Warning: Plugin is not yet completed, and it is not recommended to use it on the live websites. Right now, from all the planned features for 1.0.0 release, plugin is 98% done. If you have problems with missing templates or broken pages, please run Cleanup operations from the plugin Tools -> Maintenance.

Release: With all the new added features that were not previously planned, plugin 1.0 release is delayed a bit. Current target date is February 9 2012. Until than, one or two RC versions will be released to fix bugs. No new features will be added until than. If the number of bugs requires, plugin release date can be delayed for couple of days to make sure that plugin is released as stable as possible.

Importing and updating products from CSV file is completed, and export updated to include images, video links and links. Plugin can import images from given URL into the WordPress (there are exceptions and will not work with websites that use hotlinking protection). To make change for rendering templates easier, plugin now supports settings for the templates globally (for the whole plugin and all product types) and you can set this individually for each product type. You can still set it in the theme, and xScape Themes Framework will still use own method of setting these rendering templates. Also, one more theme got direct support: Mystique. This is for the full version of this theme that works with auto child theme.

In the next week video tutorials will be released: Import/Export with CSV file, Quick features overview, In depth plugin use, Themes support, xScape Themes Integration. Please report any bugs found, I am sure that some more are still in the plugin. Future plans for the plugin are updated and listed for the next 5 milestone versions. Other features can also be added, depending on what is most needed by the users.

Plugin Test Drive

If you want to try out the plugin before deciding on buying, use the contact form to request demo website set up for test drive. There you can try out all our plugins and themes.

Promo Coupon

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

Resources

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

Plugin Info

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

Warning: Plugin is not yet completed, and it is not recommended to use it on the live websites. Right now, from all the planned features for 1.0.0 release, plugin is 98% done. If you have problems with missing templates or broken pages, please run Cleanup operations from the plugin Tools -> Maintenance.

Release: With all the new added features that were not previously planned, plugin 1.0 release is delayed a bit. Current target date is February 9 2012. Until than, two more beta is coming early next week with import implemented and one or two RC versions.

New simple widget is added for searching products. You can fix product type to fix, or you can allow visitors to select the product type. For all products related pages, plugin is setting additional CSS classes so you can use for your own styling. New shortcode is added to generate link to products home page, archive pages and single products. Previous shortcode for embedding products is expanded to include class and style for the product added. Shortcodes are in the documentation.

Frontend rendering is improved further with new styling. Also, main rendering style file has all colors separated, and because of that you can use built in styling, and only change colors. All xScape themes will get color schemes stying for the plugin soon. And any other theme can use this to make styling easier. Updated Xposed and R8 themes will be released tonight with this new styling added.

As for the bugs, new version fixed the problem with missing theme templates controls, eStore theme integration templates are also fixed. Additional product pages linking was broken due to canonical rewriting problems. When plugin is updated, rewrite rules were flushed, but that was not working fine, this is fixed now. Many styling problems are fixed.

Please report any bugs found, I am sure that some more are still in the plugin.

Plugin Test Drive

If you want to try out the plugin before deciding on buying, use the contact form to request demo website set up for test drive. There you can try out all our plugins and themes.

Promo Coupon

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

Resources

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

Plugin Info

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

Warning: Plugin is not yet completed, and it is not recommended to use it on the live websites. Right now, from all the planned features for 1.0.0 release, admin side is 90% done, and front end is 90% done.

Products Types Grid

On image above you can see improved products types grid. Both this one and taxonomies grid are updated. Templates panel now lists in more detail all available templates. Each type of template is displayed as a tab. For future 1.1.0 release I plan to add editor for each template from this panel.

New widget is added for rendering list of products. You can limit and filter products to display, similar to single product widget from before. Also, if you need to embed product info into your blog posts or some other unrelated pages, you can use new shortcode: gdpc_product, details and use are in the documentation.

As for other changes, there are number of small improvements, several bugs fixed (deleting taxonomy and product types selection in the widget), updated gdr2 and gdT3 libraries. Also, code handling custom rewrite rules is improved further. I have added functions that can be used to debug WordPress rewrite rules resolving and list of registered rewrite rules. These functions are in the Central Documentation.

