As it turns out, it’s a bit of both.

There’s a post here describing the nature of the category exclusion bug plaguing queries in 3.1. This has been fixed and in the next release the fix will solve problems for those who have not been up to date on WPtouch’s releases (currently 1.9.24 as of this post).

Though there’s a genuine bug in 3.1 and category exclusion, the method we were using to exclude categories in WPtouch was a little antiquated and backwards.

We’ve since cleaned things up and are using much better (and still backwards compatible) code to exclude categories, and while we did that we also added a few more aspects to the exclusion routine that improve and extend it.

Now, category exclusion will truly exclude that category everywhere. Searches, archive results, and of course the category drop-down list all respect the excluded categories defined in WPtouch.

Exclude by Tag

In the process, we’ve added the same control and power to exclude by tag, and you can even combine the two and WPouch will take care of it, without affecting whatever you’re doing on your desktop theme.

Other Bugs

We also cleaned up some more code and went through debug logs to make sure WPtouch runs error, warning, and php notice free on your server.

Coming Up

The next release (1.9.25) will be available soon and lays the troubles to rest, along with adding new filters to make sure WPtouch doesn’t load on the Samsung Galaxy Tab or Motorola Xoom tablets.

• An issue with page menus on some installations
• An issue with WordPress 3.1 that prevents the admin bar from showing on desktop themes.

WPtouch Pro 2.1.4 is a recommended update for all customers.

This is update is recommended for all users.

Changelog

• Fixes admin panel not working or broken for some users
• Changed admin panel RSS feeds to use AJAX
• Added function_exists and object checks to admin RSS
• Changed Tweet RSS Feed to Support Forum Topics
• Fixed minor page menu CSS issue
• Included 40% reduction in PNG sizes thanks to BNCID user 13xforever

Even if you’re not having any trouble you should update anyways, no harm done in doing so.

Issues covered in this release are:

• Fixed an undefined function error
• Stopped GigPress CSS from loading in the header when it’s not enabled
• Fixed error where Icon Upload would fail in admin
• Updated Ajax Upload script to v3.9

Version 1.9.4.1

Version 1.9.4

• Fix for re-direct issues introduced with 1.9.3.4
• Fixes and changes for Adsense appearance
• Fix for direct messages not working with WPtouch exclusive mode
• Added spam check for Push direct messages via a nonce
• Added verification for Prowl API key
• Added ability to define custom user agents in the admin (go nuts!)
• Minor admin styling changes
• Dropped official support for WP 2.6 (sorry folks, you should update!)
• Dropped ‘skins’ references, they’ll be a part of WPtouch 2.0
• Compressed style.css in theme for faster load times
• Removed unused files

The update is available for download or from within the WordPress admin.

Below is a list of issued resolved in the last few updates, so if you’ve been having any of the below issues please upgrade and test again, then report lingering issues or new concerns in our Support Forums.

• Fixed issue where mobile switch to regular theme was always zoomed in and required refresh
• Fixed issue where pages changed from published to unpublished still showed in the WPtouch menu
• Fixed issue where ‘Load More Entries’ caused blank page or other issues. WPtouch now detect possible issues and defaults to pagination
• WPtouch now loads minified versions of its CSS and JS for the theme, speeding up load times
• Added check for wp-load.php before attempting ajax comments. Should fix WP comment posting issues. Working on better Disqus and Intense Debate support as well
• Removed ‘Find in this page’ button, until bugs are resolved
• Now WPtouch will not hide mobileSafari addressbar on single post pages, for readers on slower connections (page won’t awkwardly bump them to the top when reading an article)
• Fixed bug where WPtouch admin would report that CURL wasn’t installed even if it was
• Fixed bug for admin panel Ajax not working in some situations
• Adsense re-enabled
• Fixed bug where SPAM comments were pushed via Prowl
• Push Notification options now announces if Curl is not available, instead of not appearing at all
• Removed text-size adjust option, now replaced with user-adjustable font size on post page
• Minor code corrections

The update is recommended for all users. Please visit the WPtouch homepage for install and setup instructions, or visit the Support Forums for tips, tricks, and support from fellow WPtouch users and BraveNewCode staff.

Below is the complete changelog for 1.8.8 1.8.9 1.8.9.1:

• Fixed refresh issue (some pages keep re-loading)
• Fixed mkdir issue on PHP4 installations
• Set viewport to fixed width for device to prevent some sites from loading wide
• Minor revisions to new CSS calendar icon styling
• Added exclusive mode feature to help in situations where other plugins are incompatible, load too many scripts/css files and both break and slow down WPtouch
• Added Fancybox for some feature descriptions in the admin

As always you can upgrade through the WordPress admin if you’re running a current version of WordPress, or download and install the update via FTP otherwise. In either case, your settings & custom icons will remain the same.

