The first has revolved around uploading. Those of you who may remember the old File Manager will most likely remember it for being clunky, long winded and not really that intuitive. Judging from feedback, it was possibly the number one feature that was most disliked. It was actually very good at doing what it was supposed to do, but we have to admit is wasn’t the easiest tool to use. When it also became apparent that there were security flaws, it was not a hard decision to drop it when V5 was being constructed. And we are very happy with the new uploader we have adopted in it’s place and – again judging by feedback – so are most of our users.

But as one user aggressively pointed out – if you wanted to re-use an uploaded image or file then you had no way of looking it up. And the same applied to accidentally deleting an image in a post while you were writing it! We knew about this shortfall and have always intended to address it but were now spurred into bringing this development forward. So enter the new Uploads Viewer plugin, the first embryonic version of which is available on this site if you need it and which will be available with our 5.1 release or very soon afterwards.

The other catchup is a bit more technical and embarrassing. We have often said that we believe strongly that the WordPress API (Application Programming Interface) should be used at all times and that all plugins should stick to the rules. Unfortunately, we have come to find that in one important area, we had not done so. As those who know the WordPress API, Simple:Press displays your forum in the filter known as ‘the-content’ – a filter specifically designed to let plugins add items to your posts or pages. While we had continued to use this filter in version 5 we were not using it properly which, in a very small handful of cases, was not giving the expected display of the page.

Our motives for this bypass of the strict API were good – improved perception of performance of page loading. But at the expense that the occasional user would have display problems. We are pleased to report that we have what we believe is an easy fox for that and its currently being tested by a couple of effected users. And for the vast majority of users of course, things are just fine so this new change will become an option.

Other than that there have been the usual round of small bug fixes and small but useful enhancements and at the moment 5.1 is on course. We are aiming for some time around the end of May with a beta. But of course I didn’t tell anyone that.

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In this update, I thought I would cover a couple of API changes were are making in 5.1.

API’s (Application Programming Interface) are hooks available to Simple:Press plugin developers to allow their Simple:Press plugin to interact with core Simple:Press functions. These work similarly as the  WordPress Plugin API hooks do.

Normally, we resist making any API changes because it can break plugin or theme compatibility. We have chosen to make these changes in 5.1 because the base APIs were just introduced in 5.0 and its not likely that they have been used outside of core or our plugins.  If this turns out to not be the case, we can easily help you make the changes in your plugins.
The changes are being made because the current APIs turned out to not be the most efficient of design. Not from a performance stand point but from a usability perspective. Plugins had to do several steps to utilize them. These changes will make them easier to use.

The two APIs we are making slight modifications to are the sfmeta and member data APIs.
The sfmeta API is used store generic data for the forum in a WordPress user meta style table. Our smileys, forum ranks and a few other functions make use of the sfmeta API. The member data API is an API for reading or writing data from the sfmembers table in the database. It’s use is pretty widespread in core and plugins.

The change to sfmeta is how the meta value is stored in the database. Previously, the data was stored in whatever format the user sent to the API. So if you wanted to store an array or object, you had to do the serialization yourself before sending the data to the API – or unserialize yourself when receiving data from the API.
Now, the API will automatically handle data preparation both when sending and receiving data. This simplifies and reduces code in each usage and you don’t have to worry about the format of the data and deal with serialized arrays.

The change to the member data API is along similar lines of sfmeta.
While the member update has always handled the serialization (or unserializing) of data, it did so with a bunch of ‘IF’ statements on specific columns of data (a prior knowledge) in the sfmembers table. When plugins add columns of data in the sfmembers table, they had to handle the serialization of data themselves via a filter. With the API change, we have added the logic to determine the serialization in the API itself.
Now, as with sfmeta, users can now send and receive data objects to and from the API and not worry about serialized arrays. Those filters in plugins for handling serialization are no longer required.

It may not sound like much but changes had to be made to all the per-existing plugins and Simple:Press core files ,which took some effort, but in the long run both of these API changes will make everything easier for both you and us.

Hopefully, the change is early enough in the post 5.0 release era that it will not affect any user plugins. If it does, please let us know and we will help you get the new API usage in place.

