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ChangeLog.text in FeedWordPress 0.97, at ChangeLog.text

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1	FeedWordPress Change Log
2	========================
3
4	Changes from 0.96 to 0.97
5	-------------------------
6
7	* INSTALLATION PROCEDURE: Some of the changes between 0.96 and 0.97
8	require upgrades to the meta-data stored by FeedWordPress to work
9	properly. Thus, if you are upgrading from 0.96 or earlier to 0.97, most
10	FeedWordPress operations (including updates and template functions)
11	WILL BE DISABLED until you run the upgrade procedure. Fortunately,
12	running the upgrade procedure is easy: just go to either Options -->
13	Syndication or Links --> Syndicated in the WordPress Dashboard and press
14	the button.
15
16	* FEED FORMAT SUPPORT: Support has been added for the Atom 1.0 IETF
17	standard. Several other elements are also newly supported
18	(dcterms:created, dcterms:issued, dcterms:modified, dc:identifier,
19	proper support for the RSS 2.0 guid element, the RSS 2.0 author element,
20	the use of Atom author or Dublin Core dc:creator constructs at the feed
21	level to identify the author of individual items, etc.)
22
23	N.B.: full support of several Atom 1.0 features, such as categories
24	and enclosures, requires you to install the optional rss-functions.php
25	upgrade in your wp-includes directory.
26
27	* BUG FIX: Running `update-feeds.php` from command line or crontab
28	returned "I don't syndicate..." errors. It turns out that WordPress
29	sometimes tramples on the internal PHP superglobals that I depended on
30	to determine whether or not the script was being invoked from the
31	command line. This has been fixed (the variables are now checked
32	before WordPress can trample them). Note that `update-feeds.php` has
33	been thoroughly overhauled anyway; see below for details.
34
35	* BUG FIX: Duplicate categories or author names. Fixed two bugs that could
36	create duplicate author and/or category names when the name contained
37	either (a) certain international characters (causing a mismatch between
38	MySQL and PHP's handling of lowercasing text), or (b) characters that
39	have a special meaning in regular expressions (causing MySQL errors when
40	looking for the author or category due to regexp syntax errors). These
41	should now be fixed thanks to careful escaping of names that go into
42	regular expressions and careful matching of lowercasing functions
43	(comparing results from PHP only to other results from PHP, and results
44	from MySQL only to other results from MySQL).
45
46	* BUG FIX: Items dated Decembr 31, 1969 should appear less often. The
47	function for parsing W3C date-time format dates that ships with
48	MagpieRSS can only correctly parse fully-specified dates with a
49	fully-specified time, but valid W3C date-time format dates may omit the
50	time, the day of the month, or even the month. Some feeds in the wild
51	date their items with coarse-grained dates, so the optional
52	`rss-functions.php` upgrade now includes a more flexible parse_w3cdtf()
53	function that will work with both coarse-grained and fully-specified
54	dates. (If parts of the date or the time are omitted, they are filled in
55	with values based on the current time, so '2005-09-10' will be dated to
56	the current time on that day; '2004' will be dated to this day and time
57	one year ago.
58
59	N.B.: This fix is only available in the optional `rss-functions.php`
60	upgrade.
61
62	* BUG FIX: Evil use of HTTP GET has been undone. The WordPress interface
63	is riddled with inappropriate (non-idempotent) uses of HTTP GET queries
64	(ordinary links that make the server do something with significant
65	side-effects, such as deleting a post or a link from the database).
66	FeedWordPress did some of this too, especially in places where it aped
67	the WordPress interface (e.g. the "Delete" links in Links -->
68	Syndicated). That's bad business, though. I've changed the interface so
69	that all the examples of improper side-effects that I can find now
70	require an HTTP POST to take effect. I think I got pretty much
71	everything; if there's anything that I missed, let me know.
