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FeedWordPress Change Log |
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======================== |
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|
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Changes from 2008.1214 to 2009.0612 |
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----------------------------------- |
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* WORDPRESS 2.8 COMPATIBILITY: FeedWordPress 2009.0612 has been tested for |
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compatibility with the recent version 2.8 release of WordPress. |
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|
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* INTERFACE RESTRUCTURING: In order to avoid settings posts from becoming |
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too crowded, and to modularize and better organize the user interface, |
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new "Posts" and "Categories & Tags" subpages have been created under the |
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"Syndication" menu. "Posts" controls settings for individal syndicated |
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posts (such as publication status, comment and ping status, whether or |
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not to use the original location of the post as the permalink, whether |
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or not to expose posts to formatting filters, and so on). "Categories & |
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Tags" controls settings for assigning new syndicated posts to categories |
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and tags, such as categories or tags to apply to all syndicated posts, |
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and how to handle categories that do not yet exist in the WordPress |
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database. These subpages, like the Authors subpage, handle settings for |
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the global default level and for individual syndicated feeds. |
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|
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Corresponding to these new subpages, the old Syndication Settings and |
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Feed Settings subpages have been cleaned up and simplified, and now only |
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link to the appropriate subpages for options that can be set in the |
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Posts, Authors, or Categories & Tags subpages. |
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|
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* FEATURE: ADD CUSTOM SETTINGS TO EACH SYNDICATED POST: FeedWordPress has |
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long had an interface for creating custom settings for each syndicated |
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*feed* which could be retrieved in templates using the `get_feed_meta()` |
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template function. But it had no feature for adding custom fields to |
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each individual syndicated *post*. In response to requests from users, I |
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have added the ability to apply custom fields to each individual |
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syndicated post, using the new Syndication --> Posts subpage. You can |
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set up custom fields to be applied to every syndicated post, or custom |
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fields to be applied to syndicated posts from a particular feed. |
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|
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* FEATURE: MAGPIERSS VERSION CHECK AND UPGRADE: FeedWordPress will attempt |
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to determine whether or not you are using the upgraded version of |
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MagpieRSS that comes packaged with FeedWordPress. If not, it will throw |
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an error on admin pages, and, if you are a site administrator, it will |
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give you the option to ignore the error message, or to attempt an |
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automatic upgrade (using a native file copy). If the file copy fails, |
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FeedWordPress will offer some guidance on how to perform the upgrade |
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manually. |
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|
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* BLANK POSTS PROBLEM NO LONGER OCCURS WITH OLD & BUSTED MAGPIERSS: Due |
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to the fact that I relied on a content normalization that occurs in my |
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upgraded version of MagpieRSS, but not in the old & busted version of |
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MagpieRSS that ships with WordPress, until this version, if you tried to |
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syndicate an Atom feed without having performed the (*strongly |
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recommended*) MagpieRSS upgrade, all of the posts would come up with |
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completely blank contents. That's not because MagpieRSS couldn't read |
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the data, but rather because the new Magpie version puts that data in a |
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location where the old version doesn't, and I was only looking in that |
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newer location. Now it checks for both, meaning that posts will continue |
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to display their contents even if you don't upgrade MagpieRSS. (But you |
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**really should** upgrade it, anyway.) |
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|
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* BUGFIX: RELATIVE URI RESOLUTION FOR POST CONTENT RESTORED. Some time |
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back, I added support for resolving relative URIs against xml:base on |
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feeds that support it to the MagpieRSS upgrade in FeedWordPress. Then I |
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took out code that did the same thing from the main FeedWordPress code. |
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Of course, the problem is that some people, even though it is clearly |
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stupid or evil to do so, still include relative URIs for images or links |
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in posts on feed formats that do *not* adequately support xml:base |
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(notably, RSS 2.0 feeds). In response to a user request, I have added |
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this functionality back in, so that MagpieRSS will resolve any relative |
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URIs that it knows how to resolve using xml:base, and then FeedWordPress |
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will attempt to resolve any relative URIs that are left over afterwards. |
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|
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* BUGFIX: INTERFACE OPTION FOR SETTING SYNDICATED POST PUBLICATION STATUS |
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ON A FEED-BY-FEED BASIS HAS BEEN RESTORED: Due to a version-checking |
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bug, users of WordPress 2.7.x lost an option from the "Edit a syndicated |
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feed" interface which allowed them to determine whether newly syndicated |
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posts should be published immediately, held as "Pending Review," saved |
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as drafts, or saved as private posts. (The option to change this |
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setting globally remained in place, but users could no longer set it on |
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a feed-by-feed basis.) The version-checking bug has been fixed, and the |
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option has been restored. |