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We listen very carefully to the requests our users make and when features come up again and again we do – whenever possible – attempt to prioritise those to the top of the list. And that is why Subscriptions are having such a big makeover this time around. They are surely the number one item that comes up in the forums.

As we mentioned in the previous update the last task to be coded up was the digest and the good news is that this is now on our test server and looking good. If all goes well in our internal tests we will turn that feature on here fairly soon so you can try it out.

Another new plugin – and another often asked for feature – also went live on our site this week which some of you may have noticed – a proper Post Preview that will – if all goes to plan – allow you to view what your post will look like when published before you hit the submit button.

There has been progress too on the planned Post by Email plugin. Being able to post replies to existing topics from subscription emails and admin notification emails is well into testing and we now have a cohesive plan of action to implement the starting of new topics etc. Hopefully we will be able to announce more on this new plugin in the next update.

But 5.1 – like any release – is not just about the big ticket items. There are always a host of smaller developments, many of which you don’t even see as they have no UI but that make a big difference to what is going on behind the scenes. We have some of those in the pipeline as well. Notably this week, the Gravatar Cache plugin has been updated and should now speed up even more the display of Gravatars for those that use them. We also hope we have at last resolved the sometimes erratic positioning of popup images and, as a bonus stopped images bigger than the users screen slipping out of sight. And the Profanity Filter plugin has had a change to allow you to define a single term to replace multiple unwanted words.

In the category of things you don’t see but that make a difference, a new Post API has been created to centralise the creation of new topic and posts which is also available to plugins. This simplifies the process and removes a lot of redundant code.

Finally this time around, a couple of other smaller items that are important and requested have got the green light. The first is the ability to move the TinyMCE editor CSS to your theme so you can freely customise it. And – the ability to upload media and other files when editing a post which has been added to the uploading of images.

That’s not bad progress in just a week!

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With support for updates from within the WordPress Admin, we want to try to do more focused, shorter release cycles in the future. Our plan would be for a 2 or 3 month development cycle on these releases. We will also give development status updates on twitter, so be sure to follow us or track the development on our 5.1 development and bug tracker page.

Now, on to the 5.1 status…

One focus in 5.1 is some long needed and requested updates to some of our plugins. Subscriptions, Watches, Blog Linking, Topic Status and Admin Bar will all be getting our attention. The Subscriptions plugin has been one focus early on here. Here are some of the key and major changes:

• Now (along with Watches) features a subscription management page in each user’s profile
• Subscription notification emails will now include the post content
• Users can now subscribe to a forum provided the forum admin enables this feature
• New posts from the admin bar now fire subscription emails
• Subscription digest reports (daily or weekly)

All of those features are now in testing except for the digest reports which are in early stages of planning and design – exciting times for Subscriptions!

Another key feature that has already been added to 5.1 is upload panels for Simple:Press plugins and themes. So in the future, if you want to add a new Simple:Press plugin or theme, you can do it right from within the Simple:Press admin menus. Also already complete is a WordPress Role to Simple:Press User Group mapping tool. For quite some time, we have supported mapping WordPress Roles to Simple:Press User Groups but it only took effect on new users or WordPress Role changes. If you already had an established user database with Roles, you had to manually move those users into the proper Simple:Press User Group. With this new tool, it can be done for existing users too.

Recently, we had a user suggest a delete button on topic view just like an edit button. Doh! We had never thought of it nor had it been suggest before, but now its in 5.1!

And I will leave you with this last tidbit. Currently in development and testing is a new plugin that will allow you to post by email. It is primarily, at least initially, designed for replying to admin or subscription notification emails. I will save the details for another blog post here shortly, but this new plugin will be ready by the 5.1 release.

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While the updates since V5 have been mainly to fix teething issues, 5.0.5 also includes some goodies. First up, the Uploader plugin has had some much requested additions – in particular being made available when editing posts and being added to the Profile Photos panel. A new requested permission can also control who can download other file types (not images or media since they appear in the post content) that have been uploaded. We have also done some work with the image popups and hope we have improved the display.

