Connections

One of the planned updates for the next release of Connections is to improve the rich text editing of the Bio and Notes fields. Well, I’ve made great progress with that. Take a peek at the screen captures.

I’ve dropped jWYSIWYG for rich editing. Unfortunately it just isn’t robust enough and had some flaky behaviors across different browsers. In its place is tinyMCE, the same editor that WordPress uses but slimmed down, while still expanding the editing capabilities. Before you could only bold text, italicize text and add links. Those formatting options are still there but now also include underline text, numbered lists, bulleted lists and paragraph justification. You also can paste text as plain text, which is useful when pasting content from a webpage. And paste from Word, very useful for when pasting content in from Word as it removes all the proprietary mark-up. Last but not least, multiple level undo/redo.

After preliminary testing it seems that Connections works fine with the latest and greatest WP. Just in case you were wondering. I should mention that I didn’t test with the new multi-site feature. But I don’t see any reason that the plug-in wouldn’t work.

The next release is coming along very nicely. Many new small feature have been added and well as coding optimizations which reduce the memory requirements. There is one major downside. This next update will break any custom templates that directly accessed the data for addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, websites and social networks. This was a tough choice as I’ve tried very hard not to break functionality implemented in past versions. But it had to be done in order to reduce the memory overhead and to allow more flexibility when creating templates in the future as I expand that feature set. The good news is that if you created a custom template an you stuck with the documented template tags you should have no problems. If you had paid me to create a custom template for you I will be more than happy to update your template free of charge. Other, you have my sincerest apologies for any issues this may cause you. Keep in mind you can simply revert to the previous version of the plug-in until you can update your template.

Some of the features that will highlight the next release…

A template tag to show the list a categories that an entry is associated with. A very highly requested feature. This will of course be added to the default templates.

An attribute can be added the shortcode to show all entries that where the post has the same categories. For example, if a post has been assigned to ‘Category A’ and ‘Category B’, the entries that have been assigned to both the same categories will be shown.

The category shortcode attribute will now accept a comma delimited list of category ids.

For theme developers, I’ve added two theme template tags. One for calling the entry list and the other to call the upcoming list. Both tags support all the shortcode attributes passed as an associative array. These two theme template tags definitely opens up all sorts of interesting things that can be done dynamically.

When, you might ask? My to do list grows smaller daily, so I would say in the next couple weeks if all goes well.

Connections is becoming more and more popular which great and I thank you! Here’s a peek at my development plans. Many of the features listed below are coming by popular demand. If all goes well the next release should be coming very soon.

Next Release => 0.7.0.0

• BUG: Set the db version after each db upgrade cycle.
• BUG: Add the missing social media block to the output class, default templates and help page.
• BUG: Fix typos in the help page.
• BUG: Fixed improper use of the prepare method when saving and updating entries.
• BUG: Fix issue causing the adding/editing of entries to fail when the ‘%’ character was used.
• BUG: Auto add the http:// to website and social media link URLs.
• BUG: Fix when copying or adding a Connection Group will display twice in the entry list. Caused by the group name being saved to the last_name field. Only save fields that pertain to the entry type selected.
• BUG: Database upgrade shouldn’t execute on a new plug-in install.
• BUG: Fix the filter and sort shortcode attributes to take into consideration the use of special characters like the apostrophe.
• BUG: Remove images from the server when being removed from an entry.
• BUG: Image tag should not be output in the image does not exist and the entry options should be updated.
• OTHER: Removed the use of $_SESSION throughout the plug-in.
• OTHER: Enhance plug-in security through the use of nonce.
• OTHER: Move the cnDate methods to the cnForm class.
• OTHER: Move the cnConvert methods to the cnFormatting class.
• OTHER: Require the class.upload.php class only when needed to remove 1.3MB in plug-in overhead.
• OTHER: Remove the known issue about WP Super Cache and images as they no longer apply.
• FEATURE: Add links for Setting, Help and Donate to the plug-in management page.
• FEATURE: Add template tag to display the categories that an entry is assigned to.
• FEATURE: Add honorable pre/suffice to entry form and hCard/vCard output.
• FEATURE: Add contact name for Organization entry type.

