can do it from WordPress also. GD Press Tools Pro on the Security panel shows most important files and folders in your WP installation, their files permissions and options to change those that are not restrictive as recommended values are.

Also, on the Security panel, tab General you can set default CHMOD values WordPress can use to set on newly created files and folders (uploads mostly).

Conclusion

Permissions described in this article will be enough to make all critical areas of your website secure. But, you can take this further and experiment with more restrictive rules for some folders, or some more files.

Resources

• Changing File Permissions: http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions
• CHMOD on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chmod

CHMOD Status

New status panel for security got it’s first tool: check and change CHMOD for most important folders and files. More files and folders will be added if needed. As you can see on the image on the right, you see which files and folders are set OK, and which are in red, and need to be changed. You can try to change permissions directly, or do it on your own manually.

New admin bar added with WP 3.1 can be useful, but I know already many users that will like to get rid of it. So, you have options for it now. General settings allow you to control that network wide (for multisite installations), and you have individual site settings also).

GD Press Tools Pro 4.0 will be dropping support for WordPress 2.9. I recommend updating your website to newer version than 2.8 for many, many reasons. Most of my other plugins will also be dropping support for older WP versions soon.

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

Since the WP 3.1 is still in beta and many things need to be done yet, I expect that there will be problems with this WP version until final is released. I have noticed a lot of changes each day, so as always, don’t use WP 3.1 for production websites, only for testing.

As for the plugins, dropdown checkbox library (jQuery powered) is updated and loading of JS is fixed for WP 2.9.x. Some display elements are updated also with more fixes in displaying the editors for taxonomies and post types. Also, both editions of the plugin now require at least WordPress 2.9. You can try using WP 2.8, but I can’t guarantee that it will work.

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

Post Type

Changing post type is useful if you need to move some older posts to new post types. But, you need to be careful with it because you can loose data during this depending on the features set for custom post types. Option is disabled by default, so if you need it you need to enable it.

If you have any more problems, please report them in the forum or in comments.

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

Plugin adds support for new templates for single posts (normal and custom, based on ID and slug) and date archives (based on time periods). Full list of new templates added is in this tutorial. Similar to page templates, plugin allow adding of post templates. Tutorial for them is coming in a couple of days. xScape Theme Framework 1.5.2 supports all new templates, and will allow creating them from Layout Manager.

For custom post type, a new special feature allows you to include post types in search results alongside normal posts. Also, settings panel is updated with new options and bit reorganized.

If you have any more problems, please report them in the forum or in comments.

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

Nothing new in this version, but work on the next 2.4 version will start soon and will add more options and even a widget for advanced filtering.

If you have any more problems, please report them in the forum or in comments.

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

Importing on plugins end works fine. But, once the import is done, and you open panel with taxonomy and list of terms, you will see that only top level terms are there, but children for these terms are not. And you will see empty pages even so there should be terms there. This is only display issue on this panel, and can be fixed like this:

For any of the visible terms on the first page of the taxonomy where you made import, open Quick Edit, and save it only, without changing anything. Refresh the taxonomy page, and all terms are now visible. I am 101% sure that this is WordPress bug, and I will submit bug report next week to WP Trac. Most likely it has something to do with caching.

If you have any more problems, please report them in the forum or in comments.

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

Term View

New versions of GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro edition adds new interesting special feature for taxonomies and a feature I needed for a long time, to add link to term archive on the taxonomy terms edit panel. It’s added for default and custom taxonomies.

You can see how that looks on the image on the right, last option View is newely added one. For custom taxonomies, this is added as a special feature. For default taxonomies (post tags and categories), it’s added as an option othe plugin Settings panel.

If you have any more problems, please report them in the forum or in comments.

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

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/

Pro version includes several bugs fixed, including bug that was fixed in both Pro and Lite preventing settings custom taxonomy rewrite slug that contain slash character.

Major change are added settings to globally enable or disable special features added by Pro edition for custom post types and custom taxonomies. In some rare cases, Home Page special feature can conflict with other plugins. This special feature adds posts from custom taxonomies to home page loop. In some cases this will not work, and now you can disable whole feature from Settings panel, Special Features tab. Other special features should be safe to use in any case, but you can disable them also. If you have problem with disappearing content on home or posts pages, disable this feature.

