May 28th, 2010

Backup Before Upgrading

Posted by John Havlik in WordPress > Plugins

There is a bug in Breadcrumb NavXT 3.5.0’s install script that will reset your settings on activation. If you do not want to lose your settings, please export them using the Import/Export/Reset tab, and then Import them after upgrading to 3.5.0. Next week 3.5.1 will be released to address this problem and a few others that were discovered today by myself and others (probably Monday night).

As for how these made it into the main release, there is no one to blame for it but myself. As I work directly out of my testbed, I don’t activate/deactivate my plugins except when to test the install script. The actual cause was back in 3.4.0 when I changed ‘tag_’ to ‘post_tag_’ in some of the option names to fit with the custom taxonomy support (and WordPress’ name for tags). However, 3.4.x had a bug where the install script did not actually run (in most cases). When that was fixed with the rewrite of much of the administrative interface code, this dormant bug appeared, but I didn’t notice it until today while trying to fix a bug with the “Archive by Date Suffix” setting.

Moving forward, if you are using Breadcrumb NavXT in a system that does not use the default settings, please do a settings export before upgrading. This will save everyone headaches in the future. Also, I try to fairly transparent about development progress, and almost always announce when the plugin is going to translators for translation updates. This is typically a week before I intend on releasing it. In this time, please feel free to test out the SVN trunk for bugs that may affect you. Since there are features in Breadcrumb NavXT that I do not routinely use, I may not catch bugs in these areas. The more people looking at the release candidate, the fewer number of bugs that will make it through (same goes for WordPress as well). As always, if something is broken let me know.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

May 25th, 2010

Breadcrumb NavXT 3.5.0

Posted by John Havlik in WordPress > Plugins

Holy customizable widgets Batman! With Breadcrumb NavXT 3.5.0 not only can you have multiple widgets (WordPress 2.8 Widget API), but you can also specify the options normally exposed to bcn_display();. Other changes to note are the addition of two filters, bcn_before_fill and bcn_after_fill, to bcn_breadcrumb_trail::fill(). These should allow for easier extension of Breadcrumb NavXT (though, with custom post type support coming in 3.6.0 this may be redundant). Finally, the settings page code has been rewritten and modularized, in the process, several outstanding bugs should have been squashed (no settings on first install).

Please note that this release requires WordPress 2.8 or newer.

Many thanks to Karin Sequen, Patrik Spathon, and Luca Camellini for submitting updated Spanish, Sweedish and Italian translations. Sadly, the French, German, Russian, and Dutch translations have fallen out of date. If you want to pick up translation of any of these, or want to submit a translation in your language, send me an email. For 3.6.0, I’d really like to get all of the translations up on the same page again.

You can grab the latest version of Breadcrumb NavXT from the Breadcrumb NavXT page.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

April 2nd, 2010

Check Image Dimensions Without getimagesize()

Posted by John Havlik in Guides

In a forthcoming project, it was necessary to check the dimensions of a remote image before deciding to cache it or not. While the PHP native function getimagesize() exists, it has some pitfalls. The biggest being: it relies on allow_url_fopen being enabled. While allow_url_fopen is not inherently dangerous, many web hosts do not have it set to prevent issues caused by inexperienced users (including Weblogs.us). Additionally, getimagesize() will retrieve the entire image—a waste of bandwidth, and time. This guide will cover finding the dimensions of images in the PNG and GIF formats with a word on JPEG and why it makes life difficult.

Download Sources

March 28th, 2010

Absence and Upcoming Events

Posted by John Havlik in General

There is a fresh guide in queue, ready for review and then release. It’s related to image dimensions and PHP. Originally, it was to be released yesterday, however it depends on some elements that need styling. It will be out some time this week.

Almost two years have come and passed since I originally created Cran-Berry, and it has grown stale. There are two potential replacements, both have been mocked up. One is more of a grunge theme (similar to the Cran-Berry 2 Mockup 1). The other is more of a natural progression from the current Cran-Berry. The biggest changes to note are a slight narrowing of the over all page size, a change in the navigation setup, wider article space, taller footer, and some tweaks to make the site more navigable in mobile browsers (on the Motorola Droid). Currently, the plan is to update on April 23rd, the 5 year anniversary of this blog on Weblogs.us.

There is also a new plugin in the works. It is already written, and in initial user testing. Unlike WP Trainer, which has barely seen the light of day, this plugin will be released as public beta in April.

Breadcrumb NavXT will receive an update in either April or May. At the moment, I need people to test out the SVN trunk. It contains a vastly rewritten settings page (doesn’t look different, but the code behind it is). Currently, the bcn_breadcrumb_trail class is more or less the same as in 3.4.1. So there is some work still left to do. Finally, if you are using the WP SVN trunk, you’ll need to use the Breadcrumb NavXT SVN trunk, it contains some minor fixes to reflect changes in the WP API in 3.0.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]