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FeedWordPress Change Log |
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======================== |
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|
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Changes from 2008.1030 to 2008.1101 |
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----------------------------------- |
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|
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* INTERFACE BUG THAT PREVENTED ADDING NEW SITES FIXED: The UI reforms in |
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FWP 2008.1030 unintentionally introduced a bug that prevents clean |
| 9 |
installations of FeedWordPress from providing an input box for adding |
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new feeds to the list of syndicated feeds. This bug has been fixed. |
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|
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Changes from 0.993 to 2008.1030 |
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------------------------------- |
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|
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* WORDPRESS 2.6 COMPATABILITY: FeedWordPress should now be compatible with |
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WordPress 2.6, and should work more or less seamlessly with the new post |
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revision system. A bug which caused multiple new revisions to be created |
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for posts on certain feeds, regardless of whether or not the item had |
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been updated, has been fixed. |
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|
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* INTERFACE IMPROVEMENTS: The user interface has been substantially |
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restyled to fit in better with the visual style of WordPress 2.5 and |
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2.6. |
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|
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* YOUTUBE BUG FIXED: POSTS SYNDICATED THROUGH AN AUTOMATIC UPDATE ARE NO |
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LONGER STRIPPED OF `<OBJECT>` TAGS AND CERTAIN OTHER HTML ELEMENTS: Due |
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to the way that some versions of WordPress process posts that are |
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inserted into the database when no user is logged in, many users |
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experienced an issue where YouTube videos and other content using the |
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HTML `<object>` tag would be stripped out of posts that were syndicated |
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during an automatic update. (Posts that were syndicated through manual |
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updates from within the WordPress Dashboard were not affected, because |
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the issue does not arise when an update is executed under a logged-in |
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administrator's credentials.) This bug has now been fixed; YouTube |
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videos and other content using `<object>` tags should now appear |
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properly in syndicated posts, regardless of the way in which the post |
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was syndicated. |
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|
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* AJAX BUGS FIXED: Bugs which blocked the normal operation of WordPress |
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2.5's AJAX interface elements when FeedWordPress was activated have been |
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fixed. |
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|
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* TAG SUPPORT: A couple of features have been introduced to take advantage |
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of the tagging features in WordPress 2.3.x, 2.5.x, and 2.6.x. Now, when |
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unfamiliar categories are encountered for posts on a feed, you can |
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choose for FeedWordPress (1) to drop the category; (2) to drop the |
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category and to filter out any post that does not match at least one |
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familiar category; (3) to create a new category with that name, or, |
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now, you can also have FeedWordPress (4) create a new *tag* with that |
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name. This option can be set site-wide under Syndication --> Options, |
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or it can be set on a feed-by-feed basis in a feed's Edit screen. |
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|
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In addition, you can now set particular tags to apply to all incoming |
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syndicated posts, under Syndication --> Options, or you can set tags |
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to apply to all incoming syndicated posts from a particular feed in that |
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feed's Edit screen. |
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|
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* FORMATTING FILTERS: There is a new option available under Syndication -> |
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Options which allows users to choose whether or not to expose syndicated |
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posts to being altered by formatting filters. By default, FeedWordPress |
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has always protected syndicated posts (which are already in display-ready |
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HTML when they are syndicated) from being reformatted by formatting |
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filters. However, this approach means that certain plugins which depend |
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on formatting filters (for example, to add "Share This" bars or relevant |
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links to the end of a post) are blocked from working on any syndicated |
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posts. If you want to use one of these plugins together with |
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FeedWordPress, you can now do so by changing the "Formatting Filters" |
