Instructions

The first thing you should do is uninstall the old version. You can safely check the remove settings option, but do not check the remove data option! Then confirm the uninstall and click the uninstall button.

After you have removed all the files from the old version, install version 3.0 or later and activate it.

When the new version is active, you can install the upgrader plugin. Download it, upload it to your wp-content/plugins/ folder and activate it. After it is activated, there will be a new admin page: Community News → Upgrader.

On that admin page is an option to delete the old posts after they have converted. If you do not check it, you will have to delete the old posts later using phpMyAdmin or a similar database tool. But if you do check it and something does go wrong, your posts will be lost.

Click the upgrade button to start the conversion of your posts. Keep in mind that this is a very heavy process for your server, and that your blog will be put in maintenance mode while the upgrader is running.

When the upgrader is ready, you can delete the upgrader plugin. Your old posts will now be available in the new version! That’s all!

Download

Version: 1.0
Download: FV Community News Upgrader

Need more help? Let me know!

Depending on how many problems are found during testing, there will be one or two more beta versions before a final release, but I think the plugin is pretty stable at this point. Please try it and tell me what you think about it!

Update: A new release has been uploaded, containing a few critical bug fixes that were discovered.

DETAILS: FV Community News Beta 1, Convert your old posts.

More info in the topic below.

Tagged FV Community News

This topic contains 16 replies, has 2 voices, and was last updated by  Frank 1 year, 1 month ago.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 17 total)

