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| 1 | 1 | FeedWordPress Change Log |
| 2 | 2 | ======================== |
| 3 | -Changes from 2009.0707 to Trunk | |
| 3 | +Changes from 2009.0612 to Trunk | |
| 4 | 4 | ------------------------------- |
| 5 | - | |
| 6 | -### Compatibility ### | |
| 7 | - | |
| 8 | -* SIMPLEPIE IS NOW USED TO PARSE FEEDS; NO MORE MAGPIERSS UPGRADES NEEDED: | |
| 9 | - One of the biggest changes in this release is that FeedWordPress no | |
| 10 | - longer depends on MagpieRSS to parse feeds, and has switched to the much | |
| 11 | - more up-to-date and flexible SimplePie feed parser, which is included as | |
| 12 | - a standard part of WordPress versions 2.8 and later. Using SimplePie will | |
| 13 | - hopefully allow for better handling of feeds going further, and will | |
| 14 | - allow me greater flexibility in determining how exactly the feed parser | |
| 15 | - will operate. It also means that FeedWordPress no longer requires | |
| 16 | - special upgrades to the WordPress core MagpieRSS files, and should | |
| 17 | - eliminate quite a bit of complexity. | |
| 18 | - | |
| 19 | -* MAGPIERSS COMPATIBILITY LAYER FOR EXISTING FILTERS AND ADD-ONS: However, | |
| 20 | - I have also implemented a compatibility layer to ensure that existing | |
| 21 | - filters and add-ons for FeedWordPress which depended on the MagpieRSS | |
| 22 | - data format *should not be broken* by the switch to SimplePie. Going | |
| 23 | - forward, I recommend that new filters and add-ons be written to take | |
| 24 | - advantage of the SimplePie object representations of items, feeds, etc., | |
| 25 | - rather than the MagpieRSS arrays, but the MagpieRSS arrays will still | |
| 26 | - be available and older filters should continue to work as they have in | |
| 27 | - the past. | |
| 28 | - | |
| 29 | -* COMPATIBILITY WITH WORDPRESS 2.9.x and 3.0: This release has been tested | |
| 30 | - for the existing WordPress 2.9.x branch and with the upcoming release of | |
| 31 | - WordPress 3.0. Changes in the user interface JavaScript between WordPress | |
| 32 | - 2.8.x and WordPress 2.9 caused the tag box interface element to break in | |
| 33 | - the Syndication --> Categories & Tags settings page; changes in the API | |
| 34 | - functions for adding new authors caused fatal errors under certain | |
| 35 | - conditions in WordPress 3.0. These breakages have been fixed. | |
| 36 | - | |
| 37 | -* DROPPED LEGACY SUPPORT FOR WORDPRESS PRIOR TO 2.8: Because SimplePie is | |
| 38 | - not included with versions of WordPress prior to 2.8, I have chosen to | |
| 39 | - drop legacy support for WordPress versions 1.5 through 2.7. If you are | |
| 40 | - using FeedWordPress with a version of WordPress before 2.8, you will | |
| 41 | - have to upgrade your installation of WordPress in order to take | |
| 42 | - advantage of this release. | |
| 43 | - | |
| 44 | -* PHP 5.3 COMPATIBILITY: A couple of compatibility issues, which were | |
| 45 | - causing fatal errors amd ugly warnings for users of PHP 5.3, | |
| 46 | - have been eliminated. | |
| 47 | - | |
| 48 | -### Features and Processing ### | |
| 49 | - | |
| 50 | -* INTERFACE REORGANIZATION: The interface restructuring, began with | |
| 51 | - Version 2009.0612, has been completed. Catch-all settings pages have | |
| 52 | - been eliminated entirely for pages that cover each aspect of handling | |
| 53 | - a feed: Feeds & Updates, Posts & Links, Authors, Categories & Tags, | |
| 54 | - and Back End handling of the database and diagnostic information. | |
| 55 | - Extensive new interface hooks allow add-on modules to significantly | |
| 56 | - change or extend the FeedWordPress admin interface and workflow. | |
| 57 | - | |
| 58 | -* STORING INFORMATION FROM THE FEED IN CUSTOM FIELDS: Many users | |
| 59 | - have written to request the ability to store information from elements | |
| 60 | - in the feed in a custom field on each post. (So that, for example, if | |
