For those who just met up with WordPress, Profile Builder is WordPress registration done right; it lets you customize your website by adding a front-end menu for all your users, giving them a more flexible way to modify their user-information or to register new users.

We’ve also put together a short presentation video where you can see Profile Builder in action.

Now back to features. Firstly, we have completed the front-end registration plugin with a password recovery page. Just like every other page, this feature includes a shortcode ([wppb-recover-password]). Use this, with fully customizable emails and messages to skip the default WordPress forms all-together.

Also, by using the new (and now complete) custom redirects, your users will only have access to where you want them.

The second biggest feature of this release is the fact that you can mark the fields (both default and extra) as required. This means the user can’t register without having completed these fields, and neither can he delete this info later on from the edit profile page (the information can be modified but he/she won’t be able to submit the new data if it’s not filled out properly).

NOTE: at the moment this feature only works on the front end, but using this in conjunction with the custom redirects, your users won’t have access to the dashboard anyway.

Last but not least, I would like to mention the most important feature of this release: filters, the crème de la crème for all plugins.

We redesigned the plugin and added to every notification/content/values a filter to let you easily customize the layout for your own needs, without the fear of loosing the data after a new update.

You can find a detailed list of all the filters here.

We hope you enjoy the new features, and if you have any questions, just post a new topic over at the forums.

Also, there have been many interesting feature requests, which will be included in the next release(s), so stay tuned!

Related posts:

1. WordPress Profile Builder: a front-end user registration, login and edit-profile plugin
2. Profile Builder Beta
3. Profile Builder version 1.1.13 is officially out

If I’m not mistaken, WordPress automatic updates for themes and plugins are based on the folder name first and then on the name of the plugin and theme.

Things aren’t perfect in the land of WordPress Updates.

You see, two years ago I released a child theme for Thematic called Commune. It has over 10.000 downloads and a lot of people are using it for their blogs.

A month ago, another theme called Commune was approved on the WordPress.org Theme Repository. Since it had the same name as mine, it issued an automatic update.  One of the users of the Commune Child Theme saw the update and clicked it. After all, it had the same name, it came from WordPress, what could there go wrong?

As you probably suspected the update overwritten the Commune Child Theme and activated the WordPress.org theme. You could say the user was quite surprised and unhappy:

Hi Cris – just updated Commune @ http://t.co/Cj6dycV & the format is ruined ): no menus, columns & widgets gone… HELP! (twitter status)

So where’s the fire?

Well, there isn’t one. These things happen and life goes on. I’ve help my child theme user to reinstall my theme, she had to recreate her widget settings and that was all. So if you have my Commune theme installed please don’t update it. It’s the WRONG theme.

Also @nacin already created a bug report on the track to address this issue.

What I’m hopping to achieve with this post is to raise awareness.

With WordPress powering 50 Million websites and the large number of developers and theme designers something like this is bound to happen sooner or later.

And the same things is valid for Plugin Updates as well. Let’s say you create a custom plugin for a client, name it appropriately (no one uses this plugin name on WordPress.org either). Since this is a custom plugin you don’t bother to upload it to the repository.

Months later, someone comes along and creates another plugin with the same name and uploads it to WordPress.org.  You’ve guessed it! Your original plugin get’s an automatic update. Client updates the plugin and brakes it’s site.

What can you do as a developer?

Mark Jaquith wrote about this in the past. You can setup your plugin and theme so they are excluded from the plugin updates. It’s a simple piece of code and you can learn more about it by clicking here. I’m also including that in all my child themes and custom plugins just to be on the safe side.

The thing is that I never really thought this could ever be an issue until it happened to me. Also it’s a very obscure thing that not many people know about it. Hopefully if you’re a developer and create custom themes and plugins take this into account.

No-one is to blame here really but can this be done differently?

I think so. Issuing an unique identifier on which to base the automatic update shouldn’t be that hard (or is it?)

I’m writing about this hoping to raise awareness to this issue, not to mention the 3.3 milestone features a refresh to the update system and might even go so far as updating WordPress in the background, without your intervention (these are rumors mind you).

So let me know what you think in the comments. Should Automatic Updates be issued based on an unique identifier and not just the Theme/Plugin name?

