9seeds

Building Custom WordPress Solutions | Plugin Development

 

plugin update

Time Tracker version 1.5.2

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I was surprised to see that it had been more than 3 months since the last time I wrote about Time Tracker. That’s a shame because there’s been a lot going on with the plugin. Since last I wrote we’ve released 5 updates with a whole bunch of new functionality. Here’s a list of what’s new in Time Tracker.

  • Create/save invoice for hours worked
  • View/delete past invoices
  • New tabbed settings page
  • Option to send an email to site admin when new hours are entered by contractors
  • Option to display all projects to contractors (rather than on a case-by-case basis)
  • Summary of hours by contractor on ‘Create Invoice’ page
  • Default projects created when new clients are added

We’ve been getting some great feedback from our users and we’ve got a number of features in the works. If you’ve got a feature you’re looking for, let us know and we’ll get it on the list.

And if you haven’t done so already, purchase your license here.

Plugin update, WP Time Tracker 1.2

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This summer we released version 1.0 of the WP Time Tracker plugin. We know it was the minimum viable product, but wanted to get it out the door so we could start to get some feedback. Since that release we’ve been fielding some requests for additional functionality in the plugin. We’re happy to announce the release of WP Time Tracker version 1.2.

The Highlights

  • Clients are now stored as a custom post type allowing you to store contact information for each client.
  • Hours are now tracked against projects which are assigned to clients. This opens up the plugin to additional breakdown reports which will be coming soon.
  • New, quicker data entry form for adding hours.
  • The ‘My Hours’ page shows each staff member all the hours they’ve previously entered.
  • Staff members can use the in-line editor on the ‘My Hours’ page to update any record that hasn’t already been marked as invoiced.
  • Staff members no longer need to be authors/editors on the site. Instead, you can mark any user on the site as an active contractor via the user edit screen.

We’ve already been using the new version for a few weeks, and I have to tell you, I absolutely love how much quicker it is to enter hours each day.

Screenshots

What’s On Tap?

We’re just getting started with Time Tracker. We’ve got a number of additional features that we’ll be adding in the coming weeks and months, including new set of reports.

Don’t Wait, Buy Now!

Buy the plugin today and you’ll receive a full year of automatic updates and support!
[purchase_link id=”1290″ text=”Purchase” style=”button” color=”blue”]

Upgrading from version 1.0

This upgrade is pretty sizable and changes how some features work. For example, your staff members no longer need access to the WordPress dashboard. Instead, you will create two pages that can be accessed on the front end, but are only viewable to logged in users.

Here’s how the upgrade process will work:

  • After you upgrade, the plugin will convert your existing clients to custom post type entries
  • Next, it will create a default project for each client
  • All existing hours entries will be associated to the proper client’s default project
  • Edit each of your staff’s user profiles and mark them as “active contractors” by checking the box at the bottom of the profile
  • Create two pages; Hours and My Hours
    • Hours is where your staff will enter their hours
    • My Hours is where your staff can view and edit existing hours entries
  • Edit each of your projects and select which of your staff members has access. Note, admin level users have access to all projects.

Give your staff the direct links to both pages and you’re all set!

WP Affiliate Manager version 1.5

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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 one-year licenses (with support & upgrades) for 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!

Plugin Update: CPT Speakers

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Back in January I released a plugin that we put together when we were building the site for WordCamp Las Vegas to make it easy to display a page of speakers for the event. It’s was pretty basic, but it served our purpose. We released it in hopes that we could save somebody else some time if they had a similar need.

Fast forward a couple months… I received an email from Josh Harrison letting me know he used the plugin for WordCamp Seattle’s site, and, he had made several improvements to it. Nice! He sent the updates with a note:

I made some modifications to your plugin CPT Speakers. Go ahead and use them if you’d like. Here is what I added:

  • template tags for speaker information with filters and paragraph formatting
  • shortcode to include the speaker information on an agenda (like what I put on http://wordcampseattle.org/agenda)
  • post thumbnails. I did not remove the old way of uploading images though.

After merging in the changes Josh made, it made perfect sense to go ahead and remove the old way we were dealing with speaker image uploads and instead use the featured image method.

WordPress Community
One of the greatest parts about working with the WordPress community is their willingness to give back. It would have been very easy for Josh to use the plugin we provided, make his changes, use it for his site and go about his merry way. But instead, when he was done he bundled up the changes and did his part to make the plugin better for the next person who comes along. That’s what it’s all about. Thanks, Josh!

You can download the latest version (1.1) from the WordPress plugin directory.

Upgrading
If you are planning to upgrade from a previous version, keep in mind that you will need to go back and add the speaker’s photo as the featured image for their post as we’ve switched the way photos are handled. Also, you will need to manually move single-speakers.php and template_speakers.php from the plugin folder to your active theme folder.

Styling
After you install the plugin you will want to add some styling to it. There is no inline styling, so you will need to some CSS to your existing style sheet. You can use the following as a base and change it up as needed:

#speakers {
font-size: 12px;
min-height: 300px;
}

#speaker_image_section {
width: 150px;
float: left;
height: 300px;
margin-right: 18px;
}

#speaker_image img {
margin-top: 5px;
border: 1px solid #333;
padding: 3px;
background: #0099cc;
}

#speaker_name {
font-size: 18px;
font-weight: bold;
margin-bottom: 10px;
}

#speaker_url {
text-align: center;
}

#speaker_twitter_url {
text-align: center;
}

#speaker_pres_title {
margin: 5px 0px 5px 0px;
font-size: 13px;
}

#speaker_pres_description {
font-size: 12px;
font-family: arial, helvetica;
line-height: 16px;
}

#speaker_session_description {
font-size: 12px;
line-height: 18px;
}

#speaker_image_section_single {
width: 150px;
float: left;
height: 600px;
margin-right: 18px;
}

#speaker_image_section_single img{
margin-top: 5px;
border: 1px solid #333;
padding: 3px;
background: #0099cc;
}

#pres_url {
text-align: center;
}

.speaker_snippet .thumbnail {
float:left;
display:inline;
margin-right:10px;
border-bottom:0;
}
#content .speaker_snippet .thumbnail a {
border-bottom:0;
}
.speaker_snippet .name {
font-weight:bold;
line-height:16px;
}
.speaker_snippet .title {
font-size:0.9em;
line-height:15px;
}

WP Affiliate Manager adds Paypal Mass Pay

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Huzzah! The holidays are finally over! Now it’s time to get back to work. We have a lot going on at 9seeds, and you’re going to be seeing several updates to some existing plugins, along with a couple of new ones we’ve been working on. So let’s get started!

Introducing WP Affiliate Manager version 1.3

In version 1.3 you’ll find a handful of new features highlighted by the addition of Paypal MassPay which will allow you to pay all your affiliates at the same time. For sites with a large number of affiliates, this is a HUGE time saver!

Along with the new plugin update, we’re also updating the wpaffiliatemanager.com website to include a bunch more information about the plugin and how it works. We’ve also added a blog where we’ll provide detailed information about each new release, starting with a post about today’s release.