http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/connections.zip

RC 1 should be fully compatible with WordPress 3.1.x through 3.3.

It is strongly advised that you backup the current four Connections tables in the db before the upgrade because the db structure has been changed significantly.

After the upgrade is completed, validate the data for as many entries as you feel appropriate. The suggested method is, while on the Connections : Manage admin page, click “Show Details” for an entry and then click “Edit” to make sure that data is exactly as expected on both the “Show Details” and the “Edit” page. Why? The data on the “Edit” page is pulled from the new db tables whereas the data shown on the Manage page and the front end is pulled from a cache which stored with the entry specific details. These two sources are kept in sync when edits are made. The reason for this data structure is so that a large amount of entries can be displayed without bombarding the db with queries.

At this time, there are no known bugs, but if you find one, please submit it here:

http://connections-pro.com/trac/

Probably the best feature is that all who have already purchased the template, this will be a free upgrade.

Search; pretty self explanatory.

The category drop down has received a major enhancement courtesy of the jQuery plugin Chosen. When the drop down is opened, a user can now search the categories rather than having to scroll through them to find the one they are looking for. It’s pretty neat, I’ve already become quite spoiled by this feature.

The pagination has been completely re-worked too. Currently, all the pages list in order, which is fine if you only have a few pages, but when you have 20+ pages, it becomes a mess, visually. The new layout mimics the style and functionality of the pagination used on the WordPress admin posts page. Definitely a lot less cluttered and nicer looking, while providing a familiar user experience.

Lastly, templates now can be programmed so they can hook into the Connections shortcode. Basically, what this means is that it is far easier to configure the template options. Currently, if you want to customize any of the template options, you have to locate and edit the functions.php file. And when you make changes, they are global, meaning every time you used the template, even on different pages, you have to use the same settings. Now, since cMap has been updated to hook into the Connections shortcode, you can set the template options from right within the shortcode. No more having to muck around with FTP and editing PHP code! Another great thing-now you can use cMap on different pages configured completely differently. Here’s a sample shortcode that can be used for cMap that changes the number of entries displayed per page, sets the pagination to be displayed at the bottom of the list and hides both the anniversary and birthday fields.

[connections template='cmap' cmap_page_limit='32' cmap_pagination_position='after' cmap_show_birthday='FALSE' cmap_show_anniversary='FALSE']

Here’s a list of options that are currently available with their default settings. This list will actually be expanded when the updated cMap template is released. As you see, templates are almost plugins on their own.

• cmap_enable_search = TRUE
• cmap_enable_pagination = TRUE
• cmap_page_limit = 20
• cmap_pagination_position = ‘before’
• cmap_enable_category_select = TRUE
• cmap_show_empty_categories = TRUE
• cmap_show_category_count = FALSE
• cmap_category_select_position = ‘before’
• cmap_enable_category_by_root_parent = FALSE
• cmap_enable_map = TRUE
• cmap_enable_bio = TRUE
• cmap_enable_bio_head = TRUE
• cmap_enable_note = TRUE
• cmap_enable_note_head = TRUE
• cmap_enable_website_link = TRUE
• cmap_show_addresses = TRUE
• cmap_show_phone_numbers = TRUE
• cmap_show_email = TRUE
• cmap_show_im = TRUE
• cmap_show_social_media = TRUE
• cmap_show_birthday = TRUE
• cmap_show_anniversary = TRUE
• cmap_map_type = ‘ROADMAP’
• cmap_map_zoom = 13
• cmap_map_frame_height = 400
• cmap_str_select = ‘Select Category’
• cmap_str_select_all = ‘Show All Categories’
• cmap_str_map_show = ‘Show Map’
• cmap_str_map_hide = ‘Close Map’
• cmap_str_bio_head = ‘Biography’
• cmap_str_bio_show = ‘Show Bio’
• cmap_str_bio_hide = ‘Close Bio’
• cmap_str_note_head = ‘Notes’
• cmap_str_note_show = ‘Show Notes’
• cmap_str_note_hide = ‘Close Notes’
• cmap_str_home_phone = ‘Home Phone’
• cmap_str_home_fax = ‘Home Fax’
• cmap_str_cell_phone = ‘Cell Phone’
• cmap_str_work_phone = ‘Work Phone’
• cmap_str_work_fax = ‘Work Fax’
• cmap_str_personal_email = ‘Personal Email’
• cmap_str_work_email = ‘Work Email’
• cmap_str_visit_website = ‘Visit Website’

Now, the really good news;  I need beta testers. Even though the version is a small bump in the version number, the changes are very significant. So if you know how to backup tables in your WordPress install and you wish to beta test, let me know in the comments and I’ll get you hooked up. Oh, this is important, there are no critical bugs that I’m aware of. The most annoying bug is that pagination in the admin may not always work as expected.

