Email Users v4.5.3-beta-1 now available

I’ve been looking at a problem reported on the WordPress Support Forum.  While I can’t replicate the problem, I have found some things in the code which constructs the email headers which needed some attention.

This beta build has refactored the construction of the email headers as well as a couple recently requested minor enhancements (%POST_CONTENT% keyword, CC Sender).

Email Users Beta (30995 downloads )

Google Forms v0.58-beta-1 available

This afternoon I posted a beta release of v0.58 to address a problem reported in the WordPress Support Forum.  The problem arises when the answer for a checkbox or radio button contains the apostrophe character.  This releases fixes the problem but needs testing.  I did some testing using the form which was having UTF-8 issues and all seems ok.

Google Forms Beta (40265 downloads )

WordPress Google Forms v0.56-beta-4 available

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I have released beta-4 of WordPress Google Forms.  This beta update addresses a problem reported where the settings for the form weren’t being saved correctly (e.g. turning Title on would not appear to be saved).

It turns out that the settings were saved correctly so the form would work as desired however subsequent edits to the form would return all of the settings to the default state which would then be saved unless the author noted they were wrong and set them correctly again.

The logic to pre-populating the current state of the form’s settings was faulty.  This beta update fixes this bug.

Google Forms Beta (40265 downloads )

WordPress Google Form v0.56-beta-3 available

This evening I released beta-3 of WordPress Google Form.  This release addresses a requested feature to have “pre-populated fields which disappear when clicked“.

My solution to this request was to implement the placeholder attribute for the input tag.  This is also much easier than expecting users to decipher the complex URL requirements to pass default values to a form.  The difference between a placeholder and a default value is the placeholder value cannot be submitted.  In the case of wanting to have something like “email address”, which isn’t a valid email address, in the form field as a “placeholder”, using the placeholder attribute is a better solution.  At least I think so.

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Placeholder values are defined when the form is added as a Custom Post Type.

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Like the custom validation rules, to use placeholders you will need to know the name attribute for the field you are defining a placeholder for.  Refer to this post I wrote on Advanced Validation to learn how to identify the field name.

Google Forms Beta (40265 downloads )

WordPress Google Form v0.56-beta-1 available

I have posted the initial beta version of WordPress Google Form v0.56.  This preliminary release has bug fixes to handle UTF-8 characters in from values and also handles the unusual case where a tab character is embedded in the form response value.

The embedded tab issue was particularly tricky to track down as it is (a) it wasn’t obvious since web browsers render tabs as white space and (b) it isn’t easy to actually enter a tab into an HTML form (which is how Google Forms are created).  I was able to embed a tab in a form response by pasting some text from Word.  It turns out the user that had the problem I was trying to resolve had done the exact same thing.

Handling the tabs turned out to be tricky so initially I thought I thought I might have to simply detect them and display a warning but in the end I was able to find a viable solution.

This beta release also has the first implementation of Transients for the initial rendering of a form.  This use case is likely not all that common but came from a user who had four (4) forms on a single page and was seeing timeouts from Google.  Caching the initial rendering of the form will help in this situation.  Thanks to Camilo Flores for providing a patch which I based the implementation on.

Google Forms Beta (40265 downloads )

Email-Users v4.5.0-beta-1 now available

I’ve been working on Email-Users this week and have added quite a bit of functionality.  Before I release it I’d like to get a few people put an early version through its paces so if you have a chance to test it out, please do so.

This new version has a number of new features:

  • All postboxes on the admin screens now have their own CSS ID and Class so they can be styled or easily hidden.
  • Email-Users now support integration with two User “Group” plugins:  User Groups and User Access Manager.  When you set up groups in either of these plugins you will be able to select them as recipients from the Group Email and Post/Page Notification pages.
  • Selection of Custom Filters as Group Recipients is no longer a separate action – it, along wit the Group support noted above, are all presented in the same target recipient selection list.  This allows the Custom Filters to work on Post/Page Notifications as well.
  • A new action has been introduced:  mailusers_update_custom_meta_filters  This action will allow for updating meta filters dynamically just prior to their use.  This is the best way to create complex meta filters or integrate other plugins.  There is a good example in the plugin README file.
  • Chinese language support has been contributed.
  • Integration panel added to the Plugin Settings Page.
  • Updated language support files which incorporate 20+ new strings.

A few other things were cleaned up while I was tinkering with the code as well.

Email Users Beta (30995 downloads )

I have also updated the sample plugin file I use to test Custom Meta Filters.  It has the full example of the “Public Works” example.

Email Users Custom List (11510 downloads )

New capabilities for Email-Users

I am finally getting around to incorporating a patch for Email-Users which adds integration with the User Groups plugin.

The way the patch was written it removed the ability to send to Groups based on standard WordPress Roles and replaced it with Groups defined by the User Groups plugin.  While this is useful for the user who submitted the patch (thank you for doing so), I don’t think it is the right way to do this sort of integration in the general case.

I don’t think eliminating the standard functionality is always a good idea so I am incorporating the patch such that being able to target groups of users through either standard WordPress roles OR via User Groups defined groups is possible.

To that end, I have always considered the way I implemented custom groups and filters sort of half finished.  While they work for sending email, they don’t work for Post and Page notifications which is a limitation.  So I have decided to revamp how I am presenting groups of users for both Email and Notifications.

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You will be able to mix and match Roles, User Groups (when the plugin is active) and Filters to target the recipients of Email and/or Notifications.  I hope to have a beta release out later today for people to test with.

WordPress Google Form v0.54-beta-7 now available

I have just posted what I hope is the final beta release of WordPress Google Form v0.54.  This latest beta release fixes a couple of minor issues, notably the lack of stickiness on the Form Submission Log setting and adds one new feature.  You can now define a CAPTCHA message to appear below the CAPTCHA input box.  These two screen shots show the information on the Plugin Settings page and the result when the form is rendered.  The message is placed in a DIV which has the class “wpgform-captcha-description” so it can be styled as needed.

Google Forms Beta (40265 downloads )

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