Connections

One request I’ve been receiving it to provide some method to help protect email addresses from spam email harvester bots. Well, this is exactly what this pro module will do. The entire email address mailto anchor tag is encrypted using the ROT13 encryption method. As the page is being rendered a client side JavaScript will decode the email address. For users that have JavaScript disabled there is a CSS fallback method so they will be able to view the email address as well.

When is it coming? Very soon. It is actually finished, but it relies on some new hooks in Connections that will not be available until the next release. So once the next version of Connections is release, I’ll add the ROT13 Pro Module to the store. What is this price? It will be listed for a very reasonable $2.99.

If you’ve been waiting for this, then you know I’m late. Guess that is how it goes with software development. Good news though. I spent this past weekend, since it was so hot, working on it. So far I’m really pleased with the results. It was kind of tough to come up with a user interface that would provide a great user experience and still be flexible with the input CSV data.

What I ended up with is a three-step process. The first being the simplest. Upload the CSV file.

A requirement for the import of the CSV file will be that the first row is to be a header row to identify the contents of the data for each column. This leads you to step two. You will have to map each column to the appropriate field in Connections. For example, lets say the column headers in your CSV file are first, middle and last, you would map these to the fields First Name, Middle Name and Last name in Connections. Now I did include some basic auto mapping. If the CSV file is an Export of Outlook or Gmail, Connections will automap many of the fields for you. If you name your column heads correctly before import Connections will be able to automap all of the columns.

Once you have the fields mapped it’s time for the third and final step. Connections will parse the rest of the CSV file according to the map from the previous step and will display a table with all of the entries from the CSV file. Here, you will have the opportunity review and make any edits before importing the CSV.

Ok, I guess there is one more step, the actual import. But that’s it.

Once I’ve completed the next release I think I’m going to switch focus for a month and start working on the Pro version of the plug-in. It’ll have two primary features. The first will CSV import/export and the second will be the removal of the donate links and powered by link.