Controlling Breadcrumb NavXT Settings From the Network Settings Page

Posted by in Guides

Update 2015-10-30: Updated to reflect the default behavior change in Breadcrumb NavXT 5.3.

Starting with Breadcrumb NavXT 5.0, the oft-requested feature for a Network Settings Page for controlling the setting on all subsites in a WordPress multisite setup is now available. Since now there will be a combination of Network Settings and sub site settings, some extra intelligence is needed to pick settings appropriately. Given that the desired behavior will vary depending on use case, a few new globals have been added to switch between settings behavior modes.

Force Network Settings on All Sites (default behavior for 5.0-5.2)

Versions 5.0 through 5.2 used this mode as the default behavior for settings. In this mode, rather than default to the individual site settings (as they were the only ones that existed in WordPress multisite setups prior to Breadcrumb NavXT 5.0). Note, for 5.0 through 5.2, that all other BCN_* defines must be either not set or set to false to select this mode. Note that in 5.0.1 and later you should manually specify this mode:

define('BCN_SETTINGS_USE_NETWORK', true);

Force Individual Site Settings Only (pre-5.0 behavior, default behavior for 5.3+)

In 5.3 the default behavior was reverted to the pre-5.0 behavior of using only the individual sub site settings for Breadcrumb NavXT in a WordPress Multisite setup. Note, for 5.3 and later, that all other BCN_* defines must be either not set or set to false to select this mode. The following must be placed in your wp-config.php (or site specific plugin):

define('BCN_SETTINGS_USE_LOCAL', true);

Favor Individual Site Settings Over Network Settings

In Breadcrumb NavXT 5.0 this settings will merge the local (individual site’s) settings into the network settings (network settings are the ‘defaults’ for the wp_parse_args function). Use the following to enable this mode:

define('BCN_SETTINGS_FAVOR_LOCAL', true);

Note that the behavior of this mode is subtle and likely will look more like the local (individual site’s) settings than the network settings. In the future this mode may change slightly.

Favor Network Settings Over Individual Site Settings

In Breadcrumb NavXT 5.0 this settings will merge the network settings into the local (individual site’s) settings (local site settings are the ‘defaults’ for the wp_parse_args function). Use the following to enable this mode:

define('BCN_SETTINGS_FAVOR_NETWORK', true);

Note that the behavior of this mode is subtle and likely will look more like the network settings than the local (individual site’s) settings. In the future this mode may change slightly.

-John Havlik

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Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx and Menu Magic

Posted by in Announcements

As promised earlier this week, I am announcing the first two Breadcrumb NavXT premium extensions today. They are Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx and Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic. Both plugins will require Breadcrumb NavXT 5.0, which will be released around the end of September/early October. Purchases will come with 1 year of free updates. Support and pricing has yet to be determined.

Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx

Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx allows users to specify a custom title for any post’s (as in any post type) breadcrumb. It features integration with All in One SEO Pack, taking the SEO title if it exists. If All in One SEO Pack is not activated on the current WordPress install, an “Alternate Title” meta box will be available on all post edit screens. The initial version of this plugin complete and will be released upon the launch of the Breadcrumb NavXT Extensions Store.

Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic

Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic allows users to specify a WordPress Menu for Breadcrumb NavXT to follow for both titles and hierarchy for resources (posts, taxonomy terms, archives, etc). If the current item is not found in the menu, Breadcrumb NavXT will fall back to its default behavior. This extension is currently in development, an initial proof of concept is functional, however a bit of work is still required. As with Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx, Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic will be available upon the launch of the Breadcrumb NavXT Extensions Store.

-John Havlik

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Breadcrumb NavXT Hits One Million Downloads

Posted by in Announcements

Back on Thursday evening, Breadcrumb NavXT hit one million downloads on the WordPress.org plugin repository. This is the total number of downloads since it was first introduced in the plugin repository almost six years ago. Not many plugins have hit this milestone, and it is exciting to have written something that has been downloaded a million times. At this juncture, it seems appropriate to reveal my vision for the future of Breadcrumb NavXT.

The Future

Breadcrumb NavXT 5.0, is functionally ready for testing. Only some polishing and documentation is left before it is ready for release. The reason for skipping versions 4.5 through 4.9 is the fact that a substantial reorganization of the plugin has occurred for this version. The changes should make Breadcrumb NavXT more flexible, and were necessary to implement an Network Admin settings page. Expect to see 5.0 near the beginning of October.

Currently, the plans for 5.1 are a little open, though it is likely it will contain several tweaks that fix issues that have been punted for some time. See the issue list on GitHub for Breadcrumb NavXT milestone 5.1. Additionally, for 5.1 the introduction of a more formal regression/unit test suite is likely to happen. As for a release date, sometime between the end of December 2013 and mid January 2014 is the target release time-frame.

