Category Archives: Download

08.06.12
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WordPress Google Form v0.31 released

After a couple weeks of sitting on a new release, I have pushed out v0.31. This release addresses the ModSecurity problem that I had noted in a post a few weeks ago.  After chasing this problem down with the help of several users who were willing to work with debug code and/or give me access to their server, I was able to figure out what was going on.

The simple explanation is that the Apache ModSecurity module can be pretty restrictive and returns 403 errors when a form is submitted.  WordPress then does it’s thing and concludes that the page should be displayed again.  The net result is that form is never submitted and no feedback is provided to the user.  From what I’ve seen, ModSecurity doesn’t like URLs passed as parameters which WordPress Google Form does for the Google Form – it needs it to submit the responses to the form.

With this update two things have changed:

  1. If a 403 error is returned, the plugin will check for it and show a message if/when it happens.
  2. The Google Form URL is passed as an encoded parameter so it doesn’t get flagged by ModSecurity.

These changes won’t address all instances when ModSecurity kicks in – if your form includes any input where a user can type a response AND they user submits a URL as a response, there is a pretty good change a 403 error will be issued by the server.

Hopefully this change will help some very odd use cases where users don’t understand why the plugin isn’t working for them.  It has worked in four  (4) additional situations that users have asked me to look at it plus the two original that I looked at.

You can find the update in the WordPress Plugin Repository.

07.18.12
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wpGForm and Apache Sercurity

A while back I was contacted by a user who had deployed wpGForm on their site with a problem they wanted my help with.  In looking at it I was absolutely stumped as to why it wasn’t working.  Nothing appeared obvious – when the form was submitted, the form would be displayed again as if for the first time.  In the process of chasing down this problem I’ve added quite a bit of debug code but in the end, I found Firebug’s Net Panel incredibly useful.

In this particular case it was showing me that the form was being posted but a 403 Permission Denied response resulted.  Why?  The exact same URL worked to show the form, why wasn’t it working to process the form?  I ended up separating the rendering and processing part of the plugin thinking this was the problem (like it was on a site a couple of weeks ago) but it didn’t make any difference (although it was the right thing to do).  I was still getting 403 problems.

I was working closely with the site owner, they were nice enough to allow me to really dig into their site.  What did I find?  A bunch of plugin and theme minor issues that I chased thinking they were conflicting somehow to no avail.  I ended up opening a ticket with the hosting provider and once we clarrified the problem, they sent me so error log information:

[error] ModSecurity: Access denied with code 403 (phase 2).Match of "rx
://%{SERVER_NAME}/" against "MATCHED_VARS:gform-action" required.
[file "/usr/local/apache/conf/modsec/10_asl_rules.conf"]
[line "489"]
[id "340162"]
[rev "262"]
[msg "Atomicorp.com UNSUPPORTED DELAYED Rules: Remote File Injection attempt
in ARGS (AE)"] [data "
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/formresponse?formkey=dhzsutftwllwzwf6lwd
yb0xcmkzsogc6mq&ifq
"]
[severity "CRITICAL"]
[hostname "lanaddicts.org"]
[uri "/test-form/"]
[unique_id "UAbUbnrJTaEAAHtoboQAAAAG"]

Wow! At first I didn’t know what to make of this. A Google Search led me to this Atomic Corp Wiki. I decided that the Apache Security Module must not like the Google Form URL that I need to carry around through the process in order to submit the form variables to Google. I decided to encode it and then decode it when needed to see if that would satisfy the Apache Security Module.

Guess what?  It works!!!!  This is a big relief as I have another user with almost the exact same error being reported and I am betting my updated plugin will fix their problem too.

If you want to try out an early build while I continue to test, you can find one here.

07.09.12
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wp-SwimTeam v1.34.963 available for download

This afternoon I fixed a couple of minor bugs and pushed out v1.34.963.  The primary new feature in this release is the ability to export Meet Entries to Hy-tek Team Manager.  I have had lots of requests to support Hy-tek over the years so I am happy to say I can finally support it!

As anyone who has read my postings over the past few years knows, I am no fan of Hy-tek.  Between the closed data format and the awful user interface, it amazes me that their products have become the defacto standards for Swim Team and Swim Meet management but they have.  If you want to play in this space you need to interface with Hy-tek.  Fortunately some smart guys decoded the HY3 checksum and through lots of experiments some other people have figured out the HY3 file format so building on the work of others, I can now export a roster and meet entries in HY3 format.

I would appreciate feedback in this area as I have tested what I can but there is no such thing as too much testing and I may not have envisioned every scenario.  There is also a very strong possibility that some of the fields in the HY3 format may not be in the right place or contain the right data.

I also fixed a number of issues when browsing Parents, Swimmers, and the Roster where the Search function wasn’t working correctly.  Most of these problems were due to the SQL changes I made to address performance issues but a couple of them were due to allowing search against fields which are computed as opposed to extracted from the database.

07.07.12
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wp-SwimTeam v1.34-beta with Hy-tek HY3 meet entries!

Tonight I posted an early build of wp-SwimTeam v1.34.  You can download it and manually install it if you would like to try it.  This build introduces the ability to export Meet Entries in Hy-tek HY3 format which can be imported directly into Team Manager and Meet Manager.

This build also addresses a number of bugs I’ve encountered, the most notable being the inability to generate a single swimmer roster export in SDIF and HY3 formats.  Instead of just one swimmer, the entire roster was exported.  This has been fixed.  The CSV export was not affected by the bug.

Please let me know if you run into any issues.  I plan to release this later today after some more testing.

Download:  [download#14]

If you run into any problems, please let me know.  I’d like to release this update in the next day or so.

