“[WordTwit Pro] facilitates serial posting across multiple accounts, tweet/retweet automation, tweet branding and automated affiliate advertising.”

After reviewing the alleged violations by the Twitter API team, we are of the opinion that the reasons given are not justified based on the typical use cases of WordTwit Pro users.

First, WordTwit Pro does allow a user to push a tweet out to multiple accounts simultaneously. This feature is meant to simplify management of a website where new post information would routinely by posted to multiple accounts. For example, a WPtouch-related post on BraveNewCode could be pushed to the @wptouch and @bravenewcode Twitter accounts. This functionality is by no means specific to WordTwit Pro; it exists in almost all Twitter clients available today.

Second, while WordTwit Pro does allow a user to automate certain tweets or retweets, all of these essentially have to come at the request of the end-user. This represents a form of tweet scheduling, which is also a standard feature in many Twitter services and clients.

With regards to tweet branding and affiliate advertising, we are ultimately at a loss. Other than the WordTwit Pro application registered with Twitter (which ultimately causes each tweet to be associated with WordTwit Pro), there is no branding on tweets done by BraveNewCode or WordTwit Pro. Each user has the ability to manually edit a tweet before it goes out, which is no different than most Twitter clients. We also provide a very detailed Tweet Log in WordTwit Pro, which shows every tweet that is generated by WordTwit Pro, even if they were not successfully tweeted.

Ultimately Twitter has suspended the OAuth token currently used by WordTwit Pro, which has caused WordTwit Pro installations using the default configuration to stop working. We have tried to communicate with the Twitter API team to work towards resolving the misunderstanding, but as of right now the token is suspended and they have not responded to our most recent attempts to open a dialog or to educate them further about our product.

To simplify the process of setting up WordTwit Pro, we included a generic WordTwit Pro OAuth token registered with Twitter. Since we do not know the nature of the original complaint with Twitter, we can only assume a person or company witnessed some form of SPAM associated with an installation of WordTwit Pro and reported the application in violation. Since we do not control any portion of a WordTwit Pro installation or any tweets that are generated once a user installs the software, we are unable to intervene when any users potentially abuse the product.

Going forward we are forced to remove the default token within WordTwit Pro; this means all end-users will have to register a custom application with Twitter to use with their installation. That also means each user will be responsible for abiding by Twitter’s terms of service for use of the Twitter API. Since the feature to add a custom OAuth application already exists within WordTwit Pro, current installations already using this feature are not affected by the revoked token.

If you have been affected by this, please visit this page for information on how to create a custom application with Twitter and configure WordTwit Pro to use it.

We will release version 3.3 of WordTwit Pro shortly, which will require custom applications for new installations. If you have been using the custom application feature already and you upgrade, your installation should not be affected by this change.

We apologize to anyone who has been affected by this incident, but as the token was revoked by Twitter without any prior warning, we were not able to resolve any concerns without the downtime experienced by customers.

James asks a variety of questions and delves into the details regarding impetus, feature set, and future plans for the new plugin.

Runs about 30 mins.

You can watch the video below, or see a larger version on James’ site, here.

As of September 1st, 2011 The Community Forums on our Support site are being discontinued in favour of community support for our free products through the WordPress.org support forums.

All Community Forums will be removed and become inaccessible via bravenewcode.com/support.

You will still be able to access community support for our free products via WordPress’ forums.

Customers with Licenses for any of our premium plugins will not be affected by this change.

As a plugin developer, PHP 4 definitely makes life more complicated. Plugins end up becoming bloated when you need to have separate code for both PHP 4 and PHP 5. Removing the dependency on PHP 4 allows WordPress to remove old code and help streamline the entire codebase.

What does that mean for the users of our products?

Both WPtouch Pro and Piggy currently work with later versions of PHP 4 currently. Some time after WordPress 3.2 comes out, we will deprecate support for PHP 4.