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|
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* BUGFIX: "ARE YOU SURE?" FATAL ERROR ELIMINATED AND SECURITY IMPROVED: |
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Under certain circumstances (for example, when users have configured |
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their browser or proxy not to send HTTP Referer headers, for privacy or |
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other reasons), many features in the FeedWordPress administrative |
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interface (such as adding new feeds or changing settings) would hit a |
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fatal error, displaying only a cryptic message reading "Are you sure?" |
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and a blank page following it. This problem has been eliminated by |
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taking advantage of WordPress's nonce functions, which allow the |
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security check which ran into this error to work properly even without |
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receiving an HTTP Referer header. (N.B.: WordPress's nonce functions |
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were first introduced in WordPress 2.0.3. If you're using FeedWordPress |
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with an older version of WordPress, there's no fix for this problem: |
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you'll just need to turn Referer headers back on. Sorry.) |
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|
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* BUGFIX: MANUALLY-ALTERED POST STATUS, COMMENT STATUS, AND PING STATUS NO |
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LONGER REVERTED BY POST UPDATES: If you manually altered the post status, |
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comment status, or ping status of a syndicated post from what it was set |
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to when first syndicated -- for example, if you had a feed that was set |
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to bring in new posts as "Pending Review," and you then marked some of |
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the pending posts as "Published" and others as "Unpublished" -- then |
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in previous versions of FeedWordPress, these manual changes to the |
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status would be lost -- so that, for example, your Published or Unpublished |
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articles would revert to Pending Review -- if the source feed made any |
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upates to the item. This could make the Pending Review feature both |
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unreliable and also extremely frustrating to work with. The good news is |
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that this bug has since been fixed: if you manually update the status |
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of a post, it will no longer be reverted if or when the post is updated. |
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|
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* BUGFIX: OCCASIONAL FATAL ERROR ON UPDATE ELIMINATED: Under certain |
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limited conditions (specifically, when both the title and the content of |
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a post to be updated are empty), an attempt to update the post would |
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result in a fatal error. This has been fixed. |
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|
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* INTERFACE: "CONFIGURE SETTINGS" CONVENIENCE LINK ADDED TO CONFIRMATION |
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MESSAGE WHEN A NEW FEED IS ADDED: When you add a new subscription to |
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FeedWordPress, the message box that appears to confirm it now includes a |
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handy link to the feed's settings subpage, so that you can quickly set |
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up any special settings you may want to set up for the new feed, without |
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having to hunt through the list of all your other subscriptions to pick |
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out the new one. |
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|
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* INTERFACE: SIMPLIFYING AND CLARIFYING AUTOMATIC UPDATES SETTINGS. I have |
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removed an interval setting for the cronless automatic updates which has |
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confused many FeedWordPress users. In past versions of FWP, when you |
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turned on automatic updates, you would be presented with a time interval |
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setting which controlled how often FeedWordPress would check for feeds |
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ready to be polled for updates. (That is, it DID NOT control how often |
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feeds *would be polled*; it controlled how often FeedWordPress would |
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*check* for feeds that *had become ready to poll*. The schedule on which |
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feeds became ready for polling was still controlled either by requests |
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encoded in elements within the feed itself, or else according to an |
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internal calculation within FeedWordPress, averaging out to about 1 hour, |
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if the feed did not include any scheduling request elements.) Since many |
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users very often (and understandably) confused the purpose of this |
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setting, and since the setting is for a feature that's actually very |
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unlikely to require any manual control by the user, I have removed the |
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setting; FeedWordPress now simply uses the default value of checking for |
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feeds to poll every 10 minutes. |
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|
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* FEEDFINDER PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT: FeedWordPress's FeedFinder class |
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now uses `array_unique()` to make sure that it doesn't waste time |
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repeatedly iterating over and polling the same URI. Props to Camilo |
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(<http://projects.radgeek.com/2008/12/14/feedwordpress-20081214/#comment-20090122160414>). |
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|
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Changes from 2008.1105 to 2008.1214 |
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----------------------------------- |
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|
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* WORDPRESS 2.7 COMPATIBILITY: FeedWordPress has been tested for |
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compatibility with the newly released WordPress 2.7. WordPress 2.7 has |
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deprecated the Snoopy library for HTTP requests, which caused a fatal |
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error for users who had not installed the MagpieRSS upgrade (or whose |
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installation of the MagpieRSS upgrade was overwritten by a recent update |
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of WordPress). FeedWordPress now handles things gracefully when Snoopy |
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is not immediately available. |
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|
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* INTERFACE SPIFFED UP: Interface elements have been updated so that |
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FeedWordPress's management interface fits in more naturally with the |