There will be one more beta (0.9.5) before final, and that one will be used to finalize all templates and fix bugs. This major beta is expected in about 7 to 10 days, final should be out before the end of this month. Please report any bugs found, I am sure that more are there. I am testing plugin with different themes, but I might be missing things.

Plugin Test Drive

If you want to try out the plugin before deciding on buying, use the contact form to request demo website set up for test drive. There you can try out all our plugins and themes.

Promo coupon

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

Resources

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

Plugin Info

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

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)

Warning: Plugin is not yet completed, and it is not recommended to use it on the live websites. Right now, from all the planned features for 1.0.0 release, admin side is 90% done, and front end is 90% done.

As the bugs go, there were few minor issues with the templates, and problem with saving currency unit properties. Beside that, there are couple of new features added. There is a working widget to display single product (you can specify product type, filtering and template) with only one specific template right now (more to come soon). Archive templates are improved to support page navigation, and there is a simple and advanced. Simple is only next/previous links, while advanced shows numbered pages. All archive templates use advanced navigation right now.

By the end of next week 0.9 Beta will be out with more filter/search improvements and few more new minor features. Please report any issue you might have with this latest version.

Important: If you had problems with theme templates created with previous plugin versions, you need to create them again. Plugin has a theme template option to overwrite old templates with fixed ones.

Plugin Test Drive

If you want to try out the plugin before deciding on buying, use the contact form to request demo website set up for test drive. There you can try out all our plugins and themes.

Promo coupon

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

Resources

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

Plugin Info

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

Widget

This will also be our very first theme that will be HTML5 based and will rely on CSS3. Layout will use no images, it will use CSS3 for shadows, gradients, borders. CSS code will contain elements made for different browsers, and so far it looks great in Opera, Chrome, Firefox, Safari. As for IE browsers, IE9 supports most of the elements used, IE7 and IE8 will ignore some of the styling, and I will try to add some support library that can transform the styles for IE7/8. I am not sure yet, if all the next themes will HTML5, this will be sort of a test to see how the theme will work and what are problems still with the compatibility.

Slider

Image on the left is a widget using gradient background and shadow for the whole widget. And the image on the right is detail of the slider area for the front page layout. Normal layout and front layout will use different configuration for sliders and different set of options. Normal layout will use same settings as the R8 theme used for Nivo Slider.

Right now front layout is done and working, and some elements for the normal layout are completed.  Theme is expected in the next 7-8 days.

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

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

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

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

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

bbPress 2.0 RC1, Date: 2011-08-02

Promo Codes

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

Demo Website

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

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

More custom fields in meta box

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

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

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

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

More about GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools:

http://d4p.me/gdtt

xScape Core will be released today, with also few of the themes with bug fixes. For the rest of the themes, you can download and update framework only. Again, best to use Dev4Press Updater to take care of that for you.

Two new widgets are based on existing code for Facebook Like Button and Twitter Follow button. Many users asked for the widget versions allowing to add both outside of the post. Facebook Like Button allows using of custom URL to Like that can be even your Facebook page.

bbPress 2.0 Beta 3 is out, and adds many changes to templates structure. bbPress module in xScape again follows that development closely and same functionality is implemented here for seamless transition to xScape theme that can use bbPress without changes. Once again, a big thanks goes to John James Jacoby and all people involved with development of bbPress plugin. For more info about the plugin visit its website: http://bbpress.org/.

To use updated bbPress module in xScape Theme Framework, you must use latest bbPress 2.0 Beta 3 or newer nightly builds.

As for the future releases, focus now is improving the layout manager and allowing conditional layouts settings: with this you can have different layout for each post, category and archive. Layout manager will allow you to create rules and apply different layout to these rules. This will take some time, and its expected over the next 2 months while we are getting closer to the next major 1.8 version planned for September.

Promo Codes

During this month, you can take advantage of big summer sale and 40% and 50% discounts. Hurry up, offer is limited: xScape Themes Big Summer Sale.

