New Release: Fieldmanager 1.2.4

This notice relates to the following platforms: VIP Go, WordPress.com VIP

A new version of the Fieldmanager plugin has been committed to the shared plugins repository. This update includes multiple enhancements and bug fixes:

  • Fix date displaying wrong if it’s before 1970s
  • Fix an autocomplete search bug
  • Fix misused variables in building hierarchical term data
  • Fix PHP 7.2 error for saving groups with select fields in them
  • Code format changes to comply with PHPS
  • Fix a bug where checkboxes trigger displayif

There’s a few potentially (albeit very low-risk) breaking changes to be aware of in 1.2.

  • Chosen was updated to the latest version, which changes the html classes added to select elements.
  • Fieldmanager_Draggable_Post and Fieldmanager_Context_Page are now deprecated. Flagging them as deprecated doesn’t technically make for a breaking change, but using them will now throw a warning.
  • Fieldmanager_Colorpicker::sanitize_hex_color() was removed in favor of core’s sanitize_hex_color().

We encourage all VIPs using Fieldmanager plugin to upgrade to the latest available. On WordPress.com VIP platform, it can be done by specifying the version parameter of wpcom_vip_load_plugin() like so:

wpcom_vip_load_plugin( 'fieldmanager', 'plugins', '1.2' );

For VIP Go, you can take advantage of the new version by adding the latest reviewed version (v.1.2.4) to your plugins folder. The plugin can be downloaded from Fieldmanager GitHub repository.

If you have any questions please open a ticket where we’ll be happy to assist you into transitioning to the newest version.

New Release: WP Frontend Uploader 1.3

This notice relates to the following platforms: WordPress.com VIP, VIP Go

A new version of the WP Frontend Uploader plugin has been committed to the shared plugins repository. This update includes multiple enhancements and bug fixes:

  • Enhancement: Added image preview in e-mail notification.
  • Enhancement: Added support for HTML5 attributes (min, max, placeholder, readonly, and disabled) and all HTML5 input types.
  • Fix: Allow multiple forms to be properly validated if they’re rendered on the same page.
  • Fix: No more blank page in Manage UGC on Windows.
  • Fix: Pagination works in list tables.

We encourage all VIPs using WP Frontend Uploader plugin to upgrade to the latest available. On WordPress.com VIP platform, it can be done by specifying the version parameter of wpcom_vip_load_plugin() like so:

wpcom_vip_load_plugin( 'wp-frontend-uploader', 'plugins', '1.3' );

For VIP Go, you can take advantage of the new version by adding the latest reviewed version (v.1.3) to your plugins folder. The plugin can be downloaded from the WordPress.org Plugins repository.

If you have any questions please open a ticket where we’ll be happy to assist you into transitioning to the newest version.

Notice: Livefyre plugin deprecated

This notice relates to the following platforms: WordPress.com, VIP Go

The Livefyre service was acquired by Adobe in March 2016. Since then, they’ve modified their product lineup.

The Livefyre WordPress plugin hasn’t been updated or maintained since version 1.3 was released in 2016, and support has ended for the plugin. Adobe no longer makes reference to the plugin in their documentation and is, instead, encouraging clients to use their Enterprise Livefyre service with an alternative implementation process.

Additionally, on November 30, Adobe plans to block calls made via HTTP, which the plugin uses.

We plan to proactively patch the shared plugin on the WordPress.com VIP platform, and have provided patches via pull request for sites on VIP Go, so that calls are made via HTTPS. This should allow the plugin to continue to function in the short term.

Long-term, this plugin has been deprecated and we recommend finding an alternative. The Livefyre plugin can be used in a number of ways – If you are looking for a recommendation, please open a support ticket, and let us know how you are currently using the plugin.

If you have any questions, please let us know, and we’ll be happy to help.

Ads.txt Manager plugin approved for use on VIP

This notice relates to the following platforms: WordPress.com VIP, VIP Go

Approved for use on WordPress.com VIP sites, the Ads.txt Manager plugin by VIP featured partner agency 10up allows you to manage and validate the contents of your ads.txt file through your admin interface.

