Views 1.2.3, Types 1.3.1, CRED 1.2.1 and Access 1.1.6

   Amir

Announcements

June 11, 2013
71

We are happy to release an upgrade to Types, Views and Access. This upgrade adds new features and improves stability. If you want to hear about Toolset plans, stick around ’till the end of this post.

Views 1.2.3

Post ID filter for comparisons

The major new feature on Views 1.2.3 is the filter by post ID. This allows you to search by posts given their ID. You might be wondering why anyone would need something like that and what you can build with it. Good question!

Filter by post ID makes it easy to add comparison functionality to your sites. It’s great for product comparisons on e-commerce sites, listing comparison on classified sites and anything that lets you visitors choose items and compare between them.

The idea behind a comparison feature is:

  1. Create a custom search that filters results according to the post ID value
  2. List the items to compare with a checkbox next to each item
  3. The checkbox will use the post ID as ‘value’
  4. The ‘compare’ function will go to the custom search page, with the post IDs selected from the checkboxes

And that’s it. Visitors select the products to compare using the checkboxes, the IDs are passed to the View’s filter in the URL and the View returns only the selected products. We’re completing a comprehensive guide on e-commerce sites with Toolset and will include a complete tutorial for product comparisons there.

View filter by Post search

The Post search filter lets you add a text search form directly onto your views page or include it as part of a front-end Custom search. We’ve enhanced this filter by allowing you to search just the post title, or, both the post title and the post body.

Several enhancements to custom search

The custom search might be one of the most powerful features in Views and this release gave it a big push forward in functionality and stability.

  • Custom search can now be fully localized using WPML.
  • We’ve added a new option to hide the custom search form on your view results page, whilst still enable the paging functions. .
  • You can now set the default date to a range of function values (such as NONE to clear default date filters in custom search.
  • The date picker now allows selection of month and year.
  • You can now include commas as values in your values and display_values parameters for custom search.
  • You can display the post count for taxonomy terms in your search form.
  • You can set the order in which your taxonomy terms are displayed in your search form.

Bug fixes

No release is complete without crushing some bugs. Here are the bugs fixed in Views 1.2.3:

  • General improvements in custom search. Several fixes on taxonomy and custom field custom search.
  • Pagination improvements on sites showing two or more Views per page.
  • Sliders improvements. Less memory. Better transitions for slides with different dimensions.
  • Fixed : Escaped characters in date formats are now handled correctly
  • Fixed : Several bugs in WordPress Archives.
  • Fixed : not able to add Fields in Arabic
  • Fixed : wpv-if condition error if field not present on all posts.
  • Fixed : pagination height is incorrect

Types 1.3.1

The updates for Types in this release are relatively small (yeah!). Here is the list:

  • Fixed embedded code popup. Types fields now load correctly in the WordPress admin, when you use the Embedded Types mode.
  • Added custom post types and taxonomies to reserved names. With this, it’s easie to pick names for your custom post types and taxonomy. Types will make sure that your names don’t conflict with built-in WordPress terminology and cause mysterious errors.
  • Fixed child titles blank space in child form. Types used to add a blank space to the titles of new child items. It doesn’t do that anymore.

CRED 1.2.1

This CRED update is pretty big, bringing in a host of fixes and improvements. We learned about many of these needed fixes as we worked on our classifieds reference site, due for release very soon.

Including post and form fields in notification emails

Now you can customize notifications, by including post fields in them. Click on the T icon to add Types fields or the C icon to add CRED form fields. When you use CRED Commerce, you’ll also find the WooCommerce name and email fields there.

Import and export to CRED commerce

We are building more and more applications with CRED Commerce, allowing to charge payment when submitting content. To allow easy migration of these sites from development to production, CRED Commerce is now included in the Module Manager export and import. This means that if you create modules with CRED forms that include payment, your settings will be preserved when moving sites.