Demo Website

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

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

Widget for rating results had minor bug with display of Bayesian ratings and that is fixed. But, major change is handling of data received through AJAX for cached rendering and voting. Last week a SQL injection exploit is reported that could return admin user name, email and hashed password. Injection was very hard to reproduce since it requires very specific conditions, and it took me a while to get it myself, but still, it had to be fixed. More info on this SQL injection is here:
http://pressecure.com/2011/06/09/gd-star-rating-sql-injection/.

To prevent further similar problems, plugin will additional check each request for SQL keywords (select, union…), it will validate each piece of received info for valid value, stripping data that can be attached to integer values, preventing anything suspicious to pass to the code that handles database queries. Also, nonce protection is now active always, setting for it will be disregarded by the plugin.

Please, update to this latest version just in case, to prevent potential problems.

Ad Block Widget

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

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

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

Win the plugin license

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

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

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

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

Promo coupon(s)

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

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

GD Affiliate Center: Front Page

Inside the couple of weeks, here is the new major version of GD Affiliate Center. This time, plugin now got the interface styling same as our other Pro plugins, has new code builder, support for ads priorties, improved controls, context help and brand new global and affiliate charts.

Front page now shows more general statistics, latest clicks and 3 charts: Last 24 hours, last 30 days and last 12 months. Almost the same layout is used for each affiliate. We are still using jQuery Flot for charts, but now it’s 0.7 version and we are using it for bar charts with some interactive elements.

Many things in ads and affiliates handling is improved and updated. And now, priorities are used to get ads. Affiliate priority is used when creating new ads, and ads priority is one actually used. It can go from 1 to 10.

If you have trouble getting shortcode or function for displaying ads right, here is a brand new feature called Code Builder. Basically, set what you want do display, and plugin can generate shortcode for embedding into post and function call for embedding into the theme files. Some of the options are only for function, since shortcode is for displaying a single ad. But, it will greatly improve adding ads to website, alongside widget added in version 1.2.

GD Affiliate Center: Code Builder

Several bugs are fixed with this version including bug with print ads function and sorting ads in the admin grids. Support for BuySellAds integration didn’t make it in this version and will be moved to next major version that will include ad zones and more.

Win the plugin license

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

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

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

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

Promo coupon(s)

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

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

xScape Context Help

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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…

Clicks Log

First major revision of the GD Affiliate Center is here. This is very important update, adding not only clicks panel, but also use of shared gdr2 library and improved base code and functions. There are many changes in the JavaScript code including use of tooltip library aToolTip.

Clicks log shows all clicks, filtered by affiliate and ad format, showing IP of the visitor that clicked on the ad and time, with basic affiliate and ad data. Clicks can be recorded only if ad is not full code implemented (iframe model like with Adsense for instance). Also, clicks are recorded from very first version of plugin, and now there is a way to see them also.

Version 1.2 is already in development and will have first version of ads and affiliates priority. First widget will be added to the plugin too. For now check out this:

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/

lightScape 1.2 will be released first, later tonight. Tomorrow, newsScape 1.0.6 and FrameFX 1.0.1 are to be released. Until Monday, all other themes are coming also.

Bugs Fixed

There was a problem with category filtering in both recent posts and recent comments widgets. Several issues with rendering menus are also fixed. And many minor things are tweaked and fixed on the interface pages.

Menu Item

Changes

Images and thumbnails functions are improved and expanded with more parameters. Recent posts and comments widget have new filtering options. Menu rendering is improved and expanded with new filters for items. Also, many menu items are expanded with new features. Most importantly, visibility settings for each menu item has new option for setting the user roles, so that only users with certain, selected user roles will be able to see the menu item (on the image on the right).

I have started changing some things in the base classes, transitioning to PHP5 object format. More such basic level changes will be added in coming versions, leading to 1.6 where all code should be fully updated.

New Features

Major change in this version is improved Layout Manager. You can now select custom template file for any template, and when making new template, you can select existing template and copy settings from it. This is main method to make all custom pages on Dev4Press. Other new features include: meta box for xScape settings for custom post types, share buttons for LinkedIn, function to generate thumbnail from any local file and many more other custom functions.

