The list of changes for 1.7 includes:

• feature: add “Table” button to the visual editor (TinyMCE)
• feature: update DataTables JavaScript library to version 1.6.2, including TableTools
• enhancement: add option for initial number of rows per pagination page
• enhancement: add value “all” to the four Shortcode parameters show_rows, hide_rows, show_columns, hide_columns
• enhancement: add WP-Table Reloaded screen icon to all plugin screens and the Top-Level menu entry
• enhancement: add two template tag functions that return the output instead of echoing it
• bugfix: fix problem with admin menu parent pages, make them ready for WP 3.0
• a few minor changes, fixes, code clean-ups, and optimisations

If you are willing to help and want to take part in the beta test, please download the developer version “1.7-beta1″. I plan to release the plugin in about a week (around the 12th of March).

To install the beta version, 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!

[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:

• feature: Support for “rowspan” and “colspan” in tables
• feature: WP Search will now also search in tables
• feature: Possibility to select the plugin language
• feature: Highlight row (background-color change when hovering)
• feature: Option to show an “Edit Table” link on the frontend
• enhancement: select fields for position of name and description
• internal plugin restructuring
• dropped support for outdated WordPress 2.7

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!

• added the DataTables JavaScript library with these features:
  • sorting, pagination, filtering, TableTools (Copy to Clipboard, CSV/XLS export, Print)
  • (also added these to the “List Tables” screen)
• heavily redesigned the “Edit Table” screen
  • Bulk operations for inserting, deleting, …
  • Warning message if changes not yet saved
• added features to the “Plugin Options”
  • set access requirements (user roles) to the plugin and the Options
  • Change position of the plugin in the admin menu
  • better loading/inclusion of CSS
• many, many plugin filters and actions for plugin customisation
• export/import a dump file (with ALL tables/options/settings at once)
• fixed some minor bugs, errors and glitches
• optimized and restructured big parts of the code
• dropped support for outdated WordPress 2.6

There’s more about some of the new features in this development status announcement.

Because of the many new features and to give the translators enough time to translate the many new or changed strings, I again ask you to participate in a public beta test. The current plan is to release WP-Table Reloaded 1.5 before Christmas, but after the release of WordPress 2.9, which also currently is in beta and should be available in the next weeks.

So, if you are willing to help and want to take part in the beta test, please download the developer version “1.5-beta4″.

Note that I dropped support of WordPress 2.6, so you will need WordPress 2.7 or higher (tested up to WP 2.9-beta2) to use the new release! (I did this, because 2.6 is quite old now and required a lot of special attention, because some new functions are not available.)

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, but will most probably not be implemented in the 1.5-release, but later.

If you are a translator (or if you would like to translate the plugin into your language), please go ahead and do so. There’s .pot-file included in case you need it.
There are very many new strings, because I rephrased some sentences, so that they are (hopefully) easier to understand. But: Don’t panic! You’ll have at least ten days of time for the translation and most probably more!
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!

(By the way: I use the “Codestyling Localization” plugin to translate the plugin to German as it’s quite easy and more comfortable to use than editors like poEdit.)

Thanks already to all beta-testers and translators! As always: Please don’t hesitate to comment or email me with any questions!

I’m working on version 1.5 of the plugin, and I have a few new additions and changes planned: Probably the biggest changes are the extended interfaces for table editing and the newly added “DataTables” script. It will also be possible to write extensions to my plugin and you can export and import all tables at once.
(This post got rather long, sorry about that :-) )

If you like the upcoming changes and ideas, I’d be very happy if you would rate the plugin in the WordPress Plugin Directory. You also might 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!

Table editing

On the “Edit table” screen, you will now find more bulk editing options, most notably the “Edit more than one row or column at once” feature, which was a highly requested idea. With the same method you will now also be able to insert several rows/columns at once.
Additionally, you will get a warning message that you should save your changes first, if you are about to perform an action that would otherwise cancel those changes. This is similar to the message you get on WordPress’ “Edit” screens for posts or pages.
As some users might be annoyed by such messages, you can turn it off in the “Plugin Options” if you want. The same goes for the grow effect of the textareas. If turned off, they will not automatically expand their height when focussed.