72
73	Further reading: [Sam Ruby 2005-05-06: This Stuff Matters] (http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2005/05/06/This-Stuff-Matters)
74
75	* BUG FIX: Categories applied by `cats` setting should no longer prevent
76	category-based filtering from working. In FeedWordPress, you can (1)
77	apply certain categories to all syndicated posts, or all posts from
78	a particular feed; and (2) filter out all posts that don't match one
79	of the categories that are already in the WordPress database (allowing
80	for simple category-based filtering; just load up WordPress with the
81	categories you want to accept, and then tell FeedWordPress not to create
82	new ones). However, the way that (1) and (2) were implemented meant that
83	you couldn't effectively use them together; once you applied a known
84	category to all syndicated posts from a particular feed, it meant that
85	they'd have at least one familiar category (the category or categories
86	you were applying), and that would get all posts past the filter no
87	matter what categories they were originally from.
88
89	Well, no longer. You can still apply categories to all syndicated posts
90	(using either Syndication --> Options, or the feed-level settings under
91	Links --> Syndicated). But these categories are not applied to the post
92	until after it has already passed by the "familiar categories" filter.
93	So now, if you want, you can do category filtering and then apply as
94	many categories as you please to all and only posts that pass the filter.
95
96	* BUG FIX: Other minor typos and HTML gaffes were fixed along the way.
97
98	* PERFORMANCE: get_feed_meta() no longer hits the database for information
99	on every call; it now caches link data in memory, so FeedWordPress only
100	goes to the database once for each syndicated link. This may
101	substantially improve performance if your database server resources
102	are tight and your templates make a lot of use of custom settings from
103	get_feed_meta().
104
105	* API CHANGE: Link ID numbers, rather than RSS URIs, are now used to
106	identify the feed from which a post is syndicated when you use template
107	functions such as get_feed_meta(). The practical upshot of this is you
108	can switch feeds, or change the feed address for a particular syndicated
109	site, without breaking your templates for all the posts that were
110	syndicated from the earlier URI.
111
112	* API CHANGE: if you have plugins or templates that make use of the
113	get_feed_meta() function or the $fwp_feedmeta global, note that the
114	data formerly located under the `uri` and `name` fields is now located
115	under the `link/uri` field and the `link/name` field, respectively. Note
116	also that you can access the link ID number for any given feed under the
117	global $fwp_feedmeta['link/id'] (in plugins) or
118	get_feed_meta('link/id') (in a template in post contexts).
119
120	* FEATURE: the settings for individual feeds can now be edited using a
121	humane interface (where formerly you had to tweak key-value pairs in the
122	Link Notes section). To edit settings for a feed, pick the feed that you
123	want under Links --> Syndicated and click the Edit link.
124
125	* FEATURE: The "Unsubscribe" button (formerly "Delete") in Links -->
126	Syndicated now offers three options for unsubscribing from a feed: (1)
127	turning off the subscription without deleting the feed data or affecting
128	posts that were syndicated from the feed (this works by setting the Link
129	for the feed as "invisible"); (2) deleting the feed data and all of the
130	posts that were syndicated from the feed; or (3) deleting the feed data
131	and keeping the posts that were syndicated from the feed
132	setting the Link to "Invisible" (meaning that it will not be displayed
133	in lists of the site links on the front page, and it won't be checked
134	for updates; (2) deleting the Link and all of the posts that were
135	syndicated from its feed; or (3) deleting the feed data but keeping the
136	posts that were syndicated (which will henceforward be treated as if
137	they were local rather than syndicated posts). (Note that (1) is usually
138	the best option for aggregator sites, unless you want to clean up the
139	results of an error or a test.)
