Idea behind 5.0 is this: all features are going to be split into modules, and each module will fit into one of 6 sections: Information, Integration, Maintenance, Security, SEO and Debug. Modules loading will be controlled by several factors and that will lead to module loading only when they are needed. Plugin core will have several files that will server as loaders mostly, or providing some base/shared code. Goal for 5.0 is to get simplicity despite having hundreds and hundreds of features. Plugin must be easy to use, large number of features doesn’t require use complexity.

GD Press Tools Pro 5.0 will require WordPress 3.4 (or maybe even 3.5) or newer to work. This will depend on some other things, and right now I can’t confirm that.

Right now I am working on development branch for the plugin, and it will take another few weeks to iron out the new interface, features organization into modules, loading and usability. I hope to show some preliminary screenshots as soon as they are at least partially working. Until then, please let me know what do you think about this, and what can you suggest for the new version.

New version is 4-5 months away. There will be at least one or two Beta releases most likely in September and October, for final 5.0 release in October or November. Right now, these are only preliminary dates, and more will be known once the plugin core is completed.

Content Fields module has rewritten JavaScript code that is moved into own file and improved so that it does support jQuery 1.9 in WordPress 3.6. Few other things are changed in this module, including fixed loading of the meta dialogs. bbPress module now support embedding of meta form with any filter you want, you can register new locations (actions) using filters provided for topic and reply forms.

As always, if you find any more problems, please report them in the forums.

New Dialogs

Old Thickbox powered dialogs used for many things are now gone. Also, old Thickbox powered upload is removed for users that run WordPress 3.5 or newer. All this will improve the user experience when editing products.

Media page for single product now also can be replaced with 3 separate pages for images, videos and links (disabled by default). Normal media page now also has tabbed template. Single product has a main compact tabs template where all pages can be displayed as tabs. Because of this, there is more control over individual pages for product type (you can disable rewrite rules for any of them, and you can allow them to be used in tabs template).

Link Products

Now, you can link normal posts to companies (currently not implemented) and products. This is done with new metabox, and you can use plugin options to select post types that will use it. More control will be added with this, for now you have a function you can use to get linked products: gdpc_get_linked_products.

Many issues and bugs are fixed in this release, and most of the JavaScript libraries are updated to latest stable version. Fontawesome icons font is updated to latest stable 3.2. Title SEO features can be controlled with new options, so you can disable some of the filters plugin adds for this. Still, there is no guarantee that this will help with SEO setup with every plugin.

For a full changelog, check out the plugins home page. As always, please report all problems in the forums. Please be as specific as possible, and include error log reports or JavaScript errors that might have been reported in browser.

As for the next 1.4 version, plans are already set (check plugin roadmap page, this page is subject to changes with no prior notice). Before the work starts on that one, plan is to complete user guide for the plugin and have it online on the new documentation website that is currently in development.

New GD Products Center will focus on the updating JavaScript and all used libraries, removal of more outdated code and improving products editor. To do this, old and outdated Thickbox dialogs are replaced with new WPDialog model. This was very important step that will allow more flexibility with some of the new planned features.

To allow interconnectivity with products and companies, all normal post types can now use metaboxes to link to companies and products. These metaboxes can be assigned to post types you want. Shortcodes can be used to display linked products and companies, and functions will be available also for use in templates.

Other changes will include improvements to filters, templates and other things. Also, reported bugs are fixed.

GD Press Tools 4.5 Pro is tested with WordPress 3.6, and because of major jQuery update in this WordPress, all JavaScript code in GD Press Tools is refactored and updated. Because of that, plugin requires WordPress 3.3 or newer to work. All jQuery libraries in the plugin are updated to latest available stable versions. Our own gdr2 library is also updated. Plugin is tested with PHP 5.4 and some minor issues are fixed.

Debugger has new panel for displaying log with executed hooks, and tracker is updated to track the hooks execution. Htaccess tweaks from PerishablePress are updated to latest 5G versions. Plugin includes many small fixes and updates, including fixes to some problems with the backup.

If you have any issues with this new version, please report them in the forums or in the comments here. As for the future releases of GD Press Tools Pro, there will be major changes coming to the plugin organization and more on that will be announced soon.

All three plugins are tested and updated for WordPress 3.6, and all three now require WordPress 3.0 or newer to work. Older WordPress versions are no longer supported. GD Simple Widgets and GD Press Tools contain many fixes, stability improvements and code cleanup. A lot of old code is removed, obsolete files and styles. Also, many deprecated functions are replaced, and code is stabilized.

