1.9.21

WPtouch 1.9.21 (free) includes a few performance and maintenance improvements which improve interface responsiveness on iOS devices, and fix a number of reported bugs over the past few weeks.

WPtouch Pro 2.1 RC1

We’re finally here! It’s been awhile since we posted a new beta update. We’ve had lots of things going on over the past number of weeks, and have been able to get back on track and move towards completing 2.1.

Lots of fixes, changes, improvements and additions have been made, and this release is now at Release Candidate status, as its viewed by us as feature complete.

Changes for this release include both the iPad theme and the mobile versions of the Classic theme.

Here’s some highlights from the changelog for the release:

* Added: Web-App Mode supported on iPad
* Added: Deep Blue UI theme on iPad
* Added: Compatibility setting to remove short-code content in WPtouch Pro
* Added: Ability to select between mobile and iPad devices for developer mode
* Added: New icon set of Android Icons courtesy of androidicons.com

* Changed: Significant speed and load-time improvements in Classic theme
* Changed: Comment fly-in form on iPad: better handling of 3rd-party comment plugins
* Changed: Improved Web-App Mode persistence setting load time dramatically

* Fixed: Issues related to login, forms & search in themes
* Fixed: An issue which could cause the switch link to fail
* Fixed: Incorrect detection of BlackBerry Torch
* Fixed: An issue which could cause a blank space in the header area of themes
* FIxed: Issues related to the use of transparent light/white icons on iPad
* Fixed: An issue which caused scrolling to top after posts have loaded in mobile theme
* Fixed: Issue with missing pages in menu setup when two or more pages have the same name
* Fixed: An issue with the thumbnail mask appearance on mobile WebOS devices

• A character count has been added to the post area to show when a Tweet is greater than 140 characters
• Error messages have been added to the post area to show why a Tweet hasn’t gone out
• A bug with apostrophes in category names has been resolved
• OAuth (which the Twitter API uses) requires the server time to be accurate. On many web servers the time is wrong. We’ve added the ability to automatically detect the proper time offset to use for OAuth requests

I wouldn’t recommend everyone upgrading to this version yet, as there still may be a few small issues. But if you’re WordPress savvy and want to help us put 2.5.2 through its paces, then please download a copy and let us know how it works for you.

Download WordTwit 2.5.2 Beta »

Today we’re happy to announce the availability of a beta release for the next major update to WPtouch Pro, version 2.1.

What’s New

Along with bug fixes and admin enhancements, 2.1 brings 3 major additions: Child Theme Support, Custom Menus, and the long awaited addition of iPad support.

Video Overview

Click here to view the embedded video.

Purpose Of The Beta

This beta release is only for evaluation and interest in improving WPtouch Pro by helping us resolve issues.

We know that many of you want to try out iPad support, so we’re pleased to make this beta available for testing.

Tap, Touch & Slide

The first thing you’ll notice when using WPtouch on iPad is the incredible responsiveness, speed and native feel. It really does make your website feel like a native application on iPad. And because it does all this, visitors feel instantly familiar, comfortable, and happy to browse and enjoy the website content you present to them.

A Focus On What’s Important

We’ve looked at the things people want most out of an iPad browsing experience with a WordPress website, and delivered
them all:

• Fast webpage load times
• Browse and navigate things like blog content, pages, and menus quickly and easily
• Have access to Search, Contact and Message features in convenient ways
• Save and share content on popular social networking services
• Be able to comment and reply quickly and easily in website discussions

Website Owners

And we’ve also looked at what website owners & administrators want and need out of iPad support.

Because WPtouch Pro on iPad works with the WPtouch Pro you know and love, it saves considerable time and worry in setting up and administrating its presentation.

With WPtouch Pro 2.1, you can serve a rich, powerful smartphone mobile experience plus a fantastic iPad experience at the same time, quickly, easily and efficiently.

Discussion Is A Joy

Comment discussion in WPtouch Pro 2.1 on iPad is simply a joy. It’s incredibly easy for visitors to leave comments and replies to other comments with our fly-in comment form. And since comments are posted and added in real-time, discussion is immediate, fast and simple for visitors.