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setting from "Protect" to "Expose." |
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|
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* **`<atom:source>` ELEMENTS NOW INCLUDED IN ATOM FEED:** Atom 1.0 provides |
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a standard method for aggregators to indicate information about the original source of |
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a syndicated post, using the `<atom:source>` element. FeedWordPress now |
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introduces standard `<atom:source>` elements including the title, homepage, and |
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feed URI of the source from which a syndicated post was syndicated. Cf. |
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<http://www.atomenabled.org/developers/syndication/atom-format-spec.php#element.source> |
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|
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* MODULARIZATION OF CODE: The code for different elements of FeedWordPress |
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has been broken out into several modules for easier inspection, |
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documentation, and maintenance of the code. |
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|
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* VERSIONING SCHEME CHANGED: FeedWordPress's feature set has proven stable |
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enough that it can now be removed from beta status; a good thing, since |
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I was very quickly running out of version numbers to use. New releases |
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of FeedWordPress will have version numbers based on the date of their |
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release. |
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|
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Changes from 0.992 to 0.993 |
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--------------------------- |
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|
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* WORDPRESS 2.5.1 COMPATIBILITY: FeedWordPress should now be compatible |
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with WordPress 2.5.1. |
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|
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* WORDPRESS 2.5 INTERFACE IMPROVEMENTS: FeedWordPress's Dashboard |
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interface has undergone several cosmetic changes that should help it |
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integrate better with the WordPress Dashboard interface in WordPress |
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version 2.5.x. |
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|
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* SYNDICATED POSTS CAN BE MARKED AS "PENDING REVIEW": WordPress 2.3 users |
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can now take advantage of WordPress's new "Pending Review" features for |
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incoming syndicated posts. Posts marked as "Pending Review" are not |
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published immediately, but are marked as ready to be reviewed by an |
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Administrator or Editor, who can then choose to publish the post or |
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hold it back. If you want to review syndicated posts from a particular |
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feed, or from all feeds, before they are posted, then use |
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Syndication --> Syndicated Sites --> Edit or Syndication --> Options to |
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change the settings for handling new posts. |
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|
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* AWARE OF NEW URI FOR del.icio.us FEEDS: Previous releases of |
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FeedWordPress already automatically split del.icio.us tags up |
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appropriately appropriately when generating categories. (del.icio.us |
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feeds smoosh all the tags into a single `<dc:subject>` element, |
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separated by spaces; FeedWordPress un-smooshes them into multiple |
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categories by separating them at whitespace.) Unfortunately, del.icio.us |
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recently broke the existing behavior by changing host names for their |
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feeds from del.icio.us to feeds.delicious.com. Version 0.993 accounts |
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for the new host name and un-breaks the tag splitting. |
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|
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Changes from 0.991 to 0.992 |
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--------------------------- |
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* AUTHOR RE-MAPPING: FeedWordPress now offers considerable control over |
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how author names on a feed are translated into usernames within the |
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WordPress database. When a post by an unrecognized author comes in, |
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Administrators can now specify any username as the default username to |
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assign the post to by setting the option in Syndication --> Options |
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(formerly FeedWordPress only allowed you to assign such posts to user |
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#1, the site administrator). Administrators can also create re-mapping |
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rules for particular feeds (under Syndication --> Syndicated Sites --> |
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Edit), so that (for example) any posts attributed to "Administrator" |
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on the feed <http://praxeology.net/blog/feed/> will be assigned to |
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a user named "Roderick T. Long," rather than a user named |
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"Administrator." These settings also allow administrators to filter out |
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posts by particular users, and to control what will happen when |
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FeedWordPress encounters a post by an unrecognized user on that |