You can get all three plugins for free from WordPress.org: profiles.wordpress.org/gdragon.

Plugin cost only $15.00 and includes documentation, support (via CodeCanyon comments or official website forum).

bbPress 2.3 has changed the way it handles editor. If you enable fancy editor in bbPress options, you will not get full tinyMCE editor as before. To do this, you can now use modules in this plugin to handle topic and reply editors separately. Options include: TinyMCE editor, Media buttons, compact toolbar, WPAutoP filter and size of the editor.

WordPress 3.6 will add some shortcodes that will interfere with the BBCodes (YouTube and Vimeo). So, you can now disable any number of BBCodes this plugin adds to avoid potential conflicts with WordPress or other plugins. Custom views code is improved and updated for better handling of the queries used to get views topics.

As always, please report in forums any issues you maybe find with this latest version.

Plugin cost only $11.00 and includes documentation, support (via CodeCanyon comments or official website forum).

Plugin cost only $10.00 and includes documentation, support (via CodeCanyon comments or official website forum).

Since many users asked for it, new shortcode is added that will embed comparison table in post content: www.dev4press.com/document/gdpc_compare. In most cases you will need additional styling to make it look good, since compare grid will be added wherever you want it to be, and post styling can influence the grid also.

Properties Tools

On the admin side, properties editor for product type has finally got the Tools popup. With these Tools you can bulk edit properties visibilities settings: enable on all single pages, disable for filter… This way you can quickly disable properties you don’t want to use for some purposes (archive or compare pages, filter…).

But, most changes in this version relate to the rendering engine and templates. Templates can now be located in the subfolders for the specified locations. To make sure you are set here, after update make sure that you rescan templates (just in case, plugin should do it on its own). If you update over FTP, first remove plugin folder before uploading updated version to avoid duplicated templates loading.

Few more rendering elements are moved into new rendering class where you can override them with your own rendering (gdpcRenderFunctions in code/core/render.php file). Most of them also have new filters to modify styling for elements and few more things. Comparison, properties and few other rendering methods are much improved and expanded. Properties list can be rendered with the product archives pages (Archive visibility switch for each property). In this properties preview mode for archives, you can use inline propeperties rendering to display it as text, not full table. New templates for archives, called Info are added for this purpose.

For a full changelog, check out the plugins home page. As always, please report all problems in the forums. Please be as specific as possible, and include error log reports or JavaScript errors that might have been reported in browser.

New dev4Press.com will be using fully responsive skyScape theme (with several modifications) with 1200px width. Website will go through some dramatic content changes that will have a major goal: easier access to information. Some of the content will be removed from the website because it is too old (tutorials of outdated plugins versions, there are no use to have them around anymore), plugins and themes information streamlined to offer better insight into each of them, without going through 7-8 pages for all you need to know.

Support

Major changes with Dev4Press redesign and reorganization will happen with support:

• Support Forums: there are many changes planned for the forums. Current forums will be archived, and replaced by new ones that will use subdomain to access. New forums will be completely locked for the outside access, and only users will valid products licenses will be able to access it. Important changes will include different topic types to allow easier bug reports, support questions, and more to allow a more of a ticket based support.
• Documentation: current Central documentation will be moved a new Documentation dedicated subdomain, that again, will be available only to users with valid licenses. New documentation website will contain 3 main elements: Reference Guide, User Guides and Tutorials. All functions, filters and more currently in Central Documentation will become Reference Guide. New User Guides section will contain real user guides that go through plugins/themes installation, configuration and use. Most tutorials from current Dev4Press website will be moved to new website.
• Tickets Based Support: few things will change to allow for quicker response time. Tickets log will be included, with the status for tickets. This support method will be still available to Developer and Enterprise licenses only.

Additional subdomains for forums and documentation will be using skyScape theme (modded) to maintain same visual look as the main website.

So far, some email support has been tolerated. But, that will no longer be a case. None of the licenses we have on Dev4Press includes email support (or twitter/facebook/other-social-network based support), and that avenue of support will be closed soon. Why email support is not good in the first place? Well, I don’t check emails every day, and depending on my work load and number of emails in queue, this can take up to a week to respond. So, if you need fast help for any thing, it is very likely that you will not get help in time.

Newsletters

I have been planning for a while now, to add real newsletters to the website, and that will finally happen with new Dev4Press. Newsletters will be sent directly from our servers, using a plugin, and designer is working on nice looking responsive template for it. All other service emails will be improved and expanded, with better control over what you want to receive.