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/

Promo coupon

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

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

FrameFX: Home Page

Theme number 7, FrameFX is released. This is a bit different theme than before, not having scape in the name is just one of the differences, even so, the theme uses xScape Theme Framework. This one focuses on special effects for background, logo and posts.

Theme features

Theme comes with 10 color styles. None of the styles have background images, just a solid color by default. Background image and color can be set in the theme settings, and that includes effects for background (stretched to cover the screen automatically) with additional overlay image effect. Title (if left as text, not image logo), can contain several CSS2 or CSS3 effects.

Posts in the archive or home page, set as boxed layout allow several ways for displaying posts, all based on image. Effects are used to display info about posts. FrameFX comes with latest xScape Theme Framework 1.5.2.2 and can use all the new features added to this release.

To see the theme features and read more about it or watch introduction video, check the main theme page:

newsScape Info:
http://www.dev4press.com/themes/framefx/
newsScape Screenshots:
http://www.dev4press.com/themes/framefx/screenshots/

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

Demo Site:
http://xscape.info/
FrameFX:
http://xscape.info/framefx/

All updated themes will start to rolling out soon, starting with newsScape later tonight. New FrameFX is coming very soon.

Bugs Fixed

There are several bugs found in the past few weeks, and all are fixed: minor issue with saving images with relative paths, character set decoding issue in author widget, some issues with creating templates with layout manager, setting title colors with some themes was not complete, category filtering for recent comments, missing div block for twitter button and many more PHP warnings.

Changes

Some parts of the code are reorganized, and several more functions can be overridden. More WordPress 3.0 depraceted functions are replaced, and decoding HTML entities is improved for all uses in the framework to better support different character sets, and it all cases depends on the settings in WordPress.

New Features

GD Press Tools Pro maintenance mode templates are supported now. It will still depend on individual themes to add templates, and first themes to support it is upcoming FrameFX and newsScape. There is a new ad location for the maintenance mode template. You will need GD Press Tools Pro 3.8.4 or newer for this to work at all. All new template types added by GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro 2.4 are supported also and can be added through Layout Manager.

For individual comments, there is a new function to render comment service links (edit, delete, spam and direct link). It can be used by the theme, and you have settings to enable/disable some of the links. Links will be visible if user can perform the operations.

You can now use WordPress.org MShot website screenshots API allowing to get screenshot of any website URL. Tutorial on how to do it will be published later tonight. For same thing, there is a shortcode also. This is first shortcode built into the xScape, and more shortcodes will be added over time.

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/

GD Affiliate Center 1.0.4 ads new function for rendering multiple ads, new HTML before/after parameters for rendering of ads. Also some interface elements are fixed, and all deprecated functions replaced to remove warnings in WP3 in debug mode.

Log with clicks panel is coming in 1.1.0, and first version of ads priority. If I have enough time, first widget will be added too. For now check out this:

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/

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 1.5.1

New framework version fixes some minor interface issues with miss-aligned elements, and very important recent posts and recent comments widgets bugs causing problems with some of the widget settings. Many key functions and classes are updated and improved including generating thumbnails and main layout Blueprint class for calculating elements sizes in the layout.

Creating pages using custom templates is expanded, so you an create new page template under any name and files needed will be made automatically and ready for use on actual pages.

The only remaining theme to be updated still is photoScape, and it will be released late tonight.

Promo coupon

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

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

And more

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

Demo Site:
http://xscape.info/

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/

Video Widget

New widget is added and is called Video. As the name says it will allow you to add videos to sidebar. Widget allows you to add several videos and widget will display only one of them randomly. For display of video widget will use oEmbed, so you can simply add links and you are set. Widget will resize videos to fit into the sidebar.

But, the most important new feature is new panel: Ads Manager. It will allow for themes to register ad spaces for different templates. Each ad space will allow use of ad code (for Google or Amazon ads), standard image banner or use GD Affiliate Center plugin. With GD Affiliate Center you will be able to insert ad blocks with more than one ad in the same space (for instance: small ads side by side). For most pages, by default there will be at least 2 ad spaces. This is still in works, and it will take some time for me to change all themes to use that. First two themes to take advantage  of this new feature will be lightScape and newsScape. Rest of the themes will be updated soon after that.