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particular feed. |
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|
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* BUG RELATED TO URIS CONTAINING AMPERSAND CHARACTERS FIXED: A bug in |
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WordPress 2.x's handling of URIs in Blogroll links created problems for |
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updating any feeds whose URIs included an ampersand character, such as |
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Google News RSS feeds and other feeds that have multiple parameters |
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passed through HTTP GET. If you experienced this bug, the most likely |
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effect was that FeedWordPress simply would not import new posts from a |
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feed when instructred to do so, returning a "0 new posts" response. In |
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other cases, it might lead to unpredictable results from feed updates, |
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such as importing posts which were not contained in the feed being |
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syndicated, but which did appear elsewhere on the same website. This bug |
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has, hopefully, been resolved, by correcting for the bug in WordPress. |
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|
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Changes from 0.99 to 0.991 |
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-------------------------- |
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* WORDPRESS MU COMPATABILITY: FeedWordPress should now be compatible with |
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recent releases of WordPress MU. Once FeedWordPress is made available |
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as a plugin, each individual blog can choose to activate FeedWordPress |
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and syndicate content from its own set of contributors. |
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|
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* DISPLAY OF MAGPIE WARNINGS: A number of MagpieRSS warnings or error |
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messages that were displayed when performing an automatic update are |
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no longer displayed, unless debugging parameters have been explicitly |
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enabled. |
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|
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* BUG RELATED TO INTERNATIONAL CHARACTERS IN AUTHOR NAMES FIXED: Due to a |
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subtle incompatability between the way that FeedWordPress generated new |
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user information, and the way that WordPress 2.0 and later added new |
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authors to the database, FeedWordPress might end up creating duplicate |
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authors, or throwing a critical error message, when it encountered |
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authors whose names included international characters. This |
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incompatability has now been fixed; hopefully, authors with |
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international characters in their names should now be handled properly. |
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|
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* media:content BUG IN MAGPIERSS FIXED: A bug in MagpieRSS's handling of |
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namespaced elements has been fixed. Among other things, this bug caused |
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items containing a Yahoo MediaRSS `<media:content>` element (such as |
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many of the feeds produced by wordpress.com) to be represented |
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incorrectly, with only a capital "A" where the content of the post |
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should have been. Feeds containing `<media:content>` elements should now |
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be syndicated correctly. |
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|
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* update_feedwordpress PARAMETER: You can now use an HTTP GET parameter |
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(`update_feedwordpress=1`) to request that FeedWordPress poll its feeds |
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for updates. When used together with a crontab or other means of |
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scheduling tasks, this means that you can keep your blog automatically |
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updated on a regular schedule, even if you do not choose to use the |
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cron-less automatic updates option. |
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|
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* Some minor interface-related bugs were also fixed. |
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|
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|
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Changes from 0.981 to 0.99 |
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-------------------------- |
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Version 0.99 adds several significant new features, fixes some bugs, and |
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provides compatability with WordPress 2.2.x and 2.3.x. |
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|
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* WORDPRESS 2.2 AND 2.3 COMPATIBILITY: FeedWordPress should now be |
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compatible with WordPress version 2.2 and the upcoming WordPress |
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version 2.3. In particular, it has been tested extensively against |
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WordPress 2.2.3 and WordPress 2.3 Release Candidate 1. |
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|
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* AUTOMATIC UPDATES WITHOUT CRON: FeedWordPress now allows you to |
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automatically schedule checks for new posts without using external task |
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scheduling tools such as cron. In order to enable automatic updates, go |
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to **Syndication --> Options** and set "Check for new posts" to |