Related posts:

1. Commune Child Theme – Update
2. Profile Builder Pro is WordPress Registration Done Right
3. QandaPress, a Q&A platform based on WordPress

Profile Builder Pro is WordPress Registration Done Right

• Super easy to customize. Chose from the default styling it comes with or just add css to your theme and you’re done.
• Include the log-in, register and sign-up forms anywhere you want. – In any page, template or widget.
• Custom Avatar for your users. You don’t have to modify your theme to make this to work. It will work by default with the get_avatar function no matter where it’s used. (bbPress is also supported)
• Custom Profile fields for your users. Ask your users to select their age, enter their favorite movies, etc.
• NO-SPAM, NO-CAPCHA. Since the registration forms are in unique pages they fell off the radar of automated bots that create spam accounts. (You still have to protect the default wp registration form with a capcha. For more details, please read the following post)

What else is there?

Why, I’m glad you asked. We’ve got Priority Support, Automatic Updates, Proper Documentation and did I say we have Priority Support? We’re going to help you integrate Profile Builder Pro in your site like it was custom built from scratch.

Still not enough?

We have plans for some pretty nifty Addons for Profile Builder Pro users in the future:

• User Profile Pages and User Archive Listing.
• Login With Facebook and Twitter.
• Super Simple Paypal Payments.

What about the license?

Profile Builder Pro is released under GPL license (same as WordPress). You’ll pay for Automatic Updates, Access to Support Forums, Documentation, Access to future Addons and what’s more important, YOUR payment will help us continuing our work and put food on our family’s table. Fair to say that you can use this plugin on as many WordPress sites as you see fit.

Credits & Thanks

• Thanks to our beta testers. You’ve been more then a valuable asset to get this plugin up and running.
• Thanks to Justin Tadlock (from his page templates of user registration, edit profile and login this plugin we got the idea and initial code to make this work).
• Thanks to Derek Herman (we used the UI from his plugin Option Tree).
• Thanks to everyone who downloaded and used the Basic version from WordPress.org.

$39.99

or learn more

Related posts:

1. WordPress Profile Builder: a front-end user registration, login and edit-profile plugin
2. Profile Builder version 1.1.6 has arrived
3. Profile Builder Beta

• New interface
• Create Extra User Fields (like birthdate or education level)
• Add avatar upload for users and automatic integration with any theme that uses get_avatar()
• Shortcodes for login, register and edit profile to use in pages and widgets.
• Select what fields appear in the register and edit-profile pages.
• Select if the admin bar should be present on the front end for user-groups.
• Select if to use the default css or not.

You can sign up for the beta from this page: Profile Builder beta

The new interface was borrowed from the awesome plugin OptionTree created by Derek Herman

Related posts:

1. WordPress Profile Builder: a front-end user registration, login and edit-profile plugin
2. Profile Builder version 1.1.6 has arrived
3. Profile Builder Pro is WordPress Registration Done Right

So in order to get the latest comments from your custom post type you need to do an sql query that does a LEFT OUTER JOIN between the comments table and the posts table:

 
/* Get recent comments */
global $wpdb;
 
$sql = "SELECT * FROM $wpdb->comments LEFT OUTER JOIN $wpdb->posts ON ($wpdb->comments.comment_post_ID = $wpdb->posts.ID) WHERE comment_approved = '1' AND comment_type = '' AND post_password = '' AND post_type='your_custom_post_type' ORDER BY comment_date_gmt DESC LIMIT 5";
 
$comments = $wpdb->get_results($sql);
 
foreach ($comments as $comment) {
  // we need the comment comment user_id in case it's a logged in user so we can echo the display name and not username
  if ($comment->user_id != 0) {
    $curent_userdata = get_userdata($comment->user_id);
    echo $curent_userdata->display_name;
  } else {
    echo strip_tags($comment->comment_author);
  }
 
  // the permalink for the comment
  echo get_permalink($comment->ID) . '#comment-' . $comment->comment_ID;
 
  // the post title where that comment was posted
  echo $comment->post_title; 
 
  // display the comment content
  echo strip_tags($comment->comment_content);
}

The important bit is in the SQL declaration:

post_type='your_custom_post_type'

Let’s transform this into a widget

I’m not going to go through all the steps needed to create a widget for WordPress, instead I’ll just give you the code so you can use in your own projects.

