| @@ -1,7 +1,230 @@ | ||
| 1 | 1 | FeedWordPress Change Log |
| 2 | 2 | ======================== |
| 3 | 3 | |
| 4 | +Changes from 2008.1105 to 2008.1214 | |
| 5 | +----------------------------------- | |
| 6 | + | |
| 7 | +* WORDPRESS 2.7 COMPATIBILITY: FeedWordPress has been tested for | |
| 8 | + compatibility with the newly released WordPress 2.7. WordPress 2.7 has | |
| 9 | + deprecated the Snoopy library for HTTP requests, which caused a fatal | |
| 10 | + error for users who had not installed the MagpieRSS upgrade (or whose | |
| 11 | + installation of the MagpieRSS upgrade was overwritten by a recent update | |
| 12 | + of WordPress). FeedWordPress now handles things gracefully when Snoopy | |
| 13 | + is not immediately available. | |
| 14 | + | |
| 15 | +* INTERFACE SPIFFED UP: Interface elements have been updated so that | |
| 16 | + FeedWordPress's management interface fits in more naturally with the | |
| 17 | + WordPress 2.7 interface (including a new logo and a number of small | |
| 18 | + interface tweaks). | |
| 19 | + | |
| 20 | +* BUG WITH TAGS FOR SYNDICATED ARTICLES FIXED: Several users encountered a | |
| 21 | + bug with the option to add tags to all syndicated posts under | |
| 22 | + Syndication --> Settings -- if you told FeedWordPress to add more than | |
| 23 | + one tag to all syndicated posts, instead of doing so correctly, it would | |
| 24 | + add a *single* tag instead, whose name was composed of the names of all | |
| 25 | + the tags you asked it to add. This bug was the result of nothing more | |
| 26 | + dignified than a typographical error on my part. It has now been fixed. | |
| 27 | + | |
| 28 | +* MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE WHEN FEEDWORDPRESS CAN'T FIND A FEED: When | |
| 29 | + you enter a URL for a new syndication source, FeedWordPress uses a | |
| 30 | + simple feed-finding algorithm (originally based on Mark Pilgrim's | |
| 31 | + Universal Feed Finder) to try to determine whether the URL is the URL | |
| 32 | + for a feed, or, if the URL points to an ordinary website rather than to | |
| 33 | + a feed, whether there is a feed for that website. All well and good, but | |
| 34 | + if FeedWordPress failed to find a feed, for whatever reason, it would | |
| 35 | + typically return nothing more than a nasty little note to the effect of | |
| 36 | + "no feed found," without any explanation of what went wrong. | |
| 37 | + FeedWordPress now keeps track of error conditions from the HTTP | |
| 38 | + requests that it uses in the course of looking for the feed, and so may | |
| 39 | + be able to give you a bit more information about the nature of the | |
| 40 | + problem if something goes wrong. | |
| 41 | + | |
| 42 | + | |
| 43 | +Changes from 2008.1101 to 2008.1105 | |
| 44 | +----------------------------------- | |
| 45 | + | |
| 46 | +* INTERFACE RESTRUCTURING AND SYNDICATION --> AUTHORS PAGE: As a first | |
| 47 | + step towards modularizing and better organizing the user interface, a | |
| 48 | + new "Authors" subpage has been created under the Syndication menu, which | |
| 49 | + controls settings for syndicated authors, both at the global default | |
| 50 | + level and at level of individual syndicated feeds. | |
| 51 | + | |
| 52 | +* BUG RELATED TO THE ATTRIBUTION OF POSTS TO THE WRONG AUTHOR FIXED: Some | |
| 53 | + users encountered an issue in which posts by different authors on | |
| 54 | + different blogs -- especially blogs generated by Blogger -- were | |
| 55 | + mistakenly attributed to a single author. The problem was caused by the | |
| 56 | + way in which FeedWordPress matches syndicated authors to user accounts | |
| 57 | + in the WordPress database: normally, if two feeds each list an author | |
| 58 | + with the same e-mail address, they are counted as being the same person. | |
| 59 | + Normally this works well, but it creates an issue in cases where | |
| 60 | + blogging software assigns a single anonymous e-mail address to users who | |
| 61 | + do not want their real e-mail address published. This is, for example, | |
| 62 | + what Blogger does (by giving all users a default e-mail address of | |
| 63 | + <noreply@blogger.com> if they don't want their own e-mail address | |
| 64 | + listed). FeedWordPress now allows the user to correct for this problem | |
| 65 | + with a couple of new settings under **Syndication --> Authors**, which | |
| 66 | + allow users to turn off e-mail based author matching for particular | |
| 67 | + addresses, or, if desired, to turn it off entirely. By default, e-mail | |