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"automatically." For details, see "Automatic Feed Updates" in |
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README.text. |
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|
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An important side-effect of the changes to the update system is that if |
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you were previously using the cron job and the `update-feeds.php` script |
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to schedule updates, you need to change your cron set-up. The old |
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`update-feeds.php` script no longer exists. Instead, if you wish to use |
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a cron job to guarantee updates on a particular schedule, you should |
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have the cron job fetch the front page of your blog (for example, by |
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using `curl http://www.zyx.com/blog/ > /dev/null`) instead of activating |
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the `update-feeds.php` script. If automatic updates have been enabled, |
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fetching the front page will automatically trigger the update process. |
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|
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* INTERFACE REORGANIZATION: All FeedWordPress functions are now located |
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under a top-level "Syndication" menu in the WordPress Dashboard. To |
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manage the list of syndicated sites, manually check for new posts on |
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one or more feeds, or syndicate a new site, you should use the main page |
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under **Syndication**. To change global settings for FeedWordPress, |
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you should use **Syndication --> Options**. |
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|
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* FILE STRUCTURE REORGANIZATION: Due to a combination of changing styles |
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for FeedWordPress plugins and lingering bugs in the FeedWordPress admin |
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menu code, the code for FeedWordPress is now contained in two different |
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PHP files, which should be installed together in a subdirectory of your |
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plugins directory named `feedwordpress`. (See README.text for |
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installation and upgrade instructions relating to the change.) |
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|
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* MULTIPLE CATEGORIES SETTING: Some feeds use non-standard methods to |
| 229 |
indicate multiple categories within a single category element. (The most |
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popular site to do this is del.icio.us, which separates tags with a |
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space.) FeedWordPress now allows you to set an optional setting, for any |
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feed which does this, indicating the character or characters used to |
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divide multiple categories, using a Perl-compatible regular expression. |
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(In the case of del.icio.us feeds, FeedWordPress will automatically use |
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\s for the pattern without your having to do any further configuration.) |
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To turn this setting on, simply use the "Edit" link for the feed that |
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you want to turn it on for. |
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|
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* REGULAR EXPRESSION BUG FIXED: Eliminated a minor bug in the regular |
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expressions for e-mail addresses (used in parsing RSS `author` |
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elements), which could produce unsightly error messages for some users |
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parsing RSS 2.0 feeds. |
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|
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* DATE / UPDATE BUG FIXED: A bug in date handling was eliminated that may |
| 245 |
have caused problems if any of (1) WordPress, or (2) PHP, or (3) your |
| 246 |
web server, or (4) your MySQL server, has been set to use a different |
| 247 |
time zone from the one that any of the others is set to use. If |
| 248 |
FeedWordPress has not been properly updating updated posts, or has been |
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updating posts when there shouldn't be any changes for the update, this |
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release may solve that problem. |
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|
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* GOOGLE READER BUGS FIXED: A couple of bugs that made it difficult for |
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FeedWordPress to interact with Google Reader public feeds have been |
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fixed. Firstly, if you encountered an error message reading "There was a |
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problem adding the newsfeed. [SQL: ]" when you tried to add the feed, |
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the cause of this error has been fixed. Secondly, if you succeeded in |
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getting FeedWordPress to check a Google Reader feed, only to find that |
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the title of posts had junk squashed on to the end of them, that bug |
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has been fixed too. To fix this bug, you must install the newest version |
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of the optional MagpieRSS upgrade. |
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|
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* FILTER PARAMETERS: Due to an old, old bug in WordPress 1.5.0 (which was |
| 263 |
what was available back when I first wrote the filter interface), |
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FeedWordPress has traditionally only passed one parameter to |
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syndicated_item and syndicated_post filters functions -- an array |
