Category Archive for Information

After a long year of redesign, restructuring and rewriting of all the code, Version 5 of Simple:Press has finally reached beta and is now available for download – later than we imagined when we started but – hopefully – better and more rugged for the long gestation.

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.

It’s been a longer wait than usual for WordPress 3.1 to finally be launched but launched it has been and we are pleased to be able to follow up quickly with Simple:Press version 4.4.0.

Virtually all of the features, enhancements and changes in 4.4.0 have already been written up during the beta and release candidate phases so there really is nothing to add except to say we are pleased it is now out there and available to all of our users. Just don’t forget that you will need to upgrade to WordPress 3.1 first.

We have been very busy over the last couple of months rewriting code for our version 5 which we are extremely excited about as it will be a radical change. Over the next couple of months we hope to write up some of the things we have done and are planning and hope that as soon as we are ready, some of you may join us in giving early alpha versions a test run. More on that later.

Thanks to all of our users and a special thanks for those who have already completed – or are beavering away at this very moment – working on translations for version 4.4.0.

If you are planning to upgrade your WordPress site to their shiny new version 2.8.1 then you will require version 4.0.4 of Simple:Press Forum which fully supports the administration and menu changes that have been made.

Please visit the download page for all the usual download options including a set of patch files for those comfortable with using them.

Between our Version 4.0 and 4.0.4, we have had to make 3 interim updates simply to support WordPress core changes. Hopefully they will leave it alone for a while to enable us to finalise our V4.1 due to be available in beta some time later this month.

While not a tool that all forum administrators will choose to make use of for those that do the Admin Bar has undergone quite a transformation in Version 4. If you need to read every new post (as we do on our support forum) or use moderation, the Admin Bar is the most useful tool.

If you are not familiar with it’s use a brief explanation is in order.

All new posts are stored in what we call the Admin ‘Queue’. This is an option that can be turned on or off. As new posts arrive the post count in the admin bar (again optionally displayed) increase – red for new, ordinary posts and blue for those requiring approval. In Simple:Press Forum version 3 we introduced the retrieval of the post content by clicking on the ‘New Posts’ button. This opened up a drop down section from where you could then click on through to the topic.

In version 4 we have extended this. You can now display each new post and simple mark them read/approved; opt to load the topic itself; delete the post or reply to it there and then with our new ‘Quick Reply’ feature. And because all of this is handled with AJAX there are no extra page loads and the forum administrators can quickly see, read and deal with all the new posts waiting in the queue.

One word of warning. If you, as the forum administrator, do not wish to use the Admins Queue then make sure to turn the option off (in Manage Admins) otherwise the queue will continue to grow which can have performance repercussions. On the other hand if you choose to make use of this feature – ensure you check out all of the options available to set it all up as you want to use it.