CRED bug fixes

  • Correct loading CRED assets on Windows servers with case-sensitive paths
  • POST_ADMIN_LINK doesn’t appear in notification emails
  • Validation not happening when notification metabox is closed
  • Issue with adding values to taxonomy field
  • Notifications subject escape characters appearing in sent email
  • Generic fields not parsed correctly on cred admin screens
  • Notifications settings not saved if ‘when the purchase status changes to’ option is selected
  • The media button is not coming up even if enabled
  • Multiselect generic field does not allow “[]” (multiple elements) in the field name
  • parents dropdown in form not localised
  • From name not applying when sending notifications

Access 1.1.6 changes

Added import and export functionality

Now, you can easily transfer Access settings between your different sites. We’re also using it in our reference sites on discover-wp.com.

Allowing Access to work independently of other Toolset plugins

Access now creates its own menu and can run with Types or without it. Of course, we think that you will enjoy the best experience when using Toolset plugins together, but you have the freedom to choose what functionality you like to take from Toolset and what from other plugins or your theme.

Fixed compatibility problems with embedded Types

If you use Types in Embedded mode, you can control privileges with Access. Yes, we’re also planning to create an embedded version of Access, but it’s not ready yet. So, for now, you can use the Embedded Types and Views and the ‘plugin’ version of Access together.

Other smaller Access features

  • Added WPML localisation for custom roles
  • Fixed a bug that caused incorrect access settings when no role was selected
  • Fixed a bug causing incorrect access management of specific users
  • Significant speed improvements by loading fewer files, using memory caching and minifying resources.
  • Check for conflicts between Access and WordPress capabilities and show a warning

Download and Enjoy

As always, you are encouraged to run the recent versions of Toolset plugins. To get automatic updates, you should use our Installer plugin. Remember that WordPress caches plugin updates for 12 hours, so if you’re not seeing this update available right now, you should definitely see it tomorrow.

You can always upgrade manually by downloading the new versions from your wp-types.com account.

Coming Soon

Toolset Bootstrap theme

We’re almost ready with our Toolset Bootstrap theme. Some organizational changes here have delayed it a bit, but we are back on track. We will be sending the first beta next week and plan on getting a full release about a week after that.

Views 1.3 – a complete GUI redesign

Views 1.3, which is a complete rewrite to Views GUI is getting along great. I’ll have a few screenshots to share next week. In the meanwhile, here are Views 1.3 major changes:

Combined the ‘settings’ pages with the listing pages – no more a messy setting screen with a ton of cryptic options that even I get confused with. Now, when you want to assign a template to content, or customize a WordPress archive, it’s going to be completely clear and simple.

Clean and elegant Views admin screen – yes, the Views admin screen you’re looking at today is hardly a masterpiece in modern GUI design. The new GUI will actually be designed for humans, like you.

Lots simpler custom searches – today, you need to add the field to the filter, set it to come from the URL, give it a name, enable in the custom search and edit the meta HTML. In Views 1.3, you’ll just insert a new filter to the HTML and you’re all done. Views will do the rest for you.

and more…

Views 1.3 will make it even easier to build complete sites without coding. We’re looking to streamline your work, so that you can get even more done in less time.

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions? Leave your comments and we’ll get back to you!

 

Comments 71 Responses

  2. Great! And this is the first time i’ve been able to update Views through the automatic update!

    • spoke too soon — one site had upgrades available, and another still no notice of Views, Cred or Access updates.

  3. Thanks for continuing to improve the functionality. This has turned out to be my best WP plugin purchase.

  4. I think there is something wrong with this version of CRED.

    First, it didn’t show an update notification even though Types, Views, and Access did. I just went along and updated it manually eventually.

    Second, after activating CRED, the View and View Template edit screen became messed up and unusable. Apparently, the “hidden” modal behind the CRED “C” icon was all over the place (not hidden behind the modal). I see in the console that JS errors are coming from CRED resources.

    Deactivating CRED solves this. What’s up guys?

    • This shouldn’t happen. Sounds like some missing files in your install. Have you tried to completely delete the old plugin folders and install again?

      • Yep, that’s what I also thought at first.

        Tried deleting and replacing the plugin folder (both CRED and Views) with a fresh folder downloaded from my account page. Didn’t help. The problem seems to be with CRED’s C icon, wherever it appears (e.g. post editor, page editor, CPTs, Views and View Templates editors, etc.) it is broken.