Internally our policy has always been to try (when possible) to support the last two major versions, so when 3.2 comes out we’ll be supporting it and 3.1. But as development proceeds on the next version of WordPress, we’ll remove the PHP 4 aspects from our code and start using PHP 5 exclusively. That allows the code to be smaller, newer (usually more efficient) and we can use PHP 5 functions only, which in general results in a faster development cycle.

WordTwit Pro, which has just been released requires PHP 5 already.

So if you’re a WordPress user you should start looking at what your host provides in PHP support to make sure you’re ready when 3.2 is released. On many hosts switching to PHP 5 is as simple as clicking a button in the hosting control panel, and on others you can usually add a small snippet to your .htaccess file. Unfortunately there are still some hosts that do not provide PHP 5 at all, and for those you will probably have to find an alternate host, or explain to them why they should add support immediately to allow their customers to upgrade their WordPress installations.

WordPress, Meet Twitter

Today we’re excited to reveal what we’ve been working on for the past few months: WordTwit Pro, our premium version of WordTwit, the best WordPress to Twitter publishing plugin.

In WordTwit Pro you have complete publishing control over the tweets you send out using its sleek new publishing widget. Set schedule, repeat & delay options for a new status update; select and publish to multiple Twitter accounts; Authorize those account for shared use among other WordPress authors on your site; easily add custom hashtags and more— all on-the-fly in a few clicks with the new WordTwit Pro publishing widget.

Multiple Accounts

Multiple Account Bliss

In WordTwit Pro you can easily setup multiple Twitter accounts for publishing. And it’s easy to decide which accounts WordTwit Pro will publish to, on a completely per-post basis.

WordTwit Pro also supports setting accounts as shared or private— perfect for multi-author websites to control the publishing options available for each contributor, author or editor.

And you can even authorize other authors to add their own Twitter accounts securely.

Tweet Scheduling

Scheduling Galore

As with the free version, WordTwit Pro can immediately publish a tweet about your new post to Twitter. Now with WordTwit Pro we’ve added easy to use scheduling, which allows for multiple tweets to be published to Twitter separated by the time you specify, on a per-post basis.

For example, you can now:

• Delay the first tweet from publishing right away for a certain amount of time
• Specify that a tweet be published multiple times, at the interval you choose
• And do both!

Custom #Hashtags

Hashtag Support

We’ve also added another often-requested feature, but went over-the-top in our implementation: totally custom hashtag support.

Instead of just accessing WordPress’ categories or tags to use as hashtags, we’ve built our own hash-tagging system which allows you to quickly and easily add hashtags to your tweets.

It also smart— the new publishing widget provides you with a list of your popular/recently used hashtags and in a few clicks you can add the ones you want to a tweet.

So whether you’re adding a hashtag that’s totally new or those you use often— it’s a breeze to add hashtags to your WordTwit Pro tweets.

Click To Edit

We’ve also added a new Manual Mode for the publishing widget. Simply click to edit-in-place your tweet’s text, title, tags and link. It’s 100% control over the tweets you’ll send out if you need it.

Per Post/Page

It’s also one click easy to decide whether a new post you’re publishing will have a Twitter update published with it. No more excluding by category— just simply flip the widget off with its publish toggle… that’s it.

Tweet Log

Tweet Log

With the new Tweet Log you can see past tweets, upcoming tweets, and any errors that occurred, and what the error message was from Twitter.

Manage, control and delete right from the Tweet Log— you now have more control after you click the ‘Publish’ button.

Admin Panel

Awesome Admin Panel

 
To top it all off, WordTwit Pro features the same intuitive, easy-to-use admin panel that we designed for our WPtouch Pro and Piggy plugins.

With its BraveNewCode admin panel, you can change settings, control your WordTwit Pro setup effortlessly, and do it all in style.

Licenses & Pricing

Licenses for WordTwit Pro include timely, professional customer support in our Support Forums, free upgrades through all 3.x releases, and automatic-upgrades in the admin panel, just like you enjoy with WordPress’ regular plugins.