 
<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Latest CPT Comments Plugin
Plugin URI: http://www.cozmoslabs.com/
Description: Display the latest comments on a custom post type
Version: 0.1
Author: Cristian Antohe
Author URI: http://cozmoslabs.com
License: GPL2
 
== Copyright ==
Copyright 2011 Reflection Media (wwww.reflectionmedia.ro)
 
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
*/
 
add_action( 'widgets_init', 'cl_cpt_comments_load_widgets' );
 
function cl_cpt_comments_load_widgets() {
	register_widget( 'cl_cpt_comments_Widget' );
}
 
class cl_cpt_comments_Widget extends WP_Widget {
 
	/**
	 * Widget setup.
	 */
	function cl_cpt_comments_Widget() {
		/* Widget settings. */
		$widget_ops = array( 'classname' => 'cl_cpt_comments_widget', 'description' => __('A widget that displays your latest custom post type comments', 'cl_cpt_comments_widget') );
 
		/* Widget control settings. */
		$control_ops = array( 'width' => 250, 'height' => 350, 'id_base' => 'cl_cpt_comments_widget' );
 
		/* Create the widget. */
		$this->WP_Widget( 'cl_cpt_comments_widget', __('Latest custom post type comments', 'cl_cpt_comments_widget'), $widget_ops, $control_ops );
	}
 
	/**
	 * How to display the widget on the screen.
	 */
	function widget( $args, $instance ) {
		extract( $args );
 
		/* Our variables from the widget settings. */
		$title = apply_filters('widget_title', $instance['title'] );
		$number = $instance['number'];
 
		/* Before widget (defined by themes). */
		echo $before_widget;
 
		/* Display the widget title if one was input (before and after defined by themes). */
		if ( $title )
			echo '<h3 class="widget-title">' . $title . '</h4>';
 
		/* Get recent comments */
		global $wpdb;
		$sql = "SELECT * FROM $wpdb->comments LEFT OUTER JOIN $wpdb->posts ON ($wpdb->comments.comment_post_ID = $wpdb->posts.ID) WHERE comment_approved = '1' AND comment_type = '' AND post_password = '' AND post_type='your_custom_post_type' ORDER BY comment_date_gmt DESC LIMIT $number";
		$comments = $wpdb->get_results($sql);
		echo '<ul class="cpt-comments">';
		foreach ($comments as $comment) {
			if ($comment->user_id != 0) {
				$curent_userdata = get_userdata($comment->user_id);
				$current_comment_display_name = $curent_userdata->display_name;
			} else {
				$current_comment_display_name = strip_tags($comment->comment_author);
			}						
		?>
			<li class="cpt-comment">
				<p class="comment-cpt-title"><a href="<?php echo get_permalink($comment->ID); ?>#comment-<?php echo $comment->comment_ID; ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php echo get_the_title($comment->comment_post_ID); ?></a></p>
				<p class="comment-author"><?php echo $current_comment_display_name  ?> says:</p><a class="comment-text-side" href="<?php echo get_permalink($comment->ID); ?>#comment-<?php echo $comment->comment_ID; ?>" title="<?php echo strip_tags($comment->comment_author); ?> on <?php echo $comment->post_title; ?>"><?php echo strip_tags($comment->comment_content); ?></a>
			</li>
		<?php 
		}
		echo '</ul>';
 
		/* After widget (defined by themes). */
		echo $after_widget;
	}
 
	/**
	 * Update the widget settings.
	 */
	function update( $new_instance, $old_instance ) {
		$instance = $old_instance;
 
		/* Strip tags for title and name to remove HTML (important for text inputs). */
		$instance['title'] = strip_tags( $new_instance['title'] );
		$instance['number'] = strip_tags( $new_instance['number'] );
 
		return $instance;
	}
 
 
	function form( $instance ) {
 
		/* Set up some default widget settings. */
		$defaults = array( 'title' => __('Latest CPT Comments'), 'number' => __('5'));
		$instance = wp_parse_args( (array) $instance, $defaults ); ?>
 
		<!-- Widget Title: Text Input -->
		<p>
			<label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'title' ); ?>"><?php _e('Title:', 'hybrid'); ?></label>
			<input id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'title' ); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name( 'title' ); ?>" value="<?php echo $instance['title']; ?>" style="width:90%;" />
		</p>
 
		<!-- Number of posts -->
		<p>
			<label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'number' ); ?>"><?php _e('Number of posts to show:'); ?></label>
			<input id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'number' ); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name( 'number' ); ?>" value="<?php echo $instance['number']; ?>" size="3" />
		</p>
 
 
 
 
	<?php
	}
}
 
?>

Next you need to copy this code, put it inside the plugins directory, activate the plugin and you’re ready to go. Don’t forget to change the custom post type to your own.