        I see this error in my browser’s console “ReferenceError: cred_cred is not defined”.

        Not an issue with theme either since I already tried switching to the default one to no avail.

    • Hi Hassan try adding this line in your wp-config.php file:

      define(‘CRED_CONCAT_ASSETS’, false);

      and see if issue is resolved

      • Yeah, this seems to solve the issue.

        So, is this the way to go, or is it just a temporary work-around for now?

        • We wouldn’t leave our plugin like that. It’s a very temporary solution. Nikos just wanted to make sure that this is what’s causing the problem for you. We’ll fix it.

          • Have you fixed this yet, guys? I am totally unable to create any CRED forms, even with the temp workaround suggested :/

          • Just to let you guys know that I’ve been having the same issue and I thought it was something that I had messed up myself.
            As Hassan, says the Cred insert form option in edit screens is messed up and continously visible as an overlay of the edit screen making it unusable.
            The temporary fix in the wp-config.php file seems to work but I’ll test it for sure now by creating new forms.
            Would appreciate hearing an update as to how you are getting on with this fix?

          • I have rolled back to CRED 1.2 for now. Working fine for me.

            This issue is probably related to the first item in your changelog “Correct loading CRED assets on Windows servers with case-sensitive paths”

  5. Hi there,

    Great news, especially because of the easier parametric search in Views 1.3! I’m about to start with a new and complex advanced search so it might be more efficient to wait with that – any rough release date for Views 1.3?

    Cheers,
    Thomas

    • At this moment, only a pretty rough estimate for schedule. We should have a first beta in about 3 weeks. It’s a major rewrite of the entire GUI, so we are anticipating some surprises.

      • Hi Amir,

        So I should probably use the old version if I need the advanced search for my project working stable within the next 4-6 weeks, right? I assume I can use/adapt the parametric search created with the old Views version easily with the new 1.3 version later?

        Cheers,
        Thomas

        • Yes, and you don’t need to worry. Views 1.3 will be 100% compatible with your existing sites. It will just look nicer and be a lot more convenient to use. It stores everything in the exact same way and the render engine is untouched (except maybe bug fixes).

    • Hi there,

      I’m about to start an advanced search and wondering if Views 1.3 with the easier parametric search building is already in beta? Maybe I wait a couple of days (weeks) then…

      Cheers,
      Thomas

      • We’re getting there. I think that in 2 weeks we’ll have a nice beta release. It might not have all the bells and whistles that the final version will have, but it will include the complete new workflow for everything (frontend filters included).

        • OK, thanks for the update. I’ll probably start with the old version then and switch to the new one once stable.

          Cheers,
          Thomas

          • That’s what I would do too. But, the good news is that it will be fully compatible. Everything that you build today will continue working without any change in the new version.

  6. Love to see you continuing to improve the product.

    Any idea of where in that timeline we’ll see post filtering by custom user field in Views? That was something we discussed after the last big update. It would really help make the user meta data more useful.

    • The upcoming Views release focuses on the new interface. It’s “just an interface”, but will come with great usability improvements. After that, we will add the ability to filter by user fields. So, I guess, in about 7 weeks. I know it’s a lot of time, but that’s the best we can do.

  7. With the filter by user fields, will it be possible to display a custom post type on a Buddypress member page. So that it displays the content created by that cpt’s author and depending on which Buddypress member page is currently being viewed by a visitor?

    For instance, I’ve now created a Portfolio custom post type and added it to the Buddypress menu. Each BP member can fill out his portfolio. But it has to be filtered so that the portfolio of member A displays just his content on his Buddypress portfoliopage and the portfolio of member B on his individual portfoliopage and so on. Hope you understand what I mean.

    Such a functionality would really be the bomb. Making it possible to create a totally customized social network using just WordPress, WPV Toolset and Buddypress.

  8. I can’t seem to get the filter by post ID thing to work. I inserted the shortcode that was given when I added the filter and it shows no posts returned, and I am sure the id is correct. What am I doing wrong?