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WordPress 2.7 interface (including a new logo and a number of small |
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interface tweaks). |
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|
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* BUG WITH TAGS FOR SYNDICATED ARTICLES FIXED: Several users encountered a |
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bug with the option to add tags to all syndicated posts under |
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Syndication --> Settings -- if you told FeedWordPress to add more than |
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one tag to all syndicated posts, instead of doing so correctly, it would |
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add a *single* tag instead, whose name was composed of the names of all |
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the tags you asked it to add. This bug was the result of nothing more |
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dignified than a typographical error on my part. It has now been fixed. |
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|
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* MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE WHEN FEEDWORDPRESS CAN'T FIND A FEED: When |
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you enter a URL for a new syndication source, FeedWordPress uses a |
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simple feed-finding algorithm (originally based on Mark Pilgrim's |
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Universal Feed Finder) to try to determine whether the URL is the URL |
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for a feed, or, if the URL points to an ordinary website rather than to |
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a feed, whether there is a feed for that website. All well and good, but |
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if FeedWordPress failed to find a feed, for whatever reason, it would |
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typically return nothing more than a nasty little note to the effect of |
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"no feed found," without any explanation of what went wrong. |
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FeedWordPress now keeps track of error conditions from the HTTP |
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requests that it uses in the course of looking for the feed, and so may |
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be able to give you a bit more information about the nature of the |
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problem if something goes wrong. |
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|
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|
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Changes from 2008.1101 to 2008.1105 |
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----------------------------------- |
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|
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* INTERFACE RESTRUCTURING AND SYNDICATION --> AUTHORS PAGE: As a first |
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step towards modularizing and better organizing the user interface, a |
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new "Authors" subpage has been created under the Syndication menu, which |
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controls settings for syndicated authors, both at the global default |
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level and at level of individual syndicated feeds. |
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|
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* BUG RELATED TO THE ATTRIBUTION OF POSTS TO THE WRONG AUTHOR FIXED: Some |
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users encountered an issue in which posts by different authors on |
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different blogs -- especially blogs generated by Blogger -- were |
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mistakenly attributed to a single author. The problem was caused by the |
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way in which FeedWordPress matches syndicated authors to user accounts |
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in the WordPress database: normally, if two feeds each list an author |
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with the same e-mail address, they are counted as being the same person. |
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Normally this works well, but it creates an issue in cases where |
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blogging software assigns a single anonymous e-mail address to users who |
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do not want their real e-mail address published. This is, for example, |
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what Blogger does (by giving all users a default e-mail address of |
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<noreply@blogger.com> if they don't want their own e-mail address |
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listed). FeedWordPress now allows the user to correct for this problem |
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with a couple of new settings under **Syndication --> Authors**, which |
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allow users to turn off e-mail based author matching for particular |
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addresses, or, if desired, to turn it off entirely. By default, e-mail |
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based author matching is still turned on, but disabled for a list of |
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known generic e-mail addresses. Right now, the "list" consists entirely |
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of <noreply@blogger.com>; if you know other addresses that should be |
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added, please [contact me](http://radgeek.com/contact) to let me know. |
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|
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Please note that if you have already encountered this issue on your |
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blog, upgrading FeedWordPress will prevent it from re-occurring in the |
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future, but you still need to do two other things to fix the existing |
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problem on your blog. |
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|
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First, for each feed where posts have been mis-attributed, you need to |
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change the existing author mapping rules to re-map a a syndicated |
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author's name to the proper target account. Go to **Syndication --> |
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Authors**, select the feed you want to change from the drop-down list, |
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and then change the settings under the "Syndicated Authors" section. |
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(You will probably need to select "will be assigned to a new user..." to |
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create a new user account with the appropriate name.) |
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|
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Second, for each feed where posts have been mis-attributed, you need to |
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re-assign already-syndicated posts that were mis-attributed to the |
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correct author. You can do that from **Syndication --> Authors** by |
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using the author re-assignment feature, described below. |
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|
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* AUTHOR RE-ASSIGNMENT FOR A PARTICULAR FEED: The author settings page |
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for each syndicated feed, under **Syndication --> Authors**, now |
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includes an section titled "Fixing mis-matched authors," which provides |
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an interface for re-assigning or deleting all posts attributed to a |
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particular author on a particular feed. |
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|
