Not content just sitting back and letting our latest product IP.Content stagnate, I've been hard at work getting version 1.2.0 ready for everyone very soon. In the mean time, I wanted to put up a blog entry to discuss some of the changes you will see with this new release.
Field default values
There is now a per-field option to define the default value for the field. This default value will be used when the "add new record" form is displayed as the default value to place in the field. The user can still, of course, change this value while configuring their record.
Disable fields in listing and display templates
Many have requested a method of disabling specific fields from displaying in listing and display templates without having to modify the default templates (i.e. to exclude certain fields in the foreach loop, or to manually define the layout). As of 1.2.0 there are two new settings when configuring your fields to do just that. If you disable a field in the listing template, it simply won't show up there. You can even disable a field in the listing and display template and have a hidden field attached to the record, if you wish.
Additional sorting for database feeds
You will now be able to sort database feeds by meta-data fields (record id, last updated, submitted date, comment count, etc.). This will allow you to more easily create database feeds to show latest records, for instance.
Text formatting options for text input fields
There are now per-field settings on text-input fields (only) to allow you to define the following automatic formatting options:
- Capitalize all letters
- Lower-case all letters
- Capitalize just the first letter of the string
- Capitalize the first letter of each word in the string
- Remove excess punctuation
You can mix and match, using more than one option, but of course some options will have no effect when used together (i.e. capitalize all letters, and lower-case all letters).
Attachment parsing for forum and blog feeds
Attachment parsing has been added for forum and blog feeds (provided you do not use the default strip tags and truncate calls in the template for the content value).
Attachment data available programatically
Some users have expressed interest in having access to attachment data in a more robust manner than simply passing the field through the IP.Content attachment parser. For instance, you may want to display 1 image from an attachment field in the listing, without having to worry about whether there are more than 1 images associated with the field.
Attachment data has now been added to a global cache during normal parsing routines, so that you may be able to programatically access the attachment data for the record and do more unique things with the data. A resource article on how to access this data will be forthcoming following the release.
WYSIWYG and Code Highlighter Support
We have added support into IP.Content to integrate with the following WYSIWYG and Code Editors:
- TinyMCE
- CKEditor
- CodePress
- EditArea
- (None/default textarea)
You can select which editor interface you would like to use (be careful using WYSIWYG editors when editing certain content, as they will strip special tags) and the editor will be available when editing templates and content throughout the ACP. Even better, the code highlighters will be "smart" and recognize what type of content you are editing (javascript, css, html or php, depending on the block, template or page details). If you have a favorite editor that you would like to see integrated let us know. We've designed the system to make it easy to drop in (and remove) editor types as needed, so if we can integrate with your favorite editor, we're happy to do so.
The wrap up
Undoubtedly you will notice that most of these features aren't big features, however we feel they will be extremely useful and relevant features as members continue to explore IP.Content and how to use the software to enhance their websites. Every feature listed above was requested by you (our customers), and were culled from tickets, feature request topics, and support topics in the peer to peer forums. Keep on suggesting things you would like to see in IP.Content, and we'll do our best to get those features in place appropriately!
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