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containing either the Magpie representation of a syndicated item from |
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the feed, or the database representation of a post about to be inserted |
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into the WordPress database. If you needed information about the feed |
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that the item came from, this was accessible only through a pair of |
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global variables, $fwp_channel and $fwp_feedmeta. |
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|
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Since it's been a pretty long time since WordPress 1.5.0 was in |
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widespread usage, I have gone ahead and added an optional second |
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parameter to the invocation of the syndicated_item and syndicated_post |
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filters. If you have written a filter for FeedWordPress that uses either |
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of these hooks, you can now register that filter to accept 2 parameters. |
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If you do so, the second parameter will be a SyndicatedPost object, |
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which, among other things, allows you to access information about the |
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feed from which an item is syndicated using the $post->feed and the |
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$post->feedmeta elements (where $post is the name of the second |
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parameter). |
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|
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NOTE THAT THE OLD GLOBAL VARIABLES ARE STILL AVAILABLE, for the time |
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being at least, so existing filters will not break with the upgrade. |
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They should be considered deprecated, however, and may be eliminated in |
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the future. |
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|
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* FILTER CHANGE / BUGFIX: the array that is passed as the first argument |
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syndicated_post filters no longer is no longer backslash-escaped for |
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MySQL when filters are called. This was originally a bug, or an |
| 291 |
oversight; the contents of the array should only be escaped for the |
| 292 |
database *after* they have gone through all filters. IF YOU HAVE WRITTEN |
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ANY syndicated_post FILTERS THAT PRESUME THE OLD BEHAVIOR OF PASSING IN |
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STRINGS THAT ARE ALREADY BACKSLASH-ESCAPED, UPDATE YOUR FILTERS |
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ACCORDINGLY. |
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|
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* OTHER MINOR BUGFIXES AND INTERNAL CHANGES: The internal architecture of |
| 298 |
FeedWordPress has been significantly changed to make the code more |
| 299 |
modular and clean; hopefully this should help reduce the number of |
| 300 |
compatibility updates that are needed, and make them easier and quicker |
| 301 |
when they are needed. |
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|
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Changes from 0.98 to 0.981 |
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-------------------------- |
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Version 0.981 is a narrowly targeted bugfix and compatibility release, whose |
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main purpose is to resolve a major outstanding problem: the incompatibility |
| 307 |
between version 0.98 of WordPress and the recently released WordPress 2.1. |
| 308 |
|
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* WORDPRESS 2.1 COMPATIBILITY: FeedWordPress is now compatible with |
| 310 |
WordPress 2.1, as well as retaining its existing support for WordPress |
| 311 |
2.0 and 1.5. Incompatibilities that resulted in database warnings, fatal |
| 312 |
errors, and which prevented FeedWordPress from syndicating new posts, |
| 313 |
have been eliminated. |
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|
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* RSS-FUNCTIONS.PHP RENAMED TO RSS.PHP: if you use the upgraded MagpieRSS |
| 316 |
replacement that's included with FeedWordPress, be sure to note that |
| 317 |
there are now *two* files to upload from the `OPTIONAL/wp-includes` |
| 318 |
subdirectory in order to carry out the upgrade: rss-functions.php and |
| 319 |
rss.php. **It is necessary to upload both files**, due to a change in |
| 320 |
the file naming scheme in WordPress 2.1, and it is necessary to do so |
| 321 |
whether you are using WordPress 2.1 or not. If you only upload the |
| 322 |
`rss-functions.php` file as in previous installations you will not have |
| 323 |
a working copy of MagpieRSS; the rss.php file contains the actual code. |
| 324 |
|
| 325 |
* DATE BUG AFFECTING SOME PHP INSTALLATIONS RESOLVED: due to a subtle bug |
| 326 |
in parse_w3cdtf(), some installations of PHP encountered problems with |
| 327 |
FeedWordPress's attempt to date posts, which would cause some new posts |
| 328 |
on Atom feeds to be dated as if they had apppeared in 1969 or 1970 |
| 329 |
(thus, effectively, never appearing on front apge at all). This bug in |
| 330 |
the date handling should now be fixed. |
| 331 |
|
| 332 |
* PHP <?=...?> SHORT FORM ELIMINATED: some installations of PHP do not |
| 333 |
allow the <?=...?> short form for printing PHP values, which was used |
| 334 |
extensively in the FeedWordPress interface code. Since this could cause |
| 335 |
fatal errors for users with the wrong installation of PHP, the short |
| 336 |
form has been replaced with full PHP echo statements, and is no longer |
| 337 |
used in FeedWordPress. |
| 338 |
|
| 339 |
* BETTER USER INTERFACE INTEGRATION WITH WORDPRESS 2.x: Some minor changes |
| 340 |
have been made to help the FeedWordPress interface pages blend in better |
| 341 |
with the user interface when running under WordPress 2.x. |
| 342 |
|
| 343 |
* GLOBAL CATEGORIES BUG RESOLVED: a bug that prevented some users from |
| 344 |
setting one or more categories to apply to syndicated posts from all |
| 345 |
feeds (using the checkbox interface under Options --> Syndication) has |
| 346 |
been resolved. |
| 347 |
|
| 348 |
Changes from 0.97 to 0.98 |
| 349 |
-------------------------- |
| 350 |
|
| 351 |
* WORDPRESS 2.0 COMPATIBILITY: This is a narrowly-targeted release to |
| 352 |
solve a major outstanding problem. FeedWordPress is now compatible with |
| 353 |
