Feb, 2012 Blog Archive
CT Admin 1.4.1 Released
With the official release of CartThrob this week an update to CT Admin was needed to incorporate some of their latest changes. The biggest was for adjustments to incorporate the new Package item type within CartThrob but there were also a couple bug fixes as well as a few new template tags to create custom reporting on the client site.
The biggest addition with 1.4.1 are the new template tags for creating custom reports on the front site. Right now you can create custom reports for product totals, product sum reports, and report on the sold products. All the reports can be tailored by date (month, day, year), product_id and author_id. Be sure to hit up the CT Admin docs for examples of how to implement.
Hit up CartThrob.com or Devot:ee to download the update.
EE Spotlight: Avoiding CAPTCHA With ExpressionEngine
I have a well known hatred for CAPTCHA and on my latest EE Spotlight article, titled Avoiding CAPTCHA with ExpressionEngine, I go into the whys and hows of making CAPTCHA a thing of the past with your ExpressionEngine sites. The tldr version is to use a combination of Snaptcha, Low NoSpam, and VZ Bad Behavior to block 99.999% (totally made up percentage) of your site spam.
Read it over at EE Spotlight.
Backup Pro 1.8.4 Released
Backup Pro 1.8.4 is a standard release including both small new features and a couple bug fixes.
First, there's now Maximum Backup Limits available to keep the number of backups stored on the local file system in check. The limits for both file and database backups are independant so you can allow for different limits for each. Any time the limit is reached the oldest backups are removed first to make way for newer backups. Note that this works in conjunction with the Auto Prune so both options are available.
Like all my recent updates this also includes override config option for the settings to help make deplyment easier. Take a look at the docs for more information about how to implement config overrides.
Lastly, there's a fix for the backup progress page on fast backups outpacing the JS. It turns out that on really fast servers the backups were completing before the Ajax would load, causing the progress bar to get a little fussy. Not a problem any more 
Hit up Devot:ee to download the update.
Automat:ee 1.2 Released
Today marks the release of the first major update to Automat:ee in 4 months. No one's really asked for anything and it was surprisingly stable so there didn't seem to be much of a need really. Till recently anyway, when a couple needs came up for better debugging tools, config overrides, NSM Update Notifier support and even a couple bug fixes and internal tweaks.
First, the debug tools now allow you to set a "mode" within Automat:ee that will send an email alert any time anything goes wrong with a Cron along with it's contents. This should help work out issues with external systems that Automat:ee is executing.
Then there's the new Run mechamism that allows users to excecute Crons from within the ExpressionEngine control panel. Next to each Cron is a simple link, click it and your Cron will run. Easy.
Finally, there's been a slew of tweaks such as
Updated URL request to use CURL instead of file_get_contents()
Abstracted out Cron methods into own class/library
Removed Instructions method
Added check for https on Ajax URls
Added error function to Ajax object for status alerts
Added NSM Update Notifier Support
Added config override options
Hit up Devot:ee to download the update.
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