Fv Community News Version 1.3
Posted by Frank Verhoeven | Filed under Wordpress Plugins
After more then 1000 downloads, and a few weeks since the last update, it is time for the next level of this plugin. Improved Akismet, Translatable, and more.
Template Tags
A lot of people were asking for it, template tags for use in posts/pages. Well, here they are:
<!--fvCommunityNews:Form--> <!--fvCommunityNews:Submissions-->
The first one will display the form, just as the widget does, but then within a page or post. The next one will display a list of submissions, as defined in the admin panel (under: Settings – Template). You can simply put these tags in your post or page, and thats all.
Uninstall Feature
While I was thinking what this plugin needs, I decided that it should have an uninstall function. Before, you could only deactivate the plugin through the wp-admin panel under plugins, but when that was done, all the data/settings still remain in your database and on your server. With this new Uninstall function you can remove all settings, and/or all data before you deactivate the plugin and remove all the plugin files.
Translatable
Before version 1.3, all text displayed on the screen, produced by this plugin was static data, you couldn’t change it. From now on the plugin uses the WordPress functions for displaying text, wich makes it possible for you to translate it and run the plugin in your own language. There are no languages included yet, but don’t hesitate to submit your own translation. I will include it in the plugin and would be very thankfull.
Custom Response Messages
Didn’t like the standard responses? You are now able to customize them so they fit for you. Go to Settings – Appearance, and modify all possible responses. Also a simple stylesheet is included to give the form a little style.
Improved Akismet
As of the previous (1.2 series) version, I included an Akismet class to fight spam. Unfortunately, this class was causing some serious problems at random servers. Because of this I searched for another solution, and found the MicroAkismet functions. These do work on blogs where the old class failed. I want to thank my friend Ivan, who made his blog availible for some tests.
December 28th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
[...] Version 1.1 Version 1.2 Version 1.3 [...]
December 31st, 2008 at 6:37 am
Frank,
I really like your plugin with one exception. I want to include submissions into the WP posts. I have used TDO mini forms which works like this, but I like you plugin better. Any way to add this function. Usually TDOMF adds the submission as a draft and when approved it is posted to WP like any other post.
January 4th, 2009 at 4:05 am
This is a great thing to hear
So if I understand it right, you want the submissions go into the same DB-table as the posts? I wonder exectly why you want this, since submissions are other things then posts.. Anyway, I could create an option witch allows you to do this.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
thanks, this plug-in doesn’t seem to work well with Google Chrome, and unfortunately a significant amount of my visitors have elected to use this browser so I can’t use this plug-in.
Just a heads up.
January 17th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Fixed :p
See this post
January 18th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Hello
Yes, I like this plugin a lot too and I am interested too into the same thing…to have it become a post (if wanted – meaning that I can check that in the post interface somewhere)
Thanks!
January 18th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Thank you for this awesome plugin. I’m working on a local government citizen network community blog, and this plugin helps a lot.
In order to make the content section of my page load first, I did try putting the Javascript files for the plugin at the bottom of the page with add_action(‘wp_footer’, ‘fvCommunityNewsHead’, 30) – substituting wp_footer for wp_head. This appears to work fine.
I had no trouble with Google Chrome.
After adding the 1.3 version widget as is, my site no longer validated with xhtml. I will try to both download the latest version 1.31. and work with the structure to see if I can get it to validate. (I don’t understand most of the code so I can’t go there.)
Thank you for all your work on this and for the anti-spam functionality.
January 18th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
After updating to version 1.31, putting it in my sidebar via the functions rather than widgets and adding rows and cols attributes to the textarea tag on line 69 of the fvCommunityNewsForm.php, I got it to successfully validate as xhtml 1.0 transitional.
Thanks again for your good work.
January 25th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Sorry, my english´s very bad.
I have 1.3.1 version and when put these tags in page (editing php) no show nothing, only commented php. Can help me?
January 25th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Hi there, Frank
I think this is a superb plugin. One of the best ideas I’ve seen during my time using wordpress.
I wanted to translate the language file to spanish but it turns an error. Do you mind sending me a plain po file so I can translate it, please? I’ll send it back to you when it’s done so you can offer it or include it in the download for others to use.
Regards from Spain,
Frank Pereiro
January 30th, 2009 at 10:02 am
An option to add submissions as posts will be added
@Mary
Thanks for the tip mary, will fix this as well.
@Jose Maria
These tags are for use in posts when you create them in the wp-admin. If you want to add tags using PHP, you should use the tags as described here.
@Frank Pereiro
File send. Great to hear you want to translate it. I’m not a hero when it comes to languages.
February 18th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
I’m not sure if I already suggested this.. but to make this plugin even more versatile, is the option of having more than one submission form and one output.. Thus someone might want the option to have 4 forms that will all produce separate outputs..
Like for the blog that I run, I would want individuals to submit technology news and I will post those submissions on my technology category page… and I would want individuals to submit in the politics page and I will have that displayed in the politics page..
This is such a great plugin, but for big blogs and magazine sites, the previous function is desperately needed..
February 27th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Hi there, just wanted to stop by and say thank you for a wonderful and fully functional plugin. I am a developer myself and use this plugin everyday on my website. Thanks for all the hard work that went and goes into it.
Best Regards.
March 7th, 2009 at 6:18 am
HI,
It a fantastic plugins but when I used the above code
it only worked for the articles but not for the pages
when its on the pages it only shows
Name * Email * Post Title * Post URL Description * Phone Number * Loading…
Do I have to configure anything
Cheers
March 30th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
It’s imperative that we can have different forms that users can use. As the above speaker say TDO mini forms can do this job for us.. but your plugin is more sleek and easier to use – so…
1. Form post to specific category
)
2. Posts as real posts (so one doesn’t need to redo a bunch of post-specific coding and templating..
3. A “notify” on this page so i know when you might answer this.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
BUG:
It’s adding an extra closing paragraph tag just before it closes the list element for both the first and last submission. All other submissions post correctly.
Also receiving several XML parsing errors.
August 7th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
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September 18th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Thanks for sharing. Gonna try this now on my website!
November 15th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
GREAT PLUGIN! However, is it possible to add a ’star rating’ system to it?