| 68 | + based author matching is still turned on, but disabled for a list of | |
| 69 | + known generic e-mail addresses. Right now, the "list" consists entirely | |
| 70 | + of <noreply@blogger.com>; if you know other addresses that should be | |
| 71 | + added, please [contact me](http://radgeek.com/contact) to let me know. | |
| 72 | + | |
| 73 | + Please note that if you have already encountered this issue on your | |
| 74 | + blog, upgrading FeedWordPress will prevent it from re-occurring in the | |
| 75 | + future, but you still need to do two other things to fix the existing | |
| 76 | + problem on your blog. | |
| 77 | + | |
| 78 | + First, for each feed where posts have been mis-attributed, you need to | |
| 79 | + change the existing author mapping rules to re-map a a syndicated | |
| 80 | + author's name to the proper target account. Go to **Syndication --> | |
| 81 | + Authors**, select the feed you want to change from the drop-down list, | |
| 82 | + and then change the settings under the "Syndicated Authors" section. | |
| 83 | + (You will probably need to select "will be assigned to a new user..." to | |
| 84 | + create a new user account with the appropriate name.) | |
| 85 | + | |
| 86 | + Second, for each feed where posts have been mis-attributed, you need to | |
| 87 | + re-assign already-syndicated posts that were mis-attributed to the | |
| 88 | + correct author. You can do that from **Syndication --> Authors** by | |
| 89 | + using the author re-assignment feature, described below. | |
| 90 | + | |
| 91 | +* AUTHOR RE-ASSIGNMENT FOR A PARTICULAR FEED: The author settings page | |
| 92 | + for each syndicated feed, under **Syndication --> Authors**, now | |
| 93 | + includes an section titled "Fixing mis-matched authors," which provides | |
| 94 | + an interface for re-assigning or deleting all posts attributed to a | |
| 95 | + particular author on a particular feed. | |
| 96 | + | |
| 97 | +* SUPPORT FOR `<atom:source>` ELEMENT IN SYNDICATED FEEDS: Some feeds | |
| 98 | + (for example, those produced by FeedWordPress) aggregate content from | |
| 99 | + several different sources, and include information about the original | |
| 100 | + source of the post in an `<atom:source>` element. A new setting under | |
| 101 | + **Syndication --> Options** allows you to control what FeedWordPress | |
| 102 | + will report as the source of posts syndicated from aggregator feeds in | |
| 103 | + your templates and feeds: you can have FeedWordPress report that the | |
| 104 | + source of a post is the aggregator feed itself, or you can have it | |
| 105 | + report that the source of a post is the original source that the | |
| 106 | + aggregator originally syndicated the post from. | |
| 107 | + | |
| 108 | + By default, FeedWordPress will report the aggregator, not the original | |
| 109 | + source, as the source of a syndicated item. | |
| 110 | + | |
| 111 | +* LOAD BALANCING AND TIME LIMITING FEATURES FOR UPDATES: Some users have | |
| 112 | + encountered issues due to running up against PHP execution time limits | |
| 113 | + during the process of updating large syndicated feeds, or a very large | |
| 114 | + set of syndicated feeds. FeedWordPress now has a feature that allows you | |
| 115 | + to limit the total amount of time spent updating a feed, through the | |
| 116 | + "Time limit on updates" setting under **Syndication --> Options**. By | |
| 117 | + turning on this setting and adjusting the time limit to a low enough | |
| 118 | + figure to avoid your PHP installation's time-out setting. (PHP execution | |
| 119 | + time limits are usually in the vicinity of 30 seconds, so an update | |
| 120 | + time limit of 25 seconds or so should provide plenty of time for updates | |
| 121 | + while allowing a cushion of time for other, non-update-related functions | |
| 122 | + to do their work.) | |
| 123 | + | |
| 124 | + If feed updates are interrupted by the time limit, FeedWordPress uses | |
| 125 | + some simple load balancing features to make sure that updates to other | |
| 126 | + feeds will not be blocked by the time-hogging feed, and will also make | |
| 127 | + sure that when the interrupted update is resumed, FeedWordPress will | |
| 128 | + skip ahead to resume processing items at the point at which it was | |
| 129 | + interrupted last time, so that posts further down in the feed will | |
| 130 | + eventually get processed, and not get blocked by the amount of time it | |
| 131 | + takes to process the items higher up in the feed. | |
| 132 | + | |