Related posts:

1. Extending the admin post filtering
2. Add “Featured Posts” to your Thematic child theme
3. WordPress user registration template and custom user profile fields

All went well and we’ve got proper feedback. Apparently people liked the idea.

However, when the time came to put it on the repository things started to get weird. For reasons beyond my understanding, the profilebuilder.php and uninstall.php files were converted to Mac EndOfLine style once uploaded to the Repository (I’m a PC user). Because of this the plugin install would fail and didn’t even appear in the plugin listing in the backend, which is to be expected since the lines were all scrambled up.

After a bit of digging around I found about a SVN property called svn:eol-style that, when set to “native“, allows automatic conversion of end-of-lines, depending whether you are on Linux or Windows. Apparently this isn’t setup by default when you install Turtoise SVN.

To get is sorted you need to add some code to the config file in subversion.

Add this stuff at bottom of your local file ~/.subversion/config. For Windows 7 users this is normally found at
C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Subversion\config

This will ensure that all new source files will have this property.

[miscellany]
enable-auto-props = yes
 
# Note: you may wish to add svn:keywords as well, depending on your project requirements
# E.g. svn:keywords=Date Author Id Revision HeadURL
 
# Do not default any files to svn:executable=*.
# This should only be done on an individual basis as required.
 
[auto-props]
INSTALL = svn:eol-style=native
KEYS = svn:eol-style=native
Makefile = svn:eol-style=native
LICENSE = svn:eol-style=native
NOTICE = svn:eol-style=native
README = svn:eol-style=native
abs-linkmap = svn:eol-style=native
abs-menulinks = svn:eol-style=native
*.aart = svn:eol-style=native
*.ac = svn:eol-style=native
*.am = svn:eol-style=native
*.apt = svn:eol-style=native
*.bat = svn:eol-style=native
*.bsh = svn:eol-style=native
*.c = svn:eol-style=native
*.cat = svn:eol-style=native
*.cgi = svn:eol-style=native
*.classpath = svn:eol-style=native
*.cmd = svn:eol-style=native
*.cnd = svn:eol-style=native
*.conf = svn:eol-style=native
*.config = svn:eol-style=native
*.cpp = svn:eol-style=native
*.css = svn:eol-style=native
*.cwiki = svn:eol-style=native
*.data = svn:eol-style=native
*.dcl = svn:eol-style=native
*.doc = svn:mime-type=application/msword
*.dsp = svn:eol-style=CRLF
*.dsw = svn:eol-style=CRLF
*.dtd = svn:eol-style=native
*.egrm = svn:eol-style=native
*.ent = svn:eol-style=native
*.ft = svn:eol-style=native
*.fn = svn:eol-style=native
*.fv = svn:eol-style=native
*.g = svn:eol-style=native
*.gif = svn:mime-type=image/gif
*.grm = svn:eol-style=native
*.gz = svn:mime-type=application/x-gzip
*.h = svn:eol-style=native
*.htc = svn:eol-style=native
.htaccess = svn:eol-style=native
*.handlers = svn:eol-style=native
*.html = svn:eol-style=native
*.ico = svn:mime-type=image/x-icon
*.ihtml = svn:eol-style=native
*.in = svn:eol-style=native
*.java = svn:eol-style=native
*.jmx = svn:eol-style=LF
*.jpg = svn:mime-type=image/jpeg
*.jsp = svn:eol-style=native
*.js = svn:eol-style=native
*.junit = svn:eol-style=native
*.jx = svn:eol-style=native
*.m = svn:eol-style=native
*.m4 = svn:eol-style=native
*.manifest = svn:eol-style=native
*.mdo = svn:eol-style=native
# markdown (CMS)
*.mdtext = svn:eol-style=native
*.meta = svn:eol-style=native
*.mf = svn:eol-style=native
*.MF = svn:eol-style=native
*.mod = svn:eol-style=native
*.ms = svn:eol-style=native
*.n3 = svn:eol-style=native
*.nroff = svn:eol-style=native
*.patch = svn:eol-style=native
*.pdf = svn:mime-type=application/pdf
*.pen = svn:eol-style=native
*.php = svn:eol-style=native
*.pl = svn:eol-style=native
*.pm = svn:eol-style=native
*.png = svn:mime-type=image/png
*.pod = svn:eol-style=native
*.pom = svn:eol-style=native
*.project = svn:eol-style=native
*.properties = svn:eol-style=native
*.py = svn:eol-style=native
*.rb = svn:eol-style=native
*.rdf = svn:eol-style=native
*.rnc = svn:eol-style=native
*.rng = svn:eol-style=native
*.rnx = svn:eol-style=native
*.roles = svn:eol-style=native
*.rss = svn:eol-style=native
# Restructured text (CMS)
*.rst = svn:eol-style=native
*.scala = svn:eol-style=native
*.schemas = svn:eol-style=native
*.sh = svn:eol-style=native
*.sql = svn:eol-style=native
*.svg = svn:eol-style=native
*.tar = svn:mime-type=application/octet-stream
*.tgz = svn:mime-type=application/octet-stream
*.tif = svn:mime-type=image/tiff
*.tiff = svn:mime-type=image/tiff
*.tld = svn:eol-style=native
*.txt = svn:eol-style=native
*.types = svn:eol-style=native
*.vm = svn:eol-style=native
*.vsl = svn:eol-style=native
*.wsdd = svn:eol-style=native
*.wsdl = svn:eol-style=native
*.xargs = svn:eol-style=native
*.xcat = svn:eol-style=native
*.xconf = svn:eol-style=native
*.xegrm = svn:eol-style=native
*.xgrm = svn:eol-style=native
*.xhtml = svn:eol-style=native
*.xhtml2 = svn:eol-style=native
*.xlex = svn:eol-style=native
*.xlog = svn:eol-style=native
*.xmap = svn:eol-style=native
*.xml = svn:eol-style=native
*.xroles = svn:eol-style=native
*.xsamples = svn:eol-style=native
*.xsd = svn:eol-style=native
*.xsl = svn:eol-style=native
*.xslt = svn:eol-style=native
*.xsp = svn:eol-style=native
*.xtest = svn:eol-style=native
*.xul = svn:eol-style=native
*.xweb = svn:eol-style=native
*.xwelcome = svn:eol-style=native

