stripShow 2.0 beta 2 released!

By Brad | Published: June 12, 2009

Here's the second beta:

http://stripshow.monkeylaw.org/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=stripshow-2.0b2.zip

Notable differences:

  • The colorful playful theme that used to be the stripShow Sandbox is now a child theme called ComicalStrip, and the stripShow Sandbox is kind of generic. I figured that would make it a little more universal.
  • An additional child theme, Golden, is also included
  • I've added lots of action hooks to the template, so you can add and remove functionality without altering the parent theme. Golden is an example of this — I've stuck previous and next arrows to the sides of the comic, like Diesel Sweeties has.

As always, I'm desperately seeking feedback on this version. If there are no bugs, I think this might just be 2.0.

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Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

stripShow 2.0 beta 1 released!

By Brad | Published: April 18, 2009

After months and months of delays (mainly caused by inattentiveness, indecision, and the usual "Oooh! Shiny!" that affects ADHD sufferers like myself), I’m pleased to announce that I’m ready to release a beta of stripShow 2.0!

stripShow is the WordPress plugin that transforms your blog into a full-featured webcomics platform. All the original features of stripShow, such as built-in searchable transcripts and hierarchical storyline support, are of course still present.

New features in 2.0:

  • A handy WordPress admin interface for uploading comics — either singly, or in bulk.
  • Now you can name your comic files whatever you want — no need to have a date in the filename.
  • 7 new template tags
  • 3 sidebar widgets
  • New theme framework based on Sandbox — create a child theme and leave the framework alone, to make upgrading a snap
  • Obscuring of comic filenames now available, so you can show comics without letting people know where you keep them.
  • Graphic novel creators can configure their archives to start at the first page rather than the last

That’s just what I was able to remember off the top of my head. :)

stripShow 2.0b1 is available here. Because this is a beta, it will not appear in the WordPress Plugin Directory until it is formally released.

I look forward to hearing feedback. What doesn’t work? What’s not clear? What could be better? Feel free to contact me at the stripShow Support Forum

Have fun, and Happy Stripping!

 

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stripShow 1.7 released

By Brad | Published: January 15, 2009

I have released stripShow 1.7! What’s new in this version? Only a few things:

  • The random_comic_link template tag now works. Previously, it was documented, but did nothing.
  • The URLs in the storyline dropdown are now base64-encoded. One user reported that the unencoded URLs were causing an issue with his web host.
  • The structure of the package has changed. No longer do you unzip it into your WordPress root. Instead, it’s a folder called “stripshow” which goes in wp-content/plugins. The example theme is now located in a folder, inside the plugin folder, called “example-themes.” This is for compatibility with the WordPress Plugin Directory.
  • stripShow is now available in the WordPress Plugin Directory! This allows users to update the plugin automatically from within WordPress. It’s still available as a ZIP file from the download page.
And that’s it for changes. Version 2.0 is coming soon. I know it’s been delayed a while, but there’s a lot of new stuff to document. Watch this space or follow me on Twitter.
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Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Changes coming in stripShow 2

By Brad | Published: January 12, 2009

OK, so some among you may be starting to wonder if stripShow is a dead project. I assure you, it’s not, I’ve just not had a lot of time to devote to it for the past few months.

But I’m back, and ready to get this release out the door. One of the things I’ve been doing is ensuring that stripShow 2.0 works with WordPress 2.7… and it does. But I’m starting to realize that my original idea — to file stripShow’s menus semantically among WordPress’s own rather than lumping everything under a “stripShow” menu — might not be the best method, at least if I don’t want to go insane documenting how to use the software and taking into account all the various menus in the various versions of WordPress. So I’m exploring how best to lay out the admin menus without having to provide three sets of instructions.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Call for stripShow sites!

By Brad | Published: September 8, 2008

With the upcoming release of stripShow 2.0, I would like to compile a gallery of sites that use stripShow.