Other Changes

It is expected to see some changes in the licensing and pricing structure, nothing drastic. This will see updated list of included features and few other things. Only major change will happen to themes licensing, but that is not yet completed, and it will be announced when ready. All individual plugins websites will be updated to use reXposed responsive theme. Content for these websites will be updated to reflect changes in support and documentation. GD Press Tools will get its own website also (finally).

If you have any suggestions for the Dev4Press 4.0 (yes, this will be version 4 of Dev4Press website), please let me know through comments here. More information about all this will be provided when available, and I will keep you up with the progress.

Plugin cost only $15.00 and includes documentation, support (via CodeCanyon comments or official website forum).

Attachments module got one important change: uploader form is displayed at the end of the topic/reply form, not after the tags area (since that one can be missing if topic tags are disabled).

In the same time, lite plugins GD bbPress Tools 1.4 and GD bbPress Attachments 1.9.2 are released with many updates and fixes. As always, please report in forums any issues you maybe find with this latest version.

How To Create A Tab Widget In WordPress

‘How To Create A Tab Widget In WordPress’ is my new article published on Smashing Magazine for WordPress. Article covers practical side of creating the Tabber widget: widget that can turn a sidebar into a single widget that uses tabbed navigation to save sidebar space.

Article contains detailed explanation on how the sidebar shows widgets, how to change the widget output and layout and how to use JavaScript (jQuery powered) to grab widgets and arrange them as tabs. Most important parts of the code and process are described, and code analyzed to help you understand what the example plugin does to create tabber interface.

You can download the example plugin with widgets in the article. To read the article, visit WP Smashing Magazine:

reXposed

reXposed is a brand new xScape Theme Framework based theme, HTML5 fully responsive. Theme comes with 12 color styles, additional portfolio archive layout, special static page block, Nivo Slider, responsive menu and breadcrumbs and more.

reXposed requires xScape Core 1.9.1 and WordPress 3.2 to work. For responsive layout, theme uses our own Smart Responsive Grid. Also, for responsive menu and breadcrumbs theme uses Smart Responsive Menu and Smart Responsive Breadcrumbs.

Theme has extra archive portfolio layout. Nivo Slider is used for featured images slider. Theme is based on existing Xposed theme with many small changes and updates and with 2 extra color styles. This is not update to the Xposed theme, it is completely separate theme.

To see intro to setting this theme, check out the video and screenshots on the theme homepage.

reXposed Info:
http://www.dev4press.com/themes/rexposed/

To see the theme and framework in action, visit the WordPress network demo website and get your own blog to see who the framework back-end works:

Demo Site:
http://xscape.info/
reXposed:
http://xscape.info/load/?theme=rexposed

BBCodes for YouTube and Vimeo now allows you to use full URL to video, not only video code. Signature editor is update to format added with bbPress 2.1/2.2. There are many updates related to loading of plugin modules, initialization and files enqueue method for full compatibility with bbPress 2.3 initialization procedure.

WordPress 3.2 is no loner supported, and don’t attempt to run this new version with WP 3.2, it will fail. WordPress 3.3 or newer versions are supported. jQueryUI and other libraries are updated to latest versions. jQuery custom code is also updated and jQuery 1.7.1 is required. Changes made make plugin compatible with latest jQuery 1.9 and upcoming WordPress 3.6.

This version adds tow missing settings for custom post types and taxonomies (show in admin bar for custom post type, and sort option for custom taxonomy). Other than this, few bugs are fixed and many things changed with JavaScript code. JavaScript now needs jQuery 1.7.1 to work, and it will be compatible with upcoming WP 3.6 that uses jQuery 1.9. External libraries are updated.

As always, if you find any more problems, please report them in the forums.

Plugin cost only $14.00 and includes documentation, support (via CodeCanyon comments or official website forum).

Several problems caused by the company type updates are now resolved. These problems happened during update or install of the plugin when in some cases, parts of the plugin update was not executed. All these should be resolved with this version. Many problems with filters are resolved, most important one was issue with the company types filters. Compare box and compare page also received several important fixes.

Some other bugs reported were caused by the update problems. So, update to 1.2.1, and try again. If the same bugs are still appearing, please let me know. As always, please report all problems in the forums. Please be as specific as possible, and include error log reports or JavaScript errors that might have been reported in browser.

jQuery 1.9.1 (currently in WordPress 3.6 development builds) removes some core functions that many plugins rely on, and that includes live() method for event binding, and all other bind related functions. In jQuery 1.7.1 a new method is added: on(). So, we need to have all plugins jQuery code updated to use on() instead of live() and bind(). jQuery 1.7.1 is shipped with WordPress 3.3. And because of that, all plugins will get updated jQuery code that will require jQuery 1.7.1 and with that will require WordPress 3.3.