For the curious here’s just a small list of changes:

• FEATURE: Search.
• FEATURE: Added a Dashboard page in the admin.
• FEATURE: Added a Today’s Birthdays admin dashboard widget.
• FEATURE: Added a Upcoming Birthdays admin dashboard widget.
• FEATURE: Added a Today’s Anniversaries admin dashboard widget.
• FEATURE: Added a Upcoming Anniversaries admin dashboard widget.
• FEATURE: Added a Recently Added dashboard widget.
• FEATURE: Added a Recently Modified admin dashboard widget.
• FEATURE: Added a Connections News admin dashboard widget.
• FEATURE: Added a Template Update News admin dashboard widget.
• FEATURE: Added a Pro Module New admin dashboard widget.
• FEATURE: Added a System Info / Configuration admin dashboard widget.
• FEATURE: New role capabilities that allow add and edit moderation.
• FEATURE: Added more actions/filters to hook into.
• FEATURE: Added hooks to allow templates o be configured via the shortcode so the template’s funcions.php file does not need edited.
• FEATURE: Collapsible and sortable addresses and ect., when adding or editing an address and ect.
• FEATURE: Added ICQ as a messenger type.
• FEATURE: Added Google+ to the social networks.
• BUG: The view_public capability was being removed when role capabilities were being reset.
• BUG: Fix many/most/all warnings and such reported when WP_DEBUG is TRUE.
• BUG: Remove the connections_view_entry_list role as it is no longer needed.
• BUG: Use gmmktime() instead of mktime() when working with the birthday and anniversary so dates are output showing the current date.
• BUG: Fixed a bug with applying the cn_list_before filter causing the template CSS to output twice.
• BUG: Fixed an issue with getAddressBlock() showing only the last input address.
• BUG: Removed the Screen Options tab from the Connections Manage page unless an action was being performed on an entry such as edit/copy.
• BUG: Fixed some minor bugs in the upgrade function.
• BUG: Fixed malformed vCard when Department was entered without and organization name.
• OTHER: Remove the meta Connections version from the head as it failed HTML5 validation. Added to the connections div as an HTML5 data attribute.
• OTHER: Disabled JavaScript compression on the Add/Edit Entry page. When enabled the RTE wouldn’t load to JS errors.
• OTHER: Update Roles and Capabilities page to use the metabox visual styles.
• OTHER: Updated the help page. Fixing typos and adding more info.
• OTHER: Update the settings page to match the WordPress setting page styles for better integration.
• OTHER: Update the categories page style to match the WordPress categories page styles for better integration.
• OTHER: Update the role page style to use the post metabox style for better integration.
• OTHER: All processes are now handled by a pocess method rather than hooking into the current page for better role capability support.
• OTHER: Remove the Donate link from the meta links on the Plugins page.
• OTHER: Added a entry meta table for future support for custom entry details.
• OTHER: Tweaked the header of the Manage / Copy / Edit screen.
• OTHER: Added a cache folder during activation for TimThumb.
• OTHER: Removed ‘Select’ from the address type select to force user selection.
• OTHER: Set the ‘Member’ template as a ‘family’ template type.
• OTHER: Set the ‘Single Entry Card’ template as a ‘individual’ template type.
• OTHER: Greatly improved support for using the shortcode multiple times on the same page.
• OTHER: Improved the pagination support on the Manage page. The limit is now user adjustable.
• OTHER: Completely revamped the db structure. Using the original table columns for addresses, ect., for an object to keep db queries to a minimum.
• OTHER: Added support for WP 3.3.
• OTHER: Use wp_editor when user is running WP 3.3+.
• OTHER: Moved the filters to be part of the entry retrieve query. Made possible by the new db structure.
• OTHER: Moved the order by option to be part of the entry retrieve query. Made possible by the new db structure.
• OTHER: Upgrade the class.php.upload class to .31
• OTHER: Added debug logging and display for image uploads.
• OTHER: Reworked just about every method in the cnOutput() class to remove all inline styles.
• OTHER: All styles have been moved to an external CSS file.
• OTHER: Completely restructured the Connections shortcode logic.
• OTHER: The output of the IM networks now conform to the hCard spec.
• OTHER: Added the missing contact first and last name template tag.
• OTHER: Enable shortcode use in the bio and notes fields.

