[Travis]

Can’t wait for this feature! Looking forward to it!

[Steven Zahm]

Lots of work has been completed … thousands of lines written; the custom meta box and fields API is nearly completed.

Here are a few videos to demo what I’ve completed.

The first shows a “Custom Fields” meta box that’ll be part of the core Connections features. It is very much like the one that is on the post edit page of Connections.

The second video demo’s a quick plugin that I created which shows to various fields that are supported by the core meta box and fields API. When the API is complete, it’ll support many more field types. Right now, there are field inputs, textareas, quicktag editor, rich text editor, date and a slider.

The last video demos the Business Hours plugin I’m writing that takes advantage of this new API. Currently it allows adding open/close hours of a business for each day and each day you can input multiple open/close periods.

[Mike]

Steve, Thanks for this update, I am very excited by what connections is growing into.
Custom meta boxes looks amazing. Could you go into detail about how this will work? I imagine it will require the user to write some code, or build a custom template?

[Steven Zahm]

@ Mike

Sure, I can provide more detail… I have a feeling I’m going to bounce around a little, so hopefully this won’t be too confusing.

This is an API that I’ve built, meaning it is just the foundation for stuff to be built on. So, yes, using this at this point would require coding. A point and click user interface for building custom metaboxes will have to be built as a separate extension for Connections, but even with that, one would still have to modify their template of choice if they want some type of specific presentation of the custom meta.

With that said… I did build one thing into the core Connections and its core templates. Watch the first video again… Anything entered into the custom fields metabox will be displayed on any of the core templates as an unordered list. So one can put add any textual based meta to any specific entry.

I did give the ability for developers to hook into the method that handles the output of the custom meta so they can create their own way to present the meta. This is what I did with the Business Hours extension which is why it doesn’t dump out as an unordered list.

There is already two other dev out there building on top of this new API to customize Connections to better suit their requirements. The one has built/building three extensions that add additional features. The first is a metabox to define if the entry is an Affiliate or Member. I have seen it, but I’m guessing it’s just a simple radio selection or drop down. The second is some type of “discount” which collect and saves several pieces of info about the discount such as name, description and such. The last is is something to do with “level”. I don’t know any more specifics about that one. My impression is that he is quite happy with the flexibility.

This should definitely allow just about anything to be built for Connections … galleries, coupons, ratings, reviews and so on…

Hope that give you more insight!

[MIke Iconis]

Is there anyway we can beta test the upcoming build with the custom meta fields in it? I am testing out your product, but without having the ability to add some custom fields for use in the directory I am trying to make for our kids’ school, I don’t think it is usable.

Can you email me a link maybe to the latest unreleased build? I will be glad to offer feedback while using it.

Thanks!

[Steven Zahm]

@ Mike

Absolutely! The latest dev version can always be downloaded from Github here.

I recommend referring to the Hours extension on how to add custom fields. Since this extension will be free, it too, can be downloaded from Github here.

Several other devs are using the are using the dev version on client sites quite successfully. Let me know how it goes!

[Mike]

Hi Steve,

I, like many of your happy users, eagerly await the ability to add custom fields to connections directories.

Do you have any idea when a public release will be available? You’re not too active in your blog, which I appreciate because I’m sure you’re hard at work. But I’m curious about where you’re headed with connections this year. Aside from custom fields, what else can we look forward to? Is there a major or point release coming? We need to find a way for this awesome plugin to start making you more money, in order to fund the hours and hours of dev you’re putting in.

Thanks a lot.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Mike

I’m shooting for the end of the month but I can tell I’m already going to be a week or two longer. I have yet one more major code refactor to do which is further enhancing what can be done with templates.

Having the other devs building on the custom field support already has really helped flesh this particular feature set out.

Working on this release has turning it into a major update. Not much will seem different from a visual perspective but under the hood there have been massive amounts of code changes so I can start pumping out some of the several dozen extensions I have backlogged in my to do list.

What else, can you expect …

Big updates to both the Form and Link extensions. They’ll be released the same time 0.8 is released. Form 2.0 will bring front-end editing for users with the permissions. When Link 2.0 is installed, it’ll allow front-end editing of the users entry. Form 2.0 is finished, just needs a bit of polish yet. Link still needs to be updated, but the changes it’ll need are fairly minor.

CVS Import will have an update release at the same time to support the ability of plugins that add custom fields to also extend the import importing into those custom fields from a CSV file.

A new knowledge base site is also in the works. I will be moving all the docs and support forums to that site so the sale site and docs can be separated. it’ll make maintenance easier and I’ll be able to use themes better suited for the task on each site. You can find the beginning of this new site here.

Extension and hopefully quite a few of them.

Progress may seem slow … but there is a lot of stuff in the works!

[Tom Steenhuysen]

This reply has been marked as private.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Tom

I’m pushing out the 0.8 release which includes the custom field API today for a few hours to gauge whether or not if the release is as bug free as I think it is. If the support forums do not get flooded with support issues, I’ll leave 0.8 released.

I’m excited to be releasing this … it’s the biggest Connections release yet from a code change perspective.

[Author]

Posts