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Author	Posts
Author	Posts
March 20, 2012 at 1:32 AM #640
Frank Member	The first preview of the FV Community News plugin is now available! A quick overview of what this preview will bring: Taking advantage of the custom post type. Thumbnails! Yes, they’re back. Tags. Comments. Easy to use form modification. Integrated search support. Searching anything on your blog will also lookup the community news. New short codes. ([fvcn-post-form], [fvcn-recent-posts]) And more to come! Since the way posts are stored is changed completely, any community news you currently have in your database will be lost. Don’t worry though, a tool to convert them will be available with the official release. Keep in mind that this is an Alpha Preview, thus this version is not meant to be used on any live blog. It is just to demonstrate you what the direction we’re going with it. This version might and probably will contain bugs! If you find any bugs, please report them in this topic. If you have a suggestion to improve some details from this version, please also post them in this thread. If you have some large ideas, please post them in the feature request forum. Installation instructions: Deactivate and remove any old version(s) of this plugin. Upload the new version and activate it. Use the widgets, or one of the short codes. DOWNLOAD: FV Community News 3.0 Alpha Preview 1 A newer alpha version is available: FV Community News 3.0 Alpha 2.
March 22, 2012 at 7:27 PM #658
Keshav Saini Member	I installed the alpha preview on my local server and got following error after clicking on form tab “Fatal error: Call to undefined method stdClass::add_help_tab() in C:\wamp\www\blog\wp-content\plugins\fv-community-news\fvcn-admin\fvcn-form.php on line 143″ Is this problem with my wamp installation or something is wrong with plugin installation? Also on settings tab, there are no settings visible. Only Save Changes button is there. And when I click on save changes button, it takes me to wp-admin options page located at /wp-admin/options.php
March 23, 2012 at 12:41 AM #659
Frank Member	The settings page does not exist yet in this preview . The error does interest me however, since I have never seen it before. It is not a problem with your wamp, that’s for sure. I think that you are running an old version of WordPress (older then 3.3).
March 23, 2012 at 11:44 AM #662
Keshav Saini Member	I am using wordpress version 3.2.1 Does that mean the newer version will not be supported in wordpress 3.2 version? I can’t upgrade my wordpress because most of the plugins I am using are incompatible with wordpress version 3.3
March 23, 2012 at 1:22 PM #663
Frank Member	First, I would strongly encourage you to contact the developers of the plugins that are incompatible, and ask them for an update. Older versions of WordPress do not receive updates anymore, and might be vulnerable to attacks. Second, I won’t be developing using an old version of WordPress, mainly because of that reason. But, if the error you gave before is the only error with 3.2, there is an easy fix. If you open the file fv-community-news/fvcn-admin/fvcn-form.php, and scroll down to line 131, there should be the following lines of code: 1 2 function fvcn_admin_form_help() { $screen = get_current_screen(); Now you will have to add some code so it looks like this: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 function fvcn_admin_form_help() { $screen = get_current_screen(); // Pre 3.3 if (!method_exists($screen, 'add_help_tab')) { return; } This will basically remove the help tab on WordPress versions lower then 3.3 and thus remove the error you described before. This might not be the most elegant solution, but as I said before, I won’t be supporting older versions. If after this ‘fix’ the plugin runs good on 3.2 however, I will put this in so the plugin will work on 3.2 without modifications. I hope you could test this and look forward to the hear the results.
March 23, 2012 at 2:39 PM #665
Keshav Saini Member	That fix worked perfectly. The error is gone and the form fields are loading now. Will report back if I find something else. Thank You
March 23, 2012 at 3:01 PM #666
Keshav Saini Member	There is a bug with user submitted news. I added a news with title “My test Post” and when I click on the link or I click on view post, it returns a 404 error. The link takes me to /fv-community-news/my-test-post and returns 404 error. I can’t figure out what’s happening? What is the permalink structure of user submitted posts? Can there be an option to custom define the permalink structure so that we can optimize the permalinks for SEO?
March 23, 2012 at 3:13 PM #668
Frank Member	Try to go to the permalink settings page, just opening that page is enough. After that the link should work. This is a known bug and still has to be fixed, but thank you for reporting it! The permalink structure will be editable in the settings page of the plugin, but for know it is: /fv-community-news/post-slug/. Same goes for tags, currently they are at: /fv-community-news-tag/tag-slug/.
March 23, 2012 at 3:39 PM #669
Keshav Saini Member	I already did that before posting. I went to permalinks settings page and clicked on save permalinks buttons just to ensure it can overwrite any error generated during plugin installation. But the community news posts are still showing 404 error. My current permalink structure is /%post_id%/%postname%
March 23, 2012 at 4:32 PM #670
Frank Member	I am not able to reproduce this. Could you disable all your other plugins and if that still does not work switch to the default theme? That will give me an idea where to look for this error. If disabling your other plugins works, could you tell me what plugins you are using? Same for you current theme? If this still does not resolve the issue I will have to do a little more research on it Thanks!
March 23, 2012 at 4:53 PM #671
Keshav Saini Member	Nothing above is working for me. Disabled all plugins, changed themes etc.. It appears to be incompatibility with wordpress version 3.2.1 I have an another localhost installation of wordpress 3.3 and there the post links are working fine. I added the same post to 3.3 installation and I can visit individual posts.
March 23, 2012 at 6:50 PM #672
Frank Member	I tried it on a clean 3.2.1 install, but everything worked fine. I’m gonna do some research on it and see if I can find the problem. Even though disabling your plugins did not help, could you list the ones you are using?
March 23, 2012 at 7:03 PM #673
Keshav Saini Member	I am using following plugins Akismet Business Directory Wordpress SEO by Yoast Google XML Sitemap for Videos Google XML Sitemaps outbrain SlideDeck for WordPress WordPress.com Stats WP-DBManager I disabled all these plugins but the news links are still returning 404
March 25, 2012 at 12:24 PM #684
Keshav Saini Member	Today I tested this alpha version with a fresh wordpress 3.2.1 install and I copied all plugins from my blog to imitate my original blog. I did this because you mentioned above that the plugin was working fine with your wordpress 3.2.1 install. To make things same as with my original blog, I installed the same theme, plugins & settings in fresh wordpress install. Then I installed the alpha version of this plugin and it worked completely fine. I tried to install the same plugin on my other blogs and its working perfectly. That leads me to the conclusion that the old database entries of this plugin might not be creating the problem. I will try to do a test on this scenario too.
March 25, 2012 at 2:01 PM #685
Frank Member	It’s great to see that you are putting that much effort in it, thanks! I have been looking over the code, but I was not able to find any errors related to this yet. Since on a clean install of wp 3.2 everything works fine, it isn’t a WordPress related issue. While I’m almost certain that this can not be the problem, does the original blog use any kind of caching? I created another alpha version. There are a lot code enhancements in it, so I’m interested to see if that fixes it.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 17 total)

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The topic ‘FV Community News 3.0 Alpha Preview 1’ is closed to new replies.

FV Code Highlighter

This has been more of a pet project, but with a new version released back in October, it is starting to look quite nice in my opinion. While there are still some bugs that need to be fixed for a full release, things work way better then before.

All the previous available useless options have been removed and made place for a nice, simple and easy to use configuration page. The  previous way of highlighting code was not good at all and is replaced with an actual parser. And since parsing is quite an intense process for a server, caching is build right in without you ever having to worry about it.