Installation & Details

Existing customers of WPtouch Pro should download and install the beta separately from their existing installations.

Because of the nature of beta software, aspects of the code are subject to change. As a result theme development is not recommended nor supported.

A new beta support forum & thread have been added in which you can post questions and let us know about any issues you might have.

We hope you enjoy the beta!
~ The BraveNewCode Team

Known Deficiencies

These are things which we know either don’t work or haven’t been added yet:

• Disqus and Intense Debate issues (these plugins will be supported later)
• Current themes are feature/styling incomplete
• Page/Menu area in admin has some inconsistencies across different browsers

Focus Areas for Testing:

• Admin functionality, performance, usability
• Automatic upgrade process
• WordPress 3.0
• Web-app mode in Classic and Skeleton

Changelog:

• Fixed: Garbled tooltips on translated multibyte characters such as Kanji
• Fixed: Plugin information overlay would die on other plugins
• Fixed: Tooltips with double quotations in them
• Fixed: Warning for htmlspecialchars on PHP4
• Fixed: Incorrect icons on custom templates such as Archives and Links
• Changed: Settings architecture for admin
• Changed: Tooltips appearance in admin
• Changed: Style fixes for Skeleton
• Changed: Header menu, icon style changes for Skeleton for better cross-browser compat
• Changed: Some admin form buttons switched to divs for Ajax purposes
• Changed: Switch link appearance on desktop theme is now bigger, bolder
• Added: Full translations for Japanese, Spanish, French, and Italian. German translation is still partial
• Added: Ability to render a custom WPtouch setting
• Added: Ajax submit for admin panel
• Added: Web-app mode in Skeleton, Classic (including loading image)
• Added: Theme settings tab for web-app mode, status-bar color option
• Added: New functions for iPhone meta tags in theme header.php, now handled by a theme function
• Added: Custom “dark” class for the body for custom page templates
• Removed: Unused beta code, functions from core files

WPtouch 2.0 Pro represents nearly five months of work between the two of us. The original features were hashed out over a few beers down in Punta Cana of November of last year. It became evident based on our initial discussions that in order to have the features we wanted we would need to do a 100% rewrite of the existing code, which is ultimately what we did.

Baby’s Got a Brand New Bag

2.0 is a complete mobile theming framework that was built upon a comprehensive plugin framework, both of which were created from scratch explicitly for this project. Under the hood WPtouch 2.0 constructs the entire administration panel programmatically, which means adding new features going forward will in most cases not require more than a few lines of code. It also means that mobile theme developers can easily add setting options to the WPtouch administration panel and have the majority of hard work taken care of for them.

Easily Extensible

One of the complaints developers had about WPtouch 1.x is that it wasn’t very easy to build upon. First, we didn’t have many plugin hooks that other plugin developers could tap into. Second, the default theme in WPtouch was fairly inflexible for people trying to add new theme features. We’ve addressed both of these limitations in 2.0.

All WPtouch 2.0 themes are based upon a theming example called Skeleton. It is our goal to continue to update Skeleton for each release, including support for nearly all of the WPtouch 2.x features. Skeleton can easily be cloned in the WPtouch 2.0 administration panel and used as a starting point for a completely custom theme, one that won’t be overwritten when WPtouch is upgraded.

WPtouch 2.0 also includes nearly 100 different hooks and actions that other plugin developers can tap into. In fact, many of the recent features added to WPtouch 2.0 utilized these same hooks.

The World’s Not So Big After All

All the text strings in WPtouch 2.0 have been properly internationalized. That will allow us to slowly translate WPtouch 2.0 into other languages. The first release of WPtouch 2.0 will have support for Italian, Japanese, Spanish, German and French. We’ll hopefully add a new language or two for each subsequent release.

The Beta Cycle

As WPtouch 2.0 is a 100% rewrite, we’re looking to our beta users to help us flesh out any of the issues that crop up in the wild. Beta1 will focus mainly on the administrational panel, the upgrade process, support forum integration, and general WPtouch 2.0 usage. We expect beta1 to last roughly a week or so, depending on any issues that turn up. We’ll be releasing periodic updates to beta1 to fix bugs.