140
141	* FEATURE / BUG FIX: If you have been receiving mysterious "I don't
142	syndicate...", or "(local) HTTP status code was not 200", or "(local)
143	transport error - could not open socket", or "parse error - not well
144	formed" errors, then this update may solve your problems, and if it does
145	not solve them, it will at least make the reasons for the problems
146	easier to understand. That's because I've overhauled the way that
147	FeedWordPress goes about updating feeds.
148
149	If you use the command-line PHP scripting method to run scheduled
150	updates, then not much should change for you, except for fewer
151	mysterious errors. If you have done updates by sending periodic HTTP
152	requests to <http://your-blog.com/path/wp-content/update-feeds.php>,
153	then the details have changed somewhat; mostly in such a way as to make
154	things easier on you. See the README file or online documentation on
155	Staying Current for the details.
156
157	* FEATURE: FeedWordPress now features a more sophisticated system for
158	timed updates. Instead of polling every subscribed feed for updates
159	each time `update-feeds.php` is run, FeedWordPress now keeps track of
160	the last time it polled each feed, and only polls them again after a
161	certain period of time has passed. The amount of time is normally set
162	randomly for each feed, in a period between 30 minutes and 2 hours (so
163	as to stagger updates over time rather than polling all of the feeds at once. However, the length of time between updates can also be set
164	directly by the feed, which brings us to ...
165
166	* FEATURE: FeedWordPress now respects the settings in the `ttl` and
167	Syndication Module RSS elements. Feeds with these elements set will not
168	be polled any more frequently than they indicate with these feeds unless
169	the user manually forces FeedWordPress to poll the feed (see Links -->
170	Syndicated --> Edit settings).
171
172	Changes from 0.95 to 0.96
173	-------------------------
174
175	* FEATURE: support has been added for enclosures in RSS 2.0 and Atom
176	0.6+ newsfeeds. WordPress already supports adding enclosures to an
177	item; FeedWordPress merely gets the information on the enclosure
178	from the feed it is syndicating and plugs that information directly
179	into the WordPress database so that (among other things) that post
180	will have its enclosure listed in your blog's RSS 2 newsfeed.
181
182	Note that enclosure support requires using the optional MagpieRSS
183	upgrade (i.e., replacing your `wp-includes/rss-functions.php` with `OPTIONAL/wp-includes/rss-functions.php` from the FWP archive)
184
185	* FEATURE: for completeness's sake, there is now a feed setting,
186	`hardcode url`, that allows you to set the URI for the front page
187	of a contributor's website manually (that is, prevent it from being
188	automatically updated from the feed channel link on each update). To
189	set the URI manually, put a line like this in the Link Notes section
190	of a feed:
191
192	hardcode url: yes
193
194	You can also instruct FeedWordPress to use hardcoded URIs by default
195	on all feeds using Options --> Syndication
196
197	* FEATURE: by default, when FeedWordPress finds new syndicated posts,
198	it (1) publishes them immediately, (2) turns comments off, and (3)
199	turns trackback / pingback pings off. You can now alter all three
200	default behaviors (e.g., to allow pings on syndicated posts, or to
201	send newly-syndicated posts to the draft pile for moderation) using
202	Options --> Syndication
203
204
205	Changes from 0.91 to 0.95
206	-------------------------
207
208	* BUG FIX: Fixed an obscure bug in the handling of categories:
209	categories with trailing whitespace could cause categories with
210	duplicate names to be created. This no longer happens. While I was
211	at it I tightened up the operation of
212	FeedWordPress::lookup_categories() a bit in general.
213
214	* FEATURE DEPRECATED: the feed setting `hardcode categories` is now
215	deprecated in favor of `unknown categories` (see below), which
216	allows you to strip off any syndication categories not already in
217	your database using `unknown categories: default` or `unknown
218	categories: filter`. If you have `hardcode categories: yes` set on a
219	feed, this will be treated as `unknown categories: default` (i.e.,
220	no new categories will be added, but if a post doesn't match any of
221	the categories it will be added in the default category--usually
222	"Uncategorized" or "General").
223
224	* FEATURE: You can now set global defaults as to whether or not
225	FeedWordPress will update the Link Name and Link Description
226	settings for feeds automatically from the feed title and feed
227	tagline. (By default, it does, as it has in past versions.) Whether
228	this behavior is turned on or off, you can still override the
229	default behavior using feed settings of `hardcode name: yes`,
230	`hardcode name: no`, `hardcode description: yes`, or `hardcode
231	description: no`.
