Changes

1. Removed disclaimer page, not really required. Terms and Conditions are being written up for agreement before purchase is made.
2. Removed multiple debug function lines in postmaker file to help speed up importing.
3. Auto keywords, description and tags settings is per campaign now. The ability to prepare them for us exists and Stage 2 will now always show the options to activate these functions where before they could be removed. However Stage 2 is far more simple.
4. Custom Post Layouts are now part of a CSV Profile system. Layouts page renamed to CSV Profiles. CSV Profile data is stored in Wordpress options table as part of a move to get all data into Wordpress tables rather than have plugin tables. This will be done gradually but most of the groundwork is there now.
5. Settings for special functions such as tag generating or custom permalink are now stored in Wordpress options as an array.
6. Stage 2 no longer has any column pairing, it is now always automated due to the new CSV Profile system.
7. Stage 2 special functions columns have been replaced with checkboxes. Columns for each special function are set in the CSV Profile. We can now activate or deactivate each special function by checking or un-checking the boxes. This handy if you are simply testing your approch out and getting used to the plugin.
8. Corrected an issue with the Posts Per Hit value not being saved properly in Settings.
9. Fixed custom slug function. Rarely used function so it was never picked up on that it was not working properly.
10. Applying your own dates from csv file did not always work, changes have been made to improve this and it works far better.
11. Change the name of all variables involved in processing CSV Profile name as a conflict with language translator plugin suspected.
12. CSV Profile text object for name had the ID of “Title” which is the same as the WYSIWYG editor title which was causing conflict.
13. Campaign management now shows last 100 posts created for viewing or edit. Later will have pagination for listing all posts created by a campaign.
14. CSV Uploader page now uses the new csv profile array with the profile being created both in Wordpress options and plugin tables.
15. Moved delimiter entry to CSV Profile page, underneath special column title tokens where it becomes apparent if the delimiter is correct or not.
16. CSV files can now only have one profile and the interface has been changed to prevent selection of csv files with a profile already.
17. Profiles cannot be named manually, they are automatically named using the csv file name they are created for. This is less to do for the user so makes things a little easier.
18. Table names have had “plus” removed since the plugin originally had 3 editions. It has been removed from sql code and all php.
19. Function names have been shorted with “pro” or “plus” replaced with just “csv2post” as I only sell one edition now.
20. My own styles plus images have been removed from plugin files and standard Wordpress styling is now being applied.
21. Auto keyword function removed from plugin. Plugins like All In One SEO will handle Meta keywords for us more effeciantly.

1. When using url cloaking each posts clicks will be stored in a custom field for that post.
2. The total of all clicks when using url cloaking has been added to the main page.
3. SQL statement for creating the campaigns table has been fixed.

• Fixed a none critical undefined variable message on Stage 6 of the New Campaign process.
• Removed all code for the Blog 2 Blog publishing, it will be a seperate plugin now (csv 2 post buyers will get it free)
• Options was setting character encoding setting to “none” when it should have been “default”, caused no post content bug.

The new version is 0.3.0 and not much changed other than making a move towards real localisation. Please continue to use 0.2.9 unless you wish to work on translation or you are experiancing change number 2 below. Please send me any PO and MO files generated.

Changes

1. Added the internationalization functions for xgettext to all main strings, translation still to be done but plugin ready for using poEDIT and other software.
2. Lines 4 and 8 in postmaker_functions.php no longer has undefined constants causing errors in footer.

Short Description

1. Changed all static boxes with headers to collapsable divs using Wordpress css styles.
2. Applied utf8_encode to post content and title to fix issue with special characters.
3. Added character encoding option (charset selection) to settings page, by default it will be UTF-8.

Full Description

1. I’m now using the Wordpress css that allows you to create boxes with headers and can be collapsed. This is similiar to accordian approaches and allows far more content to be displayed in a smaller area.
2. Tried the “utf8_encode” on the post title and main content data just before it is used in the wp_insert_post object. Tests worked just fine and a range of special characters that previously caused problems were being displayed correctly.
3. I’ve still got a lot to learn about character encoding but I seen a plugin that provided multiple encoding options so I’ve set such an option up on the Settings page. It does not have a lot of choices right now but it’s ready to improve when the need arises. The few people that need this fix should be happy with UTF-8 I think but please let me know if you need CSV 2 POST to have any other encoding applicable.

