The current version of Piklist has been tested with WordPress 3.6 and we’ve found no new bugs so please continue to use it for your projects. We’re excited to see what you build, so feel free to let us know in our forums.

So, when’s the next version of Piklist? And why the sudden slow down with updates?

Late last year we started getting more clients using Piklist and hiring us to build features. Some of these features were already on our roadmap, and some were totally off the map.  But they were all pretty awesome and would benefit the entire Piklist community, so we were excited to build them. As we started to enhance Piklist, we also realized some of the older code could be improved and we started to rewrite this as well. This included how Piklist stores field data, which is obviously a core feature. Before we knew it, we had a much better version of Piklist with tons of new functionality, but unfortunately, wasn’t 100% backwards compatible. To make matters worse, we never branched off our main Git repo, so we had no choice but to finish this version completely before releasing it.  During this process, clients started adding new features, and we got caught in a cycle… enhance Piklist… finish Piklist… enhance Piklist… finish Piklist… etc.

We now believe this cycle is coming to an end and hope to have a new version of Piklist in the coming weeks.

When it’s ready for testing, we’ll announce it here and let you now where you can download it.

If you thought you could build amazing things now… just wait until you get your hands on the next version of Piklist!

The post Keep Building with Piklist appeared first on Piklist.

While building this out we came across a major Piklist bug… Piklist didn’t really play nice with multisite. If you install on one site in a multisite install, all is well. But Network Activate, and bad things happen. Piklist wants to create two tables, but on Network Activation they were only created on the main site. Obviously, we needed to fix this, and also make it easy to implement for future updates. So, today we released v0.7.2, which contains the new Piklist Updates feature.

Piklist Updates

Writing update code for your WordPress plugin is not fun. Seriously, it’s just not fun. First, you need to determine if it’s an update or new install, and then you need to determine if multisite is running. If so, and the user network activated your plugin, then you need to loop through all the sites and run your update script. Yuck.

Back in October 2010, Nacin announced that plugin activation hooks will no longer fire for updates, and WordPress doesn’t have a register_update_hook(). When this was proposed in trac ticket 14912, it was declined by the core team. Further discussion led to this recommended procedure: store the plugin version in your database and verify it on each admin page load.

Well, fear not my friends, Piklist will now do all the hard work for you and make it dead simple to create update routines for your Piklist plugins.

1. First, create an “updates” folder in your piklist/parts/ folder.
2. Then, create a file to contain your update procedure. The file name should be the version of your plugin.
3. And of course, make sure you have a version number in the comment block of your PIklist plugin.

That’s all folks!  Seriously, that’s it.

So, how does it work?  Let’s use v0.7.2 of Piklist as an example.

In the parts/updates/ folder lives a file named 0.7.2.php (same as the current version). This file contains the update routine for users updating from an earlier version to v0.7.2. This file is written to update ONE site by migrating some table data and deleting an old table. There is no multisite logic here…Piklist will handle that for you.

Since there is no hook that fires when a plugin is updated, Piklist will only check for updates:

• When the logged in user can manage_options. Since Administrators are the only users who can activate plugins, they should be the only users who can trigger an update as well.
• On the Plugins, Update and Dashboard pages.

In addition to running the update, Piklist will keep track of each Piklist plugin you install. Not just the most recent version…but, a version history. Sweet!

There are three caveats when writing your update procedure:

1. Write for ONE site: The update procedure should be written as if you are updating a single site install. Piklist will automatically handle multisite updates for you. If you are manipulating tables, it is recommended that you use the wpdb class, and $prefix to properly handle tables in a multisite install.
2. Only PHP: The updates file can only contain PHP code.
3. Don’t define functions: Since an update procedure is designed to only run once per site, defining functions in your update procedure doesn’t make sense. Any functions should be defined in your main plugin code. You can call functions from your update procedure, just don’t define any.

Better Multisite Support

This is also the first step for better multisite support for Piklist. The new check_network_propagate() function (in class-piklist.php) will allow us to easily expand the multisite capabilities of Piklist and all Piklist plugins.  This has been a popular request, and you will start to see more multisite features roll out in the future.

This isn’t quite the super awesome, feature packed update you deserve after two months, but it is a necessary update for what’s coming next.

Keep sending us your Piklist success stories.  We love hearing from you!

The post A Piklist update, and Piklist Updates appeared first on Piklist.