There are more minor changes and few smaller features, and after that, new cycle of development with next milestone will continue. Milestone 1.6 will be announced in two weeks.

Widget: Recent Comments

New xScape Theme Framework version 1.4.9 is released, many new and interesting features: new widget for recent comments, expanded some existing widgets, many new social sharing options, framework settings for theme font family and sizes and few more things.

New widget Recent Comments supports similar options and display as Recent Posts already are. Example of this widget as used in newsScape theme is on the image on the right. Also, recent posts widget is expanded with some more tags and options including sorting of posts.

Design tab in settings is now available for all themes, and by default contains new options for setting font family and font sizes. Font sizes will depend on the theme, and some might not support it initially. Breadcrumbs are improved (and some things fixed), including added options to change the way breadcrumbs are rendered.

Twitter button is added to post content buttons for integration, and all that is moved to another new tab in the theme settings called Social, with addition of the new sharing feature.  New sharing feature is share group that uses small buttons for major social networks (Google Buzz, Twitter,  Facebook and Digg). They are displayed like on the image bellow.

Share Group

All themes are updated to support new features. Also, all themes are updated to fix some templates issues and few other minor problems caused by last update. And newsScape is also very close to a release, just a few more hours.

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:

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

GD Star Rating Website

After few minor update versions of lightScape, here is the first major revision that adds several new features and fixes many things, and also includes new framework. Some of the new features are dealing with better support for header layout and size. Also, a GD Star Rating website uses lightScape now.

You can now control header alignment (with text or logo title), and you can set height for the header to auto allowing for any logo size to be displayed in full without adding CSS styles. I added missing styles for tabbed widget, fixed several templates issues and updated templates to use new framework features.

As you can see from the screenshot, GD Star Rating website now uses lightScape. This is theme with no modifications, uses several templates and has customized background. Website uses GD Affiliate Center plugin to display ads.

xScape 1.4.8 is included with new version of the theme, but new framework will be officially available with all other themes on Sunday. New theme newsScape will go into beta same day.

To see themes and framework in action, visit the WordPress 3 MultiSite powered demo website and get your own blog to see who the framework back-end works:

Demo Site:
http://xscape.info/
lightScape:
http://xscape.info/lightscape/

This is news type theme, as the name suggests, and the intention was to make it simple and clean, easy to read, with many interesting features.

newsScape Sidebar

Some of the previously standard elements of the layout will be used here also. There will be 2 vertical sidebars, one footer widget area, top header (with menu, date, search, social icons), header (with main menu), featured posts slider, categories latest posts block and footer. Bye default, per design, only one sidebar will be active by default.

Theme is very clean, with almost no images used. Theme is in gray, with one important color that will be available from the control panel and in several of pre-built sets. There will be no background apart from small header tile. Featured slider on top will be different from previous themes with 2 different widths (fit with sidebar, or above it full width). Also, by default sidebar will use already existing tabbed widget as on the image on the right.

All theme colors will be settable from the control panel, so you can make it more colorful.

Theme will be released on xScape.info as a Beta on Tuesday or Wednesday. Stable version will be released on September 20 2010. Expect a discount coupons for club membership and individual themes next week when Beta becomes available for test.

xScape changes

For all themes there is a new function and new settings (Content tab) allowing to use either excerpts or post content on the archives and front page. xScape now uses roles and capabilities to display menus and panels, and only administrators have the new capability added. Old user levels system is no longer in use. Even more base xScape functions can be overridden by the individual themes (display of title and some other elements). If you use pre built menus (pages and categories), you can set the title of the Home page link.

xScape fixes

There were some problems with executing (and saving) PHP code on the advanced tab settings. This is now fixed, and any PHP there should be saved are run without problems. Widget with full ad code was also broken, now fixed. Same goes with some middle elements problems in layout manager.