DataTables table sorting

The most significant addition might be the “DataTables” table sorting library. This is a very advanced but fast and light-weight JavaScript, very similar to the already included Tablesorter script. It does have more features though, seems to be more robust and – probably the most important fact – is still actively maintained and developed. Its developer Allan Jardine does a great job on this! So, I really want to thank him for his great work! You can find more about the script and a very well written documentation on http://www.datatables.net. There are also great demos on that page, so make sure to check those out!

Besides plain table sorting, the script also includes a so-called paging effect. This allows you to split up the table into several pages that each only show a certain number of rows. A nice navigation menu allows the user to view the table and browse through the pages.
To make things even better, it includes a Filtering mechanism. This provides an input field for text, and if a visitor enters a search string, only the rows which include this string somewhere will be shown, while the remaining rows are hidden.
A lot of people have asked for this feature, so I’m pleased to have found a solution to this, thanks to Allan’s great script!
I will also make use of these features on the “List of Tables”, so that working with a large number of tables becomes even easier.

The “DataTables” script will be the default script used for all new installations of the plugin. To make sure that upgraded installations won’t break, I will (for now) keep shipping the (older, and as it seems no longer developed) script Tablesorter with my plugin. For upgraded installations it will also remain the script of choice, but you can easily switch to the new DataTables script (which is recommend) by hand in the “Plugin Options”. I won’t apply this change for upgraded installations by default, because the tables look slightly different with the new script and some CSS changes might be necessary. To find out, how tables look like with the new script, I want to encourage you to check out the examples at http://www.datatables.net.
(Of course, any installation (whether a fresh or upgraded installation) can also choose to use the old Tablesorter script if this is preferred.)

The new DataTables script will also enable the usage of a table footer and a few other HTML attributes of the table tag. This means that you will be able to declare the last row of the table the “footer”, which will make it “sticky” and remain at the bottom of the table. (This can be used to repeat the table head at the bottom of a large table, making it easier to see what the data in a column means.)
The DataTables script also allows to add links to the page that enable a site visitor to download the table contents in a CSV or XLS file, or to print just the table – you can see those very neat features in this demo!

Plugin filters and extensions

A third big enhancement is the inclusion of WordPress filters and actions into the code. This powerful concept (used very, very widely throughout the WordPress code) enables users and developers to alter the behavior of WP-Table Reloaded (to some extent) or to add or change features.
So far, this especially applies for the frontend display of the table. There will be filters to add/change/replace the CSS of certain tables or their cells, depending on your needs. You could also automatically change the content of your table cells. One example for this is the automatic creation of HTML links from URLs. That way, you won’t have to enter the complete HTML for a link on the “Edit table” screen. The plain URL will suffice, because a small plugin can filter through the content and replace all URLs with full HTML links. (I will probably include this as an example extension for my plugin, to give users and developers a better understanding of how to write an extension for my plugin.) A second example is the possibility to change the JavaScript code that calls the table sorting library. This is especially helpful, if you have a table that shall use more than the commonly applied options and possibilities of either the DataTables or Tablesorter script library. Using that filter you will basically be able to use any feature that is available for those scripts, as mentioned in their documentation.
(I have to warn you that writing an extension is non-trivial, if you have never programmed before. But I will try to provide enough documentation to enable an easier development process. If you have developed with WordPress before, it will be easy for you.)
(And one further remark to this: You won’t always have to develop a WordPress plugin to create an extension to my plugin. Especially for small ones, I recommend using the file “functions.php” of your theme, which basically acts like a WordPress plugin, but saves you from most of the hassle involved with activation and so on. Therefore, this is very handy for small extensions (like the above mentioned URL to link transformation example).)

Bulk import and export of tables

Another feature that I have planned and a lot of people will like to see, is the mass export/import (or backup) of all tables at the same time. Currently you can only export or import one table at a time, which is very annoying, if you have many tables and, for example, need to move them to another server. The feature will also be very helpful for creating backups of your tables – a process which is highly recommended to prevent the loss of your table data. (Unfortunately I have received several reports of people losing their data. In all cases this was due to server issues or human error. Therefore you really should have a backup of your tables.)
The feature – as I have it envisioned so far – will export all tables (meaning their data and settings) into one large XML file. The plugin will then be able to re-import that file and restore all table and settings.