  9. Twitter Bootstrap is a great thing for views 1.3. Currently I am using a bootstrap based theme … which has sometimes been challenging to use Views 1.2.x with ….

    One question is will it be Bootstrap 2.x or Bootstrap 3.x (Completely different) or can you have a choice or ensure that updating to Bootstrap 3 will be possible at some point when it becomes stable.

    One of the challenges y’all face is that some people will be loading bootstrap via a plugin, some a theme and in my experience everyone is using different “names” when they enqueue/register their “bootstrap”. It can be quite frustrating and challenging to deal with…since the load order for the styles is important.
    Also is what to do on the admin dashboard side of things….since most bootstrap-themes are not loading bootstrap on the admin side, sometimes people end up getting plugins like bootstrap-admin

    Feature Requests:

    USE ACE Editor instead of CODEMIRROR ( Performace is brutal with codemirror for large/complex areas even if you have 24GB of ram… at least with the current implementation)
    Ability to set/select a custom location for css/js for bootstrap OR select from a cdn .. like bootstrapcdn
    Ability to load a custom icon set like fontawesome OR to build completely custom icon sets using something like http://icomoon.io/ which is really friendly for non-technical people.
    LESS mode instead of CSS (Per View/View Template or module wide)
    Performance Analysis Tool to identify sources of slowness in nested views AND offer suggested solutions or links to help pages that do)
    Ability to control Comments (On/Off and howmany to show etc…) on a per view template basis
    Integration with a Bootstrap Snippet site like http://bootsnipp.com/ or one of the live editors like Jetstrap or DivShot
    Goal would be to visual pick snippets or templates and have them imported with any appropriate shortcodes being added to simplify things
    Filtering areas which work easily on side, top, or modal. (Currently it is a pain to get pagination links in the right place if you want to do a two column area with filters on left and results on the right.
    Jquery DataTables Integration as a part of the default “table” layout
    Ability to create new “Layouts” so that you can avoid having issues with field management…. (Like swapping width=”100%” for class=”table table-striped table-condensed”)
    GUI Wizard to create “Tour” Views…. using http://bootstraptour.com/
    A Live View Template/View editor that builds a tree of the Views/View Templates that were used to build the page you are looking it)
    Ability to copy/clone Views/View Templates
    Add “Partials” (another Post Type) which would be used for things like Date Display, Author Links, Money Values, etc…Same idea as a View Template but can work independently of the CURRENT POST (One Object is passed to a Partial, or One Value that may come from a shortcode result… or maybe the shortcode can accept a “partial” attribute that allows you to specify (Select2 Dropdown list of known partials for the GUI) which will be used as a filter to wrap the output of the shortcode (Essentially)

    CRED Related

    Give more control over the alert messages, their format. Currently it’s pretty clunky and not easily avoided as the JS is inlined or a part of JS files which has other unrelated stuff that is needed. (Even if you are an experienced Programmer who is familiar with wordpress and it’s various override mechanisms)
    Ditch Zebra Form (or at least the styles and any JS that is targeting style)
    Choice of Form layout (inline, form-horizontal, etc…)
    Bootstrap Plugin Management/Selection … including plugins like the SELECT2 , bootstrap-datetimepicker, bootstrap-daterangepicker, bootstrap-modalmanager, bootstrap-colorpicker , etc….
    Choice to SELECT2 JS for Dropdown lists/checkboxes

    If your developers want more details of my adventures using Toolset Views 1.2.X with Twitter Bootstrap they can email me … I will assume based on the content of my comment that I am a fellow nerd … that being said.. from one nerd to another ….Look at KNOCKOUT JS … find a way to let nerds like me use knockout efficiently with Toolset Views/CRED

    Thanks for the Toolset …. and thanks for recognizing the superiority of Bootstrap.

    • All good points here. Some we are already planning on doing in the near future.

      Right now, we’re with Bootstrap 2. It’s pretty challenging to complete everything just for it and we cannot branch our efforts on these two different development branches. When we’re done with the current Bootstrap elements, and maybe Bootstrap 3 will be released, we’ll look into this as well.