Beta2 will be the second and last beta cycle, and will include the full suite of mobile themes and final functionality. Once we’re confident that beta2 is stable, we’ll release WPtouch 2.0 officially for everyone. So if you do the math, we’re only a few weeks from releasing WPtouch 2.0 for the general public.

Feature Set

There are over 100 new features not present in WPtouch 1.9. Here are a few of the highlights:

• Deep integration between WPtouch and the BraveNewCode support forums – users can post support questions directly from the WPtouch 2.0 administration panel
• Re-designed administrational panel featuring intuitive tab interface
• Admob and adsense advertising support in themes
• Support for multiple Prowl accounts
• New plugin compatibility disabler (prevent problematic plugins from hooking into WPtouch)
• New page/menu management panel that includes drag and drop functionality for icons
• All new theme designs and effects
• Inclusion of Skeleton theming example for developers looking to create custom mobile themes
• Ability to customize a welcome message for 1st-time visitors
• Inclusion of several new icons sets
• New nested menu system available to themes
• Inline comment replies and threading
• Support for web-application mode
• Ships with 5 professionally translated languages

And So It Begins

We want to thank everyone who applied to be a part of our beta program, and also everyone who was officially chosen to help with beta1. We’re very close to releasing WPtouch 2.0 Pro to everyone, something that we are quite looking forward to.

If you’re late to the party, you can sign up to be notified when WPtouch 2.0 Pro is released over at wptouch.com, or follow our updates on Twitter. We’ll post again when the second beta cycle opens up, at which point we can hopefully relay information about the final release date and price points for WPtouch 2.0 Pro.

After months of hard work WPtouch 2.0 Pro is ready for some beta testing love. We’re looking for a small group of dedicated testers to help make it as solid, safe and snappy as possible. If you’re interested in joining the beta program please read below on what we’re looking for before deciding to dive in.

General Information About The Beta Program

The WPtouch 2.0 Pro beta program is for the paid version of WPtouch. Beta testers participating in the program will receive a copy of the WPtouch 2.0 beta, and gain access to a private beta forum on our Support Forums to log issues and discuss the release.

Once installed, new versions of the beta will be released through the admin panel in WordPress. When the official 2.0 release is available, testers can upgrade to it through the admin from the beta as well.

Beta testers should be aware that WPtouch 2.0 Beta 1 is incomplete. We will issue updates to the beta over the coming weeks to improve stability and complete features, and we’ll ask for new rounds of review with a list of changes for testing.

As with any beta release, we expect to see bugs and issues which (though unlikely) may affect the stability of your WordPress environment. It is not recommended to join the beta program unless you are comfortable with beta releases and feel capable of restoring software and databases associated with your WordPress setup. That said, we don’t anticipate any serious issues or concerns with the betas.

Areas Of Focus

We ask that if you are interested in a beta of WPtouch Pro that you fall into at least 1 of 3 categories:

1. You’re interested because of the many new features, and want to try and help improve the new theme(s) it offers
2. You’re interested in designing/developing a custom theme with the new Skeleton
3. You’re damn good at finding bugs and testing software, and think you can help us with your awesome bug squishing abilities

Requirements

To join the WPtouch 2.0 Pro beta program, we require the following:

1. You have or create a BNCID* (to assign the license and forum access)
2. You have a WordPress.org self-hosted website running WordPress 2.9.x
3. The necessary admin credentials to upload and activate plugins on your WordPress installation
4. That’s it!

*You can register for a BNCID by clicking the ‘Register’ link in the header of this website.

For beta 1 we will only be testing on 2.9.x. WPtouch 2.0 Pro will support WordPress 2.8, 2.9, and 3.0 officially, but our focus for beta 1 is on current versions of WordPress.

The purpose of the beta program is to harden and shore-up any issues related to the working functionality of the software, so we’d kindly ask that you do not publish reviews of the WPtouch 2.0 betas as product reviews at this time.