License types:

$39 — Single license:
Includes support and auto-upgrades for one WordPress website

$79 — 5-Pack license:
Includes support and auto-upgrades for up to 5 WordPress websites

$139 — Unlimited/MU license:
Includes support and auto-upgrades on an unlimited number of WordPress websites, including WordPress MU/Multisite implementations

Available June 10th, 2011

WordTwit Pro will be available for purchase on Friday, June 10th, 2011. Click here to view the product page with even more detail about its features and capabilities.

One More Thing… Private Beta!

There is also a private beta available to all WPtouch Pro and Piggy customers, available today in the pro support forums. You’ll need to be logged in with your WPtouch Pro and/or Piggy account to view the post and access the download for the beta.

• Added: Simple character count to post WordTwit status box
• Added: Tweet error messages
• Added: Ability to automatically adjust OAuth time offset
• Added: Ability to utilize a custom Twitter application for Tweets
• Fixed: Bug with apostrophes in category name
• Changed: Stopped a CSS file from loading which isn’t used anymore
• Changed: Logic regarding old Tweet times
• Updated: Language .pot file. Please submit translations to translation (at) bravenewcode.com

One of the most exciting updates is the ability to configure WordTwit to use a custom Twitter application. So instead of having WordTwit Tweet on behalf of “WordTwit”, you can make it Tweet on behalf of your own website, for example “BraveNewCode”.

As you can see in the example on the right, the Tweet was on behalf of the custom application called BraveNewCode. So website owners are now free to create their own applications to enhance their personal or site branding with WordTwit.

Creating Your Own Application in Twitter

To create your own application, you can visit the WordTwit developer site at dev.twitter.com/apps. Once on the site, click the “Register a new app” button in the sidebar.

You’ll then be able to configure all aspects of your application:

The only real “gotchas” are that you must make sure the application is a Browser application and not a Client application. To do that, you must define callback URL, even though WordTwit will override it – simply specify your main website URL here. You must also make sure the application has Read & Write access as opposed to Read-only.

Once that’s done, you should be able to find the application’s OAuth Consumer key and Consumer secret tokens, similar to these:

It’s important to keep these two parameters secret, since someone who obtains them could Tweet on behalf of your application. But in the odd event that they are ever compromised, you can simply regenerate them via the Twitter developer site (we regenerated the ones shown in the example, so the tokens shown above no longer work).

Once that’s done, simply input the two tokens into the WordTwit administration panel and reauthorize WordTwit. If all went well, you should see an authorization dialog for your custom application similar to the one shown here. Then you simply have to grant access for WordTwit to Tweet on behalf of your custom application, and you’re good to go.

This will most likely be the last major update for WordTwit until we release our long awaited WordTwit Pro plugin which we’ve been working on in conjunction with WPtouch Pro 2.2. If you’re interested in being notified when WordTwit Pro is released, please sign up for updates.

We’ve also included an updated POT language file in WordTwit 2.6 – if you’re interested in translating it, please send us the completed translation via our contact form or via the email address included in the readme.txt file in the plugin.

If anyone has any issues with the release, please let us know via the forums or here.

Enjoy WordTwit 2.6!

WPtouch Pro

Our flagship premium plugin product, WPtouch Pro has seen some great support from the WordPress community over the past few months. We’ve worked hard to get WPtouch Pro from its initial 2.0 release to the 2.1 version which is just around the corner, and includes: child theme & WP 3.0 custom menus support, along with the hotly-anticipated iPad theme support for our Classic theme.

It also includes other enhancements, refinements, tweaks and fixes over 2.0.9.1.

2.1 will be in Release Candidate status next week.

Beyond 2.1

After we release 2.1, the focus of WPtouch Pro development will shift to performance and maintenance for the 2.2 update. We hope to slim and shave, streamline and strengthen the core of WPtouch Pro, in preparation for some pretty cool stuff planned for next year.