Kevin and I have gone back and forth on this quite a bit. The mu-plugins folder was an option, but we just didn’t think it was the right one. If installed in mu-plugins, Piklist could not take advantage of automatic upgrades, and if a user really wanted to disable Piklist, it would not be that easy.  Even the WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin, which is core to any site running it, specifies using Network Activation over mu-plugins in it’s installation instructions.

A few weeks ago in our support Forums, @kattagami, mentioned that Piklist did not even work correctly in mu-plugins. At this point, Kevin and I needed to make a decision. Do we support mu-plugins, or figure out another way to lock down Piklist?

Then last week, in the same forum thread, @emzo reminded us of a post Mark Jaquith wrote when he built “Have Baby. Need Stuff!”. In this post, Mark shared some code to stop plugins from being deactivated. Though Marks code was designed for the mu-plugins folder, it gave us an idea (and some rock solid code), on how to implement something similar for Piklist. So here’s what we got:

On the Piklist settings page there is an option for Piklist Deactivation.

You have two choices:

1. Allow Deactivation
2. Lock

If you select, “Allow Deactivation”, nothing changes.  Piklist can be deactivated like any other plugin.

However, if you select “Lock”, then two things happen.  First, Piklist is locked down and cannot be deactivated, thanks to the WordPress filter option_active_plugins. Second, Piklist replaces it’s own “Deactivate” link, with a link to it’s “Settings” page. If the user clicks on this link, they are brought to the Piklist settings page where they are warned about deactivating Piklist. There are also instructions on how to deactivate if they wish.

Piklist LOCKED: Deactivation link has been replaced with a Settings link.

Piklist Deactivation Warning, and Instructions.

A site Administrator should have complete control over their site. However, pressing a Deactivate link is way too easy, and with Piklist it can cause havoc.  This new setting makes deactivating Piklist a four-click process, instead of one.  The Administrator can deactivate Pikist if they choose, but they are presented with a warning first.

We’re not sure this is the best solution, and would love your feedback.  This setting is in Piklist v0.7.0 and does not yet work for Network Activation. Let us know what you think in the comments.

The post Locking Piklist appeared first on Piklist.

Today, we are announcing the next big step for Piklist. Version 0.6.7 has been released to WordPress.org and adds the most requested features since we released Piklist. In addition to Post Meta and Settings Fields, Piklist now supports meta fields for: Media, Taxonomies and Users.

Our DEMOS add-on, which is included with Piklist 0.6.7, shows off this new functionality. Creating the fields is as simple as it’s always been. Just create three new folders, Media, Terms and Users, and start dropping in files. The main difference will be in the file comment blocks, which contain some added functionality. Tutorials and Documentation will published shortly, but for now you can refer to the DEMO add-on.

Though we’ve already used these new features on some sponsored client projects, we ask that you please test them as well and post bugs on the Piklist Support Forum. Remember, Piklist is still in Beta, and some features may not work as expected, or they may change in the future.

Media meta is only supported through WordPress 3.4. Once 3.5 goes to RC, we will implement as well.

We’re very excited with the growth of Piklist, and grateful for the community that has started. Thank you all for your support. We have great things in store for you.

The post Support for Taxonomies, Media and Users appeared first on Piklist.

This week we announced our first public plugin that runs on Piklist: WordPress Helpers, available now at WordPress.org.  We designed WordPress Helpers to be the missing settings page for WordPress.

Why do you need WordPress Helpers? Well, if you answer YES to any of these questions, then WordPress Helpers is for you:

• Are you tired of seeing “Jabber” in your user profile?
• Do you question why anyone would use the Calendar widget?
• Is your WordPress Dashboard cluttered?
• Would you love to change “Howdy”?
• Do you want more control of WordPress?

If you’re still not convinced you’ll want to read the review of WordPress Helpers on WPMU.org.

Piklist Checker

This plugin also includes the first version of our Piklist Checker. If you’re developing plugins with Piklist, check out why you need to use the  Piklist Checker.

The post WordPress Helpers plugin appeared first on Piklist.

You can also view on WordPress.tv.

The post Piklist WordCamp NYC Presentation appeared first on Piklist.

Custom Post Types the Piklist way

When you register Custom Post Types with Piklist, you get access to more parameters and more power.

• Registering Custom Post Types
• Custom Post Type Parameters

Creating Your Own Post Statuses

If you’re using WordPress as something other than a blog, then draft, pending review and published probably don’t make sense for you. Now you can easily add your own post statuses to your custom post type:

• Learn how to add your own custom post statuses.

Settings Pages Have Never Been Easier

The post More Tutorials. More Power appeared first on Piklist.

Improvements, Improvements and more Improvements.