We’d also ask that you resign yourself to being a top-secret spy and not spreading information and details about the plugin before we do, if at all possible. We’re not crazy like Apple but do appreciate solidarity!

Enough Already! Gimme A Copy!

Hold your horses! First thing’s first: there are a limited number of spaces in the beta program.

We’ll contact those who want to join on a first-come, first-serve basis. We’ll send out a welcome mail and fill you in on the details if you’re in the group. If not, don’t worry: WPtouch 2.0 Pro will be released in June, and that’s not far off!

Register for the WPtouch 2.0 Beta

Updated: The beta registration is now closed.

Please test the newest features (listed below), and provide some feedback in the Support Forums. No more features will be added for the 1.9 release (besides Skins being turned on).

Here’s the short list of notable changes for Beta 9:

Theme:

• Style declaration for closed comments added
• Filter for trackbacks and pingbacks from display in comment counts
• Custom post page nav links now check if next/prev post exists before showing arrow
• Added friendly ‘noscript’ display bezel for users with javascript Turned off
• Fixed an issue where WP Spam Free users may have had new comments blocked
• Added Prowl Push notifications direct messages submenu item (if enabled)

Admin:

• Fully compatible with WordPress 2.8.2
• Added ability to exclude categories
• Added Prowl Push notifications for comments, user registrations, and direct messages
• Turned on skin selection support, still no skins enabled yet
• Plugin compatibility listing now loads from bravenewcode.com for an always
  up-to-date listing of plugin compatibility and conflicts

*NOTE
The beta requires WordPress 2.6 or newer.
We are ending support for older, insecure versions of WordPress. Please do not attempt to install or use this beta if you’re not 100% kosher with that : )

**DOWNLOAD:
As with all beta releases for WPtouch, you can download WPtouch beta 9 from the WPtouch admin, and are required to install it via FTP only.

If you’re not currently using any of the betas, you can download it form the link below:

DOWNLOAD WPtouch 1.9 Beta 9 (Latest)

This update (and all others in the betas) is smaller than the final release will be. I’ve temporarily removed non-plugin files (like all the screenshots) which the WordPress repository needs but are not needed to run the plugin. This should help with people upgrading throughout the beta series.

Cheers everyone, and thanks for being patient with us, and helping us improve on WPtouch!

Recently the Prowl application for iPhone was released, and with it came the possibility of bringing Growl notifications to WPtouch.

While certainly not complete and by no means tested thoroughly, in alpha testing is a new feature for WPtouch that enables website admins to have their WordPress website push Prowl notifications. In combination with Prowl, we’re testing the ability to have direct messages, new comments, new user registrations and posts by other users— all pushed as Prowl notifications on your Mac & iPhone.

There’s already a plugin called Prowl Me which allows users to send a direct message from your WordPress website to your iPhone, and we’ll build upon that allowing more happenings on your website to be sent to you, too.

So look for push notifications to be added to a WPtouch beta at some point over the coming weeks, and give it a try yourself!

Beta Busting

To say that things have changed from Beta 1 through 7 would be an understatement! Thanks to great help in the support forums from those of you who’ve been actively testing the betas we’re approaching Beta 8, a release that will see the addition of skins, a series of mods to the default appearance of WPtouch (the above image shows ‘Lavender’ and ‘Frog’). Skins can be easily selected in the admin, and will add more colorful branding to WPtouch. Skins will be great for those that like the default theme’s layout but are looking for a stronger color branding that resembles their site’s theme. We’ll add other skins too.

Bug Squish

We’ve killed several bugs over the beta releases, and added a slew of features both visible and under the hood. We hope that with each successive release there are fewer issues as a whole, and the beta program will help immensely with that.

WordPress Version Support

Due to father time, we’ll be dropping support for WordPress 2.3, 2.5 and 2.6.1 – 2.6.4. We’d prefer to stick with support for secure versions of WordPress, and given that as of WordPress 2.7 you can stay up to date with the latest WordPress version simply by clicking a button- there’s no excuse not to stay current. We’ll be incorporating all the latest and greatest features, and won’t be held back from including things like nested & paginated comments, features which are harder to implement when you’re supporting versions of WordPress over 18 months old.