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* SUPPORT FOR `<atom:source>` ELEMENT IN SYNDICATED FEEDS: Some feeds |
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(for example, those produced by FeedWordPress) aggregate content from |
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several different sources, and include information about the original |
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source of the post in an `<atom:source>` element. A new setting under |
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**Syndication --> Options** allows you to control what FeedWordPress |
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will report as the source of posts syndicated from aggregator feeds in |
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your templates and feeds: you can have FeedWordPress report that the |
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source of a post is the aggregator feed itself, or you can have it |
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report that the source of a post is the original source that the |
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aggregator originally syndicated the post from. |
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|
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By default, FeedWordPress will report the aggregator, not the original |
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source, as the source of a syndicated item. |
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|
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* LOAD BALANCING AND TIME LIMITING FEATURES FOR UPDATES: Some users have |
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encountered issues due to running up against PHP execution time limits |
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during the process of updating large syndicated feeds, or a very large |
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set of syndicated feeds. FeedWordPress now has a feature that allows you |
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to limit the total amount of time spent updating a feed, through the |
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"Time limit on updates" setting under **Syndication --> Options**. By |
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turning on this setting and adjusting the time limit to a low enough |
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figure to avoid your PHP installation's time-out setting. (PHP execution |
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time limits are usually in the vicinity of 30 seconds, so an update |
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time limit of 25 seconds or so should provide plenty of time for updates |
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while allowing a cushion of time for other, non-update-related functions |
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to do their work.) |
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|
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If feed updates are interrupted by the time limit, FeedWordPress uses |
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some simple load balancing features to make sure that updates to other |
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feeds will not be blocked by the time-hogging feed, and will also make |
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sure that when the interrupted update is resumed, FeedWordPress will |
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skip ahead to resume processing items at the point at which it was |
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interrupted last time, so that posts further down in the feed will |
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eventually get processed, and not get blocked by the amount of time it |
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takes to process the items higher up in the feed. |
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|
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* `guid` INDEX CREATION BUTTON: FeedWordPress frequently issues queries on |
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the `guid` column of the WordPress posts database (since it uses post |
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guid URIs to keep track of which posts it has syndicated). In very large |
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FeedWordPress installations, you can often significantly improve |
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performance by creating a database index on the `guid` column, but |
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normally you would need to poke around with MySQL or a tool like |
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phpMyAdmin to do this. FeedWordPress can now save you the trouble: to |
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create an index on the `guid` column, just go to |
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**Syndication --> Options**, and mash the button at the bottom of the |
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"Back End" section. |
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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 |
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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 COMPATIBILITY: FeedWordPress should now be compatible with |
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WordPress 2.6, and should work more or less seamlessly with the new post |
| 298 |
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 |
| 321 |
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 |
| 325 |
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 |
| 327 |
choose for FeedWordPress (1) to drop the category; (2) to drop the |
| 328 |
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 |
| 335 |
syndicated posts, under Syndication --> Options, or you can set tags |
| 336 |
to apply to all incoming syndicated posts from a particular feed in that |
| 337 |
feed's Edit screen. |
| 338 |
|
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* FORMATTING FILTERS: There is a new option available under Syndication -> |
| 340 |
Options which allows users to choose whether or not to expose syndicated |
| 341 |
posts to being altered by formatting filters. By default, FeedWordPress |
| 342 |
has always protected syndicated posts (which are already in display-ready |
| 343 |
HTML when they are syndicated) from being reformatted by formatting |
| 344 |
filters. However, this approach means that certain plugins which depend |
| 345 |
on formatting filters (for example, to add "Share This" bars or relevant |
| 346 |
links to the end of a post) are blocked from working on any syndicated |
| 347 |
posts. If you want to use one of these plugins together with |
| 348 |
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 |
| 352 |
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 |
| 363 |
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 |
| 372 |
with WordPress 2.5.1. |
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|
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* WORDPRESS 2.5 INTERFACE IMPROVEMENTS: FeedWordPress's Dashboard |
| 375 |
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 |
| 380 |
can now take advantage of WordPress's new "Pending Review" features for |
| 381 |
incoming syndicated posts. Posts marked as "Pending Review" are not |
| 382 |
published immediately, but are marked as ready to be reviewed by an |
| 383 |
Administrator or Editor, who can then choose to publish the post or |
| 384 |
hold it back. If you want to review syndicated posts from a particular |
| 385 |
feed, or from all feeds, before they are posted, then use |
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Syndication --> Syndicated Sites --> Edit or Syndication --> Options to |
| 387 |
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 |
| 390 |
FeedWordPress already automatically split del.icio.us tags up |
| 391 |
appropriately appropriately when generating categories. (del.icio.us |
| 392 |
feeds smoosh all the tags into a single `<dc:subject>` element, |
| 393 |
separated by spaces; FeedWordPress un-smooshes them into multiple |
| 394 |
categories by separating them at whitespace.) Unfortunately, del.icio.us |
| 395 |
recently broke the existing behavior by changing host names for their |
| 396 |
feeds from del.icio.us to feeds.delicious.com. Version 0.993 accounts |
| 397 |
for the new host name and un-breaks the tag splitting. |
| 398 |
|
| 399 |
Changes from 0.991 to 0.992 |
| 400 |
--------------------------- |
| 401 |
* AUTHOR RE-MAPPING: FeedWordPress now offers considerable control over |
| 402 |
how author names on a feed are translated into usernames within the |
| 403 |
WordPress database. When a post by an unrecognized author comes in, |
| 404 |
