Just recently I introduced WP-Table Reloaded Extensions, small code snippets that add further functions to the plugin by using the provided “Plugin Actions” and “Plugin Filters”.
The first such Extension that I’m going to present here, is an Automatic Converter for URLs to Links. » Read more: Extension 1: URL to Link Conversion
Not even two weeks have passed since the release of WP-Table Reloaded 1.5. During its development I was already working on several new features that were not yet stable enough to make it into the release, which is why I postponed them to 1.6. Now I believe they are ready for inclusion into the plugin, but as I already did with the previous versions, I’d like to announce a public beta test first.
[Update 2: Just published 1.6-RC1, please use the download below.]
[Update: Just released 1.6-beta2, see the download below.]
Among the new features and enhancements for 1.6 are:
I already announced the largest two features in my Christmas Surprise blog post.
If you are willing to help and want to take part in the beta test, please download the developer version “1.6-RC1″. I plan to release the plugin in about a week (around the 6th of January).
Note that I dropped support of WordPress 2.7, so you will need WordPress 2.8 or higher to use the new release!
To install it, deactivate your current version, replace the folder “wp-table-reloaded” in your “plugins” folder with the one from the downloaded zip-file and activate the plugin again. Deactivation and Activation are VERY IMPORTANT!
BUT: Please note that this is a beta release. Although I’ve tested it on my site, I do NOT recommend using it on your production site, just yet. As always: Please make sure to have a backup of your files and your database before installing it. Thanks!
If you encounter any bugs, errors or problems, please leave them here as a comment. Feature requests are also welcome, of course.
I would also like all translators to update their translations. There’s .pot-file included in case you need it. After you are done, please email me the *.po and the *.mo file of your language. In any case: Please let me know, if you will be translating the new version or if you can not do it (for whatever reasons). Big thanks to all translators!
Thanks already to all beta-testers and translators! As always: Please don’t hesitate to comment or email me with any questions!
One of the main additions to version 1.5 of WP-Table Reloaded were so-called “Plugin Actions” and “Plugin Filters”. Both are part of the “Plugin Hooks”, a widely used concept within WordPress. This explanation from the WordPress Codex sums it up.
The way Plugin hooks work is that at various times while WordPress is running, WordPress checks to see if any Plugins have registered functions to run at that time, and if so, the functions are run. These functions modify the default behavior of WordPress.
Well known hooks are for example “wp_head” and “wp_footer”, which allow adding functions to the head and footer of a page that was generated by WordPress.
Actions and Filters can not only be used by the WordPress Core, but also by plugins and it is possible to add new ones. And this is what I did in WP-Table Reloaded 1.5. Many of these hooks were added to the plugin which now allow other plugins to add or change functions in WP-Table Reloaded.
These new functions may be as short as one line or as long as a complete new plugin. For WP-Table Reloaded, I will – over the course of the next weeks and months, but with no fixed time frame or frequency – present such pieces of code on this website, as a series of blog posts. As these code snippets are not complete WordPress plugins, I will call them WP-Table Reloaded Extensions, as that describes what they are a little bit better. » Read more: Introducing WP-Table Reloaded Extensions
This post goes out to all supporters, translators, donors, friends, and users of WP-Table Reloaded.
I would like to thank you all for using the plugin and/or helping me to make it better. When publishing the plugin I had not envisioned how successful it would be by the end of the year. So, thanks to everybody for making this possible!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and your families! I hope that everybody can use these days for a little bit of recreation and happy times with your loved ones.
And I have a special Christmas Surprise for everybody: I’d like to announce that the next version of the plugin (1.6) will have two very, very nice new features that a lot of people have been asking for, but that I was (until now) unable to provide:
WP-Table Reloaded 1.6 will enable you to combine several cells of your tables to one larger one (in HTML terms: “rowspan” and “colspan”). This adds some great possibilities in designing tables.
I’m also happy to announce that starting with that version, the integrated WordPress Search will find search terms within tables, so that visitors of your websites can enjoy your content even more.
The code for this is already implemented, but I still need to do some testing. I’ll also have to fix a few small problems in the latest 1.5 release. If everything goes well (and to give the translators some time), 1.6 will probably be available in early January.
Thanks again for this great year of plugin development!
Sincerely,
Tobias
I just finished up WP-Table Reloaded 1.5. The automatic update should be available through your WordPress admin area shortly.
If you are updating from a previous version, please read the instructions below!
Here are some of the new features and changes:
You can read more about them in my post about the beta test and in the post on the development status.
Unfortunately I also had to drop a few translations, because they have not been updated in a while. But thanks to the translators for their work!
Most people shouldn’t care, but this might be important for some users: Version 1.5 does no longer support WordPress 2.6! You will need to run WordPress 2.7 or newer! And already an announcement: WP-Table Reloaded 1.6 will require WordPress 2.8 or newer! So I recommend updating to WordPress 2.9, which just came out, soon.
Special thanks go to Pavel aka Separatista for his tremendous support in finding many bugs and doing the Czech translation!
You can download the latest release 1.5 from the plugin’s page or from the WordPress Plugin Directory.
These instructions only apply if you update the plugin from a previous version.
If you like the plugin, I’d be very happy if you would rate it in the WordPress Plugin Directory. You might also consider a donation or have a look at my Amazon wishlist. This will encourage me to further develop the plugin and keep giving countless hours of support. Thank you!
If you experience any trouble, find bugs or have feature requests, please don’t hesitate to contact me via the means mentioned in the support section. Please make sure to carefully read the plugin’s page as well as the Documentation. There will also be a page with Frequently Asked Questions available shortly.
Have fun with the new features!
And by the way: I’ll have a special surprise for everybody on Christmas! :-)
Tobias Bäthge is a student of "Systems Engineering and Technical Cybernetics" from Magdeburg, Germany. He loves baseball and likes to work with WordPress.
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