both WordPress 1.5 and WordPress 2.0. Incompatibilities that caused |
| 354 |
fatal SQL errors, and a more subtle bug with off-kilter counts of posts |
| 355 |
under a given category, have been resolved. FeedWordPress tests for |
| 356 |
database schema using the global $wp_db_version variable (if null, then |
| 357 |
we presume that we're dealing with WordPress 1.5). |
| 358 |
|
| 359 |
NOTE: I have **not** fully tested FeedWordPress with WordPress 2.0. |
| 360 |
Further testing may reveal more bugs. However, you should now be able |
| 361 |
to get at least basic FeedWordPress functionality up and running. |
| 362 |
|
| 363 |
* AUTHOR MATCHING: FeedWordPress tests several fields to see if it can |
| 364 |
identify the author of the post as a user already in the WordPress user |
| 365 |
database. In previous versions, it tested the user login, the nickname, |
| 366 |
and tested for "aliases" listed in the Profile (see documentation). FWP |
| 367 |
now also matches authors on the basis of e-mail address (*if* an e-mail |
| 368 |
address is present). This is particularly helpful for formats such as |
| 369 |
RSS 2.0, in which authors are primarily identified by e-mail addresses. |
| 370 |
|
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Changes from 0.96 to 0.97 |
| 372 |
------------------------- |
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|
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* INSTALLATION PROCEDURE: Some of the changes between 0.96 and 0.97 |
| 375 |
require upgrades to the meta-data stored by FeedWordPress to work |
| 376 |
properly. Thus, if you are upgrading from 0.96 or earlier to 0.97, most |
| 377 |
FeedWordPress operations (including updates and template functions) |
| 378 |
WILL BE DISABLED until you run the upgrade procedure. Fortunately, |
| 379 |
running the upgrade procedure is easy: just go to either Options --> |
| 380 |
Syndication or Links --> Syndicated in the WordPress Dashboard and press |
| 381 |
the button. |
| 382 |
|
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* FEED FORMAT SUPPORT: Support has been added for the Atom 1.0 IETF |
| 384 |
standard. Several other elements are also newly supported |
| 385 |
(dcterms:created, dcterms:issued, dcterms:modified, dc:identifier, |
| 386 |
proper support for the RSS 2.0 guid element, the RSS 2.0 author element, |
| 387 |
the use of Atom author or Dublin Core dc:creator constructs at the feed |
| 388 |
level to identify the author of individual items, etc.) |
| 389 |
|
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N.B.: full support of several Atom 1.0 features, such as categories |
| 391 |
and enclosures, requires you to install the optional rss-functions.php |
| 392 |
upgrade in your wp-includes directory. |
| 393 |
|
| 394 |
* BUG FIX: Running `update-feeds.php` from command line or crontab |
| 395 |
returned "I don't syndicate..." errors. It turns out that WordPress |
| 396 |
sometimes tramples on the internal PHP superglobals that I depended on |
| 397 |
to determine whether or not the script was being invoked from the |
| 398 |
command line. This has been fixed (the variables are now checked |
| 399 |
*before* WordPress can trample them). Note that `update-feeds.php` has |
| 400 |
been thoroughly overhauled anyway; see below for details. |
| 401 |
|
| 402 |
* BUG FIX: Duplicate categories or author names. Fixed two bugs that could |
| 403 |
create duplicate author and/or category names when the name contained |
| 404 |
either (a) certain international characters (causing a mismatch between |
| 405 |
MySQL and PHP's handling of lowercasing text), or (b) characters that |
| 406 |
have a special meaning in regular expressions (causing MySQL errors when |
| 407 |
looking for the author or category due to regexp syntax errors). These |
| 408 |
should now be fixed thanks to careful escaping of names that go into |
| 409 |
regular expressions and careful matching of lowercasing functions |
| 410 |
(comparing results from PHP only to other results from PHP, and results |
| 411 |
from MySQL only to other results from MySQL). |
| 412 |
|
| 413 |
* BUG FIX: Items dated Decembr 31, 1969 should appear less often. The |
| 414 |
function for parsing W3C date-time format dates that ships with |
| 415 |
MagpieRSS can only correctly parse fully-specified dates with a |
| 416 |
fully-specified time, but valid W3C date-time format dates may omit the |
| 417 |
time, the day of the month, or even the month. Some feeds in the wild |
| 418 |
date their items with coarse-grained dates, so the optional |
| 419 |
`rss-functions.php` upgrade now includes a more flexible parse_w3cdtf() |
| 420 |
function that will work with both coarse-grained and fully-specified |
| 421 |
dates. (If parts of the date or the time are omitted, they are filled in |
| 422 |
with values based on the current time, so '2005-09-10' will be dated to |
| 423 |
the current time on that day; '2004' will be dated to this day and time |
| 424 |
one year ago. |
| 425 |
|
| 426 |
N.B.: This fix is only available in the optional `rss-functions.php` |
| 427 |
upgrade. |
| 428 |
|
| 429 |
* BUG FIX: Evil use of HTTP GET has been undone. The WordPress interface |
| 430 |
is riddled with inappropriate (non-idempotent) uses of HTTP GET queries |
| 431 |
(ordinary links that make the server do something with significant |
| 432 |
side-effects, such as deleting a post or a link from the database). |
| 433 |
FeedWordPress did some of this too, especially in places where it aped |
| 434 |
the WordPress interface (e.g. the "Delete" links in Links --> |
| 435 |
Syndicated). That's bad business, though. I've changed the interface so |
| 436 |
that all the examples of improper side-effects that I can find now |
| 437 |
require an HTTP POST to take effect. I think I got pretty much |
| 438 |
everything; if there's anything that I missed, let me know. |
| 439 |
|
| 440 |
Further reading: [Sam Ruby 2005-05-06: This Stuff Matters] (http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2005/05/06/This-Stuff-Matters) |
| 441 |
|
| 442 |
* BUG FIX: Categories applied by `cats` setting should no longer prevent |
| 443 |
category-based filtering from working. In FeedWordPress, you can (1) |
| 444 |
apply certain categories to all syndicated posts, or all posts from |
| 445 |
a particular feed; and (2) filter out all posts that don't match one |
| 446 |
of the categories that are already in the WordPress database (allowing |
| 447 |
for simple category-based filtering; just load up WordPress with the |
| 448 |
categories you want to accept, and then tell FeedWordPress not to create |
| 449 |
new ones). However, the way that (1) and (2) were implemented meant that |
| 450 |
you couldn't effectively use them together; once you applied a known |
| 451 |
category to all syndicated posts from a particular feed, it meant that |
| 452 |
they'd have at least one familiar category (the category or categories |
| 453 |
you were applying), and that would get all posts past the filter no |
| 454 |
matter what categories they were originally from. |
| 455 |
|
| 456 |