Administrators can now specify any username as the default username to |
| 405 |
assign the post to by setting the option in Syndication --> Options |
| 406 |
(formerly FeedWordPress only allowed you to assign such posts to user |
| 407 |
#1, the site administrator). Administrators can also create re-mapping |
| 408 |
rules for particular feeds (under Syndication --> Syndicated Sites --> |
| 409 |
Edit), so that (for example) any posts attributed to "Administrator" |
| 410 |
on the feed <http://praxeology.net/blog/feed/> will be assigned to |
| 411 |
a user named "Roderick T. Long," rather than a user named |
| 412 |
"Administrator." These settings also allow administrators to filter out |
| 413 |
posts by particular users, and to control what will happen when |
| 414 |
FeedWordPress encounters a post by an unrecognized user on that |
| 415 |
particular feed. |
| 416 |
|
| 417 |
* BUG RELATED TO URIS CONTAINING AMPERSAND CHARACTERS FIXED: A bug in |
| 418 |
WordPress 2.x's handling of URIs in Blogroll links created problems for |
| 419 |
updating any feeds whose URIs included an ampersand character, such as |
| 420 |
Google News RSS feeds and other feeds that have multiple parameters |
| 421 |
passed through HTTP GET. If you experienced this bug, the most likely |
| 422 |
effect was that FeedWordPress simply would not import new posts from a |
| 423 |
feed when instructred to do so, returning a "0 new posts" response. In |
| 424 |
other cases, it might lead to unpredictable results from feed updates, |
| 425 |
such as importing posts which were not contained in the feed being |
| 426 |
syndicated, but which did appear elsewhere on the same website. This bug |
| 427 |
has, hopefully, been resolved, by correcting for the bug in WordPress. |
| 428 |
|
| 429 |
Changes from 0.99 to 0.991 |
| 430 |
-------------------------- |
| 431 |
* WORDPRESS MU COMPATIBILITY: FeedWordPress should now be compatible with |
| 432 |
recent releases of WordPress MU. Once FeedWordPress is made available |
| 433 |
as a plugin, each individual blog can choose to activate FeedWordPress |
| 434 |
and syndicate content from its own set of contributors. |
| 435 |
|
| 436 |
* DISPLAY OF MAGPIE WARNINGS: A number of MagpieRSS warnings or error |
| 437 |
messages that were displayed when performing an automatic update are |
| 438 |
no longer displayed, unless debugging parameters have been explicitly |
| 439 |
enabled. |
| 440 |
|
| 441 |
* BUG RELATED TO INTERNATIONAL CHARACTERS IN AUTHOR NAMES FIXED: Due to a |
| 442 |
subtle incompatability between the way that FeedWordPress generated new |
| 443 |
user information, and the way that WordPress 2.0 and later added new |
| 444 |
authors to the database, FeedWordPress might end up creating duplicate |
| 445 |
authors, or throwing a critical error message, when it encountered |
| 446 |
authors whose names included international characters. This |
| 447 |
incompatability has now been fixed; hopefully, authors with |
| 448 |
international characters in their names should now be handled properly. |
| 449 |
|
| 450 |
* `<media:content>` BUG IN MAGPIERSS FIXED: A bug in MagpieRSS's handling |
| 451 |
of namespaced elements has been fixed. Among other things, this bug |
| 452 |
caused items containing a Yahoo MediaRSS `<media:content>` element (such |
| 453 |
as many of the feeds produced by wordpress.com) to be represented |
| 454 |
incorrectly, with only a capital "A" where the content of the post |
| 455 |
should have been. Feeds containing `<media:content>` elements should now |
| 456 |
be syndicated correctly. |
| 457 |
|
| 458 |
* update_feedwordpress PARAMETER: You can now use an HTTP GET parameter |
| 459 |
(`update_feedwordpress=1`) to request that FeedWordPress poll its feeds |
| 460 |
for updates. When used together with a crontab or other means of |
| 461 |
scheduling tasks, this means that you can keep your blog automatically |
| 462 |
updated on a regular schedule, even if you do not choose to use the |
| 463 |
cron-less automatic updates option. |
| 464 |
|
| 465 |
* Some minor interface-related bugs were also fixed. |
| 466 |
|
| 467 |
|
| 468 |
Changes from 0.981 to 0.99 |
| 469 |
-------------------------- |
| 470 |
Version 0.99 adds several significant new features, fixes some bugs, and |
| 471 |
provides compatability with WordPress 2.2.x and 2.3.x. |
| 472 |
|
| 473 |
* WORDPRESS 2.2 AND 2.3 COMPATIBILITY: FeedWordPress should now be |
| 474 |
compatible with WordPress version 2.2 and the upcoming WordPress |
| 475 |
version 2.3. In particular, it has been tested extensively against |
| 476 |
WordPress 2.2.3 and WordPress 2.3 Release Candidate 1. |
| 477 |
|
| 478 |
* AUTOMATIC UPDATES WITHOUT CRON: FeedWordPress now allows you to |
| 479 |
automatically schedule checks for new posts without using external task |
| 480 |
scheduling tools such as cron. In order to enable automatic updates, go |
| 481 |
to **Syndication --> Options** and set "Check for new posts" to |
| 482 |
"automatically." For details, see "Automatic Feed Updates" in |
| 483 |
README.text. |
| 484 |
|
| 485 |
An important side-effect of the changes to the update system is that if |
| 486 |
you were previously using the cron job and the `update-feeds.php` script |
| 487 |
to schedule updates, you need to change your cron set-up. The old |
| 488 |
`update-feeds.php` script no longer exists. Instead, if you wish to use |
| 489 |
a cron job to guarantee updates on a particular schedule, you should |
| 490 |
have the cron job fetch the front page of your blog (for example, by |
| 491 |
using `curl http://www.zyx.com/blog/ > /dev/null`) instead of activating |
| 492 |
the `update-feeds.php` script. If automatic updates have been enabled, |
| 493 |
fetching the front page will automatically trigger the update process. |
| 494 |
|
| 495 |
* INTERFACE REORGANIZATION: All FeedWordPress functions are now located |
| 496 |
under a top-level "Syndication" menu in the WordPress Dashboard. To |
| 497 |
manage the list of syndicated sites, manually check for new posts on |
| 498 |
one or more feeds, or syndicate a new site, you should use the main page |
| 499 |
under **Syndication**. To change global settings for FeedWordPress, |
| 500 |
you should use **Syndication --> Options**. |
| 501 |
|
| 502 |
* FILE STRUCTURE REORGANIZATION: Due to a combination of changing styles |
| 503 |
for FeedWordPress plugins and lingering bugs in the FeedWordPress admin |
| 504 |
menu code, the code for FeedWordPress is now contained in two different |
| 505 |
PHP files, which should be installed together in a subdirectory of your |
| 506 |
plugins directory named `feedwordpress`. (See README.text for |
| 507 |
installation and upgrade instructions relating to the change.) |
| 508 |
|
| 509 |
* MULTIPLE CATEGORIES SETTING: Some feeds use non-standard methods to |
| 510 |
indicate multiple categories within a single category element. (The most |
| 511 |
popular site to do this is del.icio.us, which separates tags with a |
| 512 |
space.) FeedWordPress now allows you to set an optional setting, for any |
| 513 |
feed which does this, indicating the character or characters used to |
| 514 |
divide multiple categories, using a Perl-compatible regular expression. |
| 515 |
(In the case of del.icio.us feeds, FeedWordPress will automatically use |
| 516 |
\s for the pattern without your having to do any further configuration.) |
| 517 |
To turn this setting on, simply use the "Edit" link for the feed that |
| 518 |
you want to turn it on for. |
| 519 |
|
| 520 |
* REGULAR EXPRESSION BUG FIXED: Eliminated a minor bug in the regular |
| 521 |
expressions for e-mail addresses (used in parsing RSS `author` |
| 522 |
elements), which could produce unsightly error messages for some users |
| 523 |
parsing RSS 2.0 feeds. |
| 524 |
|
| 525 |
* DATE / UPDATE BUG FIXED: A bug in date handling was eliminated that may |
| 526 |
have caused problems if any of (1) WordPress, or (2) PHP, or (3) your |
| 527 |
web server, or (4) your MySQL server, has been set to use a different |
| 528 |
time zone from the one that any of the others is set to use. If |
| 529 |
FeedWordPress has not been properly updating updated posts, or has been |
| 530 |
updating posts when there shouldn't be any changes for the update, this |
| 531 |
release may solve that problem. |
| 532 |
|
| 533 |
* GOOGLE READER BUGS FIXED: A couple of bugs that made it difficult for |
| 534 |
FeedWordPress to interact with Google Reader public feeds have been |
| 535 |
fixed. Firstly, if you encountered an error message reading "There was a |
| 536 |
problem adding the newsfeed. [SQL: ]" when you tried to add the feed, |
| 537 |
the cause of this error has been fixed. Secondly, if you succeeded in |
| 538 |
getting FeedWordPress to check a Google Reader feed, only to find that |
| 539 |
the title of posts had junk squashed on to the end of them, that bug |
| 540 |
has been fixed too. To fix this bug, you must install the newest version |
| 541 |