| 61 | - post includes a `itunes:duration` element, you could store the contents | |
| 62 | - in a Custom Field called `duration` on the post (for a Theme to access | |
| 63 | - later). The Custom Post Settings under Syndication --> Posts & Links now | |
| 64 | - allow you to access any item or feed tag, using a syntax similar to | |
| 65 | - a much-simplified version of XPath. See Posts & Links settings for | |
| 66 | - details. | |
| 67 | - | |
| 68 | -* UPDATE-FREEZING ON MANUALLY EDITED POSTS: FeedWordPress now allows you | |
| 69 | - to mark posts that have been manually edited, so that the changes you | |
| 70 | - make will not be overwritten by later updates from the feed. If you make | |
| 71 | - manual edits to a particular post, just check the "Manual editing" | |
| 72 | - checkbox in order to protect your changes from being overwritten. If you | |
| 73 | - want to block *all* posts from being updated after they are imported | |
| 74 | - for the first time, a new "Updated Posts" setting in Posts & Links | |
| 75 | - allows you to freeze all posts from a particular feed, or all syndicated | |
| 76 | - posts. | |
| 77 | - | |
| 78 | -* SETTING: FEED-BY-FEED SETTINGS FOR WHERE PERMALINKS POINT TO: You've | |
| 79 | - always been able to tell FeedWordPress whether permalinks for posts | |
| 80 | - should point to the original source of the story or the local copy. Now | |
| 81 | - you can choose different policies for different feeds, instead of one | |
| 82 | - global policy for all feeds. (Of course, you can still use a global | |
| 83 | - default if you prefer.) | |
| 84 | - | |
| 85 | -* SETTING: USER CONTROL OVER TIMING BASIS. You can now determine the | |
| 86 | - schedule on which feeds are considered ready to poll for updates -- | |
| 87 | - by default feeds become ready for polling after about 1 hour. You can | |
| 88 | - now increase or decrease the time window under Syndication --> Feeds & | |
| 89 | - Updates. (However, please pay *CAREFUL ATTENTION* to the recommendations | |
| 90 | - and DO NOT set the scheduling lower than 60 minutes unless you are | |
| 91 | - ABSOLUTELY SURE that you have specific permission from webmaster who | |
| 92 | - provides that specific feed to poll more frequently than that. If you | |
| 93 | - set this too low (and about 60 minutes is the polite minimum if you | |
| 94 | - haven't been given a different figure), most webmasters will consider | |
| 95 | - the frequent hits on their server as rude, or even downright abusive. | |
| 96 | - | |
| 97 | -* OTHER SETTINGS: New settings also include the ability to stop FWP from | |
| 98 | - resolving relative URLs within syndicated content, and the ability to | |
| 99 | - choose whether FeedWordPress should indicate the comment feed from the | |
| 100 | - original source, or the local comment feed, when providing the comment | |
| 101 | - feed URL for a syndicated post. | |
| 102 | - | |
| 103 | -### PARSING ### | |
| 104 | - | |
| 105 | -* BETTER DATE HANDLING -- FEWER FLASHBACKS TO 1969 and 1970: FeedWordPress | |
| 106 | - has made some bugfixes and some improvements in the logic for parsing | |
| 107 | - dates. This should allow FeedWordPress to correctly parse more dates in | |
| 108 | - more feeds; and, in the last resort, when FeedWordPress fails to | |
| 109 | - correctly parse a date, to fall back to a more intelligent default. This | |
| 110 | - should hopefully avoid most or all error conditions that have resulted | |
| 111 | - in articles being erroneously dated to the dawn of the Unix epoch | |
| 112 | - (31 December 1969 or 1 January 1970). | |
| 113 | - | |
| 114 | -* FULL-TEXT "EXCERPTS" NOW PROPERLY SHORTENED. Based on a straightforward | |
| 115 | - reading of the existing RSS specs, it's reasonable for the | |
| 116 | - rss:description element to be read as a plaintext summary or excerpt for | |
| 117 | - the item containing the description -- with the full text of the item, | |
