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    • WP Affiliate Manager version 1.5

    January 7, 2013 by | Leave a Comment

    We’re glad to announce the release of WP Affiliate Manager version 1.5.0.  This version initially centered around a bugfix having to do with a namespace conflict in the latest (3.8.9.x) versions of WP e-Commerce.  However in the process, we were able to add several minor enhancements that will enhance WP Affiliate Manager for the future.

    gettext translation wrappers

    While not all screens have had the gettext translation wrappers applied (notably the settings and paypal pages in wp-admin), everything else has been added.  Expect a 1.5.x release early in 2013 that will be fully translatable.

    As such, we’re putting out a call for translators.  We are willing to offer free lifetime use & upgrades of the WP Affiliate Manager to anyone who contributes a full translation in their own language. We have a couple of people already talking to us about certain languages, so if you’re interested, please fill out the form on our translation page and let us know what language you’d like to help us add to WP Affiliate Manager!

    money_format() for Windows

    money_format() is a native PHP function, but it does not exist on Windows platforms.  We added a simple one for those hosting in Windows environments which should get the job done.

    PayPal enhancements

    First, the sandbox PayPal URL has been fixed.  This is mostly used for development/testing purposes, but none-the-less is important.

    Also, we removed the requirement for needing the PHP cURL module requirement.  Instead, WP Affiliate Manager uses WordPress’ native HTTP request methods.

    jQuery UI Tabs + cookies + mod_security bugfix

    An interesting sidenote… we discovered a bug where if you went to the 2nd tab on WP Affiliate Manager’s “My Affiliates” screen on our test server, your next navigation point in WordPress would either result in a 404 error, or an endless loop of 302 redirects.

    Turns out the bug was caused by a perfect storm of Apache’s mod_security (which is enabled on our test server) and the use of jQuery UI Tabs with a cookie save option.  What was occurring was the cookie name was being saved as “ui-tabs-1″ and if your last visited tab was the 2nd tab (index 1) the cookie was saved as “ui-tabs-1=1″.  This would be passed with each HTTP request as a cookie header.  Since mod_security doesn’t like anything where “1=1″, it was changing the request, causing WordPress to become all sorts of confused.  You can see a bug report about it here: http://bugs.jqueryui.com/ticket/8027

    The solution was to name the cookie, so the automatically generated name wasn’t used:

    jQuery("#tabs").tabs({
    cookie: {
        name: 'wpam_detail_tab'
    }
});

    Enjoy all of the fixes!

    Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , , ,

    New plugin: Authorize.net SIM Gateway for WP e-Commerce

    December 10, 2012 by | Leave a Comment

    A while back we released the WP Affiliate Manager plugin which integrates directly in to the WP e-Commerce plugin to allow you to easily track and pay affiliates for driving traffic to your site. We have since been keeping an eye on the WP e-Commerce community and when we saw the opportunity to help with another plugin, we jumped at the chance.

    Today we released a new payment gateway for WP e-Commerce: Authorize.net Server Integration Method, or SIM for short. From the Authorize.net website:

    SIM provides a customizable, secure hosted payment form to make integration easy for Web merchants that do not have an SSL certificate.

    WP e-Commerce has a wide range of payment gateway options available, and we’re happy to help expand their reach by giving users one more option to choose from.

    If you are interested in reading more about how Authorize.net’s SIM works, you can check out the developer center at Authorize.net.

    The plugin is available exclusively through the GetShopped marketplace and is compatible with the new 3.8.9.x software. And to celebrate the launch, use code WPECDEC at checkout to receive 30% off. (discount expires 12/17/12)

    Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

    Stealing math from Wikipedia

    November 26, 2012 by | 2 Comments

    WordPress + Jetpack + LaTeX = Awesome

    On my personal WordPress website I wrote about an Arduino device I built to help brew beer.  Being my first foray into electronics, I wanted to document my experiences.  One of my difficulties centered around turning electrical values (voltage, resistance) into real-world values (temperature) using math.

    As part of my documentation, I wanted to re-create some equations that I had found on a Wikipedia page about thermistors.  While in the process of grabbing their images and putting them into the media library, I remembered something…

    One time while on the main Jetpack screen in the WordPress dashboard, I noticed a tile that advertised “Beautiful Math.”  So I looked into it.  Jetpack has a LaTeX module that can accomplish this.  LaTeX is a rather old-school markup/typesetting language that has been very popular in academia, especially in regards to math.