More about the plugin from 10up:

We’re making it easier and a bit safer to manage the ads.txt whitelist for publishers using WordPress with our newest plugin: Ads.txt Manager for WordPress. Site administrators can add and edit their site’s ads.txt file from the WordPress admin interface, eliminating the need to upload a new copy of ads.txt with every change or correction, and applying some validation to prevent simple ads.txt mistakes.

screenshot of ads.txt plugin interface

To load this plugin on WordPress.com, commit it to your SVN repository. For VIP Go, you can commit it to your plugins​ folder on Github.

The plugin can be downloaded from WordPress.org.

If you have any questions please open a ticket; we’ll be happy to assist you.

AMP 0.6.2 now live on WordPress.com

This notice relates to the following platforms: WordPress.com VIP

Today we rolled out the latest version of the AMP plugin (v0.6.2) across the WordPress.com platform, including VIP sites.

It’s been over two years since the AMP project was first announced and publishers on the VIP platform continue to lead in innovative content publishing using the format.

Version 0.6.2 of the plugin is fully compatible with the previous release (0.5.1) and should not have any impact on custom markup. Among the highlights of the update are:

  • Added support for the “page” post type.
  • Added ability to enable/disable AMP for specific posts in Publish Metabox
  • Reduced Plugin Complexity with new autoloader
  • Fixes to Polldaddy and SoundCloud embeds
  • and other bug fixes and enhancements

Special thanks to the many community contributions we received for this update, including from Featured Partners like XWP and our friends at Google.

As always, if you encounter any issues or need any help, please get in touch.

Co-Authors Plus Global Filter

This notice relates to the following platforms: WordPress.com VIP, VIP Go

This post is regarding the VIP plugin Co-Authors Plus (all versions).

Co-Authors Plus has an expensive join query on author pages, which performs a lookup using both the term and post_author columns.  Unfortunately, this can lead to slow or killed author queries on sites with large databases or high traffic.  To prevent this from occurring and to improve performance, we will be adding the coauthors_plus_should_query_post_author filter to all VIP sites using the Co-Authors-Plus plugin on WordPress.com via:

add_filter( 'coauthors_plus_should_query_post_author', '__return_false' );

This filter disables the compatibility mode and instead, uses a simpler, tax-only query and thus, results in a faster query because we are no longer performing a lookup on the  post_author column.  The compatibility mode is enabled by default in the plugin to ensure that any posts added prior to plugin activation will display properly, as they may not have the proper author terms associated.  However, as a precaution, one of the preparation steps that we have undertook involved running a script to back fill the associated author terms on all posts.

When will this be effective?

This filter will be added to the WordPress.com VIP platform on Tuesday, November 14 (subject to change if any critical issues are discovered prior).

We are planning on adding this to the VIP Go platform eventually and we will announce a date when that will occur.  If you don’t want to wait until the expected TBA date, feel free to add the filter to your VIP Go site.  Please request to have the following WP CLI command wp co-authors-plus create-terms-for-posts run prior to adding the filter to back fill author data on all posts.

What do I need to do?

Once the change has been deployed, please test your site (especially the author pages) to ensure that everything is working as expected.  We do not foresee any major issues that could arise, but if you wish to test the change prior to the scheduled date, feel free to add the filter to your theme.

If you have any concerns or suggestions, please get in touch by leaving a comment below!

AMP 0.5.1 now live on WordPress.com

This notice relates to the following platforms: WordPress.com VIP

Today we rolled out the latest version of the AMP plugin (v0.5.1) across the WordPress.com platform, including VIP sites.

It’s just almost two years since the AMP project was first announced and publishers on the VIP platform continue to lead in innovative content publishing using the format (we’ll have more on this soon on VIP News).

Version 0.5.1 of the plugin is fully compatible with the previous release (0.4.2) and should not have any impact on custom markup. Among the highlights of the update are:

  • More spec-compliant markup using a whitelist sanitizer.
  • Faster rendering for posts with lots of images.
  • New embed handlers for Vimeo, SoundCloud and Pinterest
  • and a number of bug fixes.