Release => 0.7.1.0

• FEATURE: Expand the category shortcode attribute to allow multiple category ids to be called. [Operational OR]
• FEATURE: Add in_category shortcode attribute. This will define multiple categories by id that an entry must be assigned in order to be displayed. [Operational AND]
• FEATURE: Add exclude_category shortcode attribute to allow multiple categories by id to be excluded from the output.
• FEATURE: Add category_name shortcake attribute to allow multiple categories to be called by name(/slug). [Operational OR]
• FEATURE: Add in_category_name shortcode attribute. This will define multiple categories by name(/slug) that an entry must be assigned in order to be displayed. [Operational AND]
• FEATURE: Add exclude_category_name shortcode attribute to allow multiple categories by name(/slug) entries to be excluded from the output.
• FEATURE: Add wp_current shortcode attribute to show entries based on the current category and in_category by name(/slug)
• FEATURE: Expand the RTE for the bio and notes fields to allow more styling

Release => 0.7.2.0

• FEATURE: Find and map WP users that are in Connections and maintain those relationships. To be used initially for the wp_current shortcode attribute to show and entry for the current post author or current logged in user. This will be useful for custom author / about me boxes and custom greeting based on the current user.
• FEATURE: Expand the wp_current shortcode attribute to show entries based on current tag/in_tag by name(/slug); author and user.
• FEATURE: Category list / drop down on the front end to allow users to filter based on category. Output will support permalinks via wp_rewrite.
• FEATURE: Add detail_template shortcode attribute. This is to support showing a second more detailed template of an entry. This will support permalinks via wp_rewrite.
• FEATURE: Add relation_template shortcode attribute. This is to support showing the details of an entry’s relationship. This will support permalinks via wp_rewrite.
• FEATURE: Expand the functionality of the template tags.
• FEATURE: Add support for custom CSS and JavaScript for templates. Only load the CSS/JavaScript on the page/post that the shortcode is called on.

A small percentage of users have been receiving this error. This error is caused because the host server is not configured correctly to use php sessions. I find this odd because in my fairly limited experience many web based applications absolutely require the php sessions. Since WordPress does not use php sessions I decided to rework the plug-in to remove it’s use. So if you are one of the few receiving this error, please download and install this version. Do keep in mind this version is under development an may contain bugs.

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

If you do not want to use a development version see this FAQ for some possible solutions to fix this error.

http://connections-pro.com/?page_id=58#15

For all those who have been waiting for category support… it’s nearly here. Only a few more things to polish it off but if you would like to test it and give some feedback that would be great. Here the link and have fun.

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

Oh, as always be safe and backup first.

UPDATE:

To show an entry list that displays a specific category add the following attribute where x equals the category id number. This will display the selected category and all the children categories.
The shortcode attribute is:

category=x

With the release of 2.9 many users will be asking, are my plug-ins compatible? Well so far I have some good news. After a couple hours testing I didn’t notice any show stoppers. Actually the only thing I did noticed was that the role names added “|User role” to the name which does not seem to affect the functionality at all. From what I can tell, new installs of 2.9 will not be affected only  older upgraded versions. This fix is simple but then WordPress 2.8 or newer will be the minimum required version for Connections.

Almost finished with adding support for the honorable pre/suffix, middle name and social media IDs for an entry. I need to update the output class and hCard and vCard support to include these additions.  I have the UI for the category page and the creation of the supporting tables upon activation complete. The entry form has received a little love. You can now add an unlimited number of addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, messenger IDs and social media IDs. This makes the form much shorter and more versatile by adding only the fields you need on demand.

Well, development has been good and happening at a fast pace. So far the next version will have more features and changes than any version prior. Some additional meta data is stored when adding/editing an entry. For example, previously only the last modified time stamp was stored. Now date added, add by and last edited by is being stored. With this data being collected and stored this will allow adding support for multi-user entry lists and moderation of additions/edits. The usermeta table is now being used to store user specific settings. Currently this only stores the filter state set in the admin. In the future I plan on using this to store the view state of the add entry form to allow, per user, hiding unneeded portions of the form. Speaking of the form, when adding an organization, you will now be able to store a contact name. I also added the honorable pre/suffice for an individual. Next up, adding a section to input social media ids. The big feature for the next release will be category (and possibly tag, that may come later) support. I was contemplating integrating with the WordPress category and tags but decided against it as one would categorize/tag an entry differently than posts. So the plan is to mimic WordPress’s implementation. Management will be identical. When adding an entry you will be able to select which categories an entry will be filed and add a comma separated list for tags. The only support for using categories in this version will be a shortcode filter attribute and a select drop down in the admin. Not sure where to take it from there, so I’ll see what type of requests I get.

I’ve been working full steam on the next update. As with the past couple versions most changes are “under the hood”. I’ve been re-writing and making the code more and more modular. Right now I’m working on combining and moving all the queries to the cnSQL class. Once that is complete I’m going to start work on a new filter and sort classes. With this in place it should be easy to expand the ways to filter and sort the entry list. The big new feature coming will be category support which will, when complete, mimic WordPress in its implementation and management. The initial support will be the ability to add an entry to a category and a short code filter attribute.