232
233	* FEATURE: Users can now provide one or several "aliases" for an
234	author, just as they can for a category. For example, to make
235	FeedWordPress treat posts by "Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger" and "Pope
236	Benedict XVI" as by the same author, edit the user profile for Pope
237	Benedict XVI and add a line like this to the "User profile" field:
238
239	a.k.a.: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
240
241	You can add several aliases, each on a line by itself. You can also
242	add any other text you like to the Profile without interfering with
243	the aliases.
244
245	* FEATURE: Users can now choose how to handle syndicated posts that
246	are in unfamiliar categories or by unfamiliar authors (i.e.,
247	categories or authors whose names are not yet in the WordPress
248	database). By default, FeedWordPress will (as before) create a new
249	category (or new author) and use it for the current post and any
250	future posts. This behavior can be changed, either for all feeds or
251	for one or another particular feed.
252
253	There are now three different options for an unfamiliar author: (1)
254	FeedWordPress can create a new author account and attribute the
255	syndicated post to the new account; (2) FeedWordPress can attribute
256	the post to an author if the author's name is familiar, and to a
257	default author (currently, this means the Site Administrator
258	account) if it is not; (3) FeedWordPress can drop posts by
259	unfamiliar authors and syndicate only posts by authors who are
260	already in the database.
261
262	There are, similarly, two different options for an unfamiliar
263	category: (1) FeedWordPress can create new categories and place the
264	syndicated post in them; (2) FeedWordPress can drop the unfamiliar
265	categories and place syndicated posts only in categories that it is
266	already familiar with. In addition, FeedWordPress 0.95 lets you
267	choose whether posts that are in no familiar categories should be
268	syndicated (and placed in the default category for the blog) or
269	simply dropped.
270
271	You can set the default behavior for both authors and categories
272	using the settings in Options --> Syndication. You can also set
273	different behavior for specific feeds by adding the `unfamiliar
274	author` and / or `unfamiliar categories` settings to the Link Notes
275	section of a feed:
276
277	unfamiliar author: (create\|default\|filter)
278	unfamiliar categories: (create\|default\|filter)
279
280	A setting of `unfamiliar author: create` will make FeedWordPress
281	create new authors to match unfamiliar author names *for this feed
282	alone*. A setting of `unfamiliar author: default` will make it
283	assign posts from unfamiliar authors to the default user account. A
284	setting of `unfamiliar author: filter` will cause all posts (from
285	this feed alone) to be dropped unless they are by an author already
286	listed in the database. Similiarly, `unfamiliar categories: create`
287	will make FeedWordPress create new categories to match unfamiliar
288	category names for this feed alone; `unfamiliar categories:
289	default` will cause it to drop any unfamiliar category names; and
290	`unfamiliar categories: filter` will cause it to both drop any
291	unfamiliar category names and to only syndicate posts that are
292	placed in one or more familiar categories.
293
294	These two new features allow users to do some coarse-grained
295	filtering without having to write a PHP filter. Specifically, they
296	offer an easy way for you to filter feeds by category or by author.
297	Suppose, for example, that you only wanted to syndicate posts that
298	your contributors place in the "Llamas" category. You could do so by
299	setting up your installation of WordPress so that the only category
300	in the database is "Llamas," and then use Options --> Syndication to
301	set "Unfamiliar categories" to "don't create new categories and
302	don't syndicate posts unless they match at least one familiar
303	category". Now, when you update, only posts in the "Llamas" category
304	will be syndicated by FeedWordPress.
305
306	Similarly, if you wanted to filter one particular feed so that only
307	posts by (for example) the author "Earl J. Llama" were syndicated to
308	your site, you could do so by creating a user account for Earl J.
309	Llama, then adding the following line to the settings for the feed
310	in Link Notes:
311
312	unfamiliar author: filter
313
314	This will cause any posts from this feed that are not authored by
315	Earl J. Llama to be discarded, and only the posts by Earl J. Llama
316	will be syndicated. (If the setting is used on one specific feed, it
317	will not affect how posts from other feeds are syndicated.)
318
319