06.19.12
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wp-SwimTeam v1.31.918 now available

This morning I released an update for wp-SwimTeam.  This version addresses a few issues and completes the Hy-tek Team Manager Roster Import functionality.  You can find it on the Download and Installation page or through the WordPress Dashboard and the Plugin Repository.

  • Completed Hy-tek Roster export. All fields that can be mapped into some sort of logical Hy-tek Team Manager field are now supported. TM supports up to three custom fields in the roster import file, if optional swimmer fields are enabled, the first three (or fewer) will be mapped into the corresponding TM custom field.
  • Fixed bug where in some instances, the first name would be blank.
  • Fixed alignment (right instead of left) of Swimmer Id field on SDIF F0 records in entries export.
  • Fixed minor white space issue in PHP source code which in some cases seems to cause the Job Commitment Report to hang.
06.04.12
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wp-SwimTeam v1.29.903 now available

I have just pushed out v1.29.903 of wp-SwimTeam.  This update addresses a couple of bugs, notably with the Job Commitments report, and adds some new functionality.

New in v1.29:

  • Fixed bug which prevented the Job Commitment report from running correctly.
  • Fixed bug which caused “$credit” to appear in the CSV version of the Job Committment Report instead of the actual number.
  • Added new option to set initial value on swimmer labels with numeric sequences.
  • Fixed bug with SDIF profile when Geography was set to US which resulted in a broken form.
  • Elimited some debug code which generated output when exporting entries.

Also included in this build are all of the changes included in the v1.28 beta release which I never formally made available.

  • Added button to Swim Team User Profile form to quickly open user’s WordPress User Profile form.
  • Tidied up several of the reports to make them consistent. Each should now display the HTML report on screen when exporting another format.
  • Re-implemented download solution for actions which generate downloadable files (e.g. CSV, SDIF, etc.)
  • Phase 1 of Hy-tek HY3 export support. Roster can be exported in HY3 format which imports into Hy-tek Team Manager.
  • Fixed bug which enabled job signup for all users regardless of setting on Jobs Options tab.

This update has been committed to the WordPress Plugin Repository and should appear on your WordPress Dashboard shortly and is also available from the Download and Installation page.

05.30.12
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WordPress Google Form v0.29 now available

Today I pushed out wpGForm v0.29.  This version adds one new feature and addresses an unusual problem which prevents the custom confirmation page, either AJAX or redirection, from loading properly.

In some cases, it appears that a plugin or theme, through the use of a filter (likely the_content or wpautop), was inserting paragraph tags into the content which by itself isn’t a problem, however wpGForm adds a jQuery script to the content during processing, so the jQuery script portion of the content ended up with paragraph tags in it.  This results in Javascript which won’t parse correctly and of course it never runs.  I have updated the plugin to generate the jQuery script as a single line of text where it previously spanned several lines for readability purposes.

Based on several requests, I have added a new short code attribute, sendto=<email address>, which when used in conjunction with email=’on’, will send a form submission note to the specified email address instead of the blog administrator (who is still bcc’d for backup purposes).

The update should appear on your Dashboard shortly and is also available from the WordPress Plugin Repository.

05.18.12
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And there was much rejoicing – Hy-tek HY3 export now in beta!

I have made an early release of wp-SwimTeam v1.28 available for download.  This new version introduces a long requested a feature:  Hy-tek HY3 format export of the roster!  The exported HY3 can be read into Hy-tek Team Manager eliminating the need to hand enter your roster.

The Hy-tec HY3 support is not complete but I wanted to get it out there.  Currently only D1 records are exported, the other record types which contain the contact information and address for the swimmer will be added soon.  Once the roster is complete I plan to move on to meet entries in HY3 format.

Special thanks to Joe Hance and Troy Delano both who have helped me with the Hy-tek checksum and file format.

Download:  [download#14]

Please give it a shot and let me know if you run into any issues.

05.12.12
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wp-SwimTeam v1.27.879 now available

A new build, v1.27.879, is now availble. This build fixes the problem in the Jobs module where previously assigned jobs were not being displayed correctly which resulted in jobs appearing open which actually were not.

This build also addresses a few minor nits which it looks like didn’t make it into the version of the plugin available from the WordPress plugin repository.

  1. I’ve added a new option to Miscellaneous tab to control how time is formatted. Usage of the format is not yet pervasive through the plugin.
  2. Enhanced wpst_meet_schedule shortcode with two new attributes: fmt=’time format’ and ‘showtime=yes|no’. Default is not to show the time and use the time setting from the Miscellaneous tab. The fmt attribute expects a string formatted following the conventions outlined in the PHP date function.
  3. Removed redundant code from Swim Meet module.

The build has been pushed to the WordPress plugin repository and also appears on my Download & Installation page.

05.12.12
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wp-SwimTeam v1.26.871 released tonight

I released a second build today, v1.26.871 was pushed out late tonight.  I don’t like to do this as constantly having the Update notice on your Dashboard can be a bit of a nuisance.  We’re gearing up for Swim Team, he have our season opening party in one week so I’ve am trying to get ready and have been working on the plugin a lot over the past few days.

This build addresses a few minor nits but the primary new feature is the ability to display the meet time as part of the wpst_meet_schedule short code.

  1. I’ve added a new option to Miscellaneous tab to control how time is formatted. Usage of the format is not yet pervasive through the plugin.
  2. Enhanced wpst_meet_schedule shortcode with two new attributes: fmt=’time format’ and ‘showtime=yes|no’. Default is not to show the time and use the time setting from the Miscellaneous tab. The fmt attribute expects a string formatted following the conventions outlined in the PHP date function.
  3. Removed redundant code from Swim Meet module.

The build has been pushed to the WordPress plugin repository and also appears on my Download & Installation page.