| 118 | - if available, in another, better-suited element, such as the de facto | |
| 119 | - standard content:encoded extension element. The problem is that uses of | |
| 120 | - RSS rarely have much to do with anything like a straightforward reading | |
| 121 | - of the specs. As a result, many actual RSS producers in the wild put the | |
| 122 | - full text of the article in a description element. But since | |
| 123 | - FeedWordPress has treated this text as a summary, this produces | |
| 124 | - aggregated posts with lengthy "excerpts" containing the full text of the | |
| 125 | - article. This release of FeedWordPress fixes the problem by doing a | |
| 126 | - little digging before treating rss:description as a summary: if the | |
| 127 | - description element is used properly as a plain text summary, then | |
| 128 | - FeedWordPress will take the summary provided by the feed, rather than | |
| 129 | - recreating its own excerpt from the full text; but if an RSS item has no | |
| 130 | - full-text element other than description, FeedWordPress will treat the | |
| 131 | - description element as the full text of the article, and generate a | |
| 132 | - shortened excerpt automatically from that text. | |
| 133 | - | |
| 134 | -### API ### | |
| 135 | - | |
| 136 | -* TEMPLATE API: new template tags `get_local_permalink()` and | |
| 137 | - `the_local_permalink()` allow you to access the permalink for a post on | |
| 138 | - your aggregator site, even when FeedWordPress is rewriting permalinks to | |
| 139 | - point to the original source site. | |
| 140 | - | |
| 141 | -* NEW HOOKS FOR ADD-ONS AND FILTERS: I have added a number of new hooks | |
| 142 | - which allow add-on modules to filter more precisely, gather information | |
| 143 | - at more points, and to enhance the FeedWordPress admin interface. For | |
| 144 | - a list of new hooks and documentation, see the FeedWordPress | |
| 145 | - documentation wiki at | |
| 146 | - <http://feedwordpress.radgeek.com/wiki/add-ons-and-filters> | |
| 147 | - | |
| 148 | -* FILTER API: A number of new utility methods have been added to the | |
| 149 | - SyndicatedPost class to make it easier for filters and add-ons to | |
| 150 | - | |
| 151 | -* FILTER API: Globals $fwp_channel and $fwp_feedmeta DEPRECATED. These | |
| 152 | - global variables, originally introduced to allow filters access to | |
| 153 | - information about the source feed in `syndicated_item` filters (which | |
| 154 | - were passed in through global variables rather than as parameters | |
| 155 | - because of a bug in WP 1.5 which was then fixed in 1.5.1) have been | |
| 156 | - DEPRECATED. If you have any filters or add-ons which still depend on | |
| 157 | - these global variables, you should see about fixing them to access data | |
| 158 | - about the source feed using the SyndicatedPost::link element instead. | |
| 159 | - For documentation, see the FeedWordPress documentation wiki at | |
| 160 | - <http://feedwordpress.radgeek.com/wiki/syndicatedpost> and | |
| 161 | - <http://feedwordpress.radgeek.com/wiki/syndicatedlink>. | |
| 162 | - | |
| 163 | -* DIAGNOSTICS: I've included a number of new diagnostic options and | |
| 164 | - messages, which should allow an experienced user to better investigate | |
| 165 | - any problems that may crop up. | |
| 166 | - | |
| 167 | -### Bug Fixes ### | |
| 168 | - | |
| 169 | -* BUGFIX: & IN PERMALINKS NO LONGER CAUSING ATOM OR HTML VALIDATION | |
| 170 | - EFFORTS: Many users reported an issue in which syndicating a feed with | |
| 171 | - special XML characters in the URLs (& was the most common, since it is | |
| 172 | - used to separate HTTP GET parameters) would cause the aggregator's | |
| 173 | - feeds to produce invalid (malformed) XML. This update addresses the | |
| 174 | - issue in Atom feeds. Unfortunately, it has not been technically possible | |