Well, no longer. You can still apply categories to all syndicated posts |
| 457 |
(using either Syndication --> Options, or the feed-level settings under |
| 458 |
Links --> Syndicated). But these categories are not applied to the post |
| 459 |
until *after* it has already passed by the "familiar categories" filter. |
| 460 |
So now, if you want, you can do category filtering and *then* apply as |
| 461 |
many categories as you please to all and only posts that pass the filter. |
| 462 |
|
| 463 |
* BUG FIX: Other minor typos and HTML gaffes were fixed along the way. |
| 464 |
|
| 465 |
* PERFORMANCE: get_feed_meta() no longer hits the database for information |
| 466 |
on every call; it now caches link data in memory, so FeedWordPress only |
| 467 |
goes to the database once for each syndicated link. This may |
| 468 |
substantially improve performance if your database server resources |
| 469 |
are tight and your templates make a lot of use of custom settings from |
| 470 |
get_feed_meta(). |
| 471 |
|
| 472 |
* API CHANGE: Link ID numbers, rather than RSS URIs, are now used to |
| 473 |
identify the feed from which a post is syndicated when you use template |
| 474 |
functions such as get_feed_meta(). The practical upshot of this is you |
| 475 |
can switch feeds, or change the feed address for a particular syndicated |
| 476 |
site, without breaking your templates for all the posts that were |
| 477 |
syndicated from the earlier URI. |
| 478 |
|
| 479 |
* API CHANGE: if you have plugins or templates that make use of the |
| 480 |
get_feed_meta() function or the $fwp_feedmeta global, note that the |
| 481 |
data formerly located under the `uri` and `name` fields is now located |
| 482 |
under the `link/uri` field and the `link/name` field, respectively. Note |
| 483 |
also that you can access the link ID number for any given feed under the |
| 484 |
global $fwp_feedmeta['link/id'] (in plugins) or |
| 485 |
get_feed_meta('link/id') (in a template in post contexts). |
| 486 |
|
| 487 |
* FEATURE: the settings for individual feeds can now be edited using a |
| 488 |
humane interface (where formerly you had to tweak key-value pairs in the |
| 489 |
Link Notes section). To edit settings for a feed, pick the feed that you |
| 490 |
want under Links --> Syndicated and click the Edit link. |
| 491 |
|
| 492 |
* FEATURE: The "Unsubscribe" button (formerly "Delete") in Links --> |
| 493 |
Syndicated now offers three options for unsubscribing from a feed: (1) |
| 494 |
turning off the subscription without deleting the feed data or affecting |
| 495 |
posts that were syndicated from the feed (this works by setting the Link |
| 496 |
for the feed as "invisible"); (2) deleting the feed data and all of the |
| 497 |
posts that were syndicated from the feed; or (3) deleting the feed data |
| 498 |
and *keeping* the posts that were syndicated from the feed |
| 499 |
setting the Link to "Invisible" (meaning that it will not be displayed |
| 500 |
in lists of the site links on the front page, and it won't be checked |
| 501 |
for updates; (2) deleting the Link and all of the posts that were |
| 502 |
syndicated from its feed; or (3) deleting the feed data but keeping the |
| 503 |
posts that were syndicated (which will henceforward be treated as if |
| 504 |
they were local rather than syndicated posts). (Note that (1) is usually |
| 505 |
the best option for aggregator sites, unless you want to clean up the |
| 506 |
results of an error or a test.) |
| 507 |
|
| 508 |
* FEATURE / BUG FIX: If you have been receiving mysterious "I don't |
| 509 |
syndicate...", or "(local) HTTP status code was not 200", or "(local) |
| 510 |
transport error - could not open socket", or "parse error - not well |
| 511 |
formed" errors, then this update may solve your problems, and if it does |
| 512 |
*not* solve them, it will at least make the reasons for the problems |
| 513 |
easier to understand. That's because I've overhauled the way that |
| 514 |
FeedWordPress goes about updating feeds. |
| 515 |
|
| 516 |
If you use the command-line PHP scripting method to run scheduled |
| 517 |
updates, then not much should change for you, except for fewer |
| 518 |
mysterious errors. If you have done updates by sending periodic HTTP |
| 519 |
requests to <http://your-blog.com/path/wp-content/update-feeds.php>, |
| 520 |
then the details have changed somewhat; mostly in such a way as to make |
| 521 |
things easier on you. See the README file or online documentation on |
| 522 |
Staying Current for the details. |
| 523 |
|
| 524 |
* FEATURE: FeedWordPress now features a more sophisticated system for |
| 525 |
timed updates. Instead of polling *every* subscribed feed for updates |
| 526 |
*each* time `update-feeds.php` is run, FeedWordPress now keeps track of |
| 527 |
the last time it polled each feed, and only polls them again after a |
| 528 |
certain period of time has passed. The amount of time is normally set |
| 529 |
randomly for each feed, in a period between 30 minutes and 2 hours (so |
| 530 |
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 |
| 531 |
directly by the feed, which brings us to ... |
| 532 |
|
| 533 |
* FEATURE: FeedWordPress now respects the settings in the `ttl` and |
| 534 |
Syndication Module RSS elements. Feeds with these elements set will not |
| 535 |
be polled any more frequently than they indicate with these feeds unless |
| 536 |
the user manually forces FeedWordPress to poll the feed (see Links --> |
| 537 |
Syndicated --> Edit settings). |
| 538 |
|
| 539 |
Changes from 0.95 to 0.96 |
| 540 |
------------------------- |
| 541 |
|
| 542 |
* FEATURE: support has been added for enclosures in RSS 2.0 and Atom |
| 543 |
0.6+ newsfeeds. WordPress already supports adding enclosures to an |
| 544 |
item; FeedWordPress merely gets the information on the enclosure |
| 545 |
from the feed it is syndicating and plugs that information directly |
| 546 |
into the WordPress database so that (among other things) that post |
| 547 |
will have its enclosure listed in your blog's RSS 2 newsfeed. |
| 548 |
|
| 549 |
Note that enclosure support requires using the optional MagpieRSS |
| 550 |
upgrade (i.e., replacing your `wp-includes/rss-functions.php` with `OPTIONAL/wp-includes/rss-functions.php` from the FWP archive) |
| 551 |
|
| 552 |
* FEATURE: for completeness's sake, there is now a feed setting, |
| 553 |
`hardcode url`, that allows you to set the URI for the front page |
| 554 |
of a contributor's website manually (that is, prevent it from being |
| 555 |
automatically updated from the feed channel link on each update). To |
| 556 |
set the URI manually, put a line like this in the Link Notes section |
| 557 |
of a feed: |
| 558 |
|
| 559 |
hardcode url: yes |
| 560 |
|
| 561 |
You can also instruct FeedWordPress to use hardcoded URIs by default |
| 562 |
on all feeds using Options --> Syndication |
| 563 |
|
| 564 |
* FEATURE: by default, when FeedWordPress finds new syndicated posts, |
| 565 |
it (1) publishes them immediately, (2) turns comments off, and (3) |
| 566 |
turns trackback / pingback pings off. You can now alter all three |