WordTwit

We continue to improve and stabilize WordTwit, solving issues and bugs related to different server environments and URL shortener services. Look for a few releases in the next few weeks which accomplish more of the same.

What’s Next

We’ve been working on a major update to WordTwit which will deliver some key features: greatly improved Tweet widget with the ability to click and edit the outgoing tweet, add hashtags from tags and categories, support for multiple accounts, and more. Look for more details on the blog here soon.

Website/Support

Our website, support and documentation sites will all be getting a makeover soon which will make things easier for prospective customers to find the information they’re looking for about our products/services, and much better for customers to access account services and features. The new site(s) launch will be happening in December.

Best,
The BraveNewCode Team

We haven’t had a chance to get together since then, so tomorrow we are both getting on planes and heading to the Mayan Riviera for a little working vacation. Truthfully, it costs us nearly $800 every time we go to see the other person, not including any meals or drinks. So, to pay $1,000 to go to a Mexican all-inclusive resort is just that much easier for us.

I’m actually in the process of giving up my life in Vancouver and am going to be traveling and working for a year, visiting WordPress and WPtouch users across the globe as I move. So, this trip is probably the last time I’ll get a chance to hang out with Dale until April, when I’ll be swinging through New York City for my birthday.

As Dale and I spend a lot of our day on the phone or iChat, working remotely is no obstacle to how BraveNewCode operates. In fact, in a lot of ways it’s an advantage, because I can field questions from time to time after Dale has gone to bed, and he can deal with the occasional issue before I wake up.

So, by tomorrow night Dale and I will both be enjoying a few beers in the Mayan Riviera, strategizing about what next year will bring for WPtouch, BraveNewCode, and a few other of the items we haven’t announced yet. Rest assured, it’s all exciting stuff, so a big thank you to all of our customers, friends, and long-time supporters.

• 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 »

Can’t Authorize WordTwit

The new authorization mechanism for WordTwit involves revokable tokens instead of a username and password. The main benefit of this approach is that passwords and never transmitted across the internet or stored locally, which increases security. It’s also possible for a user of Twitter to revoke a previously granted OAuth token on a per application basis, which is another benefit to this approach.

Unfortunately there are still some people who seem to have problems authorizing WordTwit with the new API. A symptom of this is that clicking the authorize link in the admin panel simply redirects to the current page instead of going to Twitter. In all cases where we have investigated this, it has been because Twitter is blocking the IP address of the server where WordTwit is hosted. To test this, open a shell on the server and type:

curl -I http://api.twitter.com/

If it returns an error, then that’s most likely what is happening. Unfortunately since many hosting providers put 50 – 100 websites on a single server, the blocking of a single IP address (often due one particular website abusing Twitter) has the unintentional side effect of blocking everyone else on that machine as well.

The only work around that Twitter has suggested involves obtaining a dedicated IP address for the website in question, and then hardcoding that IP address into WordTwit. There currently is no easy way for this to be accomplished in the latest version, but we are looking at ways to make it possible.

Force Retweet Doesn’t Tweet

In addition to changing the authorization mechanism for the Twitter API, Twitter has also changed its policy regarding retweets, Previously it was possible to send out a duplicate Tweet using the Twitter API. For the most part, this is no longer possible as Twitter returns a “Duplicate Tweet” error message, and the Tweet fails. A warning message has been added to the latest version of WordTwit, but if you are still using an older version, it’s possible that it will just silently fail. Given that this seems to be the norm now, we will most likely remove the Force Retweet button from the next version to remove any possible confusion.

Several months ago we looked at the WordTwit OAuth stats, and over 7,000 people were using the new OAuth version. So for the most part, most people do not appear to be experiencing any difficulties. But for the people who are, we will do our best to try and help resolve whatever issues remain with the new OAuth rollout and work towards solidifying the code to make the error conditions more prevalent.