This week we released four upgrades to the Piklist plugin. Some contained small bug fixes, and some focused on feature improvements (see below on v0.5.4). During this beta period we will try to push out as many updates as possible. Always adding new functionality or fixing existing. Let us know on our support forum if you run into a bug or want to see a new feature. We will always listen and strive to get back to you quickly.

Feedback, Feedback and more Feedback.

In both our support forums and in-boxes, we’ve been receiving lots of feedback and good ideas. Our goal to make Piklist a powerful rapid development framework for WordPress seems to be on the right track. Even beginners now have the power to create powerful metaboxes and fields, Settings Pages and Widgets.  Please keep the feedback coming… we crave it!

Even easier than before

Today we released version 0.5.4 of the plugin, which provides a new way for you to write a plugin and register it with Piklist. When you write a plugin today that relies on another plugin, you usually have to use a hook or filter to trigger it, with some plugins even recommending a “loader file” to do the necessary work. When v0.5.0 was released last week, even we used add_filter… well no more!

To register your plugin with Piklist, just add Plugin Type: Piklist to the file header of your plugin… that’s it.  Seriously, that’s it! Simple… elegant… and powerful. That’s Piklist.

For full details see our tutorial on Writing a plugin for Piklist, you will be amazed at how simple it is.

The post Piklist: Our First Week appeared first on Piklist.

This first public version of Piklist makes is radically easy for even beginner developers to create powerful Custom Post Types, Taxonomies, Settings Pages, Widgets and Fields.  Advanced developers will be impressed with the solid code base and intelligent structure, which provides you with the ability to build very powerful websites and web applications as we showcased at WordCamp NYC.

So, what next?

• Get Piklist!
• Activate Piklist and then activate the “Piklist Demos” add-on, in the Piklist Menu.  This Add-on will create a demo Post Type, Settings Page and Widget so you can see the power of Piklist.
• Check out the Tutorials and Documentation.
• Ask us questions and provide feedback on our Support Forum.

The post Piklist 0.5.0 Beta available for download appeared first on Piklist.

Steve Bruner and Kevin Miller presenting at WordCamp NYC

On Saturday we opened with a demo of an Order Management system we’ve been building for a client. This particular project has been great for Piklist because of it’s complexity,  which has allowed us to work out all the kinks. The demo put us in the shoes of two different users, a Customer and an Employee, and showed the fields each saw during the order process. We showed off conditional fields, conditional meta boxes, hide/show fields, hide/show field values and of course custom post statuses. The audience was definitely impressed, but their jaws dropped when Kevin showed them the code used to create a custom order system.  They couldn’t believe it.  Just a few simple lines of code is used to create fields… and a few more lines add the conditionals.  Creating custom post statuses is as easy as creating custom post types.

The feedback we received on Saturday was really overwhelming, which lead us to present again on Sunday. After a quick show of hands, we realized there were mostly beginners in the room, so we decided to show off some cool features they would love: easily creating a custom meta box, custom field or WordPress widget.

First we showed them how to build a simple text field in Piklist:

piklist('field', array(
 'type' => 'text'
 ,'scope' => 'post_meta'
 ,'field' => 'wcnyc_example'
 ,'label' => __('A field')
));

Then we showed them how to build a Date Picker field in Piklist (notice, we just changed the type to “datepicker”)

piklist('field', array(
 'type' => 'datepicker'
 ,'scope' => 'post_meta'
 ,'field' => 'wcnyc_example'
 ,'label' => __('A field')
));

And then we changed it to a Color Picker field in Piklist (notice, we just changed the type to “colorpicker”)

piklist('field', array(
 'type' => 'colorpicker'
 ,'scope' => 'post_meta'
 ,'field' => 'wcnyc_example'
 ,'label' => __('A field')
));

That’s when we saw the smiles in the audience. We just demonstrated to a group of beginners how easy it is to create advanced fields with Piklist. Whether in your Post, Settings or even a widget.  I can truly say they were floored.

Next we used the same format to build a widget. Add some simple HTML markup and a little PHP and you can display any widget. No need for Object Oriented Programming (OOP)… no need to learn about “instances”. Just mark it up, and let Piklist take over!

So, we fired on all cylinders except one… Piklist is not ready for primetime yet. We managed to get tons of people excited about Piklist, but we can’t let them use it yet. Not good.

We’re working hard to get Piklist ready for beta before the end of the month. Sign up for our mailing list and we’ll email you when it’s available.

The post Piklist announced at WordCamp NYC appeared first on Piklist.