Currently, there was a plan to change requirements for some plugins to WP 3.3, and that plan will go ahead earlier than planned (GD Products Center and GD bbPress Toolbox). And some plugins already require WP 3.3 (GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools 4.1 Pro that will be released this week). But, now all that is changed, and there will many updates during April to stay ahead of WP 3.6 launch. It is very possible that WP 3.6 is not going to be released until late May, depending on how many delays there will be.

During March there are 3 releases planned:

1. GD Products Center 1.2.1 (March 26), it will still work WordPress 3.2.
2. GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools 4.1 (March 27), it will require WordPress 3.3.
3. GD bbPress Toolbox 1.5 (March 31), it will require WordPress 3.3.

In April more updates are coming, all will require WordPress 3.3:

1. xScape Theme Framework 1.9.2 (middle of April).
2. GD Products Center 1.2.2 (in late April).
3. GD aZon Fusion 0.9.7 (in early April).
4. GD Affiliate Center 1.4 (in late April).
5. GD Simple Widgets 2.2.1 (middle of April).
6. GD Press Tools 4.4.2 (in late April or early May).
7. All 3 bbPress free plugins (first week of April).
8. Other free plugins that rely on jQuery (in late April).

Some of these plugins all rely on jQueryUI, and they will also get latest available jQueryUI.

And in the future, plan is to limit support for maximum of 4 versions of WordPress. Once WordPress 3.7 gets in development, minimum required WordPress for plugins and themes will shift to WP 3.4, or WP 3.5 (for some plugins, depending on what they need or do).

My suggestion is to make sure that other plugins you use are also ready for the WordPress 3.6 transition, since now you need to worry about jQuery too, and I think that a lot of plugins will not be ready for such upgrade. Try to reach to developers of plugins you use and remind them of the upcoming changes to WordPress so they will have enough time to prepare for it.

Couple of users reported that after upgrade to 1.2/1.2.0.1 Brand and Seller company types were not created. No matter what I tried and on how many setups, I couldn’t reproduce the problem. All test I did with normal and unmodified WordPress installation and unmodified version of the plugin, every time update was OK and company types were added.

The one instance that this failed was installation that was using W3 Total Cache plugin with Database and Object cache active. When one of these is active, plugin update is not saved to database correctly, and update fails. I presume that any other plugin with these types of cache will produce same problems. I have said many times before: these two types of cache can cause many problems since they will server old data, and will not save data always as expected. If you insist on using this type of cache, I can’t help you, and I can’t solve problems caused by Database or Object cache methods!

If you have update problems, and you don’t use these problematic cache methods, please report in the forums if you have some errors in the server error log related to this plugin after update. Also, any other errors in the log can point to a problem with some other plugin that can cause issues here. All plugin updates are performed when after_theme_setup action is executed by WordPress. I will try to resolve the issues, if they are related to my plugin. Just make sure to leave detailed report about all this.

There is a way to manually attempt creation of company types from Tools panel: Open Maintenance tab, Cleanup group, check Recreate Default Companies and click Execute for Cleanup group.

New update is added to fix the issues reported since the release of the 1.2 yesterday (10 bugs are fixed), and to add importing of brand information that was missing from 1.2. Tool for manual reset of company types is also added.

Few more things about upgrade:

1. If you have any issues with links, redirection or broken pages, clear the permalinks rules, or try to cleanup registration data from plugins Tools panel, Maintenance -> Cleanup. Also, if you delete taxonomy from plugin, do the same thing, and also visit Permalinks panel under WordPress Settings.
2. If you don’t see Brands and Sellers menus in the WordPress admin, than something was wrong with upgrade. You can manually trigger creation of company types from Tools panel, Maintenance -> Cleanup -> Recreate Default Companies. If this also doesn’t help, check if the plugin is installed OK, with all files available.
3. Theme templates are not changed, and there is no need to create them again for any of the product types. 1.2 did changed some of rendering templates.

Known Issues:

1. Export of prices for sellers is not included yet. It will be separate export feature and it will be added soon.
2. Export/Import of companies settings is not included yet, and it will be added in one of the future versions.

As always, please test new version and report all problems in the support forum.

New version brings many new features and important changes, and this following video shows most important things in new version. Detailed videos for different plugin features will be published over the next week.

