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New Verse-O-Matic Release Planned

I have been working on Verse-O-Matic as of late. Most of the changes to the new version will be of a back-end nature.

Remove the wp_vom_settings table in favor of storing settings in the wp_options table and using WP’s get_option functions
Clean up the use of the date for date specific verse display
VOTD highlighted in admin
Add sorting options to the admin panel verse table

Using the wp_options table to store the settings is a great improvement in this plugin. By doing that, we reduce the necessary tables for Verse-O-Matic to one just to store the verses you are using. We also eliminate using our own db queries in the plugin (at least for settings) in favor of using WP’s native functions for get_option, add_option, and update_option. This should improve the plugin’s overall performance.

The previous way that the date was used for a VOTD (Verse of the Day) tool wasn’t quite right before. To begin with, the field wasn’t available when adding a new verse, but was when editing. That doesn’t make much sense, so I fixed that. I also added a date column so if you are setting up a bunch of verses for use as VOTD verses, then you can intuitively see which ones are which. That set up another change.

More ways to sort the verse display were needed for the admin. By default, it sorted by the database ID. But what if you were using VOTD and wanted to sort by date? Or what if you wanted to sort by book of the Bible (alphabetically of course… maybe I’ll take a stab at the actual order sometime)? So I added sorting to the display table to make this easier to use.

Lastly, if you were using it for VOTD, it should have been highlighting the row that is today. I changed the css class that was used to make this stand out a little more.

I hope you find this a useful and versatile plugin! Enjoy it!

Next Steps:

In order to speed up set up beyond just the verses included as examples, I am going to release a script that will load a large number of verses for you to use. This will be for users more verses in their Verse-O-Matic, but don’t want to set them all by hand. This will be an add-on and will make for a quick setup.

For VOTD users that are not entering their own verses, I will be adding a couple of feeds. That way, all you have to do is set the feed and you are off and running.

The first release candidate is nearly complete and should be available in the next few days. In the meantime, the current version is available on the Verse-O-Matic page (which will also be getting an update).

WP-Members 2.1 coming soon!

By Chad Butler 1 Comment

This is the next step in the move toward the 2.1 release of WP-Members. The previous alpha release started the core of the admin functions. In addition, I am adding a few couple new features.

The members page now includes a password reset option. The user is required to enter the correct username/email combination, then a new random password is set and emailed to the user.
The ability to block pages has been added. As always, posts are blocked by default, and can be unblocked by setting a custom field of ‘unblock.’ Pages are set up exactly opposite – unblocked by default, but if you set a custom field of ‘block’ the page will require the user to be registered/logged in.

If you are currently using the plugin and have something for the “wish list,” be sure to stop by the forum and include it. By the way, if you are looking at using WP-Members and including a forum on your site, I will be testing the plugin with some of the WordPress forum plugin. The forum on this site is WP-Forum and is tied to WP-Members.

The final production version of 2.1 is probably a week or two away, but until then you can download the current production release here .

WP-Members 2.1.a Alpha Release

By Chad Butler Leave a Comment

I’ve been working on WP-Members in a furious fashion this week/weekend. As I’ve already posted, I did release 2.0.1 that fixed the known bugs in the 2.0 release. Since then, I’ve been working on adding the needed user management in the admin area. This was present in 1.x versions, but since 2.0 changed to using native the WP user table, I needed to completely change the admin features in WP-Members.

This alpha release should be stable. It currently only adds two new functions into the script. These add the extra fields that are used in WP-Members to the WP Edit User page. Now you can view and edit the users that are registered as well as the extra field information.

As a new feature, if the user is logged in, they will be add information for the additional fields that WP has for the user (website, aim, yahoo im, jabber, bio). I’ve commented these in the code so they can be removed if you do not need them. (really, any fields that you do not need can be removed as well if you don’t mind working with php.)

This is not an official release version, so of course use it at your own risk, but I felt it was ready to be made available for public testing. (If you want the stable release, download it here.)

Download WP-Members 2.1.a