If you are still having issues, then please drop a line here or in the support forums and we’ll see if we can help diagnose the issue and work towards an update that resolves whatever problems remain.

Incorrect Server Time – Updated

As it turns out, many people are probably having issues because the time of their server is incorrect. OAuth requires that the current time is transmitted with each request, and the Twitter API verifies that the time is proper. So if the time on your server is incorrect, you need to adjust it (or put in a support ticket) such that your server always has the correct time.

We also included an updated .pot file with WordTwit. If you’re able to translate WordTwit into another language, please do so and send your translation along to translation@bravenewcode.com. We’ll include them in upcoming point releases of WordTwit.

If you have any issues with the new version, please let us know, either in the support forums or by dropping a comment. Thanks.

Update – There was a bug in 2.4.6 that affected people using the local URL generation within WordTwit. Version 2.4.7 was just released and seems to fix that issue.

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

So if you upgrade to WordTwit 2.4, make sure you go to the administrational panel and reauthorize your account. Also, the signature method required for the new Twitter API (hmac-sha1) is only available in PHP5. So unfortunately at this time we’ll only be support PHP5 for WordTwit.

If you have any problems with WordTwit 2.4, please drop a comment in the support forums.

Update – version 2.4.4 is now in the repository, please make sure you are using the latest version

We’ve just relaunched our website, and we think it sets the stage for the things we have planned for 2010. In this post we explore some of those things, which will hopefully answer the many e-mail, Twitter, and blog comment questions we’ve had in the last 6 weeks or so.

WPtouch 2.0

We’ve posted here a few times in the past about the release of WPtouch 2.0, and each time we’ve done so we anticipated it being released far sooner. The reason for its delays are many, but the good news is that it’s actively being worked on now.

Re-Write

We’re undertaking a complete re-write for 2.0, a necessary step to set the stage for multi-Theme support and some of the other features we have planned. We’ve learned much about the right way to build a WordPress plugin over the past few years, and want to start fresh to make sure that 2.0 is a model example of efficiency and poetry in code and thoughtful care in design.

Around The Corner

With the impending release of an Apple touch tablet (and many other touch tablets) and new updates to touch mobile phone software (Android 2.1 and iPhone 4.0) we’re hoping these new products and features enable us to do more with WPtouch. Rest assured that new capabilities will be added as things develop.

Support Forums

The goal in tearing apart the forums was also for a variety of reasons, but the most important being that we’re moving towards having a single account which you can use to post in the forums and on this site, and in the future any other BraveNewCode related services, sites, etc.

Secondly, the entire design for the Support Forums is being updated to reflect the new website, and until we settled on the website’s overall look, features and layout we couldn’t move too much on the Forums.

Expect them to be up and live again within the coming weeks.

WordTwit, Integrity

We’ll also be hard at work on improving WordTwit, our popular Twitter plugin for WordPress, and developing Integrity, our WordPress security plugin. Due to some of the recent work by the WordPress team it remains to be seen whether a plugin like Integrity is really needed, so we’ll be watching that development.

Shhhhhh Secrets!

Many of the things we’re planning require a little secrecy. As such we’ll post on the website when we’re ready to reveal juicy details, but you’re best served following us on Twitter to get first dibs on news, beta releases, and more goodies.

Now that the management pane is in place and hooked up, we’ll be adding a few new features (such as hash tags) there in the future. In addition, we’ve also updated the documentation for WordTwit 2.3.0 to provide help with installations on WordPress MU.

If you install WordTwit 2.3.0 and run into any problems, please drop a comment and let us know. Happy Tweeting!

Update – we just pushed out a minor update, 2.3.1. It has all the goodies mentioned above, plus support for the is.gd url shortener and also the ability to view the number of times a bit.ly linked has been clicked (if you use bit.ly).

WordTwit 2.2.5

A small update to WordTwit adds bonafide WordPress 2.9+ support. Minor bugs and fixes were baked in as well.