Company Types

Most important feature in this version is introduction of company types. Right now, you have Brands and Sellers types, and you can’t create new ones. Also, these two types still don’t have front end single and archive pages. Brands can be used for filtering and Sellers can be used to add prices for each product with offer, URL and other things. For displaying prices, new page type is added to products called Prices and two templates are included to display prices grid. Here is the product interface for adding sellers and prices:

Adding Product Prices

Right now for each company you can add Featured Image (Post Thumbnail) and that will be used for a logo for a company. In later versions more features will be added to each company type.

Compare Box

Old compare basket widget is now gone, and it is replaced with Compare Box. New box is added at the top of archive and single product pages. It displays products for current product type. Using functions box can be displayed on any location. In future versions, there are some improvements in planning stages. On the plugin settings page, there are many options for control over compare box.

Compare Box

More features and updates

There are many new things added: icons from Font Awesome to assigned to product properties, properties can be used to change sort order on products archive pages, settings for currency control… As for updates, there are so many of them in this version, and I will mention only few (for a full list, check the plugin changelog): generating page titles, types panel enhanced, improved loading and memory usage, settings panel, rewrite rules generating…

Plugin now has an option for websites that use cache plugins: due to caching of pages, it can happen that compare box shows undefined products. Just enable cache from the plugin Settings -> Advanced panel, and compare box data will be loaded using ajax and cached pages will not be a problem anymore.

Bugs fixed

Many bugs are fixed in this version: some indexing problems, deleting taxonomy assigned to product type, problems with product type cache, problems with some shortcodes, theme templates integration… For full list, check the changelog.

Over the next few days, I plan to add few more videos on using some of the new features (sellers, working with compare box), and to announce plans for the next 1.3 version. I did a lot of testing, and plugin works well, but I expect that I have missed some bugs. As always, please test new version and report all problems in the support forum.

GD Products Center 1.2 will have many new features:

• compare box as a replacement for widget
• companies support with brands and sellers (using post types)
• use of Font Awesome for font icons and adding them to properties
• allow properties to be used for archive filtering order
• direct theme support: TwentyTwelve

Updates and improvements list includes:

• updated libraries: qtip2, jQueryUI, gdr2
• improvements: building of the main query object
• improvements: loading of CSS and JS files
• improvements: generating titles
• improvements: compare page grid
• improvements: product types panel
• improvements: creating of missing templates
• modified registration of product types
• changed values for archive order filter
• better organization of settings panel
• product properties no longer display empty groups

GD Products Center 1.2 will include many bug fixes:

• creating new product leaves pages information empty
• detection of available product types theme templates
• wp_title function improper detection of page type
• duplicated cache rebuild when saving product type and taxonomy
• minor problems with some shortcode parsing

New version is few days away, and as soon as the testing is done, plugin will be ready. If nothing goes wrong, that should be Monday or Tuesday.

Plugin will get new settings for post types and taxonomies added in recent WordPress 3.5, and it will no longer support WordPress 3.2. Due to increasing number of problems due to changes in different WP versions in the past two years, maintaining support for more than 3 WP version is becoming very difficult. Considering that most of other WP developers only support latest WP version, Dev4Press plugin will still support as many versions as possible as long as that doesn’t affect plugin expansion, code stability and problems that can be caused by old versions code. Dropping WP 3.2 support will cleanup JavaScript (no more support for old jQuery 1.3/1.4, and old jQueryUI 1.8), cleanup and code removal for some critical core elements (templates, rewrite rules) and few other things.

If you have some suggestions about minor changes that could be added to this version or bugs to report, please do so in the forum. It is expected to release new GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools 4.1 by the end of March 2013.

Plugin cost only $14.00 and includes documentation,support (via CodeCanyon comments or official website forum).

Current development version is now running on the official plugin website demo, and you can see how the new compare box looks like. New box is hidden by default, and once you add product for comparison, it will appear. By default it is positioned above the content, but using custom function, it can be located anywhere on page.

Compare Box

Demo is available here: www.gdproductscenter.com/products

As for the companies, plan is to have unlimited number of company types. But, that is currently unpractical and it can be too confusing, so plugin will add two company type: Brand (or call it Manufacturer) and Seller. Both can be modified (labels, settings), and for both you can set up many things: logo, company information, links…

On the visual side, plugin will include Font Awesome, and will have everything built to support font icons. Since they are becoming used more and more, and considering how lightweight they are and in the same time look better than images for this purpose, it is became almost necessary to have support for them. Many elements in plugin will allow use of these icons. If you want to use some other icons font beside Font Awesome, there will be a way to do that also.

Other changes will include:

• Support for multiple display styles.
• Improvements to generating titles.
• Few more improvements to compare page.
• Direct support for TwentyTwelve theme.
• Updated third party libraries.
• Many bugs fixed.

