Version 2.2.0 released

It took a bit longer than expected, but today I finally finished this new release.

Release notes:

• Important: styling of the widgets has changed. They contained styles that could conflict with the styling of other widgets.
• Some minor changes in the security model: WordPress editors can now also manage the plugin and there is a new role “Football Pool Admin” with only rights to the plugin’s admin screens.
• New feature: user defined rankings (ranking for a selected group of matches and/or questions).
• New feature: plugin option to always show predictions of other players. Regardless of the fact if matches are editable for your contenders.
• New shortcode to support the user defined rankings.
• New option to let users choose between different rankings on the charts page or ranking page.
• New shortcode to show prediction form for a group of matches and/or bonus questions.
• New feature: ability to use result of matches in multiple match types as data for the Groups page. This option can be set in the plugin options screen (thanks to Eli for reporting this).
• New feature: option to show user’s avatar in the ranking tables.
• New option: choose sorting method of matches (date ascending or date descending).
• Added French translation (thanks Julien Blancher).
• All dates in the front-end are localized using date_i18n() and WordPress’ Time Format setting.
• Clean up: all plugin options are stored in a single array in the wp_options table.
• Bug fix: if charts were disabled the plugin could break other plugins that use javascript (thanks AndresCZ).
• Bug fix: description text of widgets was not correct in the WordPress admin.
• Bug fix: when using the plugin in a different language the ‘Save & Close’ buttons did not work correctly in the admin.
• Bug fix: stadium names with special chars (like Ã) did not work correctly in PHP version below 5.4 (thanks angelpubli).
• Bug fix: when adding teams the new team was not displayed in the list. You had to reload the page.
• Bug fix: it was possible to add a match without a match type, venue or team. These ‘orphaned’ matches were saved in the database, but not shown.
• Bug fix: adding a new bonus question caused a warning for the first question.
• Bug fix: a user could use a trick to set multiple jokers. This was fixed.

 

Development of version 2.2.0

I started development on version 2.2.0. Don’t know yet when it will be released, but it will have some interesting features and also some bug fixes and small improvements.

Biggest change is the option to define custom rankings. You can add groups of matches and/or bonus questions in a ranking. Your players’ scores will be calculated only for those matches and/or questions.

Also new is an option that enables webmasters to always show predictions of matches for all users, regardless if the match is still editable.

To improve security I added nonces to all forms in the plugin.

Verssion 2.1.0 released

Version 2.1.0 adds some configurable options. Match types can be hidden from the website and users can get points (optional) for guessing a correct number of goals for a team.

Release notes:

• Added an extra scoring option: bonus points for guessing one of the goals for home team or away team correct.
• Added culture selection to csv file list (on import screen) and support for meta information in the csv file.
• Added extra label that can be added to a username via the User Admin screen. Usable for an extra status (e.g. “winner 2012″) or to show cumulative scores from other years (e.g. “1057 points”). The label (if not empty) is added behind a user’s name on the ranking page and in the list generated by the ranking shortcode. A CSS class that can be styled to your liking is added to the label.
• Added possibility to hide match types from the website. Usefull for competitions with large amounts of matches where you don’t want to show every match all the time. Invisible match types are not shown on the website (matches page and prediction page) and in the admin for matches, but are still calculated for the scores.
• Added extra info fields for venues and teams. The info is displayed on the team or venue page.
• Added Spanish translation (thanks Cristian Carlucci).
• Bug fixed: teams that are ‘real’ were accidently shown in a dropdown on the Matches admin screen.
• Bug fixed: matches that have an empty venue caused a notice in the import.
• bug fixed: countdown shortcode was not fixed for the new UTC match times.
• Bug fixed: UTC times that passed the end of the day (0:00h) caused matches to be displayed on the wrong day in the matches overview (thanks Cristian).
• Bug fixed: match times in the schedules that ship with the plugin were not UTC.

Version 2.0.0 released

I released version 2.0.0 today. If you find any bugs, please report them in the support forum on the WordPress site.

Release notes:

• Added an extra scoring option: bonus points for guessing one of the goals for home team or away team correct.
• Added culture selection to csv file list (on import screen) and support for meta information in the csv file.
• Added extra label that can be added to a username via the User Admin screen. Usable for an extra status (e.g. “winner 2012″) or to show cumulative scores from other years (e.g. “1057 points”). The label (if not empty) is added behind a user’s name on the ranking page and in the list generated by the ranking shortcode. A CSS class that can be styled to your liking is added to the label.
• Added possibility to hide match types from the website. Usefull for competitions with large amounts of matches where you don’t want to show every match all the time. Invisible match types are not shown on the website (matches page and prediction page) and in the admin for matches, but are still calculated for the scores.
• Added extra info fields for venues and teams. The info is displayed on the team or venue page.
• Added Spanish translation (thanks Cristian Carlucci).
• Bug fixed: teams that are ‘real’ were accidently shown in a dropdown on the Matches admin screen.
• Bug fixed: matches that have an empty venue caused a notice in the import.
• bug fixed: countdown shortcode was not fixed for the new UTC match times.
• Bug fixed: UTC times that passed the end of the day (0:00h) caused matches to be displayed on the wrong day in the matches overview (thanks Cristian).
• Bug fixed: match times in the schedules that ship with the plugin were not UTC.

Version 2.0

Currently I’m working on version 2.0 of the plugin. A rewrite of the plugin with English as the default language (Dutch translation included of course) and as biggest new feature the ability to upload/add your own game schedule. So not only UEFA European Championships or FIFA World Cups are supported, but also your national league (or part of it) can be used as the input for the pool.

And with the ability to create your own schedule, I hope you will share it with us. So other people can enjoy the same Football Pool with their friends.

But first: back to work. Expect it to be ready for testing in a month or so.

Charts removed from default install

The charts feature uses the Highcharts API to display the interactive charts. Because of the WordPress license guidelines I may not include this library in the package. Maybe if I find a library in the near future that has the same nice features and design (and I find the time to rewrite the charts code) I will change the plugin.

For now you have to follow these steps to enable the charts:

1. Download the Highcharts API from http://www.highcharts.com/download.
2. Place the files in the directory /wp-content/plugins/highcharts/.
3. Enable the charts on the Options page.