WordPress 3.1 RC3

WordPress 3.1 RC3 has been release.

In summary, RC3 has removed the AJAX list tables implemented in RC2 because of bugs and usability issues.

Here is the blog post from WordPress.org:

WordPress 3.1 Release Candidate 3 is now available. After careful evaluation of the 3.1 features in RC2, we recognized the need to make some adjustments. There are some significant differences from previous versions of 3.1, so please review the changes if you have been developing against a beta or RC version.

The biggest change is the removal of AJAX list tables, which had been an effort to move all of our list-style screens to full AJAX for pagination, searches, and column sorts, and to consolidate the list-style screens into a single API that plugins could leverage. Unfortunately, with more testing came realizations that there were too many major bugs and usability issues with how the functionality was implemented, so we’ve spent the last week rolling back the most important portions of the feature.

  • For users: AJAX has been entirely disabled for the list tables. We hope to bring this back again, in a form that is properly and fully implemented, in a future release. Column sorting remains, but everything else has returned to its 3.0 state.
  • For developers: The entire list table API is now marked private. If you attempt to leverage new components of the API, you are pretty much guaranteeing that your plugins will break in a future release, so please don’t do that. We hope to enable all the fun new goodies for public use in a future release.

This is the only way we could prevent any regressions in functionality and usability from WordPress 3.0 to 3.1. That’s right, users and plugin authors can still do everything you used to be able to do (and a little bit more).

Because of the code churn between RC2 and RC3, this release candidate needs a lot of testing. Every list screen needs testing. In particular, the comment moderation screen needs testing, especially with keyboard shortcuts (if you didn’t know about those, now’s your chance to try them out).

Other fixes in RC3 include:

  • Properly display the author dropdown in Quick Edit
  • Various important fixes to numerous taxonomy query variables
  • Fixes to the theme deletion process
  • Fixes to pages used for posts
  • IIS and Multisite: Avoid resetting web.config on permalink save
  • Properly validate post formats and their rewrite rules

I’m assembling a group of friends in Washington, D.C., this weekend to test WordPress 3.1 and provide feedback. We’d love to see this idea catch on among friends at coffee shops around the world. (We’ll blog our results, and we’re thinking about using the hashtag #wptest on Twitter.) If you are testing the release candidate and think you’ve found a bug, there are a few ways to let us know:

To test WordPress 3.1, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the release candidate here (zip).

We’re going to study this release carefully to see where we can improve on our internal processes in the future. With that, our requisite haiku, authored by Jane:

Pulling the AJAX –

sometimes you need to step back

and show some restraint.

Happy testing!

Download: WordPress 3.1 RC 3

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Updated This Site WP-Polls To 2.11 RC1

I have updated this site WP-Polls to 2.11 RC1 to test out the multiple answers voting feature in WP-Polls 2.20. You can set the maximum number of answers that the user can vote, in this case, I set it to 14 as there are 14 answers.

Note the poll footer that says “Total Voters” and NOT “Total Votes”. The individual answer on the other hand is “Votes” and not “Voters” and the percentage is calculated based on the “Total Voters”.

Vote away on the right hand sidebar.

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WP-Polls, WP-PostRatings, WP-PostViews, WP-Email Updated

I have updated the following plugins:

Now all AJAX requests are handled by /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php. Previously it is handled via the plugin PHP file itself by assuming that wp-load.php is always 2 levels down from the plugin file. But since you can have your WordPress in any folders, custom loading of wp-load.php is not possible as the path to wp-load.php varies from server to server.

While I am at it, I added nonce check for AJAX calls to WP-Polls, WP-PostRatings and WP-Email. Let me know if you run into problems via WordPress Support Forums, My Forums (if you are already registered) or via email (lesterchan AT gmail).

PS: Kindly refer to https://lesterchan.net/wordpress/2012/06/05/ajax-not-working-for-wp-email-wp-polls-wp-postratings-or-wp-postviews/ if you ran into problems.

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WordPress 3.0.2

WordPress 3.0.2 is out and it is recommended for everyone to upgrade as it is a mandatory security update for all previous WordPress versions.

Fixes:

  • Fixed moderate security issue where a malicious Author-level user could gain further access to the site.
  • Remove pingback/trackback blogroll whitelisting feature as it can easily be abused.
  • [Fixed other issues]

Changelog: WordPress 3.0.2
Download: WordPress 3.0.2
Download: Modified files since WordPress 3.0.1

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WP-Downloads

I wonder if anybody is interested in this plugin which I think I may name it WP-Downloads. I ported it over from my WP 1.5.2 Site (http://www.lesterchan.net/blogs/) and modify it a little to be WP 2.0 friendly. What it does is basically add a little Download Section in your WordPress site. It will just keep track of how many times a file is downloaded. It will be a single page Download Section with categories to separate the files. I am still considering whether or not to add a upload feature to it as PHP only supports maximum 2MB of upload. Right now you have to upload the file to a directory set in the option page. I have not coded the user side yet, but the admin side is more or less done.

Give me your comments on this.

A similar demo is on http://www.lesterchan.net/others/downloads.php.
WP-Downloads Admin Screen

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