If you notice any more issues with any of the themes, please report bugs in the forums.

Demo Site:
http://xscape.info/

Please, take into account that this is not all set in stone, but I will do my best to keep with the plans, and keep with the release schedule for projects listed here.

GD Products Center

Currently, work is in progress on GD Products Center 1.2. Initial plan was to release it by the end of February. But, the changes involved are too complex, and it will take a bit more time. Plan is to release the new version by March 10. New version will include new comparison basket to replace current widget, new post types for the companies and few more very important changes and fixes. Plans for the plugin beyond this release are still forming, and it will depend on the users feedback. Minor maintenance release will be out as usual after 1.2.

xScape Themes

Another new theme is coming out in late March. Theme will be based on existing Xposed theme. New theme will be called Xposed II, and it will be fully responsive, it will feature use of Smart Responsive Menu and Breadcrumbs, updated responsive Nivo Slider, additional color schemes, improved styling and some minor layout changes. Another theme that will get into development after this one, will be targeted for May release. More on this one will follow, but I already have preliminary design and ideas on how the theme will look like and how it will work.

There are plans for few more themes for this year, and that will include previously announced newsScape II (new one will be loosely based on old one, it will be responsive, and it will have more layout options), new photo/media related theme and resurrection of my very first theme for WordPress called starScape. But that will wait for summer and autumn of this year.

GD Star Rating

I know I am a year or so late with GD Star Rating 2.0, but as I said before, other projects had priority over it. But, development continues, and I will release new Alpha by the end of April and another Alpha by the end of May. I hope that these will be last two Alpha releases before moving to Beta.

Plugins Maintenance

GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro will get one more maintenance release in first half of March. GD bbPress Toolbox will get one or two new versions in March (bbPress 2.3 compatibility). Same goes for free bbPress plugins.

Dev4Press Redesign

In the next 3 months I plan to redesign Dev4Press website completely to use skyScape theme. There are many custom templates build for current theme, and it will take some time to complete.

That’s it for now. If you have suggestions or bugs to report, please use the forums.

skyScape Front Page

skyScape is a brand new xScape Theme Framework based theme, first one that is fully responsive. Theme comes with 4 color styles, additional portfolio archive layout, special caption block, slider (Nivo Slider), and responsive menu and breadcrumbs among other things.

skyScape requires xScape Core 1.9.1 and WordPress 3.2 to work. For responsive layout, theme uses our own Smart Responsive Grid. Also, for responsive menu and breadcrumbs theme uses Smart Responsive Menu and Smart Responsive Breadcrumbs. Both are part of the framework and all future themes will use them.

Theme has extra archive portfolio layout. All templates can use additional Caption block (automatically enabled) that will display post or archive information inside the header area. Nivo Slider is used for featured slider. Also, this is the theme that uses no images in the layout! It relies on Font Awesome for font based icons (must be enabled in the xScape Global settings).

To see intro to setting this theme, check out the video and screenshots on the theme homepage.

skyScape Info:
http://www.dev4press.com/themes/skyscape/

To see the theme and framework in action, visit the WordPress network demo website and get your own blog to see who the framework back-end works:

Demo Site:
http://xscape.info/
skyScape:
http://xscape.info/load/?theme=skyscape

xScape now contains Smart Responsive Breadcrumbs jQuery and CSS plugin, but only new themes will be able to use it, making changes to old themes would be too complicated to do. Breadcrumbs rendering is rewritten to allow for more flexibility. Grid layouts are improved, and responsive grid is fully functional. Shortcodes are improved, and some of them can now use Font Awesome icons. Networks widget is improved to use icons from Zocial font instead of images. There are other core changes that will further improve framework stability.

Themes lightScape and Serenity are also updated with few more changes and fixes missing from previous releases. If you notice any issues with the framework or themes, please let me know through support forums.

Smart Responsive Breadcrumbs will be used for all future xScape based themes, including soon to be released skyScape. Plugin cost only $8.00 and includes documentation,support (via CodeCanyon comments or official website forum). Official website contains a demo of the plugin in action.

Expanded Grids Implementation

So far, all themes were using Blueprint CSS Framework. But, this framework was limiting, and for future themes that are all planned as responsive it is not usable. So, framework now supports use of different grid frameworks.

Upcoming skyScape theme is fully responsive theme, and it will use brand new CSS Framework developed for this purpose. All existing theme will continue using Blueprint CSS Framework, since there is no way to make grid model interchangeable.