Themes changes

All themes are updated with new framework, and changed to use some of the new features (excerpt/content). Each theme has some fixes to it, and some of them got new features. LightScape and photoScape got new option to control custom background, and both have fixes in tiling the custom background and few more things. Post exclusion was not working with some themes, but that should be fixed now.

More themes

Designer informed me that newsScape theme design is nearly done, and I hope to start working on it this week. 2 more themes are in the making, one of the being starScapeII, that will be rich with visuals and space themed. I hope that you like the pace new themes are done, I believe that it’s better to release less themes that will be done better and to improve on the framework where all themes can benefit.

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:

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

My Collection

My Collection is my new website that is made as a demo for several of my plugins and one theme, and in the same time for tracking my collection of music, videos and books I got from Amazon. Here are some more details about the website and plugins used.

Website uses lightScape theme (based on xScape Themes Framework) with custom style. But, real power behind the website are two plugins. One is used to actually get products from Amazon and display them (GD aZon FUSION Pro) and other to set up custom post types and custom taxonomies, add widgets (GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro). Also, GD Press Tools Pro is there, universal “don’t go anywhere without it” plugin.

GD aZon FUSION

GD CPT Tools

GD Press Tools

Website has 4 custom post types (Books, Movies, TV Series and Music). Also, there are additional taxonomies for each of the post types. And all of them use categories. As you can see on the website menus made using xScape Menu Designer (native WordPress Menus are not used), support both post types and taxonomies, and also support filtering of terms, and support custom templates for post types archives.

Widgets from GD CPT Tools Pro are used extensively on the website. Also, new widget from GD aZon FUSION is there for single product in the sidebar. Amazon product templates are customized for the theme also.

Whatever new is added to each of these plugins will be added to this website. So, visit it and check out what you can do with these plugins.

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

GD aZon FUSION 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 listed bellow.

GD aZon Fusion, Editions & Purchase:
http://dv4p.com/10g

GD aZon FUSION

Second major beta version of Amazon products integration plugin GD aZon FUSION is here. This time, rendering is converted into brand new T3 templates rendering system, added widget for a single post, fixed several bugs and added few new rendering tags.

Thanks to Vladan Vasic (Peexon Design: www.peexon.com) who also designed the rest of the icons for other products, Dev4Press and xScape logo, and 2 of the xScape themes (photoScape and eScape), we now how a new and official icon for the plugin.

gdT3: Templates System

New T3 templates system is not fully completed, but is usable right now. It has no UI at the moment, it will be added soon, but rendering is fully functional. GD aZon FUSION is converted to use it from this release.

What else is new

First widget is added, to display random single product from the database. Widget allows filters for locale, group and keyword. Two basic widget templates are included with current version of the plugin. Several bugs are fixed, code for getting data improved, and newer version of CloudFusion library is included.

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/

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 listed bellow.

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

lightScape is the only theme released with  new framework. Rest of the themes are not released, but you can upgrade them using new xScape. To do that right now you can use Dev4Press Updater plugin (minimal version to do this is 1.4.3). Updater will now show not only theme updates, but when there is no new theme version you will see new framework version (if available), and you can install only that. Please report problems with this new update method.

Many of the changes are for improved support for custom post types and taxonomies. Recent posts widget now can filter by post type, and it also supports templates to display results differently. Menu designer is improved to include post type filtering for taxonomies. Some of the features (like this last one) require GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro for custom post types rewriting rules.

Showcase of all new features, theme modifications, plugins GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro and GD aZon FUSION will be available over the weekend.

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:

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

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

All the changes bellow are only for Pro version. As I said before, Lite version will only get maintenance releases, and will be updated when new WP is released if there are changes in custom post types or taxonomies.

Custom post type URL rewrite

WordPress custom post types implementation has 2 major flaws: there is no template for custom post type archive and rewrite rules are incomplete to support all needed elements like feeds. Maybe we will see this fixed in WP 3.1, but until that happens, our plugin implements that now. For archive, you have new template called: type-$post_type.php. If you have post type named book, you will get (if the rewrite slug is also set to book):

Archive page: http://www.website.com/book/
Paged archive: http://www.website.com/book/page/3
Feed: http://www.website.com/book/feed/

Feed link will be added into page HTML header also (if supported by the theme). xScape Theme Framework now also supports this (new version will be released in a day or two), and if the GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro is installed, you can generate and use archive template and you can add these pages to menus through menu designer.