| 567 |
default behaviors (e.g., to allow pings on syndicated posts, or to |
| 568 |
send newly-syndicated posts to the draft pile for moderation) using |
| 569 |
Options --> Syndication |
| 570 |
|
| 571 |
|
| 572 |
Changes from 0.91 to 0.95 |
| 573 |
------------------------- |
| 574 |
|
| 575 |
* BUG FIX: Fixed an obscure bug in the handling of categories: |
| 576 |
categories with trailing whitespace could cause categories with |
| 577 |
duplicate names to be created. This no longer happens. While I was |
| 578 |
at it I tightened up the operation of |
| 579 |
FeedWordPress::lookup_categories() a bit in general. |
| 580 |
|
| 581 |
* FEATURE DEPRECATED: the feed setting `hardcode categories` is now |
| 582 |
deprecated in favor of `unknown categories` (see below), which |
| 583 |
allows you to strip off any syndication categories not already in |
| 584 |
your database using `unknown categories: default` or `unknown |
| 585 |
categories: filter`. If you have `hardcode categories: yes` set on a |
| 586 |
feed, this will be treated as `unknown categories: default` (i.e., |
| 587 |
no new categories will be added, but if a post doesn't match any of |
| 588 |
the categories it will be added in the default category--usually |
| 589 |
"Uncategorized" or "General"). |
| 590 |
|
| 591 |
* FEATURE: You can now set global defaults as to whether or not |
| 592 |
FeedWordPress will update the Link Name and Link Description |
| 593 |
settings for feeds automatically from the feed title and feed |
| 594 |
tagline. (By default, it does, as it has in past versions.) Whether |
| 595 |
this behavior is turned on or off, you can still override the |
| 596 |
default behavior using feed settings of `hardcode name: yes`, |
| 597 |
`hardcode name: no`, `hardcode description: yes`, or `hardcode |
| 598 |
description: no`. |
| 599 |
|
| 600 |
* FEATURE: Users can now provide one or several "aliases" for an |
| 601 |
author, just as they can for a category. For example, to make |
| 602 |
FeedWordPress treat posts by "Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger" and "Pope |
| 603 |
Benedict XVI" as by the same author, edit the user profile for Pope |
| 604 |
Benedict XVI and add a line like this to the "User profile" field: |
| 605 |
|
| 606 |
a.k.a.: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger |
| 607 |
|
| 608 |
You can add several aliases, each on a line by itself. You can also |
| 609 |
add any other text you like to the Profile without interfering with |
| 610 |
the aliases. |
| 611 |
|
| 612 |
* FEATURE: Users can now choose how to handle syndicated posts that |
| 613 |
are in unfamiliar categories or by unfamiliar authors (i.e., |
| 614 |
categories or authors whose names are not yet in the WordPress |
| 615 |
database). By default, FeedWordPress will (as before) create a new |
| 616 |
category (or new author) and use it for the current post and any |
| 617 |
future posts. This behavior can be changed, either for all feeds or |
| 618 |
for one or another particular feed. |
| 619 |
|
| 620 |
There are now three different options for an unfamiliar author: (1) |
| 621 |
FeedWordPress can create a new author account and attribute the |
| 622 |
syndicated post to the new account; (2) FeedWordPress can attribute |
| 623 |
the post to an author if the author's name is familiar, and to a |
| 624 |
default author (currently, this means the Site Administrator |
| 625 |
account) if it is not; (3) FeedWordPress can drop posts by |
| 626 |
unfamiliar authors and syndicate only posts by authors who are |
| 627 |
already in the database. |
| 628 |
|
| 629 |
There are, similarly, two different options for an unfamiliar |
| 630 |
category: (1) FeedWordPress can create new categories and place the |
| 631 |
syndicated post in them; (2) FeedWordPress can drop the unfamiliar |
| 632 |
categories and place syndicated posts only in categories that it is |
| 633 |
already familiar with. In addition, FeedWordPress 0.95 lets you |
| 634 |
choose whether posts that are in *no* familiar categories should be |
| 635 |
syndicated (and placed in the default category for the blog) or |
| 636 |
simply dropped. |
| 637 |
|
| 638 |
You can set the default behavior for both authors and categories |
| 639 |
using the settings in Options --> Syndication. You can also set |
| 640 |
different behavior for specific feeds by adding the `unfamiliar |
| 641 |
author` and / or `unfamiliar categories` settings to the Link Notes |
| 642 |
section of a feed: |
| 643 |
|
| 644 |
unfamiliar author: (create|default|filter) |
| 645 |
unfamiliar categories: (create|default|filter) |
| 646 |
|
| 647 |
A setting of `unfamiliar author: create` will make FeedWordPress |
| 648 |
create new authors to match unfamiliar author names *for this feed |
| 649 |
alone*. A setting of `unfamiliar author: default` will make it |
| 650 |
assign posts from unfamiliar authors to the default user account. A |
| 651 |
setting of `unfamiliar author: filter` will cause all posts (from |
| 652 |
this feed alone) to be dropped unless they are by an author already |
| 653 |
listed in the database. Similiarly, `unfamiliar categories: create` |
| 654 |
will make FeedWordPress create new categories to match unfamiliar |
| 655 |
category names *for this feed alone*; `unfamiliar categories: |
| 656 |
default` will cause it to drop any unfamiliar category names; and |
| 657 |
`unfamiliar categories: filter` will cause it to *both* drop any |
| 658 |
unfamiliar category names *and* to only syndicate posts that are |
| 659 |
placed in one or more familiar categories. |
| 660 |
|
| 661 |
These two new features allow users to do some coarse-grained |
| 662 |
filtering without having to write a PHP filter. Specifically, they |
| 663 |
offer an easy way for you to filter feeds by category or by author. |
| 664 |
Suppose, for example, that you only wanted to syndicate posts that |
| 665 |
your contributors place in the "Llamas" category. You could do so by |
| 666 |
setting up your installation of WordPress so that the only category |
| 667 |
in the database is "Llamas," and then use Options --> Syndication to |
| 668 |
set "Unfamiliar categories" to "don't create new categories and |
| 669 |
don't syndicate posts unless they match at least one familiar |
| 670 |
category". Now, when you update, only posts in the "Llamas" category |
| 671 |
will be syndicated by FeedWordPress. |
| 672 |
|
| 673 |
Similarly, if you wanted to filter one particular feed so that only |
| 674 |
posts by (for example) the author "Earl J. Llama" were syndicated to |
| 675 |
your site, you could do so by creating a user account for Earl J. |
| 676 |
Llama, then adding the following line to the settings for the feed |
| 677 |
in Link Notes: |
| 678 |
|
| 679 |
unfamiliar author: filter |
| 680 |
|
| 681 |
This will cause any posts from this feed that are not authored by |
| 682 |
Earl J. Llama to be discarded, and only the posts by Earl J. Llama |
| 683 |
will be syndicated. (If the setting is used on one specific feed, it |
| 684 |
will not affect how posts from other feeds are syndicated.) |
| 685 |
|
| 686 |
|