| 133 | +* `guid` INDEX CREATION BUTTON: FeedWordPress frequently issues queries on | |
| 134 | + the `guid` column of the WordPress posts database (since it uses post | |
| 135 | + guid URIs to keep track of which posts it has syndicated). In very large | |
| 136 | + FeedWordPress installations, you can often significantly improve | |
| 137 | + performance by creating a database index on the `guid` column, but | |
| 138 | + normally you would need to poke around with MySQL or a tool like | |
| 139 | + phpMyAdmin to do this. FeedWordPress can now save you the trouble: to | |
| 140 | + create an index on the `guid` column, just go to | |
| 141 | + **Syndication --> Options**, and mash the button at the bottom of the | |
| 142 | + "Back End" section. | |
| 143 | + | |
| 144 | +Changes from 2008.1030 to 2008.1101 | |
| 145 | +----------------------------------- | |
| 146 | + | |
| 147 | +* INTERFACE BUG THAT PREVENTED ADDING NEW SITES FIXED: The UI reforms in | |
| 148 | + FWP 2008.1030 unintentionally introduced a bug that prevents clean | |
| 149 | + installations of FeedWordPress from providing an input box for adding | |
| 150 | + new feeds to the list of syndicated feeds. This bug has been fixed. | |
| 151 | + | |
| 152 | +Changes from 0.993 to 2008.1030 | |
| 153 | +------------------------------- | |
| 154 | + | |
| 155 | +* WORDPRESS 2.6 COMPATIBILITY: FeedWordPress should now be compatible with | |
| 156 | + WordPress 2.6, and should work more or less seamlessly with the new post | |
| 157 | + revision system. A bug which caused multiple new revisions to be created | |
| 158 | + for posts on certain feeds, regardless of whether or not the item had | |
| 159 | + been updated, has been fixed. | |
| 160 | + | |
| 161 | +* INTERFACE IMPROVEMENTS: The user interface has been substantially | |
| 162 | + restyled to fit in better with the visual style of WordPress 2.5 and | |
| 163 | + 2.6. | |
| 164 | + | |
| 165 | +* YOUTUBE BUG FIXED: POSTS SYNDICATED THROUGH AN AUTOMATIC UPDATE ARE NO | |
| 166 | + LONGER STRIPPED OF `<OBJECT>` TAGS AND CERTAIN OTHER HTML ELEMENTS: Due | |
| 167 | + to the way that some versions of WordPress process posts that are | |
| 168 | + inserted into the database when no user is logged in, many users | |
| 169 | + experienced an issue where YouTube videos and other content using the | |
| 170 | + HTML `<object>` tag would be stripped out of posts that were syndicated | |
| 171 | + during an automatic update. (Posts that were syndicated through manual | |
| 172 | + updates from within the WordPress Dashboard were not affected, because | |
| 173 | + the issue does not arise when an update is executed under a logged-in | |
| 174 | + administrator's credentials.) This bug has now been fixed; YouTube | |
| 175 | + videos and other content using `<object>` tags should now appear | |
| 176 | + properly in syndicated posts, regardless of the way in which the post | |
| 177 | + was syndicated. | |
| 178 | + | |
| 179 | +* AJAX BUGS FIXED: Bugs which blocked the normal operation of WordPress | |
| 180 | + 2.5's AJAX interface elements when FeedWordPress was activated have been | |
| 181 | + fixed. | |
| 182 | + | |
| 183 | +* TAG SUPPORT: A couple of features have been introduced to take advantage | |
| 184 | + of the tagging features in WordPress 2.3.x, 2.5.x, and 2.6.x. Now, when | |
| 185 | + unfamiliar categories are encountered for posts on a feed, you can | |
| 186 | + choose for FeedWordPress (1) to drop the category; (2) to drop the | |
| 187 | + category and to filter out any post that does not match at least one | |
| 188 | + familiar category; (3) to create a new category with that name, or, | |
| 189 | + now, you can also have FeedWordPress (4) create a new *tag* with that | |
| 190 | + name. This option can be set site-wide under Syndication --> Options, | |
| 191 | + or it can be set on a feed-by-feed basis in a feed's Edit screen. | |
| 192 | + | |
| 193 | + In addition, you can now set particular tags to apply to all incoming | |
| 194 | + syndicated posts, under Syndication --> Options, or you can set tags | |
| 195 | + to apply to all incoming syndicated posts from a particular feed in that | |
| 196 | + feed's Edit screen. | |
| 197 | + | |
| 198 | +* FORMATTING FILTERS: There is a new option available under Syndication -> | |
| 199 | + Options which allows users to choose whether or not to expose syndicated | |
| 200 | + posts to being altered by formatting filters. By default, FeedWordPress | |
| 201 | + has always protected syndicated posts (which are already in display-ready | |