Short Description Of Upgrades

0. Random date function now has options on the settings page for setting the date range.
1. Update function csv2post_doesexist_csvfilesfolder() to no longer indicate csv files folder should be in upload directory, thanks to William for Pure Real Media for pointing this out.
2. Removed error report php file, it will not be used.
3. Removed tooltips option from settings page and all css tooltips are no longer in use.
4. Changed setting page labels to links with title attribute text for better tooltip help.
5. I realised that the random date function would create a new random date for each post during the update phase so that has been corrected.
6. Add ShopperPress custom fields to stage 4 to aid in manual custom field creation.
7. Made slight improvement to campaign management, when deleting you will be brought back to the current campaign list and not just a confirmation message.
8. When viewing a campaigns details you can now scroll to bottom of the page to open other campaigns.
9. Added csv file delete function to the CSV Uploader page.
10. Users can no longer submit a csv file on the layout page if its delimiter has not yet been entered on the CSV Uploader page.

Full Description Of Upgrades

1. You can now set your own date range from which the random publishing date will be created from.
2. Deleted a file that was going to be used for a debugging page however I’ve decided against having such a page and will write debug info to text files.
3. CSS tooltips were put in place many weeks ago and they were nice but did not work for everyone, possibly mac users. The option for them has not been removed from the settings page. Tool tip information can now be found by hovering over most labels that have been changed to links.
4. Basic interface changed, more links added so users can hover over and view tool tips.
5. I changed the random date generation part of the postmaker_csv2post.php so that it is not applied during update phase. This is something I initially never considered but at least i spotted it. It would have continued to change the date of posts everytime they were updated. The updating process technically updates a post even if there is no new data, so all posts would keep getting new dates without this change.
6. Simple interface change on stage 4 to aid ShopperPress users. I’ve added the ShopperPress custom fields.
7. Previously if you deleted a campaign the page would only display a message. If you have multiple campaigns to delete especially after some testing then that can be a little annoying. You will now be brought back to view the list of current campaigns after deleting one.
8. If you open a campaign to view you can scroll right down the page to click and open other campaigns. This saves one click if your browsing multiple campaigns because you don’t need to click on the main menu link anymore. A very little improvement like this helps to speed the use of the entire plugin.
9. Makes sense to be able to delete csv files from the same page you can upload them. The interface needs better styling but it will do for now. You can still delete csv files on the layouts page also, handy.
10. Users can no longer upload a csv file then open the file on the WYSIWYG editor page if they have not went to the CSV Uploader page and entered the delimiter. Previously users could and it caused a lot of confusion which results in many emails to me.

Next Planned Upgrades

1. Improving special character handling is top priority and I’ve been collecting some intel from customers so I can debug properly. It is a rare problem but growing more common as my plugin sells more to customers in none English speaking countries.
2. Translation for the same reason as above however I keep getting pulled away from doing this. One reason I’ve held of is lack of good examples. Most plugins I have do not have any i18l in them which kind of throw me off a bit. I can’t figure out if those plugins are translated in a different way or it’s just common for authors not to bother translating! The whole Wordpress being a world of it’s own has slowed this down because theres always so many approaches and opinion on what is best. I have however begun using a plugin that uses translation and I believe it’s a good example to learn from. I’m now confident that I can get this done before the end of 2009.

Short Description – Version Changes 0.2.7

1. Added title attributes to headers on campaign management.
2. Removed tag exclusion words from options reinstall to prevent user entry being deleted, no need to delete once made really.
3. Added debugging function for tracking application execution points, function writes to debugging file in “csv2postfiles” folder.
4. Changed the argument on line 51 wp-csv-2-post.php using “isset” and not “!empty” as it started to prevent processing.

Full Description – Changes 0.2.7

1. Labels on the campaign management page have been changed to links and the title attribute added with some tooltips.
2. I realised that some of you may write up a lot of exclusion words or enter them from elsewhere then on reinstalling the settings they would be erased. Now in most cases I would say the management of the plugin is up to the user but this is one thing that could really piss someone off if they don’t realise their exclusion words are no longer set. I don’t know everyones data and what they may need to exclude so I think it’s best that when using the reset tool for the plugin settings, this setting is excluded and not reset to the default.
3. Finally added a debugging function thats worth the time, it now writes to text file which you will find in the same directory is your csv files. The function is placed at key stages through the processing script and will help me to quickly determine where the plugin is reaching. Later I’ll add it to even more lines in my scripts and build up a more detailed log of what is happening with the plugin. Right now it helped me to quickly determine that the plugin was refusing to process and what was causing it. What was causing it was fine before so I’m stumped however I managed to fix it, so I’d say the new debugging function was well worth while.
4. This was mentioned in number 3 here, the argument in question would simple check what page the user was visiting. If it waas the “newcampaign_plus” page then the plugin does not attempt to import data or do any processing. Otherwise it is ok to go ahead, however that is not what was happening. Even when on the home page of the blog the plugin was writing to the log file and stating that processing could not be done due to being on the new campaign process admin pages. The syntax looked fine to me and it is basic php but I’m too busy to figure it out 100%. What I have done is changed the argument block so that processing is the only possible alternative if the intial argument is not true.

