This version simply adds Jetpack Publicize support for Comic Posts. I say “simply” because it was a one-line code change 😀
A notice for upgrading should be released shortly from WordPress.org. If you don’t want to wait, you can download from the Github repo [here].
The first idea behind Manga+Press 3.0: remove the bundled themes.
Yes, that is revolutionary. My plan is to make the bundled themes available for download on Github. One reason is WordPress Multi-site support. With the themes bundled inside the plugin, they’re not available to all of the sites on a given network. To change that, you need to move the themes from the plugin folder into the WordPress themes folder. Another reason for removing them from the plugin is separation of concerns — it’s messy having the themes be a part of the plugin. Yes, this will probably make it difficult for anyone updating — hence the reason I’m announcing this now and will keep harping on it during the development period and especially during pre-release.
A few other ideas floating around are:
Yes, I’ve been looking at a means of improving the interface of the Series Taxonomy from the default WP to something that’s better suited to a comic workflow. The problem with that is what would represent a good workflow? What I would think of as a decent workflow might not suit the community.
This feature was a suggestion from a Manga+Press user. While it’s a good idea, it might be difficult to implement. The only thing I can think to do is wrap it into a separate plugin that works with Manga+Press. Then then next question would be: how would this work with the proposed changes to the taxonomy? Should this, in fact, be controlled by the taxonomy?
This idea might go away — or it might not. The Jetpack plugin has social media integration that would cover this feature. The main goal here would be to test Manga+Press extensively against Jetpack and see if it meets the needs that this feature would require.
This was a feature request I received through the feedback form. Manga+Press supports comments on comic posts out of the box, using the bundled themes. I suspect that in this case, there may have been issues with a third-party theme that didn’t support comments on custom post-types. Comments might be missing from the Latest Comic Page, which is something that I can look into.
Finally, as for a development start (and a release date). I’m looking to start development this fall with a release date of next spring. Yes, I’m standing by my idea of taking the summer off. I’m going to explore the idea of doing things that don’t involve sitting in front of a computer this summer 🙂
Having moved my personal blog to Github, I’m considering doing the same thing with the Manga+Press blog and documentation. The documentation is currently in transition to be moved to Github.
Reasons behind this? I <3 Github and I really <3 Markdown!
Taking a long break from Manga+Press in general, and WordPress development in particular. I’ll keep the plugin updated as new WordPress versions come out (also fix bugs as needed) but as for starting a new version, I currently don’t have the energy to work on it. It’s a long story but let’s just say tl’dr: the year got off to a very bad start and I need time to deal with it. So basically, no new Manga+Press versions until next year at the latest, or this fall at the earliest.
Cheers!
Just released Manga+Press 2.9.1, which addresses the MIA comic problem that some users have reported. You can download the new version on WordPress.org.
A bug came to my attention recently and I’m currently in the process of working on a fix. Anyway, 2.9 introduced some interesting things behind the scenes involving the Series taxonomy. Essentially, with 2.9, you need to have a comic assigned to a Series category in order for that comic to be displayed properly. I’ve gotten two reports of comics throwing 404s and/or navigation not displaying correctly. After much effort in attempting to reproduce the issue, I found that when you create a comic post without assigning a series cat directly following installation, you will likely experience this error. However, if you go back to the comic in the WP admin and attempt to assign a category, it should still work and you should be able to see your comic.
That’s it for now. Will keep the blog updated as needed.