Every once in awhile we like to share an overview of what’s been happening and what we’re up to— affectionately, our “state of the code” address of sorts.

WPtouch 1.9.19

While WPtouch Pro is our main focus, we still give love and attention to WPtouch 1.9, servicing it for bug fixes and feature additions to make it even better.

We just released version 1.9.19, and with it we’ve finally delivered true localization. We’ve included the .pot file in the new /lang folder, which can be used to create language .mo files to translate both the theme and the admin panel.

Submit your translation today to translation@wptouch.com, and we’ll review it for inclusion in a future release.

WPtouch Pro v2.0.9

WPtouch Pro 2.0.9

Notable new additions include better custom language translation handling, improvements in WordPress Multisite compatibility, and a new feature allowing WPtouch Pro to be disabled for selected URLs and pages.

We strongly recommend upgrading if you’re running any previous version of WPtouch Pro.
WPtouch Pro 2.0.9 will be available later today.

Upcoming: WPtouch Pro v2.1

We’ve begun work on the next major version of WPtouch Pro, which will deliver iPad support, child themes, and support for WordPress 3.0′s custom menus.

Many people have inquired as to what iPad support will be in 2.1, and we’d like to share a couple of thoughts about it.

First of all, iPad support will be opt-in. When you update to 2.1 you’ll be able to decide whether you want to enable iPad support or not. Some are happy with the way their sites look and work on iPad already, and for those people they won’t have to do anything.

For those who do want iPad support, they have a number of options related to what happens with iPad support, and we’ll undoubtedly add to those options over time.

There are already some solutions available for iPad theme stuff with WordPress. We could have shipped “support” for iPad very early on, by simply enabling the user agent and letting WPtouch be WPtouch on iPad. We didn’t for several reasons, but the most important is that we don’t think WPtouch as a theme concept is appropriate on a device like iPad.

Small, hand-held mobile devices are very different from tablet devices such as the iPad. And the iPad user interface, (while borrowing from the iPhone) has some dramatic differences, most notably the way in which vertical and horizontal views are handled in most apps.

So we’re hoping our solutions feel as natural, intuitive and enjoyable for users as possible. And because we don’t have to make the same kinds of compromises as we do with WPtouch (for device compatibility), we can do a few things that should enhance the web experience of a site using WPtouch Pro on iPad.

WPtouch Pro Affiliate Program

We recently launched a new Affiliate Program for customers of WPtouch Pro. Earn 20% on purchases of WPtouch Pro made through text or image advertisements on your website. Find out more ->

WordTwit

We’ve received lots of feedback over the past few months on our WordPress Twitter plugin, WordTwit. Ideas on how to make it better, and what people would like to see added to it have trickled in on our Forums, over Twitter, and here on the blog.

Though we haven’t said much publicly, we’ve been listening to everyone and have been working on adding several enhancements and new features to bring WordTwit up to version 3.0 with some powerful new additions. Stay tuned on the progress towards its 3.0 release, we’ll have new details available soon.

Site Revamp

A Sneak Peek At The New Forums

We hope everyone will enjoy the new site when we unveil the new digs. We’ll post some screenshots for feedback a little further down the road.

Thanks

We want to say thanks to all our WPtouch Pro customers, our users, friends, family and followers. It’s your support and interest in what we’re doing that keeps us motivated to do more.

Best,
The BraveNewCode Team

We’ve really overhauled the guts and trimmed, sliced, and optimized everywhere to squeak out some very impressive speed enhancements while also adding features. The package gets smaller but the features keep growing— it’s a challenge we enjoy.

This update packs a lot of punch! Below is a run down of what we’ve added/changed from 1.2.1:

• Switch from Prototype to the more WordPress-native jQuery for javascript (much faster!)
• Fix for wrong re-directs happening unintentionally if you use a static home page
• Elimination of unneeded images, javascript (shaving more than 100KB!)
• More template file cleanups, image & code optimizations
• The addition of more comments in code templates to help you make custom modifications
• Option to enable comments on pages
• Option to manually enter in a new blog title (fixes cases where the blog title runs the length of the header and wraps)
• Option to hide/show excerpts by default on the home, search, and archive pages
• Switch code links are automatically injected into your regular theme’s footer now, and is only seen on the iPhone/ipod touch
• In all, despite the addition of new features we’ve cut load times for WPtouch in half with this release over 1.2.x releases!

The last point is a rather impressive one. In our tests, we’ve found the current version to be up to 2X faster in load time over the previous versions, most notably over 3G and EDGE. These test were done with all features enabled for WPtouch. We’ll be posting more detail on that in the coming days, but we’re pretty sure you’ll notice the difference yourselves. Our testing conditions spanned WIFI, 3G & EDGE with full bars on each and no other phone activity going on to affect bandwidth. We used duanestorey.com to do the testing.

Important!

In this version we’re automatically injecting the switch code into your regular theme’s template. This means that if you have manually placed the code in your template previously, you’ll have a duplicate pair of links. Please remove the manually added one, it’s no longer needed.

Remember to backup any custom files you have modified or added to WPtouch before upgrading. The 2.0 release will both include localization and a configuration which will avoid this upgrade issue entirely. We’re on track for a september release for WPtouch 2.0.

insidethecbc.com is the official blog of Canada’s CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). They’ve installed and are using WPtouch to present their content to viewers arriving using an iPhone/iPod touch. It’s awesome news. There’s still a few kinks with their implementation, and we’re working with them to iron them out, but it’s great to see that already the theme is getting some exposure and use in some high profile places.

Secondly, tech guru (one my favourite pod & broadcasters) Leo Laporte has installed it on leoville.com as well. ∞