Search is incorporated into the Connections : Manage admin page and it will be available as a standard feature in the admin. However, search on the front end will only be incorporated as a feature in the premium templates.

Here’s a list of fields that will be searched for matches:

• family_name
• first_name
• middle_name
• last_name
• title
• organization
• department
• contact_first_name
• contact_last_name
• bio
• notes
• line_1
• line_2
• line_3
• city
• state
• zip code
• country

I decided not to include links, email addresses and social media IDs as the results could get less useful do to partial string matching when the search is being performed.

Here’s a quick run down of the available widgets:

• News: This displays the last few blog posts.
• Quick Links: Just a few links to take you to the most popular pages on connections-pro.com.
• Pro Module Update Notices and Template Update Notices: These will display all the latest update notices.
• Today’s Anniversaries
• Upcoming Anniversaries
• Today’s Birthdays
• Upcoming Birthdays
• Recently Added: This will display a list of the last dozen added entries.
• Recently Updated: This will display a list of the last dozen updated entries.
• Awaiting Moderation: Not in the screen capture, bit it’ll show all the entries waiting to be approved.
• System: Shows a bunch of server related info that will be helpful for trouble shooting.

One thing I hope you noticed is that the links can be assigned a type. This is probably the biggest change, which prompted me to renamed the feature. In the screen capture I assigned one link as a website and another as a blog. Now, in templates, one can call the desired link type to be displayed independently from the other link types. That’s much more useful than the list of websites that Connections currently outputs. Now, I want to put this right out there, this next release of Connections will not include the ability to create custom link types, that’s slated for the release after this one. So if you’d like to have a link type considered for inclusion, let me know in the comments.

I also added three other often requested features, the ability to have a link title, whether a link should open in the current window/tab or a new window/tab and whether the link should dofollow or nofollow for search engines. These alone, I know, will make quite a few people happy, but there’s one more thing. Like addresses, the links can be dropped and dragged so they’re presented in the order you want them, just like the addresses,  just in case you want to output a list of links.

One of the unique features in Connections is the ability to add as many addresses as you need to an entry. This was great, but there really wasn’t much of a way to manage them after they had been entered. Well, I’ve improved on this a bit. Addresses can now be reordered using drop and drag. They can be set as public, private or unlisted and you can even choose an address as the preferred address. Take a peek at the screen capture.

Now, if you have multiple addresses you can easily rearrange them in the order you want them to be displayed without having to delete them and reenter them. Another benefit is you can now store all the entry’s associated addresses in Connections while keeping addresses you specify from being displayed publicly.

Stay tuned for more updates. I’ll be posting more feature previews and how-tos in the near future.

Features:

• Add an Overview page that will display the following widgets:
  • Today’s Birthday’s
  • Upcoming Birthday’s
  • Today’s Anniversaries
  • Upcoming Anniversaries
  • Recently Added
  • Recently Updated
  • Awaiting Moderation
• Add ‘tabs’ to the Manage page for All | Pending (count) | Approved
• Add bulk actions to Approve or Unapprove entries.
• Add Approve and Unapprove to the entries action links.
• Add the category_in shortcode attribute. This will be an operational AND, meaning an entry must be in all the categories in order to be listed.
• Add the category_in_name shortcode attribute. This will be an operational AND, meaning an entry must be in all the categories in order to be listed.
• Add the exclude_category_name shortcode attribute. Use this to exclude categories based on their name.

Other:

• Add new role capability, add_entry_moderated. When users with this capability set entries will be set with the pending status.
• Update all queries to support the pending status.
• Remove the use of the download.vcard.php file that is being copied to the WP root during activation.
  • Trigger upgrade to remove this file from previous installs.
• Trigger upgrade to toggle the ‘Public Entries’ setting so the correct role is assigned.
• Document the template tag getNameBlock()
• Add a template tag for the Contact Name based of the new template tag getNameBlock()
• Update the getImageBlock() methods to model after the getLogoBlock() template tag.
  • Consolidate to a single code base and have the template tags call the corresponding image only.
• Fix bug where an ampersand will not let the category_name shortcode attribute function correctly.
• Currently when entries are added or updated the timezone offset time set in WP is use. This should actually be set to use time() and only apply the offset when displayed to the end user.
• The role settings should not reset during plugin activation.
• Template should sort by their name, not the directory name.