| 175 | - to address the problem in RSS 2.0 feeds, due to limitations on | |
| 176 | - WordPress's internal templates for RSS feeds. | |
| 177 | - | |
| 178 | -* BUGFIX: BROKEN URLS IN "POPULAR POSTS" AND SIMILAR PLUGINS SHOULD NO | |
| 179 | - LONGER BE BROKEN. A number of users noticed an issue where plugins and | |
| 180 | - templates that listed posts in locations outside of the post loop | |
| 181 | - (for example, "Popular Posts"-style plugins that listed posts in the | |
| 182 | - sidebar), often produced the wrong URL for post links. (Typically, all | |
| 183 | - the posts listed would get the same wrong URL.) This should now be | |
| 184 | - fixed. Thanks to Björn for sending in a quick fix! | |
| 185 | - | |
| 186 | -* MINOR BUGFIXES: This release includes a number of fixes to minor bugs | |
| 187 | - and compatibility issues, including: silent failures of the "Syndicate" | |
| 188 | - button, "Illegal Offset Type" error messages from MagpieRSS, | |
| 189 | - | |
| 190 | - | |
| 191 | -Changes from 2009.0618 to 2009.0707 | |
| 192 | -* BUGFIX: WORDPRESS 2.8 AJAX COMPATIBILITY ISSUES RESOLVED (blank or | |
| 193 | - truncated "Syndicated Sites" administration page): Due to changes in the | |
| 194 | - AJAX interface elements between WordPress 2.7 and WordPress 2.8, several | |
| 195 | - FeedWordPress users encountered an issue where the front "Syndication" | |
| 196 | - page in the FeedWordPress administrative interface would come up blank, | |
| 197 | - without the normal "Syndicated Sites" list and "Update" control, or | |
| 198 | - sometimes wth the boxes visible but one or both of them truncated, with | |
| 199 | - only the title bar. This issue should now be resolved: with the new | |
| 200 | - version of FeedWordPress, the compatibility issue that caused the | |
| 201 | - disappearance should be eliminated, and if boxes are shown with only | |
| 202 | - their handle visible, you should once again be able to drop down the | |
| 203 | - rest of the box by clicking once on its title bar. | |
| 204 | - | |
| 205 | -* BUGFIX: TAG SETTING WIDGET FIXED. Due to changes in interface elements | |
| 206 | - between WordPress 2.7 and WordPress 2.8, people using FeedWordPress with | |
| 207 | - WordPress 2.8 found that the widget for setting tags to be applied to | |
| 208 | - all syndicated posts, or all syndicated posts from a particular feed, | |
| 209 | - no longer displayed "Add" and "Remove" buttons for individual tags. This | |
| 210 | - issue has now been fixed, and the tagging widget should once again work | |
| 211 | - more or less exactly like the tagging widget for individual posts in the | |
| 212 | - normal WordPress admin interface. | |
| 213 | - | |
| 214 | -Changes from 2009.0613 to 2009.0618 | |
| 215 | -* BUGFIX: MYSTERY ERRORS WITH WITH WP_Http_Fsockopen HTTP TRANSPORT | |
| 216 | - ELIMINATED: Thanks to a combination of a subtle bug in FeedWordPress, | |
| 217 | - and changes to the HTTP transport code in WordPress, a number of users | |
| 218 | - encountered an error in which any time they attempted to add a new feed | |
| 219 | - through the FeedFinder interface, FeedWordPress would fail and display | |
| 220 | - an HTTP request failure diagnostic message. The subtle bug has been | |
| 221 | - fixed, and with it, most of these errors should now be eliminated. | |
| 222 | - | |
| 223 | - Be sure to upgrade your MagpieRSS to the most recent MagpieRSS version | |
| 224 | - after you have insalled FeedWordPress 2009.0618, or this bug fix will | |
| 225 | - not take effect. | |
| 226 | - | |
| 227 | - | |
| 228 | -Changes from 2009.0612 to 2009.0613 | |
| 229 | 5 | * INTERFACE/BUGFIX: WORDPRESS 2.8 CATEGORY BOX FIX. Thanks to a subtle |
| 230 | 6 | change in class names between the WordPress 2.7 and 2.8 stylesheets, |
| 231 | 7 | category boxes in the FeedWordPress settings interface tended to overflow |
| 232 | 8 | and have a lot of messy-looking overlapping text under WordPress 2.8. |
