Views 1.11 and Layouts 1.4 Released

   Amir

Announcements

November 4, 2015
16

We’ve just released Views 1.11 and Layouts 1.4. These include major new features that you’ve been asking for, UI improvements, better performance and stability.

The full details of these updates are in Views 1.11 release notes and Layouts 1.4 release notes.

Highlights, in no particular order…

Infinite Scrolling in Views

Infinite scrolling lets you display more and more content, as the page scrolls. Views 1.11 makes it easy to build sites with infinite scrolling and even helps Google discover that content.

SEO-Friendly and More Flexible Pagination Controls

Pagination controls got a big boost in Views 1.11. You will be able to create sleek controls for sites that include many pages to jump through. AJAX pagination will update the browser’s URL, which allows visitors to bookmark specific pages. It also allows Google to follow paginated content, no matter how it’s implemented.

Image-box Layouts Cell

Layouts got a new cell for images. This cell greatly simplifies displaying images in layouts and exposes the full power of image controls from Bootstrap.

Improved Layouts Duplication

Duplicating layouts is important, for when you want to create different variations for pages. Layouts 1.4 improves duplication by allowing you to also duplicate Toolset elements that appear in the layout. This makes editing duplicated layouts safer, without running the risk of causing changes where you don’t want them.

Nicer Cell Dialogs

We’ve updated the design and arrangement of the cell dialogs. This update focuses on putting content first. We removed controls that are less frequently accessed, removed the tabs from cells and, generally, tried to streamline your development process.

Separate CSS Editor

The CSS editing in Layouts helps update the look of sites without having to edit CSS files on the server. The location of the CSS editor wasn’t the most convenient. We’ve moved it to its own menu item, so you can always open the CSS editor, no matter where you are in the admin.

Download and Update

Layouts 1.4 and Views 1.11 are available for download. All registered sites will receive these updates automatically through the Plugins admin screen. You can also download the ZIP files manually from your Toolset account, under Downloads.

Coming Next

If you’ve been following our news, you probably noticed that we’re working on two major projects:

  • Google Maps integration
  • Integration between Layouts and popular themes

The Google Maps integration is almost complete. When it’s ready, you’ll have a Google Maps field in Types and CRED, which you can display with Views. Sounds simple, right?

We’re trying to make the Google Maps integration as simple as possible, while keeping the power that Google offers. You will be able to display maps, use all the controls the Google offers, plot as many markers as you need on maps, display information from custom fields and Views loops. And, it all needs to be simple to use.

Integration between Layouts and popular themes is also going great. Early next week, you should get the ‘Genesis/Layouts integration’. Then, we’re working on integrating the default WordPress themes and several other ultra-popular themes. In two months, our aim is to cover the themes that power over 50% of the WordPress sites. It’s ambitious, but you know how we are 🙂

Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? Leave your comments and we’ll reply.

 

Comments 16 Responses

  2. Great! I’ve been waiting for it for a long time. Thank you for hearing our feedback. I’ll test them locally over the weekend.

    • Google Calendar integration sounds like an interesting idea. We have a few other things on our plan, so we’ll be focused on other things in the next few weeks.

      • Yeah a sort of event management feature with calendar display would be another killing feature for the toolset family! +1 for this

  5. Short hint, if InfinteScroll does not work correctly:
    Check your cache plugins. I changed the setting of HTML minify in JCH optimize from ultra to basic. After that, InfinteScroll worked perfectly. Before that, it loaded the second page, but when I scrolled up, the first page was vanished. So – think at the caches plugin 🙂

  6. All good news, superb.

    I believe a new and improved Maps feature was slated to be part of this release, did it get pushed out ?

    • Hi Jean-Francois, this is Juan – lead Views developer.

      We are getting there with it. You know, we developers tend to call things done when they work, but we are lucky enough as to have people here caring about usability and good looking GUIs. We needed to get back to review some interactions so you can use this easily without any long sheet of instructions. We wanted to pack so many features into it that we needed to review the balance between options and clean interfaces.

      Besides, and while this feature will be fantastic for Views users, we wanted to have this also integrated with Types and CRED as much as we could. No need to wait for having working things that should be working from day one.

      I am spending my time every day on this, it is almost my main and only focus. Our first idea was to release this new maps component just after Views, you are right, but this is a separate plugin entirely – not to be included within Views. We plan to have a first release coming out soon, and that means really soon. Please don’t lower your hype: it is worth it 🙂

      Thanks for your feedback.

      • Hi Juan, when you say it’ s a separate plugin, not to be included within Views, will it still be part of Toolset? So those of us who are Toolset owners don’t have to buy it separately?

        • No need to pay extra. This addon will be included with any Views or Toolset account. We are putting it in a separate plugin, so that it will be easier to maintain and release quick updates. It’s not intended as a way to charge more money.

          • Fantastic, thanks Amir. Thank you also to your team for creating and constantly improving such a great “Toolset” of products. Hoping to buy the Lifetime product eventually….

  7. Quick question – not directly related to Layouts/Views but certainly related to Types/Cred. WP 4.4 sees the introduction of Core support for Term Meta.

    The potential here for Toolset to resolve convoluted & at times awkward post relationships is huge.

    Any hint as to if or when we might see direct Toolset support for Term Meta? Particularly in Cred/Types?

      • No, problem is when you have to add 20 pictures to every post. It is painful to click 4(add field – choose file – select file – add file)*20 times instead of just one click for choosing files and than selecting them and addding to field.