We have fixed up some problems with the Recent Posts tag and widget as well as the last post display when sub-forums are in play. A small hole in access to sub-forums has also been plugged.

For all of those users who wanted a custom forum icon when new posts exist in topics within that forum – you now have it. And for those who wanted badges for User Groups – you have got that too. We have also tightened up the Spam User removal plugin and added some new special options.

For a complete list of 5.0.5 changes you can view the changelog when you update it from the WP admin or visit the toolbox changelog viewer. Please be aware that the plugins and themes we are updating today will need the 5.0.5 update to also be completed.

So – now we are starting to look ahead and considering what we want to achieve in 5.1. Feel free to come over to and take a look at the plans. It is early days yet and much will change, but we are already getting excited about the new features we want to introduce. Be sure to Follow us on Twitter to follow the 5.1 progress.

And of course, we will continue to populate the Codex and work to get the 5.0 API fully documented.

It is with some regret and a fair amount of trepidation mixed with anticipation, that we are moving Simple:Press to a membership support site. The sad truth is that after nearly 6 years of developing and supporting Simple:Press, donations and advertising has rarely covered our spiralling costs and our pockets are only so deep.

Sooner or later we would have had to face the tough decision on whether to close the project down or take the plugin premium and start charging for it. This project has been our labor of love for those six years and we did not want to do either. So we are hoping that the new support membership model we are putting in place will be a good alternative to the other two options.

From now on, we will be asking for a modest payment to get access to what many of our users have continually branded as the best support in the world of WordPress. We wanted, above all, to maintain that appellation and reputation as well as continue to develop and improve Simple:Press into the future with new features and functionality.

It is our sincere hope that our current users will both understand and continue to support us in our goal and that new users will give Simple:Press a test drive and join our community.

At it’s heart, Simple:Press 5 is a from the ground up rewrite. For the previous 5 or so years we have developed the plugin, the codebase had remained largely the same. We were definitely getting limited in what we could do and taking performance hits because of it. We re-architected the codebase with an eye on performance and extendability. And our pre-release testers tell us the performance gains are huge.

Gone are the limiting skins of previous versions – replaced by a theme system akin to the WordPress theme system. No longer are you limited to the layout dictated by the skins and fixed layout – only being able to, for the most part, change the colors or fonts. With Simple:Press themes you are in complete control of the look and feel of your forum. Almost all elements can be moved or placed where you want them to be. As part of the release, we have provided 4 core themes to get you started. 3 of those themes come with multiple color overlay options. We have already seen some wonderful looking themes developed by our pre-release community. We soon hope to have the ability for the community to contribute and share themes. We will be looking to update our showcase page too with some of these great new 5.0 themes.

Simple:Press 5 also features a full fledged API. We have extended the WordPress hooks, actions and filters into Simple:Press. Many, many things can be done now with these hooks much like themes and plugins do for WordPress.

The most obvious use of this API is the new plugins for Simple:Press – another key feature of Version 5. The last release of Version 4 was approaching 3MB in size. The codebase had gotten bloated with a ton of features and functionally. A lot of these features were not even used by many of our users. So we developed SP plugins and moved a lot of non-core functionality into plugins. So now, you only need to grab those plugins if you want those features. Just like WordPress, you pick and choose which ones to use on your site. This has dropped the core archive size to about 900k – a huge difference. Plugins will allow us to add new features and functionality without necessarily having to make changes in core that affect everyone. We also soon hope to have the ability for the community to contribute and share plugins.

Another great feature built in to Simple:Press 5 is upgrading from within the WordPress admin itself. Once you get going with Version 5, no more ftp’ing new versions. Simple:Press 5 fully supports the WordPress updates functionality. And yes, you will also be able to update the SP themes and plugins from within the WP updater too!

For translating Simple:Press into your native language, we now use GlotPress, the same community driven translation tool that powers WordPress localizations. So visit our 5.0 translation site and help get it in your own language.

Starting with Version 5, we are also moving away from our old wiki method of information delivery and moving to a codex style set of documentation. Again, this will be similar to how the WordPress codex works. And best of all, the community itself is able to edit and update codex pages with information. We will be launching that shortly. Today, the codex is not fully populated – in fact, most information is missing. We are just starting to populate it with information as we have been more focused on the pre-release process of fixing bugs and getting folks going with the new API. You can check out the available information by visiting our Simple:Press Codex site.