Menu Settings Panel

Rewritten Menus Implementation

The area that got most changes in 1.9 are menus. First thing you will notice is that all settings related to menus are gone from main theme Settings panel into own, new Menu Settings panel. Here you will see one tab for each menu location supported by the theme (2 or 3 in all current themes). Each menu has two main groups of settings: Content and CSS Styles (image on the right). If theme supports additional menus (like Smart Responsive Menu), settings for those menus (if they have them) will be listed for each menu location that supports them.

Major new change for menus is that if you design them with xScape Menu Designer, these menus will support icons for menu items. Icons are implemented as font icons, and Font Awesome is built into the framework.

Old Themes and New

All these changes mean, that in the future, different menu implementation can be added to the themes. Current theme lightScape will get support for Smart Responsive Menu (it would require too many changes to implement). Other existing themes will remain the same. All future themes will be responsive, and will not use old Superfish menus, they will all rely on Smart Responsive Menu only.

All existing themes are already released. But, you will not be able to update until you update xScape Core to version 1.9. Updater will not offer themes updates without xScape Core 1.9. Changes in the themes require new framework, and themes will not work anymore with older framework versions. New versions have updated translation files and fixes for some styling and layout issues.

Module: Google Web Fonts 2.0

New version of this module now includes 640 fonts. But, since Google is expanding this list very often, this module can now get the up to date list on it’s own. To do this, you must provide valid Google Developer API key. Module has new options for control of fonts adding, and also new way for loading fonts without style including.

Module: ShareThis 1.6

Module is expanded with Zocial Icons set. These are font based icons, and you can specify font size for the icons, instead of selecting predefined image set style. Plan for future updates is to rewrite this module with more options and cleanup of icons sets and supported services.

Module: SideScroller 1.2

New Edit post button is added (disabled by default). Through use of filter (so only theme can enable it if needed), it can use Font Awesome icons.

Other Framework Changes

xScape Theme Framework 1.9 and xScape Core 1.9 now require WordPress 3.2 or newer to work. JavaScript and CSS loading is improved and organization of these files changed, so more files are moved to the Core. jQueryUI, Colorbox, Modernizr and Superfish scripts are updated. PNGFix file loading is also removed. Framework loads own shared JavaScript file, and most of that JS is gone from individual themes. Stying for some of the admin panels improved. There are many under-the-hood changes to improve loading, working with settings and meta elements, templates…

So, the new framework version is a big improvement over the old one, and it will allow further expanding and better themes in the future that will be, as already announced, HTML5 and responsive only. If you notice any issues with the framework or themes, please let me know through support forums.

This is very important update and it is highly recommended that you update as soon as possible. It fixes several warnings for deprecated functions in WordPress 3.5 and some issues with downloading free plugins updates and installation.

And as always, please test new version and report all problems in the support forum.

Discount coupon is automatically applied to all purchase links or cart checkout, but you can enter it manually during ShareIt side checkout for all new purchases. Coupon is: LOVEWEEK. Using this coupon you will get 28% discount for any purchase make between February 12 2013 to February 19 2013.

Coupon can be used for any plugin, module or theme, for plugins pack or themes club membership or GD Star Rating support licenses. But, further more, some purchases will be eligible for additional gifts:

• Purchase plugins pack (enterprise) and you will get 3 themes and GD Star Rating Standard Support License for free.
• Purchase plugins pack (developer) and you will get 2 themes for free.
• Purchase plugins pack (standard – subscription or lifetime) and you will get 1 theme for free.
• Purchase any plugin (developer or enterprise) and you will get 1 theme license for free.

Dev4Press wishes you Happy Valentine’s Day!

As always, if you find any more problems, please report them in the forums.

With new theme coming soon (skyScape is in work now, and it should be released with xScape 1.9 now), problem was to add new rendering for menu that would be responsive, and still have old menu rendering methods. So, the menu subsystem in the xScape will be completely overhauled to support different rendering engines, and that rendering engines for menus can be registered by plugins or individual themes. New menu for xScape will be added to handle settings that are related to menus.

Changes will be made to grid system used for rendering, so that themes can work with responsive grids also.

Also, due to increasing number of problems caused by jQuery/jQueryUI added with latest versions of WordPress, new version will be using jQueryUI 1.9, and it will be dropping support for WordPress 3.0 / 3.1 (uses old jQuery, that is not supported by new jQueryUI).

So, there are very exiting changes coming to xScape, and with new theme to be released soon also, you can be sure that xScape Framework future looks bright.

Smart Responsive Menu will be used for all future xScape based themes, including soon to be released skyScape. Plugin cost only $6.00 and includes documentation,support (via CodeCanyon comments or official website forum).