Special thanks to the many community contributions we received for this update, including from Featured Partners like Alley Interactive and our friends at Google.

As always, if you encounter any issues or need any help, please get in touch.

Apple News plugin v1.2 now available

A new version of the Apple News plugin has been committed to the shared plugins repository. V1.2 is a feature and bugfix release and is intended to replace v1.1 and includes;

  • Added an experimental setting to enable HTML format on body elements.
  • Added settings for monospaced fonts, which applies to <pre>, <code>, and <samp> elements in body components when HTML formatting is enabled.
  • Added additional text formatting options, including tracking (letter-spacing) and line height.
  • Split text formatting options for headings to allow full customization per heading level.
  • Modified logic for image alignment so that centered and non-aligned images now appear centered instead of right-aligned.
  • Added an option for full-bleed images that will cause all centered and non-aligned images to display edge-to-edge.
  • Added logic to intelligently split body elements around anchor targets to allow for more opportunities for ad insertion.
  • Modified column span logic on left and right orientation to align the right side of the text with the right side of right-aligned images.
  • Fixed a bug caused by hardcoded column spans on center orientation.
  • Fixed a PHP warning about accessing a static class method using arrow syntax.
  • Added unit test coverage for new functionality.
  • Refactored several core files to conform to WordPress standards and PHP best practices.

We encourage all VIPs using Apple News to upgrade to this version by specifying the version parameter of wpcom_vip_load_plugin() like so;

wpcom_vip_load_plugin( ‘apple-news’, ‘plugins’, ‘1.2’ );

For VIP Go, we suggest you commit v1.2.1 from WordPress.org into your repository. Apple News uses Composer for dependencies which will not be automatically included upon deployment to VIP Go environments when using a Git submodule.

If you have any questions please open a ticket where we’ll be happy to assist you transition to the newest version.

Inform Video Match v1.7.3 is now available

A new version of the Inform Video Match plugin has been committed to the shared plugins repository. V1.7.3 is intended to replace v1.4.3.

Recent upgrades include;

  • Update style and script addition methods
  • Properly hook plugin with WordPress native enqueue script
  • Remove password sanitization
  • Add error handling on API response
  • Add user checks and messaging on form inputs

We encourage all VIPs using Inform Video Match to upgrade to this version by specifying the version parameter of wpcom_vip_load_plugin() like so;

wpcom_vip_load_plugin( 'inform-video-match', 'plugins', '1.7.3' );

For VIP Go, you can take advantage of the new version by copying the reviewed plugin from our shared plugins repository into your VIP Go repository.

If you have any questions please open a ticket where we’ll be happy to assist you transition to the newest version.

Facebook Instant Articles v3.2 now available

A new version of the Facebook Instant Articles plugin has been committed to the shared plugins repository. V3.2 is a feature/maintenance/bugfix release and is intended to replace v3.1 and includes;

  • Adds development mode support to post meta box
  • Adds rule configuration for Instagram blockquotes
  • Adds rules for galleries
  • Migrates some unit tests
  • Switches to Facebook Graph SDK
  • Improves token invalidation flow
  • Fixes use of the_title filter
  • Improves encoding handling
  • Adds post type filter to the post meta box
  • Adds Playbuzz support
  • Rename SDK getter to avert apocalypse
  • Wizard copy improvements
  • Fixes issue with captions
  • Adds publication block for articles with transformation warnings
  • Fix https src attribute on some scripts

We encourage all VIPs using Facebook Instant Articles to upgrade to this version by specifying the version parameter of wpcom_vip_load_plugin() like so;

wpcom_vip_load_plugin( 'facebook-instant-articles', 'plugins', '3.2' );

For VIP Go, you can take advantage of the new version by updating your submodules to use the reviewed version.

If you have any questions please open a ticket where we’ll be happy to assist you transition to the newest version.