So what are you waiting for? Head over to the downloads page and grab your copy of Simple:Press 5! Please be sure to fully read the download page for Simple:Press 5 requirements.

For 5.0, we are going to do translations a bit different.  We have launched a new collaborative translation site in the hope of coaxing more folks into helping to translate. This new collaborative translation site uses GlotPress, the same localization tool used for WordPress in creating its localized versions.

For SP 5.0, we have broken the translations up into multiple pieces. There is the front end core, the back end administration core, plugins and themes. So the base SP core is broken into two pieces: front end and administration. Each plugin and each theme will have their own translations too.
With GlotPress, users can translate a single string or as many strings as they like.  Additionally, if you disagree with a translation or want to recommend an improved translation, users can do that. 

So head on over to our new Simple:Press 5.0 Translation Site and help translate Simple:Press into your language.

You will need to register on the translation site in order to help translate (yup, that’s a WordPress site hiding in the background).  You can find the register link in the upper right hand corner as well as some getting started information.

As part of the translation process, and to help speed it up, we would like to get a couple 2 or3 Translation Validators for each language. When a translation is submitted, it needs to be approved.  Since the Simple:Press team doesn’t speak all the languages that our users do, these Translation Validators will help the approval process along.  If you would like to volunteer to be a Translation Validator for a language, please let us know via our contact form.

If you don’t see a language listed that you would like to translate Simple:Press into, please let us know and we will see if we can get it added for you.

Again, that new translation site is http://glotpress.simple-press.com

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We would especially like to thank all those who took part in the alpha stage – for their tracking down of bugs, their testing and their suggestions for improvement.

If you want to take a closer look at V5 beta then head over to the Download Page.

Some of the bugs squashed were an issue with using wp smileys, images from flickr and photobucket clashing with oembeds, wp/sp comment interspersing, icon text not saving in options, tinymce spellchecker and tinymce paste plain text. You can see all the changes on our bug tracker page for 4.4.5.

It is a also worth noting that we updated all of the Simple:Press Icon Sets for this release as part of the icon text not saving in the options issue. So you may want to grab our latest icon sets too though not required if you are not having any issues.

Please head over to our downloads page and grab 4.4.5. This really does clear the decks for 5.0 development which is starting an Alpha testing period beginning July 1.

The affected files are listed below:

M simple-forum/sf-hooks.php
M simple-forum/styles/editors/tinymce/ui.css
M simple-forum/styles/icons/default/ICON_DEFAULTS.php
M simple-forum/styles/icons/three-en/ICON_DEFAULTS.php
M simple-forum/styles/icons/two-en/ICON_DEFAULTS.php
M simple-forum/styles/icons/ash/ICON_DEFAULTS.php
M simple-forum/styles/icons/four-en/ICON_DEFAULTS.php
M simple-forum/sf-loader-admin.php
M simple-forum/admin/panel-options/forms/sfa-options-style-form.php
M simple-forum/admin/panel-options/support/sfa-options-prepare.php
M simple-forum/admin/panel-options/support/sfa-options-save.php
M simple-forum/forum/forms/sf-form-login.php
M simple-forum/forum/sf-page-components.php
M simple-forum/linking/sf-links-comments.php
M simple-forum/library/sf-filters.php
M simple-forum/install/sf-install.php
M simple-forum/install/sf-upgrade.php
M simple-forum/sf-constants.php
M simple-forum/editors/tinymce/plugins/spellchecker/editor_plugin.js
M simple-forum/editors/tinymce/plugins/spellchecker/css/content.css
M simple-forum/editors/tinymce/plugins/spellchecker/classes/utils/JSON.php
M simple-forum/editors/tinymce/plugins/spellchecker/classes/utils/Logger.php
M simple-forum/editors/tinymce/sf-tinyinit.php
M simple-forum/sf-control.php
M simple-forum/messaging/ahah/sf-ahah-pm-manage.php