First minor revision for GD Press Tools 4.2 Pro is here adding several new features, has number of improvements and fixes several bugs. Admin Bar is expended with GD Press Menu and many useful options (including quick backup) beside shortcut links to main plugins panels.
Admin Bar can be expanded with the GD Press Tools menu. It will contain links to most important panels. But, it can also have special links: quick backup (yeah, you can run backup from ANY page on admin side or front end where the admin bar is visible) and cleanup. Cleanup links were expanded for dashboard widget also to include the trashed comments and posts cleanup.
The code to control admin bar is not moved into separate file and class. For all users there is a option to force use of admin bar (we did this on Dev4Press, and added extra controls to it) from the Global Settings panel.
Another great new feature is for restricting access to the admin side of your website. You can set up redirecting for any of the user roles (not for administrators). You can set target URL’s, so when someone (a subscriber) tries to access wp-admin, he gets redirected to home page o something else you set. You can set additional targets for the dashboard and profile page.
Dev4Press website already uses this, so you can see it in action. Also, additional filters are added allowing you to control the redirection, check out the central documentation for details.
Now to backups. There is a design flaw in the WordPress cron execution that can cause same job to run more than once, because wp-cron.php lacks the proper locking mechanism. This can cause that you schedule the backup, and WordPress runs the same one twice with same parameters causing for duplicated operations that can break the backup process. This locking issue is not the problem for most tasks, but for critical operations like backups it is. In 4.2 plugin version I added a internal locking that was preventing this duplicated runs, but it was not enough, and in this version this protection is increased to 7 seconds sleep gap and 2 minutes transient locking. Hopefully this will be enough, since the problem is usually happening in periods with huge number of visitors in the short period. So, don’t schedule backups in time of day when you expect big traffic, and don’t schedule backups to run very close to each other, give them at least 5 or 10 minutes difference. Same locking protection is added to auto tagger jobs.
I have added a backup advisor popup on the backup page that has few recommendations on how to schedule the backups and avoid potential cron issues and performance problems. Also, broken cleanup of old processes tool is now working.
There are many more changes in this version. Loading of additional JavaScript and CSS code is improved and few extra files used before for adding this code are removed. Contextual Help block is now made more visible, and all relevant tutorials are listed. Several misspelled words and missing translation strings are fixed. Sucuri scan request updated to disable SSL verification. Accessibility settings are expanded, and now you can move GD Press Tools menu to the top under the Dashboard.
And, if you find any bugs, there is a 4.2 thread in the forums for all the bugs and other issues. Plugin FAQ page is also update with more relevant information, please read it.
Links and Resources
Here is the list of tutorials mentioned in this post:
How to backup and restore your website
Using GD Press Tools 4.2 Backup
Using GD Press Tools Auto Tagger
Comparing GD Press Tools Pro versus BackupBuddy:
To see the list of plugin features, overview and to buy the plugin, visit these pages:
GD Press Tools Overview
GD Press Tools Main Page
GD Press Tools Frequently Asked Questions
Buy GD Press Tools Pro
Promo coupon
To get 30% discount for this plugin (for yearly recurring payments standard and developer licenses, coupon is applied to initial payment only): GDPT42PRO. Coupon can be used until September 5 2011, so hurry up!