      Zebra forms has its advantages, but is pretty nasty to style. We will see how we go around this and output clean HTML/CSS, which you can style easily.

      And, I’m taking note of your other comments. Thanks a lot for the great feedback.

  10. Ok…. So “You may use these HTML tags and attributes” … does not include or …. Weird
    And I can’t edit the comment I just made…. so all of my feature request items are mashed together…. when I wanted a numbered list….
    You guys can fix that….and should .. at least on wp-types.com …. Because that is JV.

    • Yeah, that message at the bottom of the commenting (and support) forms is a bit misleading. Some HTML tags do not work at all.

  11. By the way, should we expect the new Types admin GUI along with the new Views GUI as well?

    • Views 1.3, with that fancy GUI should be ready in about a month. The Types re-coding will only start after that time, so it’s still a while in the future. However, we are getting ready with a nice new Types version which includes a complete rewrite of the field popups. This new Types version will let you insert all fields to Views and Templates without ever having to edit the shortcodes manually. The GUI includes all attributes for all field types in a clear and usable manner. It also includes major JS optimizations for all Types admin pages, making Types a lot nicer to use. It’s near the end of its development. Does this help?

      • Sounds good all in all.

        By Types admin GUI, I was more specifically referring to the way Types renders various fields in the post edit screen. More specifically, the repeating fields UI. It is very cluttered, IMO. You could do away with making every repeating field instance laying in THREE whole rows: 1st row has the field itself, 2nd row has the drag’n’drop handle + Delete Field button, and 3rd row has the Add Another [field-name] button. That’s an overkill.

        You could just use a single row for the field and just add small ‘+’ and ‘-‘ signs (not text buttons) next to it. More clean and usable.

        Having a couple of repeating fields in a post like that would contribute to a very jammed edit screen.
        Hope to see this addressed in the release as well. 🙂

  12. We’re almost ready with our Toolset Bootstrap theme

    Really excited to hear this, great move !
    Are we any closer to a beta ?

    Cheers, Dave

    • Yes. Much closer. We had a pretty unfortunate change of personnel, specifically related to the Toolset Bootstrap theme. I’m glad to report that we’re back on track, with one of our best developers on the project now. Should have a nice beta release next week, complete with ample documentation. Sorry for the wait. We’re trying to make it worth the delay.

      • Will it be a open beta? If not i would like to sign up for the beta.

        Have pushed a few projects forward to use the bootstrap theme but need to start working on them next week.

  13. HI Amir. In the spirit of making suggestions might I throw in my vote for a REST implementation as part of Views? Even better, couple that with a nodejs-based front end! (angularjs would be my pick….)

  14. Hi!

    Great update!

    I’m a bit confused about Access though. It seems that Types has the same features built-in now. Is Access needed or does it offer additional functionality?

    I’m also having two issues, one new with Access and one old with Types. The first is I’m getting a memory allocation error when I try to activate Access on a site. Here is the error:

    Fatal Error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 71 bytes) in /wp-content/plugins/types-access/includes/Helper.php on line 3091

    That’s why I was asking if it’s needed because access control features already appear in the Types menu even when access is not activated or present in the plugins folder. On another site, I have Access activated and it has it’s own menu which removes the one in the Types menu. This is confusing as both plugins seem to replicate the same functionality. Is Access useful only when Types is not present? (using code to create the CPTs or another plugin?)

    Secondly, the other issue (with Types) is quite annoying and I hope it gets fixed with every release. The problem is that Types always updates from the WordPress.org plugin repo. In that download, the Types plugin folder is named simply “types”. But the version of Types that’s downloadable from your site (which I often install first) has its files in a folder named wp-types. So when I update Types within WordPress or from InfiniteWP, the “wp-types” folder gets deleted, the update gets downloaded but the new folder name is just “types”. So the plugin gets deactivated as WordPress expects it in “wp-types”.

    Will that be fixed at some point?

    Thanks! Love Toolset! It’s becoming an essential part of my WordPress development process.