If you use stripShow, I would love to hear about your site. Please send an email to bhawkins@monkeylaw.org with the following information:

  • Site name
  • URL
  • Your name
  • Your email (will be private)
  • A brief description of what your site/comic is about

I already know about some sS sites, but I’d like to see what’s out there. Looking forward to hearing from you!

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stripShow 1.6.1 released!

By Brad | Published: July 16, 2008

Hey everyone! I’ve just uploaded stripShow 1.6.1, which has a couple of bug fixes:

  • Fixed bug where initialization of storylines may take a while if timezone is not set under PHP 5.
  • Rewrote transcript code to be more tolerant of whitespace. In addition, equals sign is no longer required for non-character transcript tags.

If your transcripts were all messed up because of whitespace, this is the fix.

As always, the latest version of stripShow is available from the Download page.

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Posted in Announcements | 4 Comments

Slow performance under PHP 5

By Brad | Published: July 16, 2008

OK, so I’ve been neglecting PHP 5 for a while, and only recently updated a few of my sites to run on it. When I did, I found a problem you might run into with stripShow.

If you have a lot of strips and storylines, you may see a serious performance hit under PHP 5 — this is the result of a quirk in the strtotime() function. It is looking up the default timezone for your site, and that takes a moment — it’s doing that several times for each strip, multiplied by each storyline. The delay on my own site added up to about 14 seconds!

There is a solution. It only lags if the default timezone is not set on your PHP site. This is a known issue with PHP 5, and can be read about here.

For the next version of stripShow (which will be 1.6.1, a bug fix release) I’m removing the references to strtotime() from storyline initialization, as I’ve discovered they’re not necessary anyway.

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Posted in Bugs | Leave a comment

stripShow 1.6 released

By Brad | Published: May 27, 2008

I’m pleased to announce the release of version 1.6 of stripShow… this is mainly a bug-fix release, with only a couple of new features.

  • Improved XHTML 1.0 Strict compatiblity
  • Fixed bug where comment link was not shown on index page
  • Fixed bug where same blog entries were shown on every page when linked from index page
  • Current comic now has alt text encoded as HTML entities for validation
  • Overhauled storyline code to only do one MySQL query and to speed up operations. Previously, things got seriously bogged down the more stories and strips you had in your archive.

The main new feature is a set of additional parameters to the navigation links — now there is a second parameter, called always — normally, links won’t show if it’s not appropriate — for instance, there is usually no reason to have a “previous comic” link if you’re viewing the first comic. The always parameter, if set to TRUE, will show the link regardless. It will merely take you to the page you’re already looking at. The last_comic tag also has a new parameter to give a link to an absolute URL instead of the index page.

Also, navigation links now accept a parameter to show a tooltip (by way of the <img> tag’s TITLE attribute) when the comic is moused over. 

And that’s pretty much it. This plugin has been tested and seems to work well with WordPress 2.5.1, and actually appears to be pretty compatible with ComicPress 2.5-based themes as well.  

The next release (barring unforseen bug fixes) of stripShow will be version 2.0 and will include major overhaul to the theme… expect a complete modernization of the theme, with copious comments to aid in customization. No more table-based navigation bars. Complete WordPress widgetization.  Built-in links for social bookmarking sites. Etc. No ETA yet on 2.0, it’ll be done when it’s done.  

As always, you can download the new version of stripShow from the Downloads page, and always, I’m always interested in hearing about your stripShow experience in the forum.

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Posted in Announcements | 1 Comment

WordPress 2.5.1 testing

By Brad | Published: May 23, 2008

I’m currently in the process of testing whether stripShow 1.5 is fully compatible with WordPress 2.5.1 — so far, I have found no incompatibilities. The admin pages don’t match the look of the rest of the new admin system, but that seems to be a mere cosmetic issue. 

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Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Test

By Brad | Published: March 5, 2008

This is a test.

Blogged with the Flock Browser
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Posted in Tips and Tricks | Leave a comment

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    While I don't maintain stripShow for a living, I wouldn't say no to a little donation, if you think the plugin is worth it...

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