If you think that there is still a major function missing from the plugin, be sure to post it!

FV Community News

It has been a while since the last update for this plugin. Last year I did a complete rewrite of it, and was pretty happy with the result. With the last release, quite a few features were removed, because they didn’t function very well, or didn’t belong in this plugin. But the removal of some of the features made a lot of people upset. So was the loss of the thumbnail a big loss, and I received a lot of requests to put it back into the plugin.

Well, I have good new for everyone that misses the thumbnails, they are getting back in! I have been working on a complete rewrite, again. But this time everything is going to chance. The custom database table will be removed and make place for the custom post type WordPress supports. This means that thumbnails will be supported again, as well as comments, tags, ratings, better WordPress integration, and even more.

You will have to be patient for a while though, because the development will still take a while before it is done. But, if any time is a great time to tell me your ideas, it is now! So make sure to post them on the forums!

Note

Keep in mind that while every suggestion will be read, not every suggestion will make it into the plugin. Still, do not hesitate to submit your idea!

With the latest version of the Community News plugin, customizing the templates had been brought to a whole new level.
It is true that you are not able to simple edit the looks in your WP-Admin anymore, but instead there are simple PHP templates included with the plugin that you can easily modify.

Preparation

Before it is possible to start creating your own, custom, templates; a few things have to be done. This is necessary in order to keep your modifications while updating to a later version of the plugin.
Don’t worry, these steps are nothing more then copying, pasting and renaming a directory.

Preparation Steps

1. First go to the plugin directory, usually /wp-content/plugins/fv-community-news/.
2. Copy the Template directory.
3. Go to your themes directory, usually /wp-content/themes/.
4. Paste the Template directory here, and rename it to fvcn
5. You can start editing the template files, located in the fvcn directory, now.

Template Files

Located in the directory you just created, there are a few PHP files. These are the template files you can modify. A brief description of each file will follow below:

form-widget.php
Displays the form in a widget.

form.php
Displays the form.

list-posts-widget.php
Displays the most recent posts in a widget.

list-posts.php
Displays the most recent posts.

posts-archive.php
Displays a complete archive of all the posts ever submitted.

So if, for example, you would like to change the looks of the recent posts in your sidebar widget; you will have to modify list-posts-widget.php.

Template Functions

With version 2.0 and up, the plugin has build-in template tags, very similar to the WordPress ones you use in your themes. You can use these functions to customize the default templates.

Post Functions
These functions can be used to render anything related to a submitted post.

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fvcn_has_posts($args) fvcn_posts() fvcn_the_post() fvcn_get_post_id() fvcn_post_id() fvcn_get_post_author() fvcn_post_author() fvcn_get_post_author_email() fvcn_post_author_email() fvcn_get_post_status() fvcn_post_status() fvcn_get_post_author_ip() fvcn_post_author_ip() fvcn_get_post_title() fvcn_post_title() fvcn_get_post_content() fvcn_post_content() fvcn_get_post_excerpt() fvcn_post_excerpt() fvcn_get_post_url() fvcn_has_post_url() fvcn_post_url() fvcn_get_post_link($text) fvcn_post_link($text) fvcn_get_post_title_link() fvcn_get_post_date($format) fvcn_post_date($format) fvcn_get_post_views() fvcn_post_views() fvcn_get_post_approved() fvcn_post_approved() fvcn_get_post_approve_link() fvcn_post_approve_link() fvcn_get_post_unapprove_link() fvcn_post_unapprove_link() fvcn_get_post_edit_link() fvcn_post_edit_link() fvcn_get_post_spam_link() fvcn_post_spam_link() fvcn_get_post_unspam_link() fvcn_post_unspam_link() fvcn_get_post_delete_link() fvcn_post_delete_link()

Form Functions
Use these functions to create the submission form.

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fvcn_get_form() fvcn_form() fvcn_get_form_message() fvcn_form_message() fvcn_form_processed()

Render Functions
These functions render a complete section.

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fvcn_list_posts() fvcn_post_archives()

Various Functions
Other functions.

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fvcn_get_rss_url() fvcn_rss_url()

More information on these functions will soon be available.
All these functions are located in the file fv-community-news/Includes/TemplateFunctions.php. You can view this file for more information on these functions as well.

Since the last update there have been significant changes. For people who like to browse the code, as well as for the default users who just like to use the plugin.