of the optional MagpieRSS upgrade. |
| 542 |
|
| 543 |
* FILTER PARAMETERS: Due to an old, old bug in WordPress 1.5.0 (which was |
| 544 |
what was available back when I first wrote the filter interface), |
| 545 |
FeedWordPress has traditionally only passed one parameter to |
| 546 |
syndicated_item and syndicated_post filters functions -- an array |
| 547 |
containing either the Magpie representation of a syndicated item from |
| 548 |
the feed, or the database representation of a post about to be inserted |
| 549 |
into the WordPress database. If you needed information about the feed |
| 550 |
that the item came from, this was accessible only through a pair of |
| 551 |
global variables, $fwp_channel and $fwp_feedmeta. |
| 552 |
|
| 553 |
Since it's been a pretty long time since WordPress 1.5.0 was in |
| 554 |
widespread usage, I have gone ahead and added an optional second |
| 555 |
parameter to the invocation of the syndicated_item and syndicated_post |
| 556 |
filters. If you have written a filter for FeedWordPress that uses either |
| 557 |
of these hooks, you can now register that filter to accept 2 parameters. |
| 558 |
If you do so, the second parameter will be a SyndicatedPost object, |
| 559 |
which, among other things, allows you to access information about the |
| 560 |
feed from which an item is syndicated using the $post->feed and the |
| 561 |
$post->feedmeta elements (where $post is the name of the second |
| 562 |
parameter). |
| 563 |
|
| 564 |
NOTE THAT THE OLD GLOBAL VARIABLES ARE STILL AVAILABLE, for the time |
| 565 |
being at least, so existing filters will not break with the upgrade. |
| 566 |
They should be considered deprecated, however, and may be eliminated in |
| 567 |
the future. |
| 568 |
|
| 569 |
* FILTER CHANGE / BUGFIX: the array that is passed as the first argument |
| 570 |
syndicated_post filters no longer is no longer backslash-escaped for |
| 571 |
MySQL when filters are called. This was originally a bug, or an |
| 572 |
oversight; the contents of the array should only be escaped for the |
| 573 |
database *after* they have gone through all filters. IF YOU HAVE WRITTEN |
| 574 |
ANY syndicated_post FILTERS THAT PRESUME THE OLD BEHAVIOR OF PASSING IN |
| 575 |
STRINGS THAT ARE ALREADY BACKSLASH-ESCAPED, UPDATE YOUR FILTERS |
| 576 |
ACCORDINGLY. |
| 577 |
|
| 578 |
* OTHER MINOR BUGFIXES AND INTERNAL CHANGES: The internal architecture of |
| 579 |
FeedWordPress has been significantly changed to make the code more |
| 580 |
modular and clean; hopefully this should help reduce the number of |
| 581 |
compatibility updates that are needed, and make them easier and quicker |
| 582 |
when they are needed. |
| 583 |
|
| 584 |
Changes from 0.98 to 0.981 |
| 585 |
-------------------------- |
| 586 |
Version 0.981 is a narrowly targeted bugfix and compatibility release, whose |
| 587 |
main purpose is to resolve a major outstanding problem: the incompatibility |
| 588 |
between version 0.98 of WordPress and the recently released WordPress 2.1. |
| 589 |
|
| 590 |
* WORDPRESS 2.1 COMPATIBILITY: FeedWordPress is now compatible with |
| 591 |
WordPress 2.1, as well as retaining its existing support for WordPress |
| 592 |
2.0 and 1.5. Incompatibilities that resulted in database warnings, fatal |
| 593 |
errors, and which prevented FeedWordPress from syndicating new posts, |
| 594 |
have been eliminated. |
| 595 |
|
| 596 |
* RSS-FUNCTIONS.PHP RENAMED TO RSS.PHP: if you use the upgraded MagpieRSS |
| 597 |
replacement that's included with FeedWordPress, be sure to note that |
| 598 |
there are now *two* files to upload from the `OPTIONAL/wp-includes` |
| 599 |
subdirectory in order to carry out the upgrade: rss-functions.php and |
| 600 |
rss.php. **It is necessary to upload both files**, due to a change in |
| 601 |
the file naming scheme in WordPress 2.1, and it is necessary to do so |
| 602 |
whether you are using WordPress 2.1 or not. If you only upload the |
| 603 |
`rss-functions.php` file as in previous installations you will not have |
| 604 |
a working copy of MagpieRSS; the rss.php file contains the actual code. |
| 605 |
|
| 606 |
* DATE BUG AFFECTING SOME PHP INSTALLATIONS RESOLVED: due to a subtle bug |
| 607 |
in parse_w3cdtf(), some installations of PHP encountered problems with |
| 608 |
FeedWordPress's attempt to date posts, which would cause some new posts |
| 609 |
on Atom feeds to be dated as if they had apppeared in 1969 or 1970 |
| 610 |
(thus, effectively, never appearing on front page at all). This bug in |
| 611 |
the date handling should now be fixed. |
| 612 |
|
| 613 |
* PHP <?=...?> SHORT FORM ELIMINATED: some installations of PHP do not |
| 614 |
allow the <?=...?> short form for printing PHP values, which was used |
| 615 |
extensively in the FeedWordPress interface code. Since this could cause |
| 616 |
fatal errors for users with the wrong installation of PHP, the short |
| 617 |
form has been replaced with full PHP echo statements, and is no longer |
| 618 |
used in FeedWordPress. |
| 619 |
|
| 620 |
* BETTER USER INTERFACE INTEGRATION WITH WORDPRESS 2.x: Some minor changes |
| 621 |
have been made to help the FeedWordPress interface pages blend in better |
| 622 |
with the user interface when running under WordPress 2.x. |
| 623 |
|
| 624 |
* GLOBAL CATEGORIES BUG RESOLVED: a bug that prevented some users from |
| 625 |
setting one or more categories to apply to syndicated posts from all |
| 626 |
feeds (using the checkbox interface under Options --> Syndication) has |
| 627 |
been resolved. |
| 628 |
|
| 629 |
Changes from 0.97 to 0.98 |
| 630 |
-------------------------- |
| 631 |
|
| 632 |
* WORDPRESS 2.0 COMPATIBILITY: This is a narrowly-targeted release to |
| 633 |
solve a major outstanding problem. FeedWordPress is now compatible with |
| 634 |
both WordPress 1.5 and WordPress 2.0. Incompatibilities that caused |
| 635 |
fatal SQL errors, and a more subtle bug with off-kilter counts of posts |
| 636 |
under a given category, have been resolved. FeedWordPress tests for |
| 637 |
database schema using the global $wp_db_version variable (if null, then |
| 638 |
we presume that we're dealing with WordPress 1.5). |
| 639 |
|
| 640 |
NOTE: I have **not** fully tested FeedWordPress with WordPress 2.0. |
| 641 |
Further testing may reveal more bugs. However, you should now be able |
| 642 |
to get at least basic FeedWordPress functionality up and running. |
| 643 |
|
| 644 |
* AUTHOR MATCHING: FeedWordPress tests several fields to see if it can |
| 645 |
identify the author of the post as a user already in the WordPress user |
| 646 |
database. In previous versions, it tested the user login, the nickname, |
| 647 |
and tested for "aliases" listed in the Profile (see documentation). FWP |
| 648 |
now also matches authors on the basis of e-mail address (*if* an e-mail |
| 649 |
address is present). This is particularly helpful for formats such as |
| 650 |
RSS 2.0, in which authors are primarily identified by e-mail addresses. |
| 651 |
|
| 652 |
Changes from 0.96 to 0.97 |
| 653 |
------------------------- |
| 654 |
|
| 655 |
* INSTALLATION PROCEDURE: Some of the changes between 0.96 and 0.97 |
| 656 |
require upgrades to the meta-data stored by FeedWordPress to work |
| 657 |
properly. Thus, if you are upgrading from 0.96 or earlier to 0.97, most |
| 658 |
FeedWordPress operations (including updates and template functions) |
| 659 |
WILL BE DISABLED until you run the upgrade procedure. Fortunately, |
| 660 |
running the upgrade procedure is easy: just go to either Options --> |
| 661 |
Syndication or Links --> Syndicated in the WordPress Dashboard and press |
| 662 |
the button. |
| 663 |
|
| 664 |
* FEED FORMAT SUPPORT: Support has been added for the Atom 1.0 IETF |
| 665 |
standard. Several other elements are also newly supported |
| 666 |
(dcterms:created, dcterms:issued, dcterms:modified, dc:identifier, |
| 667 |
proper support for the RSS 2.0 guid element, the RSS 2.0 author element, |
| 668 |
the use of Atom author or Dublin Core dc:creator constructs at the feed |
| 669 |
level to identify the author of individual items, etc.) |
| 670 |
|
| 671 |
N.B.: full support of several Atom 1.0 features, such as categories |
| 672 |
and enclosures, requires you to install the optional rss-functions.php |
| 673 |
upgrade in your wp-includes directory. |
| 674 |
|
| 675 |
* BUG FIX: Running `update-feeds.php` from command line or crontab |
| 676 |
returned "I don't syndicate..." errors. It turns out that WordPress |
| 677 |
sometimes tramples on the internal PHP superglobals that I depended on |
| 678 |
to determine whether or not the script was being invoked from the |
| 679 |
command line. This has been fixed (the variables are now checked |
| 680 |
*before* WordPress can trample them). Note that `update-feeds.php` has |
| 681 |
been thoroughly overhauled anyway; see below for details. |
| 682 |
|
| 683 |
* BUG FIX: Duplicate categories or author names. Fixed two bugs that could |
| 684 |