This features are activated automatically, if the custom post type you created is set to allow rewriting (it’s on by default). You can disable this if you want from plugin settings panel.

Improved widgets

Taxonomies widget now have very important new option to set post type. This will get you only terms for a taxonomy belonging to posts for a selected post  type (or you can still choose to see all). To make this happen, I made a new function to replace default get_terms(), and to add new post_type parameter to it.

And more to come

Few bugs are fixed, some functions and files rearranged. And, in the next day or two new tutorials will be released to cover new features. Demo website that will showcase power of GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro and GD aZon FUSION Pro plugins is coming, powered by lightScape theme.

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

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

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.

Custom Taxonomies now have number of visibility options allowing to control even the availability of taxonomy in the navigation menus designer. Custom post types is expanded with several new options for export and search features. And, few minor bugs are fixed and few other things updated for full compliance with latest build of WP 3.0.

Pro version 2.0 is in works and new widget will be added to it, with few more interesting features. It will be available in about 2 weeks, just after the release of final WordPress 3.0.

With function use bug, there was a problem with terms links on the taxonomies page, and that is fixed also. I have added flush of rewrite rules for taxonomies also as it was added for post types earlier. List widget now uses modified version of WP default list function that will allow great flexibility to add more options to this widget later.

New icons are added to this release, again work of our designer Vladan Vasic.

Few small bugs are also fixed. In the next few days there will be more changes added. First, I will add more custom post features added in latest builds of WP 3.0. Next, improvements to widgets will follow. In about same time when WordPress 3.0 is finally released, you will get GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools 2.0 Pro and 1.2 Lite.

This latest version of the plugin needs WP 3.0 nightly builds released after beta 2 to work. Nothing is changed for support for WP 2.8 / 2.9, and that will continue to work as it was before. New changes allow for deeper capabilities support and also more elaborate support for different labels. But, to make things easier, with this plugin, you need to set only to labels (singular and plural), and plugin can generate the rest of the labels automatically. Capabilities are also pre-filled, and you don’t need to change them.

Hopefully, these are the last changes before WP 3.0 is released. In the next two versions of the plugin, I will add few more settings for custom post types and expand terms widget to support drop down list display.

Bugs Fixed

There are many bugs fixed with this release. This include minor problem with breadcrumbs on the 404 pages, missing nesting UL classes for drop down menus, small problems with Contactable module and several bugs with layout manager and other control panels.

gMap This module

This module now uses different jQuery library for Google Maps because of the problems with previously used gMap. And in the same time, a new features are added: traffic and streetview overlay and working change of the map type. Also, another display mode is added, allowing to display only static image instead of whole map. It’s limited with API for this, but most settings will work, and in the end you will see only static PNG image.

And more

Footer block is improved with few more tags added for customization including post and category. But, basis is created for adding menus into the footer: simple links and sitemap like menu elements (like the one on this website). This will be first introduced in eScape theme this week, and next week current themes will be changed to support that.

On april 26 2010, xScape 1.3 will be released and existing themes updated to use and to allow use of GD Affiliate Center plugin. Widget for single ad has a new option to use the plugin and select filtering based on ad size and affiliate. Same goes for header ad in the baseScape theme. More locations for ads will be added in different theme locations and all will support this plugin.

But, that’s not all. If you decide to purchase Standard or Developer membership license for xScape Themes, and you don’t already have license for GD Affiliate Center plugin, you will get Standard Membership License for the GD Affiliate Center. License for it will be valid as long as the themes license is valid.

More info on integration of this plugin and themes will follow soon.

GD Affiliate Center:
http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-affiliate-center/

xScape Themes:
http://www.dev4press.com/themes/

Menus Designer

New items are added to menus including Admin options (dashboard, profile, new post) and Login options (login, logout, register). But, more importantly, menus are nested by design. Previously you could add elements that are going to make drop down, but now you can move any element deeper within the menu.So, if you compare xScape Menus to WooNavigation or WordPress 3.0 native NavMenus, you will see that xScape is much more powerful and flexible with more options you can use to create wide range of items. A tutorial covering more aspects of menus coming later today.