WPtouch 1.9.7

We lauded a couple of the new feature adds on Twitter yesterday, and things progressed well enough that a release of the new version could be made today. 1.9.7 adds a couple of oft-requested things, post-thumbnails instead of calendar icons and the ability to change the font used for H2 on the post listings, post and page titles.

For Post Thumbnails we perform some eye candy additons for you: You just pick your thumbnail, and we add the rounded corners and reflection automagically. The admin options for the post listings are now: Calendar Icons (default), Post Thumbnails, Post Thumbnails with random images (to fill the posts that don’t have thumbnails associated) and show neither (for those minimalists out there).

Instead of trying to describe all of this in detail in a post, I’ve whipped up a quick video to go over setting up the new features.

Click here to view the embedded video.

From all of us at BraveNewCode, have a safe and happy holidays everyone and we’ll see ya in the new year/decade!

For those of you who haven’t seen it, we’ve also been tinkering with a BuddyPress plugin called BuddyPress Geo.

WPtouch and Themes

We’ve said it before and it bears repeating: Themes for WPtouch is a lot more difficult than it may seem.

Since we’re aiming at WordPress 2.7 and higher we’re going to take advantage of the parent/child theme capabilities in WordPress. Wherever possible and practical we’ll always favor support for native WordPress capabilities and features.

This means that if WordPress introduces something like thumbnails in posts functionality (forthcoming in WP 2.9), we’ll add support for it over other third party solutions.

Cutting down on plugin bulk is something we enjoy about WordPress, making great (former) plugin features and capabilities a part of its core and reducing the need for third party solutions to be added in order for a smaller subset of functionality (like post thumbnails).

It’s a tough thing because some plugin developers that have their work enveloped into WordPress may have had other ideas. We think that the whole nature of a plugin for WordPress is to fill or add functionality which is ‘essential’ for a subset of users. Occassionally (and more often, progressively) the subset becomes wanted by almost the entire WP community, and such features should then be a part of the core.

Themes are tricky with WPtouch for a number of reasons, but most notably the way that our users can choose, apply, customize and maintain themes requires significant code and UI considerations.

We just simply won’t put out a half-baked solution. Its not the BNC way and it’s not what people have come to expect when using our plugins. So rest assured when it does arrive (and it indeed will) Themes and WPtouch will be enjoyable, easy to use, and powerful.

We’re back on the horse this week, and we’ll continue to update and improve existing branches of our plugins while we work towards re-launching the website, support forums, and larger plugin updates.

Duane and I work very hard, this much is uncontested. We both recognize that to grow our company and to do things they way they ought to be done in this business means a high level of dedication, will, determination and fortitude to ensure success. We’ve been working non-stop on a variety of client projects, like courtneysummers.ca, visioncritical.com, ticketfly.com, and Rogers’ urmusic.ca. We’ve also been working on our GPL projects like WordTwit, BuddyPress Geo, and of course WPtouch.

So, in short: We think we deserve a break.

Punta Cana

We’ve chosen a nice spot in the beautiful coastal area of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Duane and I will be there for two weeks and will be going over company year-end stuff, planning for the next phases, and re-positioning some of our ideas to grow as a company in 2010 in the directions we really want to see things move.

Business + Pleasure

Of course a place like this doesn’t often invite the idea of ‘business’, but that’s just how we operate- why not do some of the more onerous tasks in a place you’ll enjoy? Most people wouldn’t know it but we run this company, for the most part, virtually. Duane and I live on separate sides of this big country of Canada, and a getaway like this facilitates a number of personal and business needs for us both.

Unsupported

We’ve yanked the plug on our plugin Support Forums for the time being, mostly in an effort to stop the tides of on-going to-do lists so we can focus on the overhaul we think is sorely needed, and will bring more to the table for the user community of our plugins. We apologize if it leaves you high in dry in the mean time, but rest assured that we’re not walking away from our plugins or supporting them.

