I am very happy and proud today, CataBlog has reached a new milestone in daily downloads. With over 300 downloads and counting at 4:00pm, we crushed the previous record of 192. Thanks to all who downloaded the new version and if you have any spare time to rate, tweet, Facebook like or confirm that CataBlog works with your version of WordPress that would be awesome.
Review the official download stats at WordPress.org.
CataBlog got a major update today, offering more then a dozen new features and enhancements. Most importantly this update includes the necessary files for translators to localize CataBlog. I have included a preliminary Spanish translation with this release as an example. Another really important thing to know about this release of CataBlog is that it requires WordPress 3.1 or greater.
A few other changes in the interface should also be noted. The CataBlog icon has been moved down to the bottom of the Admin Menu so it does not cause any conflicts. Also, drag and drop reordering of the catalog was removed, instead you may use the date and order fields to sort your catalog.
The most exciting new features in this version are all part of the shortcode implementation of CataBlog. There are a bunch of new parameters, including: sort, order, operator and template. Each of these parameters along with the category parameter, which now works with multiple categories in this version, give you a wealth of options for displaying your catalog. Here are some examples to best demonstrate how to use these parameters.
NEW UPDATE: CataBlog 1.2.5.2 patch has been released. This patch fixes a few minor display and CSS bugs. Please try this version if your catalog is not displaying correctly.
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So a lot of people have been requesting the ability to change the order of catalog items while viewing a single category. My first thoughts were right along with most everyone else, this would be a great feature. Now I have had some time to think over the problem and I realized implementing that feature would not work as expected. It is impossible with just one order value per catalog item to order multiple categories independently of each other. Once a catalog item is put into two categories, it will not let you set a position for both categories.
Problem: Give a catalog item with two separate categories a different position in the catalog order for both categories. Currently this is impossible because each catalog item gets only one order value.
Solution: I propose that much like posts, catalog items should not rely on an order value but use different fields such as date and title for the master catalog's ordering. Then, when someone needs to create a specific collection of catalog items for a page, they would create a new sub-catalog (a gallery), that would let one drag and drop the order of any number of items they choose from their master catalog. This would be similar to Albums in NextGen Gallery, but you would not be required to create a gallery of catalog items. This also lets one use categories for a more appropriate purpose, categorizing your catalog, not separating out pages.
Well, today April 7th, 2011, marks the one year anniversary for this blog and for CataBlog as a public release. Its been a good one with lots of fun and progress. Thanks again to everyone who donated, commented, asked for help and in any other way participated in the CataBlog community.
Good day to all 🙂
Heads up everyone out there who wants to translate CataBlog into their local language, the files are available and ready for localization. Simply download the latest development version, 1.2.1 and inside the catablog folder will be a localization folder with an explanatory read me file and the catablog.pot file. Open the POT file in the appropriate application and generate a PO and MO file for me with your translated strings.
If you have any questions about how to translate a WordPress Plugin or are curious about working with POT, PO or MO files, please read Translating WordPress. If you have questions or are curious about the context of a string, please use the notes section to mark up the particular string with your question or comment.
Once again I thank anyone and everyone who shows interest, and even more importantly, who helps make better this community software.
CataBlog 1.2 is available today for general consumption. Among the many tweaks and enhancements is the new multiple images per catalog item feature. More to come on using it and certain pit falls you might experience upgrading. Please use caution and export your catalog before upgrading. Get CataBlog 1.2 Now.
If you upgrade and notice the categories aren't working right, please try this
Thanks and remember to rate and confirm if it works with your version of WordPress.
So this version is really getting close to having everything locked down and working. Almost all the bugs and kinks should be worked out and multiple images should completely work. All the default templates work with LightBox and if your lightbox stops working try loading the new default template code. You should download the pre release, version 1.1.9, and test it out as best you can, then let me know what you find.
Of great importance, the category filters should now work with pre existing and new categories. When you set a category in the CataBlog ShortCode, no longer is that text used directly in the search. The post query now uses the category slug, which is derived from the category name. It is important to differentiate between the category name and slug, the slug must be unique across all taxonomies and could include other characters. In previous versions of CataBlog it was possible to confuse yourself by setting a category filter and having it not work. This is because the category slug is probably different from the category name, thus the query is for a non-existant or wrong category, causing weird results. Now any newly created categories will be checked and guaranteed unique so this shouldn't be a problem anymore.
The LightBox JavaScript code also got a nice upgrade, and works well with multiple image and single image catalog items seamlessly. For the new functionality I decided to change the selector for the LightBoxed images. Before it used a class called .catablog-clickable, I decided to change that to .catablog-image. I am considering making the LightBox more SEO friendly and forcing people to wrap the thumbnail image in an <a /> tag that points to the full size image. If anyone has an opinion please let me know.
Well, enough Saturday night rambling. 🙂
- Zach