Here’s a rundown of the final changelog:

• Changed calendar icons from images to CSS-based only (they look sexay!)
• Refined styling of header logo, text shadow, general appearance
• Removed unneeded declarations from the WPtouch stylesheet
• Tested and works efficiently with WordPress MU when installed site-wide (Finally!)
• Please read the details in this readme regarding use on WordPress MU
• Changed post nav on the single post page to prev/next post, instead of entry titles for length’s sake
• Disqus commenting plugins out-of-the-box styling enhancements
• We’re working on IntenseDebate plugin support, should be out with the next revision
• Added javascript to support framesets and screen size detection
• Fixed bug related to RSS feeds being broken in some situations
• Fixed issue with re-directs on some WP 2.5+ sites

Thanks to everyone who’s visited the BraveNewCode Support Forums and either posted about a plugin issue, or helped someone else who did- this is the kind of community we know exists around our plugins, and the kind of community we want to support. We browse the forums every couple days, and try to respond in a timely manner- but like everyone, we’re busy cats and sometimes it might take a little while before we get back to you, so please be patient if we haven’t responded to you yet.

There’s been a considerable number of changes that are detailed in the readme.txt file, but we’re including most of them here with some extra notes.

Under The Hood The Engine Got A Scrub Down

Duane spent considerable time re-writing the core admin code, optimizing and restructuring the way WPtouch works its magic. Over and above the obvious reasons for doing this, we’re preparing for full tilt-a-whirl action with the release of WPtouch 2.0, a significant upgrade which will deliver the long-awaited internationalization and theme features.

As with any major change, we’ve done the best we could to test under a variety of conditions, but hope that feedback from you, our user, will help us weed out any additional hiccups as a result.

Manual Icons Are Bygone

Finally we’ve delivered a proper mechanism for the management of your custom icons through WPtouch. The upgrade to WPtouch is the last time you’ll have to say good bye to your custom icons with an upgrade, and have to manually replace them. With WPtouch 1.8 you can upload and delete your custom icons from the WPtouch admin panel, and future upgrades to both WPtouch and WordPress won’t affect your custom selections.

You’ve Got Style! More Options, Background Choices

We’ve has several requests to open up our rigid ways and allow for more customization of style options. While we do see the merit in this, part of our rigidity has to do with plans to allow for custom themes with WPtouch 2.0, thereby creating the ability for everyone to create tweaked versions of WPtouch or really unique, totally customized themes.

But WPtouch 2.0 is stilla few months away, so in the mean time we’ve added a few more style options.

So, added in this update is:

• The abilty to decide if paragraphs should be full width (default) or left-aligned
• The ability to choose between three different scales of font sizes
  (Regular, Medium & Large)
• The ability to choose between 3 different pinstripe background images
  (Classic, Horizontal, Diagonal)

Finding The Path To Home: Bug Fixes

We’ve fixed a number of path issues with WPtouch 1.8. As WPtouch is a complex plugin with features and functions that far surpass the average plugin its more difficult than it seems to bring all these great and advanced features to all kinds of WordPress users, hosting WordPress in unique ways. So we do our best with each successive update to make sure WPtouch looks in all the right places to find the things it needs to know about your WordPress install to work for you.

You Say Login, I Say Logout

There have been a few bugs related to login/out features working on some versions of WordPress, and we think we’ve solved them all. If you’ve had an issue related to this, please update and check to see if we’ve resolved it and report back.

We’ve also fixed a number of other minor issues, all of which are listed in the readme.txt file that accompanies the plugin .zip file.

Salam! Kaixo! Hej! Aloha! Salut! Hello!

WPtouch 1.8 has been prepared for internationalization. Over the coming weeks we’ll be working with some great volunteers to deliver WPtouch 1.9 in at least 5 languages, and we’ll work to try and at least double that for WPtouch 2.0. If you think you can help us accomplish this, please drop an e-mail to wptouch@bravenewcode.com and let us know what lingo you’re fluent in. If it’s a language not yet added, we’ll send the project details for you to help us out on Launchpad.

Coming Soon… And Then There Were Themes

With WPtouch 2.0, you’ll be able to do the same with themes. Custom style sheets, and even entire themes built off of the new core theme capabilities will bring the same great theming possibilities of WordPress itself to WPtouch. Stay tuned for information on our theme contest.

There’s a batch more things in this update, if you’re interested checkout the full list of changes here.

We originally planned to release the update today, but have not as of yet found the solution to the issue. As soon as we do we’ll release the update, which also bundles other refinements, and the addition of enabling login from the header (offers a new dropdown).

Stay tuned.