TDOMF is not dead!

It was just taking a break! My host went unexpectedly down for a little period and so the TDOMF support forums were down and so too were all my development and test sites. Which meant that I was unable to do any work on TDOMF during the down period, which is why people’s requests on the forums and Wordpress.org went by largely ignored by me. I saw them, but there was little I could do to answer them. I’ll should be back getting back into the swing of things by next week, depending on how much sleep I manage to recoup over the next week.

But before it all went down I had started work on several features. Specifically to do with the problem of spam. My host had upgraded their PHP version and suddenly the TDOMF image captcha no longer worked on the forums and I had to remove it, otherwise no-one could post. Suddenly spam appeared. The one-question-captcha widget had zero effect on it. So I turned on moderation to prevent any more slipping through. I now have a queue of genuine spam submissions for TDOMF, so I thought, why not implement Akismet integration now with some real data. And it was coming together before my host went down. Now that things are starting to get back up to speed, I can start to look at finishing this work. I also want to look at throttling submissions - as in allowing a max limit of submission per user (or IP) per set period of time. And also expanding the one-question-captcha to support multiple random questions. I would hope these combination of features would provide enough tools to handle spam.

I will also look at queueing approved/published TDOMF posts. More than one person has asked for such a feature. The idea being that when you approve a TDOMF submission, it’ll only publish after X time after the last published post, creating a queue of published posts.

I still have the Form Hacker and AJAX features half done, but they require a lot of tweaking so they won’t make it into the next release.

After that I’m seriously thinking about looking at editing (and deleting) posts functionality. It’ll be a big chunk of work, but the time may be right for it.

I also see that Wordpress has gone to 2.5.1. Time to upgrade again.

Anyway, it’s good to be back and please be patient while I get up to speed.

Contact Manager powered by TDO Mini Forms and a new bug fix release (v0.10.4)

I’ve just released a bug fix for TDO Mini Forms v0.10.4, get it in the usual places. v0.10.3 broke Custom Fields and also prevented the plugin from running on PHP4 hosts.

Also, sbruner (Steve Bruner) posted on the TDOMF forums that he has used the TDOMF plugin to create a rather nifty Contact Manager Theme for Wordpress. It looks pretty damn cool. Well done!

v0.10.3 of TDO Mini Forms released: an end to register_global and session issues! (I hope)

I’ve just released v0.10.3 of my TDO Mini Forms plugin. Get it in all the usual places.

The biggest changes in this version is that I’ve implemented a work around for the register_globals and $_SESSION issues. It should be noted that 99% of the time these are/were host configuration problems and nothing to do with TDOMF but I got fed up trying to support users on various different hosts who had difficulty turning off register_globals or enabling $_SESSION support. (So if this enables TDOMF to work flawlessly for you, consider donating, because it’s for you I did it. )

But moving forward, whats in store for TDOMF?
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Check Item #2 and 4… about 6 more to go…

Okay, so I managed to upgrade to Wordpress 2.5. Not as easy as I thought.

I also had to patch WP 2.5 to work on Redbrick as several features don’t work out the box and it’s still messy if your using a virtual host (like me).

The livejournal-crossposter and Slave Me 2 Wordpress plugins both break in Wordpress 2.5. I’ve updated Slave Me 2 Wordpress to work in WP2.5 as from the website for it, looks like there is zero activity. So that’s now working. However the livejournal-crossposter is dead, so no LJ for me until I fix it (again the current website for the plugin has zero activity).

Most of the other plugins seem okay. I have to update NextGen but I need to patch the version I’m currently using (like I have to patch Wordpress) so I haven’t done it yet. (I do like the automated plugin updates).

All of this cutting into actual time in work, so not good again. But now I’m all WP2.5! I have to tidy up and delete all my WP2.3.x dev and test installs now too to really cross out that item, but who’s going to quibble with me?

Of course, I may not do item 3 at all and I’ve added a new wishful-item 10, more of a way of prep-ing to change the theme of my blog.

If you see any problems with the site, after the upgrade, do tell!

Update: NextGen updated and I think I may have got livejournal-crossposter now too. Let’s see.

Check Item #1… 7 more to go…

Item one complete. You can grab a copy of the latest TDO-Forum v0.3 here. It’s compatible with Wordpress 2.5 and all that. Enjoy.

TDO Mini Forms for Wordpress 2.5: 0.10.2

I made version 0.10.2 of TDO Mini Forms avaliable yesterday. The main purpose of this release is to make TDO Mini Forms compatible with Wordpress 2.5. You can download it from the usual place.

As per usual, please leave feedback on the support forums.

Update on TDO Mini Forms migration to Wordpress 2.5

Thanks to those who donated! Much appreciated.

As it turns out the migration is going a lot easier than I had anticipated. Functionally TDO Mini Forms works fine under Wordpress 2.5 but much of the admin backend was screwed up.

The only thing left to do is make sure that the changes I’ve made will also work on 2.3.x.

Once I’ve released v0.10.2 I can get back to answering everyone else’s comments, so please be patient.

(Please leave comments and feedback on TDO Mini Forms on the forums please)

Wordpress 2.5 and TDO Mini Forms

The last release of TDO Mini Forms plugin (version 0.10.1) hasn’t been tested on the newly released Wordpress 2.5 until today and a number of problems are cropping up.

The list right now is:

If you find any others, please report them on the support forums.

I’ve setup a  testbed to investigate and attempt to correct these issues but it may take a while. I was aware of the upcoming 2.5 release and I guessed at least the Form Widgets screen would get borked, but it’s just a glut of work that needs to be done. I was in the middle of implementing a new feature (a form “hacker”), that will have to be put on hold to do this work. I’m not particularly excited by doing it as it doesn’t improve TDOMF as such. If you are desperate for it or have been a long time user of TDOMF and want to upgrade Wordpress 2.5, then I’d recommend perhaps donating (see the link on the main page of your TDOMF install) as it’s a great way to get me motivated. However, it will get done, with or without encouragement.

TDO Mini Forms Wordpress Plugin (v0.12.3)

This plugin allows you to add a form to your website that allows your readers (including non-registered) to submit posts.

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TDO Forum Wordpress Theme (v3)

This theme turns your Wordpress blog into a Forum!

Download it now!
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