Surprises

Who knows, maybe we’ll push out some plugin updates while we’re down there, or a beta of one of our slow-cooking WP plugins like Transporter (backup/migration) or Integrity (security).

Itinerary

Duane’s already arrived, and I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon. Weather’s looking hot and bright for the week ahead, so too for our plans : )

Below is a list of recent changes for both releases, enjoy!

WPtouch

• Added Twitter updates menu item support for WordTwit’s new features
• Added CSS for TweetThis and AddThis plugins to be hidden
• Added page/post title to HEAD for Tweet purposes
• Added user agent detection for non-apple mobile devices to be served Twitter link correctly
• Added 180-degree animation to post-arrow dropper and removed excess JS and code
• Added new tab pane for the header (menu, tags, categories, account)
• Added more theme compatibility for other touch devices
• Added ‘edit, delete, spam’ links for admins on comments
• Changed default OBJECT and EMBED css to only apply to .post, not site-wide
• Changed comment ajax routine
• Changed ‘Links’ appearance adding support for link categories, removed favicon scripts
• Changed the way the header links are setup
• Small refinements in the theme CSS all-around
• Made progress towards reply and pagination in comments, not there yet

WordTwit

• Added fixes as suggested by majilab for tweets & languages
• Fixed bug with Twitter display times in WPtouch
• Added ability for WPtouch to display recent tweets in header
• Added a widget to show recent tweets
• Updated minimum WordPress version requirement to 2.7
• Fixed a CSS bug on avatars
• Admin js and css files now only load on WordTwit Options page
• Validated the admin XHTML with W3C standards

Support Forums Outage

The support forums will be down as of 12:01am EST on Thursday, November 19th, 2009. We’re upgrading and changing our support forums and service, and as a result will close the forums until the new ones are launched.

We apologize for this, but there’s no way we can continue to answer all questions while re-launching.

Rest assured we’re hoping to make many improvements, so when things are up and running again they should be much better: )

Thanks,

The BraveNewCode Team

As we approach 300,000 downloads of WPtouch and nearly half a million if you count up our other plugins, we’ve been reflecting on what we’ve accomplished and where we’d like to go from here.

Our plugins are freely available and GPL, which means that donations are the only source of income they generate at this time. So our main source of revenue is working with some terrific clients building websites, and doing various development and graphic design for 3rd party services and products.

Over the past year and half that we’ve been running we’ve poured thousands of hours into our client work, and hundreds into our plugins. More recently we’ve had very little time to improve upon our GPL offerings, though.

I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me that at times it seems that people think they’re entitled to the work we produce and improvements upon it. Though it is very much the minority of what we experience from our users, it’s something that can easily take the wind out of our sails— having someone acting as if a bug in your free software is a serious problem that you must resolve or they’ll axe you.

As tough as it is, we’ve realized that our experience with free software only serves to embolden the reality of the expectations we have regarding the future and the real liklihood that we’ll release some pretty cool products or services that will be revenue generating— and which will indeed be supported and will be improved upon over time.

The Ever-So Cool Pipeline

With all of that said we’re excited to soon promote and discuss the future of BraveNewCode and what we have coming down the pipes. Our focus remains with WordPress, but we’re looking at ways we can both expand upon our existing plugins, add new and powerful ones, and build an eco-system of BraveNewCode products and services which will enhance not only WordPress but the way people use the internet, period.

It’s an exciting time, and there’s nothing but hard work ahead for us.

Fade To Black

We’re taking off on a company hiatus/strategy planning vacation in late November, and at that time we’ll be phasing the next steps for what we’re trying to accomplish. For the most part there will be a code-freeze on what we’ve done to date, but rest assured that WordTwit, WPtouch and our other forthcoming plugins like Integrity are going to get the love and attention they deserve.

Look for some exciting changes to take place in the coming weeks/months ahead from us. If you want to stay on top of the pulse follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our newsletter— in both places we share secrets you won’t get here : )