What’s Been Done

Here’s a rough list of what’s been accomplished so far:

• Changed default theme styles for images (now load as background images)
• Made sprites for small theme images to load quicker
• Added all-new variations on the default theme as style selections (Frog, Sea, Lavender, Sunkissed)
• Added jQuery color picker in the admin hex areas for easier style selections
• Fix for Categories, Tags & Login links not working in some mobile browsers (Android, etc)
• Combined CSS files and minified javascript files
• Updated Ajax Upload script to 3.2
• Moved adsense.php to include folder
• Updated screenshots for new designs
• Fixed an issue where excerpts could contain too much spacing
• New admin styling, plugin support for WordPress 2.6.5 sites
• Revised header area styling
• Search now floats overtop the headerbar
• Refined drop down button
• Footer switch link now a part of Core
• No longer using the_content_rss() for excerpts, created a custom function which handles it nicely
• Home link in menu drop down now respects the logo/bookmark icon choice
• Fixed the way javascript is called for a elements, should work better in other mobile browsers
• Moved several images into the core images folder, building more dependency on CoreTheme
• Fix for custom page icons not showing up on pages
• Added link to online icon generator in admin
• Fixed device-width mobileSafari bug
• Added style declaration for images in comments
• More theme changes/enhancements, particularly in the header, footer
• Added ‘My Account’ button in the sub-header for logged in users replacing ‘Logout’
• Fixed issue where chosen pages and icons did not appear in the drop down
• Removed 404 image with English text in it, replaced it with localized 404 text
• Updated fancybox to compressed v1.2.1
• Fixed a few areas that had text not yet localized, improperly coded
• Removed depreciated or unused functions from previous releases
• Removed ability to disable jQuery; WPtouch Exclusive mode should fix JS issues
• Added native select for Tags
• Updated compatibility code (Various WordPress install scenarios) ~ thanks to Will Norris for the suggestions
• Modified AJAX calls
• Made it so administration CSS/JS only loads on WPtouch page
• Fixed a variety of scenarios where paths to files and images were broken
• Updated social bookmarking icons
• More preparation for WPtouch 1.9 and 5 languages
• Preparation for WPtouch 2.0 and themes support (based on CoreTheme)
• Fixed switch link issue where regular theme switch link was broken
• Major re-writes of theme files, css for simplicity, CoreTheme
• Updates to default theme style

What’s To Come

We’ve still got a couple more skins to do, and then the plugin will be shipped off for localization. We’re looking into a couple methods for easy localization, so stay tuned if you offered to help and we’ll soon deliver to you the information on how to get started- we want to make sure the English text is settled so that it doesn’t have to be changed often and require revision from translators.

Beta 8 should be available this week, and will include the new skins for testing.

Check it out!

(Blip.tv embed, click the image to open and view)

What We Need

We’re looking to have a small group of dedicated testers provide feedback and use case issues over the course of successive beta releases.

All new beta releases will be automatically shown in the new WPtouch admin panel as they become available, and are required to be installed via FTP only. So if you don’t have access to your WordPress install using FTP, please don’t attempt to download and use the beta, or participate in this program.

WPtouch 1.9 Beta Availability

If you’re interested in joining, read up on the program thread in the forums.

Please read the following on using WPtouch betas:

Important!

- A beta is a beta: by their very nature these releases are less stable than our traditional updates.

- Please check the Support Forum section for these releases for the known issues BEFORE upgrading or attempting to use them. They’ll outline things we know aren’t working properly or are unknown.

- Please don’t post feature requests in the Support threads for the betas- we’re focusing on making these releases stable and reliable under a variety of WordPress install scenarios, and if we add features in successive releases they were already planned- so you might get what want anyways : )

- As well, don’t e-mail us about issues with the betas; always post to the appropriate thread in the Support forums (i.e. WPtouch 1.9 beta 1, WPtouch 1.9 beta 2, etc.)

Since 1.8.9.1 There’s been over 200 commits to the repository, and almost every file has been modified and given a little love.

You can find out more on the changes in each beta by visiting the Forums.