New mapping desinger

Layouts Manager

As you can see, middle blocks got new buttons for moving blocks left and right. This will allow you to move sidebar from left to right. Also, master templates introduced in xScape 1.1, are now functional. Many more things are changed in layouts code allowing some of the things planned for next two themes (multiple sidebars is one of them).

Two tutorials covering all the changes and use of master template will be published later today.

Author Widget

Author Widget

Another new widget is added. This one allows you to set up About Author area to display some info about the author, gravatar and a read more link.

Both current themes are updated with new framework. Next theme is eScape and this one will be released by the end of the week. After that we are planning one news styles theme and long overdue starScape II.

Also, I can confirm that by the end of this week, or over next weekend, lite version of baseScape will be released. Making lite version of the framework wasn’t easy, but it’s almost done now. Lite framework will not get any new features any more, and only, if needed will be fixed from time to time.

Beside new themes, we have planned few more things for the framework, including 3 more widgets, but more on that soon. Stay tuned for number of new tutorials this week, and more improvements to Central Documentation.

We plan to add more tracking websites, so if you use some other service, leave a post in the forum, and it will be added with next version. As for the footer modifications, if you have idea what else can be added, also leave post in the forum or on the suggestion box page.

Also, some changes were made in core class that is used to create folders, and in next version this will be improved to display installation messages and errors.

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

photoScape had some broken elements in IE6, and all that is now fixed. Same problem was with Networks widget and missing icons in IE6, and that is also fixed.

Demo website xScape.info is updated with loader page with drop downs to select theme and style to preview it. And don’t forget to sign up for free blog and try all the features first hand with no limitations.

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

Pro version also had few minor issues that are also fixed now. And, as previously announced, over the next 2-3 weeks, Pro version will get more work done including caching of entire widgets that will improve speed of the widgets, and also 2 more widgets will be added.

Plugin Page: http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-simple-widgets/
Free Download: http://www.dev4press.com/free-downloads/

Edit: GD Simple Widgets 2.0.4 Pro is released with another fix for the plugins page settings link.

There was a bug in Popular Posts widget, causing for number to duplicate if the filtering by categories is used and some posts are in multiple categories. This is now fixed. Main widget class had few minor bugs, including bug in excerpt function in Pro version, also now fixed.

Over the next 2-3 weeks, Pro version will get more work done including caching of entire widgets that will improve speed of the widgets, and also 2 more widgets will be added.

Plugin Page: http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-simple-widgets/
Free Download: http://www.dev4press.com/free-downloads/

For each plugin you can see now improved download page. You can see main latest releases for download, and also a closed block that contains list of the previous versions of the plugin. On all pages (except front) I have added new widget at the top that shows current status of the support activity. If it’s red, than we are off-line, and we will respond to questions as soon we are back on-line or within the support policy periods. If it’s green, than we are on-line and will be able to respond much quicker, most likely in the matter of hours, or even less. Same widget is added to forum also.

Some minor bugs, both visual and access are fixed. If you find any more problems, you can use contact form to report it.

My portfolio website is completed, and most important recent projects are there. I also updated main portal webpage. You can check them out on the links bellow.

Portfolio: http://portfolio.gdragon.info/
Portal: http://www.gdragon.info/

I have removed some unneeded elements from the widget rendering, like [] elements from post items.

Pro edition of the plugin is released few days ago, and I plan new version during next week with changes in templates, and number of new rendering templates and tags that support images and thumbnails within post elements in widget.

Plugin Page: http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-simple-widgets/
Free Download: http://www.dev4press.com/free-downloads/

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/

This version fixes few bugs from previous release and improves on some functions. Also, we added info files with functions references and other useful info. Plugin can be updated from WordPress.org, or you can download it from this website.

Plugin Page: http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-taxonomies-tools/
Free Download: http://www.dev4press.com/free-downloads/