Code Cleanup

First of all, there has been a huge cleanup in the source code. Comments have been added to all the functions to help people understand the code, and help solving problems. The code itself also has had big improvements; speed and customization are probably the biggest points here. With hooks added to almost every part of the plugin, you can customize it any way you want.

Also the addition of template functions, very similar to the functions you are used to using in your WordPress themes, allow you to change the look of your community news more then ever before. More information on theme customization will follow within a couple of days.

Admin AJAXization

Another thing I really, really wanted to do is speed up the moderation of your Community News. While thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that the only way to do that is by using AJAX. So from now on, Community News moderation will be faster then ever before. Both the dashboard and the moderation page are using JavaScript/AJAX for single post moderation. I think you will really enjoy this change.

And More

Besides these two points there have been a lot more changes of course. In fact, to many things have changed to list them here. In the next week(s) or so I will get documentation up on the various things that require it.

If you can’t wait that long, you don’t have to! You can download the beta right now from the WordPress repository. Just go the the download page, and select the development version.

Enjoy!

People with varying needs, always find it difficult to find a suitable web hosting company, as most web host companies fail to meet their demanding needs. But, finding a good web host company is essential when one wants to setup a website.
While doing this, there are various factors that are taken into consideration. Things such bandwidth allocation, disk space, web tools, the control panel that is offered, security, customer support and uptime guarantee are considered before making the final decision.

In web hosting terms, ‘uptime’, means the amount of guaranteed time during which the site will stay online. Look for those web host companies that can offer an almost 99.9 percent of uptime. Companies that are willing to offer 100 percent ‘uptime’ aren’t to be trusted, as 100 percent just isn’t possible. Bear in mind, that higher the uptime guarantee, better is the web hosting services. With such companies, one doesn’t have to face an unhealthy amount of ‘downtime’; resulting in a better quality website.

Monitor Server Uptime

To ensure that a web hosting company is delivering on the guaranteed uptime, a user can monitor this by referring to 3^rd party monitoring sites. There are a number of these sites that keep a track of things and list the best web host companies, according to their performance. Two of such prominent monitoring sites are – Alertra & Internetseer. Also, those web host’s, which operates on a redundant network – i.e utilize more than one data line to the internet – are more reliable than those who rely (utilize) a single data line. Both these 3^rd party monitoring sites have free and paid monitoring plans, and can be chosen depending on the amount of ‘thorough monitoring’ that is required for the website.

Uptime Guarantee

Basically, what that uptime percent (99.9%) means is – the website will be up and running for the 99.9% of the annual time. Also; network uptime, server uptime, web server and service uptime are all included in this guarantee.

Is it server or network uptime?

It’s difficult to answer this one, as it is something that web host companies are secretive about. Here, it can be either or both …depending on the web host, itself. While reading the terms of service carefully, one can know or find out, that the uptime offered by the web host refers to the network and not the actual servers. So before signing up with any web host, ensure to make a list of what they are offering.

Guest post by:

Lara - http://createhostwebsites.com/

The first thing I decided to do with the plugin is remove some `useless` features. Mostly these are settings hardly anyone uses and just confuses people. What I want is the plugin to be super easy to use, not to much trouble with configuring and other stuff should be necessary.
One other thing that I removed is the possibility to upload images. While this might have been a very nice feature for some of you, I decided it isn’t really something that does belong in this plugin.

Second I’ve completely rewritten the code. The whole plugin is now OOP based, and I’m very happy with the current results, even though I’m not done with it yet.

So what is new then? Well, something that the plugin misses right now is the possibility to create some sort of archives from all the great posts you receive. And this is something that I really wanted to add, and improve further in the future.
For now, I added pagination to the plugin, witch will be the start of being able to have an archive of news on your website. To get this simple archive on your website, use the following tag:
<!--fvCommunityNews:Archive-->
Make sure to put it into your page using the code view!

Besides the start of archives, the plugin received numerous of other updates, bug fixes and other improvements.

If you are interested in testing the plugin, you can download it from the wordpress repository.

If while using it you find any bugs, find ways to improve things or just have this awesome idea, do not hesitate to leave a reply! Or just send me an email.

For new ideas you might have, I would like you to ask to post them into the forums, created for exactly that kind of stuff.

Changes regarding the plugin can kept track of here.

A quick side note; currently the beta says that it is version 1.4. This is correct, and done to make sure there will not be any problems with updating to the final version.

More information about new features of the plugin will follow.