If you have any more problems, please report them in the forum or in comments.

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

Custom Post Types Widget

New widget is very simple, and result is on the image on the right. You can change widget title, display of posts counts and select post types to include in the list.

I am working on the demo website that will showcase changes and customization to a xScape based lightScape theme, this plugin and GD aZon FUSION. It will be ready by the end of this week.

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

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

Right now all parameters are fully up to specification and everything should work fine. Usually problems are caused with some other plugins that use taxonomies that can cause problems with getting taxonomies. But, right now I am 100% sure that  GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools is 100% compliant to registration procedure for custom posts and taxonomies.

If you have any more problems, please report them in the forum or in comments.

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

Interface for custom post type and custom taxonomy editor is improved and looks the same for both. Custom post type have option to deactivate post type (for testing or something like that). And custom taxonomies got special features (only in Pro version, similar to custom post types). Currently there is only one special feature: to add custom taxonomy as a column on post edit grid.

If you have any more problems, please report them in the forum or in comments.

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

Special features selection is expanded to include 2 more. One is to add custom post type posts into RSS feeds, and other to do the same for home page. With this you can avoid adding custom code into your theme to modify the normal behavior. More such small features will be included as special features trying to minimize the need for custom code in use of custom post types.

If you have any problems with plugin, please report them in the forum or in comments.

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

Name for taxonomy and custom post type has messages explaining the required format for a name. I have changed this and it’s now the same message only in bold red letters. Plugin will also attempt to clean the name when saving: remove illegal characters and make the name lower case.

If you have any more problems, please report them in the forum or in comments.

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

To check the results from first part of the benchmark, go the this post. There you have test setup and results for memory usage, page generation speed and executed SQL queries. Second part of the admin test is in this post.

Tests results presented here are average values from 20 measurements. Also, only active plugin in all tests was GD Press Tools Pro. Adding more plugins have no effect on the overall difference in terms of memory use or execution time. Showing more tests that have the same result in the end is not needed.

Test 6: PHP Used memory on site

Similar to the admin side, WP 3.0 uses more memory on the site side. Difference is about 1.6MB, and it’s not much in this normal setup with no plugins active (expect for GD Press Tools).

Used Memory: Again WP 3.0 uses more memory as expected

Adding plugins to the mix will have as a result more or less the same difference in used memory, or slight increase to 2MB of more memory. But even with more than 20 plugins on site side WP will still use much less memory than admin side. Still, 32MB for 20 or more plugins is not enough.

Also, used memory with Kubrick and 2010 themes in WP 3.0 is almost the same, with new theme needed a bit more memory, considering new features added in it, this difference is not important.

Test 7: SQL queries executed on site

Code optimizations in WP 3.0 were beneficial on site, and WP 3.0 will run less SQL queries for same result from WP 2.9.2. This is only couple of queries, but from server point of view, very important.

SQL Queries: Once again WP 3.0 is better than WP 2.9.2

With less queries, SQL execution time is lower, but that didn’t help WP 3.0 in the next test, with overall time needed to make a page increased.

Test 8: Page rendering server side on site

With both themes WP 3.0 is slower than WP 2.9.2 by 10-15%, in all the tests. This difference is just about the same as on the admin side. And it’s to be expected, more code is added to each execution (more memory is needed), and PHP needs more time to run all that.

Server side execution: WP 3.0 is slower than WP 2.9.2

Due to some added features new Twenty Ten themes is slower than Kubirck. Surprising result is on the single post page where WP 3.0 with Twenty Ten was faster than with Kubrick. Getting post data seams to be optimized better in WP 3.0 and that shows here.

More tests: Client Side?

Results for both WP versions would be the same (with the difference in JavaScript, since they use different versions of jQuery). So, these tests will not show much here, results are almost 100% the same.

Conclusion

Progress has it’s price. And for WordPress 3.0 that is more resources needed and slower execution. With todays available servers and faster Internet, this is not a big factor, considering what you will get after you upgrade to WP 3.0. So, not to point only negative side of the benchmark, I will write conclusive article in the next few days that will put this values in better context and real evolution of WordPress in it’s current release.

Bottom line: upgrade to WordPress 3.0 as soon as possible (as soon as you are sure that all plugins you use are compatible).