This config file comes from the apache website. Please note that you might not need all those file-types.

After you do this you still have to apply this to your existing SVN files.

Run a script to recursively set this property on all your source files. First, MAKE SURE YOU ARE UP TO DATE WITH THE REPOSITORY, WITH NO LOCAL CHANGES. Then: you can run this under your source folder:

    FOR /R %i IN (*.php;*.js;*.txt;*.html) DO svn propset svn:eol-style native %i

After these setting stuff came back to normal and I could install the plugin properly from the Repository.

While all this seams straight forward for me now, I had to spend more then 5 hours to figure it out. It was very frustrating seeing the plugin fail on install when the local version worked perfectly.

Related posts:

1. Professional WordPress Plugin Development review

Profile Builder lets you customize your website by adding front-end forms for all your users, giving them a more flexible way to modify their user-information or to register new users.

Also, administrator can customize what basic fields are displayed on the front-end (like First Name, Last Name, Website, etc.)

To achieve this, just create a new page, and give it an intuitive name(i.e. Edit Profile). Now all you need to do is add the following shortcode(for the previous example): [wppb-edit-profile]. Publish your page and you are done!

WordPress User Registration, Login and Edit-Profile Shortcodes:

• [wppb-login] - for a log-in form.
• [wppb-register] - to add a registration form.
• [wppb-edit-profile] – to grant users a front-end acces to their personal information (requires user to be logged in).

Other features:

• you can add the shortcodes directly inside a text widget and they will work
• add a custom stylesheet/inherit values from the current theme or use the default one, built into this plug-in.
• select whether to display or not the admin bar in the front end for a specific user-group registered to the site.
• select which information-field to display on the WordPress user registration and WordPress edit profile pages on the font end.

Screenshots:

Related posts:

1. Profile Builder Pro is WordPress Registration Done Right
2. Profile Builder version 1.1.6 has arrived
3. WordPress user registration template and custom user profile fields

Multiple filters in the posts management screen.

Now you can filter your posts in all imaginable ways, even by custom taxonomies! Download it via the official WordPress plugins repository.

Filter the admin post listing by:

• authors
• tags
• custom taxonomies that you have declared

Related posts:

1. Get the latest comments for a custom post type in WordPress