Changes – Small Description

• Cloaking: URL Cloaking and forwarding now works properly with affiliate links being made very short.
• Missing Column: Database is now updated with the new “postslugurl” column which caused error on stage 2.
• Incorrect Table Name: The custom fields table create statement has been fixed and now names the table correctly.
• Special Values List: WYSIWYG editor page no longer lists special column values in a table, you can copy and paste the list to the editor now.
• Stage 6: Stage 6 will now display “Not Used” instead of 999 for unused functions in the new campaign process.

Changes – Full Description

Here are the full details of each change to the Pro edition of my data import plugin. The main change is url cloaking which will change all your very long affiliate links to very short ones. The resulting links will look as if they are pointing to a page on your own blog.

Cloaking

The pro edition was meant to have this function working already but due to a set back it was delayed and a bit longer than I would have liked. I figured out that I had to use status_header on my add_action hook. This is the only way to make a header action before any output in Wordpress. A standard php website would obviously not require any of this information and the lack of this knowledge is one reason why this upgrade completion was delayed. I made some changes around line 25 of cloakedurls_csv2post.php and postmaker_csv2post.php also got some important changes. Specifically to the areas regarding updating posts with a new custom field which holds the old cloaked url and updating post content with that new cloak url.

A sample cloak url example from my localhost testing blog looks like this “http://localhost/testing/wordpress?viewitem=397″. On a live blog it would look something along the lines of http://www.1book2books.co.uk/?viewitem=397 which I think you will agree is a lot shorter than your average affiliate url.

It works by taking the “viewitem” number and uses it to locate a custom field named “urlcloaking_csv2post” with the same ID as passed by the url. That custom field holds the real/cloaked url link, retrieves it and then uses the php header function to forwarding the visitor who clicks on the cloaked link to the real page. Hope that made a lot of sense it’s only 2am here!

Missing Column

The plugin was not adding a new column to the csv2post_campaigns table and it was causing an error when submitting Stage 2. The new column supports the move of special post parts from the drop down menus to radio button columns instead. That change helps to use the special functions and still use automated pairing.

Incorrect Table Name

I made a silly mistake of changing a table name to one that was meant for the new ShopperPress DataFeed Importer plugin. A simple fix and the fault only effected those who were using manual custom fields on Stage 4, which is usually very few people.

Special Values List

This is an interface change on the WYSIWYG editor page to make life a little easier. I bet everyone tried to copy and paste multiple special values from the list of columns from your csv file. Then when you paste them into the WYSIWYG editor it brings the html tables with it, which is bad on most themes. I’ve removed the html table structure and used line break to drop each value to a new line instead. Good thing now is you can copy and paste the entire list into your WYSIWYG editor then play around with it from there. I was tempated to be even smarter and put the values straight into the WYSIWYG editor but I’m not sure what is best really, either way theres work to be done!

Stage 6

Another small interface change, very basic. Some items on the page which confirm your campaign settings was showing “999″ which is the value I use when a column id is not being used, I need to use an integer so went with 999 because it stands out and I doubt anyone will have a csv file with 999 columns to trigger a match. The way CSV 2 POST works is that if a value is not equal to 999 then a column ID has been set and that is taking as the user wanting to use the function associated with that value. Thats all good for a programmer but I’ve changed Stage 6 to state “Not Used” instead to be more user friendly.

Short Description

• Column Pairing Fields: Stage 4 for custom field creation has been extended to allow any number of custom fields for paring to csv file columns.
• Stage 4 Field Total: Settings has the option of entering the number of manual column paired custom fields you would like on stage 4.

Long Description

For further instrictions on the above changes to my Wordpress plugin please read on. The screenshot below shows that I have entered 2 for the field total option on the Settings page.

Column Pairing Fields

Stage 4 is for creating custom fields in one of the most easiest approaches you can find. You simply enter the name of your custom field then pair it with a column of your csv file data. It really is that easy but until now there were only 4 sets of fields for pairing and so this restricted the ability to use the plugin with special themes such as ClassiPress or ShopperPress which are highly popular.

You can now have any number of field sets on Stage4 as I improved the code in the “stage4_form.php” file. It now uses a while loop to create as many number of fields as we need. Initially I took a more simply but less flexable approach for the sake of releasing the plugin quickly. The default number of these fields is now 10.

Stage 4 Field Total

To increase or decrease the number of fields on Stage 4 for pairing columns you can now enter the number on Settings. I think ShopperPress has up to 12 custom fields so simply enter 12 in the box for this setting.