GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro is the next Dev4Press plugin in line to get a complete rewrite for the new, major version 5.0. And, not only that, the plugin will also change its name.
The new plugin will be a lot different from the current GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro, so I have decided to use a new name, and allow users of the old plugin to choose if they prefer to remain with old one, or switch to the new plugin. They will not be directly compatible, and the new plugin will have tools to transfer data from the old plugin. Functions and object that were available with the old plugin will be changed, and I will also include articles on how to migrate code from old plugin to new.
At the core, version 5.0 will have the same set of features. But, some of them will get major updates and improvements:
- Create custom post types and custom taxonomies – the same set of features as the old plugin, easier to configure with settings split into multiple pages, and you don’t need to go through settings you don’t need to change.
- Custom post type advanced rewriting – one of the coolest features from the old plugin, allowing you to set up custom permalink structure for custom post types, permalinks to custom post types filtered and taxonomy term and more.
- Modify some aspects of default and third party post types and taxonomies – The previous version allowed too many changes to be made, and it could even break things in the process. This time, the scope of the changes allowed for post types and taxonomies not created by this plugin will be limited and kept in the safe zone.
- Special features for post types and taxonomies – this includes some nice additions: assign images to taxonomy terms (using new and improved interface and new WP Media dialog), modify taxonomy metabox and much more.
- Addon bases internal architecture – like other Dev4Press plugins, this one will also have some of the features made into addons that you can disable if you don’t need.
But, most important changes will happen to Custom Fields handling. The previous version allowed you to add fields, group fields into meta boxes and include repeaters for some types of fields. This time, things will be much different:
- Legacy custom fields and meta boxes – this will have a similar structure to current meta boxes implementation in 4.x version of the plugin. This will be added for backward compatibility with old plugin, especially with the way data is stored in the database. There will be no way to convert legacy meta field/box/data to the new format.
- New meta fields – this is a completely different way to create fields. Each field can have one or more base fields (text, date, number…), so they can form a more complex field. And, each base field can be set as a repeater. This way you can create a meta field for an address where you include different elements that make up an address.
- New meta boxes – now you can create a meta box that can be set up to use meta fields. Each field in the box can be set as a repeater, so if you have address meta field, you can add more than one address.
- Support for terms and users meta – and you can assign meta boxes to posts, pages and custom post types as before, but now, you can use meta boxes with terms and users too. This way you can add more complex data to any user, or any term you have.
- Powerful developer friendly objects and functions – to handle all the data on the frontend, to get meta box and meta fields data, format it and display it, the plugin will have set of objects and functions to make coding easier.
Currently, the plugin is 30% done. Everything for handling post types and taxonomies, all the special features for them is done. Work is in progress for support for third party and default post types and taxonomies, and once that is done, meta portion of the plugin will take most of the time needed for the plugin. At the very end, there will be time to work on few planned addons that will be part of the plugin.
I plan to have 2 weeks Beta testing phase to make sure that transfer of settings and data from old plugin works. Right now, the plugin should be released at the end of June, if nothing goes horribly wrong in the meantime.
Anyone with active GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro license will automatically get access to new plugin starting with the Beta testing phase. That will be announced once it is ready.