create duplicate author and/or category names when the name contained |
| 685 |
either (a) certain international characters (causing a mismatch between |
| 686 |
MySQL and PHP's handling of lowercasing text), or (b) characters that |
| 687 |
have a special meaning in regular expressions (causing MySQL errors when |
| 688 |
looking for the author or category due to regexp syntax errors). These |
| 689 |
should now be fixed thanks to careful escaping of names that go into |
| 690 |
regular expressions and careful matching of lowercasing functions |
| 691 |
(comparing results from PHP only to other results from PHP, and results |
| 692 |
from MySQL only to other results from MySQL). |
| 693 |
|
| 694 |
* BUG FIX: Items dated December 31, 1969 should appear less often. The |
| 695 |
function for parsing W3C date-time format dates that ships with |
| 696 |
MagpieRSS can only correctly parse fully-specified dates with a |
| 697 |
fully-specified time, but valid W3C date-time format dates may omit the |
| 698 |
time, the day of the month, or even the month. Some feeds in the wild |
| 699 |
date their items with coarse-grained dates, so the optional |
| 700 |
`rss-functions.php` upgrade now includes a more flexible parse_w3cdtf() |
| 701 |
function that will work with both coarse-grained and fully-specified |
| 702 |
dates. (If parts of the date or the time are omitted, they are filled in |
| 703 |
with values based on the current time, so '2005-09-10' will be dated to |
| 704 |
the current time on that day; '2004' will be dated to this day and time |
| 705 |
one year ago. |
| 706 |
|
| 707 |
N.B.: This fix is only available in the optional `rss-functions.php` |
| 708 |
upgrade. |
| 709 |
|
| 710 |
* BUG FIX: Evil use of HTTP GET has been undone. The WordPress interface |
| 711 |
is riddled with inappropriate (non-idempotent) uses of HTTP GET queries |
| 712 |
(ordinary links that make the server do something with significant |
| 713 |
side-effects, such as deleting a post or a link from the database). |
| 714 |
FeedWordPress did some of this too, especially in places where it aped |
| 715 |
the WordPress interface (e.g. the "Delete" links in Links --> |
| 716 |
Syndicated). That's bad business, though. I've changed the interface so |
| 717 |
that all the examples of improper side-effects that I can find now |
| 718 |
require an HTTP POST to take effect. I think I got pretty much |
| 719 |
everything; if there's anything that I missed, let me know. |
| 720 |
|
| 721 |
Further reading: [Sam Ruby 2005-05-06: This Stuff Matters](http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2005/05/06/This-Stuff-Matters) |
| 722 |
|
| 723 |
* BUG FIX: Categories applied by `cats` setting should no longer prevent |
| 724 |
category-based filtering from working. In FeedWordPress, you can (1) |
| 725 |
apply certain categories to all syndicated posts, or all posts from |
| 726 |
a particular feed; and (2) filter out all posts that don't match one |
| 727 |
of the categories that are already in the WordPress database (allowing |
| 728 |
for simple category-based filtering; just load up WordPress with the |
| 729 |
categories you want to accept, and then tell FeedWordPress not to create |
| 730 |
new ones). However, the way that (1) and (2) were implemented meant that |
| 731 |
you couldn't effectively use them together; once you applied a known |
| 732 |
category to all syndicated posts from a particular feed, it meant that |
| 733 |
they'd have at least one familiar category (the category or categories |
| 734 |
you were applying), and that would get all posts past the filter no |
| 735 |
matter what categories they were originally from. |
| 736 |
|
| 737 |
Well, no longer. You can still apply categories to all syndicated posts |
| 738 |
(using either Syndication --> Options, or the feed-level settings under |
| 739 |
Links --> Syndicated). But these categories are not applied to the post |
| 740 |
until *after* it has already passed by the "familiar categories" filter. |
| 741 |
So now, if you want, you can do category filtering and *then* apply as |
| 742 |
many categories as you please to all and only posts that pass the filter. |
| 743 |
|
| 744 |
* BUG FIX: Other minor typos and HTML gaffes were fixed along the way. |
| 745 |
|
| 746 |
* PERFORMANCE: get_feed_meta() no longer hits the database for information |
| 747 |
on every call; it now caches link data in memory, so FeedWordPress only |
| 748 |
goes to the database once for each syndicated link. This may |
| 749 |
substantially improve performance if your database server resources |
| 750 |
are tight and your templates make a lot of use of custom settings from |
| 751 |
get_feed_meta(). |
| 752 |
|
| 753 |
* API CHANGE: Link ID numbers, rather than RSS URIs, are now used to |
| 754 |
identify the feed from which a post is syndicated when you use template |
| 755 |
functions such as get_feed_meta(). The practical upshot of this is you |
| 756 |
can switch feeds, or change the feed address for a particular syndicated |
| 757 |
site, without breaking your templates for all the posts that were |
| 758 |
syndicated from the earlier URI. |
| 759 |
|
| 760 |
* API CHANGE: if you have plugins or templates that make use of the |
| 761 |
get_feed_meta() function or the $fwp_feedmeta global, note that the |
| 762 |
data formerly located under the `uri` and `name` fields is now located |
| 763 |
under the `link/uri` field and the `link/name` field, respectively. Note |
| 764 |
also that you can access the link ID number for any given feed under the |
| 765 |
global $fwp_feedmeta['link/id'] (in plugins) or |
| 766 |
get_feed_meta('link/id') (in a template in post contexts). |
| 767 |
|
| 768 |
* FEATURE: the settings for individual feeds can now be edited using a |
| 769 |
humane interface (where formerly you had to tweak key-value pairs in the |
| 770 |
Link Notes section). To edit settings for a feed, pick the feed that you |
| 771 |
want under Links --> Syndicated and click the Edit link. |
| 772 |
|
| 773 |
* FEATURE: The "Unsubscribe" button (formerly "Delete") in Links --> |
| 774 |
Syndicated now offers three options for unsubscribing from a feed: (1) |
| 775 |
turning off the subscription without deleting the feed data or affecting |
| 776 |
posts that were syndicated from the feed (this works by setting the Link |
| 777 |
for the feed as "invisible"); (2) deleting the feed data and all of the |
| 778 |
posts that were syndicated from the feed; or (3) deleting the feed data |
| 779 |
and *keeping* the posts that were syndicated from the feed |
| 780 |
setting the Link to "Invisible" (meaning that it will not be displayed |
| 781 |
in lists of the site links on the front page, and it won't be checked |
| 782 |
for updates; (2) deleting the Link and all of the posts that were |
| 783 |
syndicated from its feed; or (3) deleting the feed data but keeping the |
| 784 |
posts that were syndicated (which will henceforward be treated as if |
| 785 |
they were local rather than syndicated posts). (Note that (1) is usually |
| 786 |
the best option for aggregator sites, unless you want to clean up the |
| 787 |
results of an error or a test.) |
| 788 |
|
| 789 |
* FEATURE / BUG FIX: If you have been receiving mysterious "I don't |
| 790 |
syndicate...", or "(local) HTTP status code was not 200", or "(local) |
| 791 |
transport error - could not open socket", or "parse error - not well |
| 792 |
formed" errors, then this update may solve your problems, and if it does |
| 793 |
*not* solve them, it will at least make the reasons for the problems |
| 794 |
easier to understand. That's because I've overhauled the way that |
| 795 |
FeedWordPress goes about updating feeds. |
| 796 |
|
| 797 |
If you use the command-line PHP scripting method to run scheduled |
| 798 |
updates, then not much should change for you, except for fewer |
| 799 |
mysterious errors. If you have done updates by sending periodic HTTP |
| 800 |
requests to <http://your-blog.com/path/wp-content/update-feeds.php>, |
| 801 |
then the details have changed somewhat; mostly in such a way as to make |
| 802 |
things easier on you. See the README file or online documentation on |
| 803 |
Staying Current for the details. |
| 804 |
|
| 805 |
* FEATURE: FeedWordPress now features a more sophisticated system for |
| 806 |
timed updates. Instead of polling *every* subscribed feed for updates |
| 807 |
*each* time `update-feeds.php` is run, FeedWordPress now keeps track of |
| 808 |
the last time it polled each feed, and only polls them again after a |
| 809 |
certain period of time has passed. The amount of time is normally set |
| 810 |
randomly for each feed, in a period between 30 minutes and 2 hours (so |
| 811 |
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 |
| 812 |
directly by the feed, which brings us to ... |
| 813 |
|
| 814 |
* FEATURE: FeedWordPress now respects the settings in the `ttl` and |
| 815 |
Syndication Module RSS elements. Feeds with these elements set will not |