  15. Hi guys, this is my traditionnal question : Any date for the next release, even in beta ? And what about the bootstrap theme ?
    Thank you !

    • Perfectly legitimate question.

      Toolset Bootstrap theme is 99% complete. We are handling last compatibility issues with WPML and will send to beta testers next week. It’s been a bumpy ride with a lot of unexpected problems, but we’re finally there.

      Views 1.3 is about 2 weeks from a first solid public beta. It’s a complete rewrite of the entire GUI, including not just design but a completely new user experience. At this point, we shouldn’t be sending beta versions because it looks incomplete.

      And, Types 1.3.2 is almost ready too. This release includes complete GUI for all attributes in all Types fields. This means that you never have to check the documentation for what different fields can do, when you are using Types with Views. A nice field-insert popup will open and show you every option that each field includes. It’s been a long process, adding everything to the GUI, but certainly worth it. Types 1.3.2 will be ready for a very solid beta next week.

      Have a great weekend!

      • Thank you, Amir,

        I’ve guessed that you’ve had some problems with this bootstrap theme.
        And about Toolset himself, it seems to be another great release, so we can wait (but not too long !!! 😉 ), your plugin is unique and the team is doing a great job, but you’ve made us addicted to your release !!!

        Have a great weekend too.

      • I would like to be added to the list of beta testers for the bootstrap theme if possible.

  16. >> You can now include commas as values in your values and display_values parameters for parametric search.

    So how should I offer select values from “,100,000,200,000,300,000” // meaning 1k, 2k, 3k
    What would that syntax be?

    • There are two main ways of manually adding values to the parametric search controls:
      – Using the GUI to set the values and using the values and display_values parameters in the wpv-control shortcode.
      This way, you just need to write the values “as is” in the boxes, and we take care of converting them to the appropriate format.

      – Using the values and display_values parameters for the wpv-control shortcode, you need to double-escape the commas (using a double backslash, this is a requirement by WordPress). So the shortcode would look something like that:
      [wpv-control field="wpcf-field-name" type="checkboxes" values="100\\,000,200\\,000,300\\,000" display_values="100\\,000,200\\,000,300\\,000" url_param="my-url-param"]

  17. Hi there,

    Is the Boostrap Theme available, already and if so where cab it be downloaded?

    I have a project that I would like to start developing on this:)

    Thanks

    Francois Wessels

    • Yes, almost ready. We sent out a beta version to several testers this week. Got some feedback and doing little updates. We’ll release it this week.

  18. Hi Amir,

    Any chance of getting Bootrap Theme for the weekend ?
    I’ve been checking every morning hoping for a release 🙁

    Cheers, Dave

    • We’ll send you the version that went to QA directly to your email. It will go live after QA is complete, but you can have it now already.

    • Types 1.3.2 is almost ready. It’s in QA right now and we plan on releasing the new version next week. Besides the obvious bug fixes, this release also comes with a ton of new functionality, as well as performance improvements.

    • Our Toolset Bootstrap theme runs on Bootstrap 2 at the moment. We plan to update it for Bootstrap 3, but we’re not that fast. We’ll get a stable release in a few days and then work on Bootstrap 3 migration. I didn’t review all the changes, so I can’t tell how long this will take.

    • Views 1.3 is moving along well. I realize that it looks like we’re all asleep here, but it’s quite the contrary 🙂

      This week we’re wrapping it up for QA, with the target of a first public beta the following week.

      • Amir,
        can i have the views 1.3 and bootstrap beta, .
        Please forward it across, maybe i would able to present my 2 cents.

        • We’ll have the Toolset Bootstrap theme in a few days. We completed a first beta and QA and we’re in the middle of some last fixes. It’s not in release state right now because we’re making some small changes.

          Views 1.3 will go to beta soon. I’ve added you to the beta testing list, so we’ll send it to you as soon as it’s ready.

  22. I quite desperately need the bootstrap theme for a project (or at least the beta version) – any news on a release date or how to get a copy of the beta version?
    Thanks
    John

    • It’s going out as a production version (not beta), this week. A couple more days and we’re there.