WordPress Google Form v0.38 released

Today I released v0.38 of my WordPress Google Form plugin.  If you look at the change log you’ll see I actually released it a couple times today (ugh).

Release v0.36 addressed a bug when the Browser Check option was enabled.  I susquently released v0.37 because I didn’t tag v0.36 correctly and the WordPress Plugin Repository didn’t see the update.  I then released v0.38 because I left some debug code active that I used to chase down the problem I originally fixed in v0.36.

I apologize for the multiple updates, it certainly was not my intention.  You can find v0.38 on your Dashboard Update or in the WordPress Plugin Repository.

WordPress Google Form v0.35 released

This afternoon I released v0.35 of my WordPress Google Form plugin. Included in this update are:

  • Minor fix to email formatting to address poorly formed HTML.
  • New short code attribute (spreadsheet='<url>’) which, when used in conjunction with the email=’on’ attribute setting, will include a link to the Google Docs Spreadsheet which contains the form submission data.

You can find the latest version of WordPress Google Form in the WordPress Plugin repository or as a Dashboard Update.

Finally fixed the Multi-Page Google Form results

Since I first added support for Multi-Page Google Forms I have had a sample form on my site with the submitted results displayed on another page. I use the Inline Google Spreadsheet Viewer plugin to display the submitted results on the page except it wasn’t working.

It worked fine for my Sample Form results but not the Multi-Page Form results. I finally figured out that I was using the wrong Google Docs key to display the results. I was using the key that Google Doc’s Share functionality provides instead of the key that the Publish to Web Page provides.  It is this later key that allows the plugin to operate correctly.  Doh!  Need to read the documentation a little closer I guess.

Email Users v4.3.14 released

This morning I pushed the v4.3.14 update to Email Users to the WordPress plugin repository.  This update adds a new Spanish language translation, updates the French language translation, and fixes a problem where users who have either the capability to send to a single user OR the capability to send to multiple users, but not both, receive a permission denied error when trying to send email.  A number of the permission errors have also been updated so they use the proper WordPress styling.

WordPress Google Form v0.33 released

This afternoon I released the v0.33 update to WordPress Google Form.  This update introduces a new setting which allows users who are using the email notification to turn off the Bcc to the Blog Admin feature.  This setting is on my default to match the behavior of the plugin prior to v0.32.

Several other minor bugs were also fixed which affected how default plugin settings are handled.  You can find the update in the WordPress Plugin Repository or on your WordPress Dashboard Update notification.

What happened to v0.32?  I failed to update the version number in the plugin file before tagging the relase in the WordPress plugin repository so I had to increment the version number again.

The Magic of the get_users() Function

While working on Email Users recently I encountered a performance problem with some SQL which I had received via the WordPress Hackers Mailing List back in January of 2008.  At the time I needed it for my wp-SwimTeam plugin (where I am still using it) and it served me well.  When I first committed a patch for Email Users (v3.4.0) I used this SQL to allow sorting of the users as prior to v3.4.0, only the usernames were displayed.

It turns out this SQL is pretty inefficient (I am by no means an SQL expert) and it was causing performance problems for people using Email Users with a large number of users.  Again I turned to the WP Hackers Mailing List and received some significantly improved SQL.

The ensuing discussion also recommended migrating my SQL to the WordPress API get_users() function.  I am all for using the API when I can as it is much safer and typically much easier to work with.  In this case, I couldn’t understand how it would help me retrieve the first and last names from the Meta table that I needed.  It wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the Codex so I was confused.

A subsequent post in the thread mentioned the “magic” of get_users() which I then tried and sure enough, the data I wanted was available.  Ok, now I am really confused.  Where does this magic data come from.  Fortunately another post referenced this article which explains how these magic methods work and why the data is available.  This is pretty neat and very useful although I have no idea how developers would know this exists based on the documentation in the Codex.

These “magic methods” strike me as one of those “inside baseball” things that not being a full time WordPress developer I’d never know about.  It is very useful and something I’ll certainly remember and use in the future.  Thanks to the WordPress Hackers Mailing List – an incredibly valuable resource.

I am now contributing to the E-Mail Users plugin

I am happy to say that I have been granted Subversion commit access to the popular Email Users plugin.  I have been using this plugin for a number of years and have submitted several patches which were included in the 3.4.x releases.  Recently I needed to add some functionality to support the MacDolphins web site and use of the plugin and after submitting a patch, I was invited to be a contributor by Vincent Prat at Marvin Labs which I gladly accepted.

The 4.0.0 release of Email Users is a pretty substantial change.  It updates the plugin to use the WordPress Options API and updated menu API.  It also adds a new feature that allows easy access to managing the email options for one or more users.  No more visiting the User Profile for each user, bulk actions are now available!

More to come over the next few days.

WordPress Google Form v0.30 now available

Similar to yesterday’s update, today I pushed out wpGForm v0.30.  This version  addresses an unusual problem which prevents the custom confirmation CSS 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 when enabled, wpGForm adds a custom CSS block to style the form during processing, so the CSS definition portion of the content ended up with paragraph tags in it.  This results in CSS which won’t parse correctly and of course it never styles the form.  I have updated the plugin to generate the CSS definition as a single line of text where it previously spanned several lines for readability purposes.

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

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.