Something New

There are several features that groups of users have wanted Breadcrumb NavXT to have for quite some time. While introduction of these features into the main plugin has been resisted—and will continue to be resisted—going forward many of these features will make their way into premium add-on plugins.

These features have enough demand to warrant an add-on plugin, but are not applicable to the majority of use cases for Breadcrumb NavXT. To service this demand, beginning in September, a handful of premium add-on plugins will be released for Breadcrumb NavXT to add functionality. Take a look at how Easy Digital Downloads is run, that is the model that will be used here. More information on this will be made available later this week.

-John Havlik

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OpenVPN Tips And Tricks

Posted by in Guides

Setting up your own VPN server and getting everything working can be a real pain to do. Over the past few months I’ve been off and on trying to get one working. While I had attempted to get other methods, which did not require software to be installed in Windows, to work, I ended up settling on using OpenVPN. Here are a few notes and resources I found useful.

Gentoo Forums :: View topic – Howto Openvpn – The quick easy wayhttp://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-117709-view-next.htmlI’ve read through a lot of howto’s for openvpn, and a lot of them didn’t seem to work, I could follow them line for line and I kept running into problems. Here is my HOWTO on openvpn, which i find was the simpliest way of setting it up.

I used the above guide to begin my setup of a OpenVPN server on my server running Funtoo (a Gentoo variant). While the guide is pretty good, I have a few notes:

  • The line remote <vpn server ip> 9900 for the Linux client config is wrong, in the example configs the port should always be 9000
  • Since the writing of the guide, easy-rsa has been split off into it’s own package, install it by running emerge -av easy-rsa
  • The directory the easy-rsa files go to has changed, they are now located under /usr/share/easy-rsa/ you will want to copy these somewhere else (e.g. /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa) to prevent them from being overwritten when updating easy-rsa
  • Easy-rsa contains several OpenSSL config files, you’ll either need to update the server.cnf file to match the installed OpenSSL version, or create a symlink with openssl.cnf pointing to the appropriate openssl-.cnf file.
  • If you do not have $OPENSSL defined, you’ll run into issues running ./build-dh. You should be able to edit line 7 of build-dh replacing $OPENSSL with openssl

Beyond this guide, when trying to talk to a Samba server, a few things should be noted:

  • When using a VPN to connect to a network with the Samba server, you will have a IP address in a different network than the Samba server is in (e.g. 192.168.2.0 vs 192.168.10.0). Make sure to add your VPN network to the hosts allow property in your smb.conf.
  • Since Windows Vista, Windows tries to find a gateway to determine if the connected network is a home, office, or public network. You may need to add push "route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 vpn_gateway 999" to your OpenVPN server’s config file.
  • If you want to use the Netbios name to access the Samba server, you will want to place push "dhcp-option WINS <SAMBA_IP_ADDRESS>" (where <SAMBA_IP_ADDRESS> is the IP address of your Samba server) in your OpenVPN server’s config file.

Lastly, you should note that if the network you are VPNing into has a server at the same IP address as the network you are VPNing from, it may be difficult to contact the server on the network you have VPNed into. So, it is probably a good time to move away from using 10.0.0.0, 172.16.0.0, or 192.168.1.0 as your network address.

-John Havlik

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Think Tank Mirrorless Mover 20

Posted by in Reviews > Hardware

Ever since getting the Panasonic Lumix GF5, I have been looking for a good camera bag for it and a few lenses. While on some trips I can get away with just the 20mm prime, there are cases when I want a zoom lens or a macro in addition. After a little searching, and asking the opinions of others, I ended up buying the Think Tank Mirrorless Mover 20.

Of the various options available for a mirrorless camera, the one thing that really makes the Think Tank stand out is the rain cover. While the bag is a little spendy compared to the other options out there, the extra cost can be felt in the product. It’s one of the more solidly built bag/backpack that I’ve purchased in a long time.

Size wise the Think Tank Mirrorless Mover 20 is about the size of an average soft ‘lunch pail’. I was able to fit my GF5+20mm, 60mm macro, 14-42mm (kit lens), and 45-175 telephoto into the Mirrorless Mover 20. I don’t see my self carrying more than that lens wise (only really missing a nice wide angle lens). Above is a picture of the lenses and camera in the Mirrorless Mover 20. The only thing I wasn’t able to fit in the Mirrorless Mover 20 was my Joby GorillaPod with the three extra lenses, remove one and it fits perfectly. Honestly, a little more efficient packing on my part would allow the GorillaPod to ride along too.

-John Havlik

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