Other things

Last but not least there are some minor changes:

• new languages: Slovak, Finnish
• option to move WP-Table Reloaded to a first-level admin menu item (and filter to change the string “WP-Table Reloaded”)
• minor bug fixes and user interface changes

User feedback

Ok, I hope this long text didn’t bore you and hopefully stirred interest for the next version of the plugin :-)

If you have any further ideas or wishes, please let me know (by writing a comment or email).

I might also start a small beta test, so if you are willing to take part, just drop me a note and I will email you a beta release at some point. By that time I should also have the translations frozen, so that I will send out a version to the translators, so that they can update their language files.

The final release of version 1.5 will probably available at the end of the month, depending on how busy I am with other things. I might also wait for the release of WordPress 2.9, to make sure everything works correct.

Thanks

I also want to take this moment to thank all supporters, donors and translators! Without your work and appreciation the plugin would not be what it is. So thanks a lot and keep it up!

If you like the upcoming changes and ideas, I’d be very happy if you would rate the plugin in the WordPress Plugin Directory. You also might consider a donation or have a look at my Amazon wishlist. This will encourage me to further develop the plugin and the keep giving countless hours of support. Thank you!

Download WP-Table Reloaded 1.4-beta2

No bugs were reported to me in beta1, there were just a few minor improvements (mainly CSS stuff) by Separatista (thanks!).
So I decided to add another useful feature: Instead of simply asking for an image URL, the “Insert Image” feature will now enable you to insert an image from the WordPress Media Library into a table. This means that you can upload an image or use an existing one, e.g. from another post.

Because of this, I needed to change/add a few strings that need to be translated. Huge thanks to all translators for doing this! The process is the same as for beta1.

I’m planning to release the final version of 1.4 at the end of next week. As this gives us some time and flexibility, I’d like all of you to please download the beta2, test it thoroughly and eventually update your translation.
Remember to make a backup of your WordPress and to deactivate and then re-activate the plugin.

Please report any issues or problems here as a comment. It would also be very useful to hear, if everything works fine!

Thanks to everybody!

A new version of WP-Table Reloaded is in the making, which will contain a lot of changes and cool new features. This is a (probably incomplete) list of the new stuff:

• restyled “List of Tables” to suit WP 2.7/2.8 layout, list now sortable
• added Table and shortcode Preview in the backend
• added possibility to show/hide rows/columns with checkboxes in the backend
• textarea for cell data now grows when focussed
• added “Custom Data Fields” to be able to store table meta data, accessible with a shortcode
• added “Last edited” (time and user) information
• fixed many minor bugs, errors and glitches (improved HTML validation)
• optimized and restructured big parts of the code
• dropped support for WordPress 2.5
• added Italian and Japanese language files

Because of the large number of changes and to give the translators enough time to translate the (I hope not too many) new strings, I decided to start a public beta test of version 1.4. (My current plan is to release 1.4 at the end of the month, so that it can be a very stable release. This will also give me some time to update and extend the documentation.)

So, if you are willing to help me a little bit and want to take part in the beta test, please download the developer version “1.4-beta1″ developer version “1.4-beta2″.

Note that I dropped support of WordPress 2.5, so you will need WordPress 2.6 or higher to use the new release! (I did this, because 2.5 is quite old now and required a lot of special attention, because some new functions are not available.)

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 not that this is a beta release. Although I’ve tested it on my site, I do NOT recommend using it on your production site. 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, but will most probably not be implemented in the 1.4-release, but later.

If you are a translator (or if you would like to translate the plugin into your language), please go ahead and do so. There’s .pot-file included in case you need it. There are a few new strings to translate, but all in all it should not take too long.
By the way: I use the “Codestyling Localization” plugin to translate the plugin to German as it’s quite easy and more comfortable to use than editors like poEdit.
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! As always: Please don’t hesitate to comment or email me with any questions!