| 202 | + HTML when they are syndicated) from being reformatted by formatting | |
| 203 | + filters. However, this approach means that certain plugins which depend | |
| 204 | + on formatting filters (for example, to add "Share This" bars or relevant | |
| 205 | + links to the end of a post) are blocked from working on any syndicated | |
| 206 | + posts. If you want to use one of these plugins together with | |
| 207 | + FeedWordPress, you can now do so by changing the "Formatting Filters" | |
| 208 | + setting from "Protect" to "Expose." | |
| 209 | + | |
| 210 | +* `<atom:source>` ELEMENTS NOW INCLUDED IN ATOM FEED: Atom 1.0 provides | |
| 211 | + a standard method for aggregators to indicate information about the original source of | |
| 212 | + a syndicated post, using the `<atom:source>` element. FeedWordPress now | |
| 213 | + introduces standard `<atom:source>` elements including the title, homepage, and | |
| 214 | + feed URI of the source from which a syndicated post was syndicated. Cf. | |
| 215 | + <http://www.atomenabled.org/developers/syndication/atom-format-spec.php#element.source> | |
| 216 | + | |
| 217 | +* MODULARIZATION OF CODE: The code for different elements of FeedWordPress | |
| 218 | + has been broken out into several modules for easier inspection, | |
| 219 | + documentation, and maintenance of the code. | |
| 220 | + | |
| 221 | +* VERSIONING SCHEME CHANGED: FeedWordPress's feature set has proven stable | |
| 222 | + enough that it can now be removed from beta status; a good thing, since | |
| 223 | + I was very quickly running out of version numbers to use. New releases | |
| 224 | + of FeedWordPress will have version numbers based on the date of their | |
| 225 | + release. | |
| 226 | + | |
| 4 | 227 | Changes from 0.992 to 0.993 |
| 5 | 228 | --------------------------- |
| 6 | 229 | |
| 7 | 230 | * WORDPRESS 2.5.1 COMPATIBILITY: FeedWordPress should now be compatible |
| @@ -63,9 +286,9 @@ | ||
| 63 | 286 | has, hopefully, been resolved, by correcting for the bug in WordPress. |
| 64 | 287 | |
| 65 | 288 | Changes from 0.99 to 0.991 |
| 66 | 289 | -------------------------- |
| 67 | -* WORDPRESS MU COMPATABILITY: FeedWordPress should now be compatible with | |
| 290 | +* WORDPRESS MU COMPATIBILITY: FeedWordPress should now be compatible with | |
| 68 | 291 | recent releases of WordPress MU. Once FeedWordPress is made available |
| 69 | 292 | as a plugin, each individual blog can choose to activate FeedWordPress |
| 70 | 293 | and syndicate content from its own set of contributors. |
| 71 | 294 | |
| @@ -82,12 +305,12 @@ | ||
| 82 | 305 | authors whose names included international characters. This |
| 83 | 306 | incompatability has now been fixed; hopefully, authors with |
| 84 | 307 | international characters in their names should now be handled properly. |
| 85 | 308 | |
| 86 | -* media:content BUG IN MAGPIERSS FIXED: A bug in MagpieRSS's handling of | |
| 87 | - namespaced elements has been fixed. Among other things, this bug caused | |
| 88 | - items containing a Yahoo MediaRSS `<media:content>` element (such as | |
| 89 | - many of the feeds produced by wordpress.com) to be represented | |
| 309 | +* `<media:content>` BUG IN MAGPIERSS FIXED: A bug in MagpieRSS's handling | |
| 310 | + of namespaced elements has been fixed. Among other things, this bug | |
| 311 | + caused items containing a Yahoo MediaRSS `<media:content>` element (such | |
| 312 | + as many of the feeds produced by wordpress.com) to be represented | |
| 90 | 313 | incorrectly, with only a capital "A" where the content of the post |
| 91 | 314 | should have been. Feeds containing `<media:content>` elements should now |
| 92 | 315 | be syndicated correctly. |
| 93 | 316 | |
| @@ -463,9 +686,10 @@ | ||
| 463 | 686 | into the WordPress database so that (among other things) that post |
| 464 | 687 | will have its enclosure listed in your blog's RSS 2 newsfeed. |
| 465 | 688 | |
| 466 | 689 | Note that enclosure support requires using the optional MagpieRSS |
| 467 | - upgrade (i.e., replacing your `wp-includes/rss-functions.php` with `OPTIONAL/wp-includes/rss-functions.php` from the FWP archive) | |
| 690 | + upgrade (i.e., replacing your `wp-includes/rss-functions.php` with | |
| 691 | + `OPTIONAL/wp-includes/rss-functions.php` from the FWP archive) | |
| 468 | 692 | |
| 469 | 693 | * FEATURE: for completeness's sake, there is now a feed setting, |
| 470 | 694 | `hardcode url`, that allows you to set the URI for the front page |
| 471 | 695 | of a contributor's website manually (that is, prevent it from being |
