This latest Alpha release is delayed more than I wanted too, but it is now here bringing many more changes (improved debugger, interface changes, code cleanup) and most importantly reworked Backup panel and brand new SEO panel (replacing old Meta panel).
Warning: This is a development snapshot of the upcoming version, and its for use only on test environments. I try to make even alpha versions as stable as possible, but still I can’t recommend that you use this plugin version on your live websites. Also, new Backup is NOT compatible with old one! Once you upgrade to this version, all scheduled backups from old version will stop working.
Known Issues: Backup tasks editing not working. Backup process log and statistics tab not done yet. Several interface bugs and problems. Not fully tested with multisite / network environments.
First of all, Backups now use Tasks system developed previously for auto tagger. All other modules, if possible, they will use Tasks system in future versions. For improved flexibility, CDN and FTP is now separate panel as well, allowing you to define multiple connections you can use later in Backup and more.
For faster backups, there is a new option called Quick Backup (image on the right). Just click on the type of backup to create and that’s it, backup will be added as a background process. This is default backup option and in this case no settings are needed.
If you need detailed backup, things are much better now, since you can create and edit backup tasks. Once the task is created you can run it (with additional settings for CDN and few other things), or you can schedule it. One backup task can have multiple scheduled jobs.
To use new backup module, go to Backup panel. Now you open Tasks tab. There, you will see Default task (you can’t delete it or edit it, but you can run it or schedule. This task is used for Quick Backup (top red button). You can create new tasks and use them. They have much more options right now, and it is much easier to create exactly what you need. Also, on Backup Settings tab you will find more interesting things: email notification to edit and exclusions for files backup.
Old Meta Tags panel is now renamed to SEO. Old tabs on this panel are still here, and only new feature for now is Facebook Open Graph integration meta tags. More SEO features will come in future versions. Other changes in this version include many minor improvements to debugger, new auto tagger module, more interface improvements and fixes and changes for WordPress 3.2.
In the next 4-5 days, I will release 4.1 Beta version, and soon after that final 4.1 will follow. So, please report all errors or problems you encounter with this release, I expect that there are some bugs in still, mostly with new Backup module. If you have some suggestions on the features present in this version, leave comments in this post or in the forum.
Next week will see several new video tutorials for new backup, auto tagger and few other things.