| 816 |
be polled any more frequently than they indicate with these feeds unless |
| 817 |
the user manually forces FeedWordPress to poll the feed (see Links --> |
| 818 |
Syndicated --> Edit settings). |
| 819 |
|
| 820 |
Changes from 0.95 to 0.96 |
| 821 |
------------------------- |
| 822 |
|
| 823 |
* FEATURE: support has been added for enclosures in RSS 2.0 and Atom |
| 824 |
0.6+ newsfeeds. WordPress already supports adding enclosures to an |
| 825 |
item; FeedWordPress merely gets the information on the enclosure |
| 826 |
from the feed it is syndicating and plugs that information directly |
| 827 |
into the WordPress database so that (among other things) that post |
| 828 |
will have its enclosure listed in your blog's RSS 2 newsfeed. |
| 829 |
|
| 830 |
Note that enclosure support requires using the optional MagpieRSS |
| 831 |
upgrade (i.e., replacing your `wp-includes/rss-functions.php` with |
| 832 |
`OPTIONAL/wp-includes/rss-functions.php` from the FWP archive) |
| 833 |
|
| 834 |
* FEATURE: for completeness's sake, there is now a feed setting, |
| 835 |
`hardcode url`, that allows you to set the URI for the front page |
| 836 |
of a contributor's website manually (that is, prevent it from being |
| 837 |
automatically updated from the feed channel link on each update). To |
| 838 |
set the URI manually, put a line like this in the Link Notes section |
| 839 |
of a feed: |
| 840 |
|
| 841 |
hardcode url: yes |
| 842 |
|
| 843 |
You can also instruct FeedWordPress to use hardcoded URIs by default |
| 844 |
on all feeds using Options --> Syndication |
| 845 |
|
| 846 |
* FEATURE: by default, when FeedWordPress finds new syndicated posts, |
| 847 |
it (1) publishes them immediately, (2) turns comments off, and (3) |
| 848 |
turns trackback / pingback pings off. You can now alter all three |
| 849 |
default behaviors (e.g., to allow pings on syndicated posts, or to |
| 850 |
send newly-syndicated posts to the draft pile for moderation) using |
| 851 |
Options --> Syndication |
| 852 |
|
| 853 |
|
| 854 |
Changes from 0.91 to 0.95 |
| 855 |
------------------------- |
| 856 |
|
| 857 |
* BUG FIX: Fixed an obscure bug in the handling of categories: |
| 858 |
categories with trailing whitespace could cause categories with |
| 859 |
duplicate names to be created. This no longer happens. While I was |
| 860 |
at it I tightened up the operation of |
| 861 |
FeedWordPress::lookup_categories() a bit in general. |
| 862 |
|
| 863 |
* FEATURE DEPRECATED: the feed setting `hardcode categories` is now |
| 864 |
deprecated in favor of `unknown categories` (see below), which |
| 865 |
allows you to strip off any syndication categories not already in |
| 866 |
your database using `unknown categories: default` or `unknown |
| 867 |
categories: filter`. If you have `hardcode categories: yes` set on a |
| 868 |
feed, this will be treated as `unknown categories: default` (i.e., |
| 869 |
no new categories will be added, but if a post doesn't match any of |
| 870 |
the categories it will be added in the default category--usually |
| 871 |
"Uncategorized" or "General"). |
| 872 |
|
| 873 |
* FEATURE: You can now set global defaults as to whether or not |
| 874 |
FeedWordPress will update the Link Name and Link Description |
| 875 |
settings for feeds automatically from the feed title and feed |
| 876 |
tagline. (By default, it does, as it has in past versions.) Whether |
| 877 |
this behavior is turned on or off, you can still override the |
| 878 |
default behavior using feed settings of `hardcode name: yes`, |
| 879 |
`hardcode name: no`, `hardcode description: yes`, or `hardcode |
| 880 |
description: no`. |
| 881 |
|
| 882 |
* FEATURE: Users can now provide one or several "aliases" for an |
| 883 |
author, just as they can for a category. For example, to make |
| 884 |
FeedWordPress treat posts by "Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger" and "Pope |
| 885 |
Benedict XVI" as by the same author, edit the user profile for Pope |
| 886 |
Benedict XVI and add a line like this to the "User profile" field: |
| 887 |
|
| 888 |
a.k.a.: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger |
| 889 |
|
| 890 |
You can add several aliases, each on a line by itself. You can also |
| 891 |
add any other text you like to the Profile without interfering with |
| 892 |
the aliases. |
| 893 |
|
| 894 |
* FEATURE: Users can now choose how to handle syndicated posts that |
| 895 |
are in unfamiliar categories or by unfamiliar authors (i.e., |
| 896 |
categories or authors whose names are not yet in the WordPress |
| 897 |
database). By default, FeedWordPress will (as before) create a new |
| 898 |
category (or new author) and use it for the current post and any |
| 899 |
future posts. This behavior can be changed, either for all feeds or |
| 900 |
for one or another particular feed. |
| 901 |
|
| 902 |
There are now three different options for an unfamiliar author: (1) |
| 903 |
FeedWordPress can create a new author account and attribute the |
| 904 |
syndicated post to the new account; (2) FeedWordPress can attribute |
| 905 |
the post to an author if the author's name is familiar, and to a |
| 906 |
default author (currently, this means the Site Administrator |
| 907 |
account) if it is not; (3) FeedWordPress can drop posts by |
| 908 |
unfamiliar authors and syndicate only posts by authors who are |
| 909 |
already in the database. |
| 910 |
|
| 911 |
There are, similarly, two different options for an unfamiliar |
| 912 |
category: (1) FeedWordPress can create new categories and place the |
| 913 |
syndicated post in them; (2) FeedWordPress can drop the unfamiliar |
| 914 |
categories and place syndicated posts only in categories that it is |
| 915 |
already familiar with. In addition, FeedWordPress 0.95 lets you |
| 916 |
choose whether posts that are in *no* familiar categories should be |
| 917 |
syndicated (and placed in the default category for the blog) or |
| 918 |
simply dropped. |
| 919 |
|
| 920 |
You can set the default behavior for both authors and categories |
| 921 |
using the settings in Options --> Syndication. You can also set |
| 922 |
different behavior for specific feeds by adding the `unfamiliar |
| 923 |
author` and / or `unfamiliar categories` settings to the Link Notes |
| 924 |
section of a feed: |
| 925 |
|
| 926 |
unfamiliar author: (create|default|filter) |
| 927 |
unfamiliar categories: (create|default|filter) |
| 928 |
|
| 929 |
A setting of `unfamiliar author: create` will make FeedWordPress |
| 930 |
create new authors to match unfamiliar author names *for this feed |
| 931 |
alone*. A setting of `unfamiliar author: default` will make it |
| 932 |
assign posts from unfamiliar authors to the default user account. A |
| 933 |
setting of `unfamiliar author: filter` will cause all posts (from |
| 934 |
this feed alone) to be dropped unless they are by an author already |
| 935 |
listed in the database. Similiarly, `unfamiliar categories: create` |
| 936 |
will make FeedWordPress create new categories to match unfamiliar |
| 937 |
category names *for this feed alone*; `unfamiliar categories: |
| 938 |
default` will cause it to drop any unfamiliar category names; and |
| 939 |
`unfamiliar categories: filter` will cause it to *both* drop any |
| 940 |
unfamiliar category names *and* to only syndicate posts that are |
| 941 |
placed in one or more familiar categories. |
| 942 |
|
| 943 |
These two new features allow users to do some coarse-grained |
| 944 |
filtering without having to write a PHP filter. Specifically, they |
| 945 |
offer an easy way for you to filter feeds by category or by author. |
| 946 |
Suppose, for example, that you only wanted to syndicate posts that |
| 947 |
your contributors place in the "Llamas" category. You could do so by |
| 948 |
setting up your installation of WordPress so that the only category |
| 949 |
in the database is "Llamas," and then use Options --> Syndication to |
| 950 |
set "Unfamiliar categories" to "don't create new categories and |
| 951 |
don't syndicate posts unless they match at least one familiar |
| 952 |
category". Now, when you update, only posts in the "Llamas" category |
| 953 |
will be syndicated by FeedWordPress. |
| 954 |
|
| 955 |
Similarly, if you wanted to filter one particular feed so that only |
| 956 |
posts by (for example) the author "Earl J. Llama" were syndicated to |
| 957 |
your site, you could do so by creating a user account for Earl J. |
| 958 |
Llama, then adding the following line to the settings for the feed |
| 959 |
in Link Notes: |
| 960 |
|
| 961 |
unfamiliar author: filter |
| 962 |
|
| 963 |
This will cause any posts from this feed that are not authored by |
| 964 |
Earl J. Llama to be discarded, and only the posts by Earl J. Llama |
| 965 |
will be syndicated. (If the setting is used on one specific feed, it |
| 966 |
will not affect how posts from other feeds are syndicated.) |
| 967 |
|
| 968 |
|