    So Jetpack and LaTeX can do math, but I didn’t really want to learn a new markup language, I just wanted to quickly copy & paste the equations into my post.

    Good Authors Borrow, Great Authors Steal

    So then I wondered how Wikipedia is storing the images or if they’re doing something similar.  Guess what?!?  They use LaTeX too!  Putting the same equation into WordPress is as easy as clicking “Edit” on the Wikipedia page and copying the text between <math> and </math> and pasting it in-between [latex] and [/latex] in WordPress.

    Native vs. Shortcode formatting Tricks

    Jetpack supports using the $latex $ native format instead of the shortcode, but there are a few noted (and undocumented) differences between using the two methods. For instance, if you want to increase the size of your rendered LaTeX text, you can use the s (size) parameter in your LaTeX equation as such:

    $latex \LaTeX&s=4$

    Where size in this example is “4.”  However if you try to do this using the shortcode as such:

    [latex] \LaTeX&s=4[/latex]

    it will render as:  \LaTeX&s=4 – Not exactly what you’d expect :( The trick is that the following LaTeX parameters need to be fed in as shortcode parameters:

    So if you want to have “LaTeX” rendered as:

    \LaTeX

    You can either do:

    $latex \LaTeX&bg=ffcccc&fg=cc00ff&s=4$

    or  move the size & color parameters into the shortcode tag like this:

    [latex bg=ffcccc fg=cc00ff s=4]\LaTeX[/latex]

    Filed Under: Tech Talk Tagged With: , ,

    New plugin: WP Event Ticketing

    November 3, 2010 by | 30 Comments

    As we were gearing up to organize WordCamp Las Vegas 2010, we wanted to move the management of the ticket ordering process in-house. One of the main reasons being we didn’t want to pay a third party site to handle the ticket sales for the event since they charge per ticket. Sure, we could have passed the cost on to the ticket buyer, but that’s just not how we roll! Instead, we got to work building a WordPress plugin; WP Event Ticketing.

    If you are the impatient type, you can download WP Event Ticketing and try it out, or read on for a list of features and screenshots.

    WP Event Ticketing Features

    • Real-time payments via Papal
    • Multiple ticket types. (For example, basic ticket includes entry only, gold ticket includes entry plus a shirt.)
    • Ticket packages that can include multiple tickets. (Useful for offering registration to sponsors.)
    • Set your event’s maximum attendance
    • Choose what data you want to collect from attendees
    • Limit quantity of each type of ticket packages to sell
    • Display/hide # of tickets remaining on registration page
    • Create single or multiple use coupons
    • Create flat-rate or percentage based coupons
    • Send email notification to all registered attendees
    • Export attendee list to CSV
    • Manually create a ticket for an attendee
    • Ticket and revenue reporting
    • Summary reports show counts by data collected. (for example, display a list of t-shirt sizes and how many of each you need to order)

    Screenshots

    Looking for more features?
    We are currently hard at work on Event Ticketing Pro. We have a ton of features planned for the pro version! You aren’t going to want to miss it. Sign up for our newsletter to be notified when the pro version is released.

    Filed Under: News Tagged With: , ,

    Affiliate plugin for WP-ecommerce

    July 25, 2010 by | 29 Comments

    Since Shayne has spent so much time helping people out in the WP e-Commerce user’s forum, it’s no surprise that we receive a steady stream of requests for people looking to enhance their online store. One of the requests we get the most is from people who would like to pay affiliates to drive traffic to their site. With no real solution available, we did what any enthusiastic development team would do; we built it!

    Introducing the Affiliate Plugin for WP e-Commerce

    The Affiliate Plugin makes it simple to sign up and manage affiliates for your online store. You can easily set the payout amount (flat rate or % of sale) per affiliate, add custom banners and text links with unique tracking codes, view stats and more.

    We didn’t forget about your affiliates. They will have the ability to get their unique tracking links and see their traffic and earnings stats.

    Screenshots (click to enlarge)

    Display a list of your affiliates


    Easily create and edit your creatives.


    See which sales your affiliates drive.



    The Affiliate plugin is available now directly from getshopped.org.

    If you need assistance with the plugin or have a feature request, please let us know!

    Filed Under: News Tagged With: , ,