There are many things fixed in this version, and it is highly recommended to update this this one. There are several custom fields related problems fixed, including issues with unit and rewrite fields. Also, rewrite field had two options for activation, and one of them is now removed since it was causing confusion about how to activate. Shortcodes and custom fields value functions got few important fixes too. Interface and admin side got several fixes for tooltips, wrong strings used and many notices and warnings are also taken care of. Quick adding of post types, editor for post types have few more bugs fixed too.

As always, if you find any problems, please report them in the forums.

Framework is currently in the maintenance stage, and after upcoming skyScape theme is released, I plan to announce what is coming new to xScape for next 1.9 and major 2.0 releases. There are some very interesting ideas right now, but it will take some time to those ideas to take shape and get implemented. But, if you have some suggestions, please let me know.

If you notice any more problems, please report them in the forums.

Responsive Menu

New menu project will be available with upcoming xScape themes, but if you want to buy it, it will be available from CodeCanyon as a part of SMART Plugins project. It will be available there in the next 3-4 days. For now, here is a bit more info about new menu system.

It will be in the form of jQuery plugin and set of CSS files split into smaller chunks for easier modification. Menu will have CSS file with some styling effects (transitions, shadows…), several different built in styles (each style in own file), mobile media queries (for different browser resolutions).

Image on the right shows the menu for the smaller screen with vertical navigation. When on bigger screen, it will have a form of normal horizontal drop down menu:

Normal Menu

Theme will feature new menu that is responsive, it will use Nivo Slider and it will support 2 sidebars with additional footer slider. Header for the theme will support two different layouts, with menu in line with logo, and with logo above menu (if you need to have longer menu).

Theme will add additional layout block (called Caption) that will be located bellow header (and sort of part of the header). This block can have some predefine content (for archives or pages), or you can create it on your own using meta box added for it to posts.
If everything goes OK (testing responsive theme can be tricky, due to many different screen sizes and devices), skyScape should be released in about 3 weeks.

To allow for greater flexibility, plugin will bring company types to connect the products. Plugin will add Brand and Seller company types. You can adjust all sorts of things for them, and they will be registered automatically on update. Plan for future versions is to allow adding of more company types. Each company in any of the types will have many predefined data to describe the company (logo, URL, affiliate links and more). If you are using taxonomy for Manufacturer/Brand, new plugin will allow you to copy companies from that taxonomy into product type and use it from there. But, also, each product will have mandatory Brand company type assigned.

Compare Box is new feature that replaces Compare Widget. Compare Box, by default will be visible on Archive pages, and will be dynamically displayed. It will make many things easier and it will work with layouts that don’t have sidebars and can’t use widgets. It is already implemented, and I will post more about it soon, so I can get some suggestions on how to improve it before release.

More information about new plugin version will follow soon.

Compare Widget

Compare widget is updated, and it can now use different layouts (three available) to display products waiting for comparison. List layout is shown on the image on the right. Also, if you are using some cache plugin, you might have noticed null/empty elements in compare widget. Now, the widget supports cache plugins, and if you use such plugin, just enable that in the plugin Settings, tab Advanced, group Cache. When you do that, widget will update its contents through AJAX.

When it comes to compare page, it is very useful with long list of features to compare, to keep on top of the page names and images for products compared. This can be done now, and you can enable it on plugin Settings, tab Rendering, group Compare Page. Option to enable is Fixed Header Row.

Archive Filter

Products archive filtering has gone through major changes, and it has updated with better filtering sidebar, support for more product property types and it has many things fixed. You can see example filter on the image on the left. More things will change here for next version of the plugin.

Various bugs are fixed, including problems with qTip2 tooltips, issues with filtering and few other minor things. As usual, please report any bugs or issues you find in the forums.

Next 1.1.5 is coming out next week and it will include: new compare box to replace current compare widget system, more improvements to filters and starting implementation for products related companies (manufacturer, retailer…). Roadmap on plugin page is updated.

Plugin cost only $12.00 and includes documentation,support (via CodeCanyon comments or official website forum).

Simple Contact Slider

Plugin cost only $8.00 and includes documentation,support (via CodeCanyon comments or official website forum).

Simple SMTP Tools

Plugin cost only $12.00 and includes documentation,support (via CodeCanyon comments or official website forum).

Smart Cleanup Tools

Plugin cost only $20.00 and includes documentation,support (via CodeCanyon comments or official website forum). All widgets demo is also available on official website.

Simple Snowfall Effect

Plugin cost only $8.00 and includes documentation, support (via CodeCanyon comments or official website forum). All widgets demo is also available on official website.