AdRotate Pro 5.14.2 – Fixing groups (again)

Version 5.14.2 is another update following user feedback. Just as I released version 5.14.1 another 2 quirks came to light. Block groups selected the wrong ads for some setups. And Dynamic groups were showing too many ads at the same time.
These two issues have been fixed and while going over the dashboard logic I also improved PHP8 support. A number of arrays we’re converted wrongly for the new PHP 8.1+ standards.

As a larger update AdRotate Professional 5.14 came with a lot of other improvements and tweaks. Most importantly Multisite Networking features. Which have been re-done and made much more easy to use for groups.

The Gutenberg blocks included with AdRotate Pro received a small but important upgrade and now support caching features, in the same way widgets already did.

Multisite instances

For groups you can now select which group to pull ads from in the dashboard. This renders the site attribute/variable you’d use in Shortcodes and PHP Snippets mostly obsolete. The aim is to remove it at some point, but that’s not decided yet.
A big change is that the shortcodes and PHP code behaves a bit different from this version onwards. You now place the local group and the Site variable tries to add in the network ads, with the local ads. The local ads can be empty… But it has to be a local group.

This allows for networked groups to be mixed in with local ads in that group. Which was never possible before.

If you have a Multisite, check out the new option in your group settings (When editing a group, Advanced section) for the new dropdown menu. Once saved, you can also see the network ads listed in the Adverts list when editing the group highlighted in blue.

Video adverts

Video ads are becoming more popular for some reason. AdRotate Pro’s Advert Generator can now generate a basic video advert.
This is very much an experiment, but the basic code should work and be responsive.

You’ll find the new options in the Advert Generator. For now only mp4 files are supported.
Let me know what you think, does the generated advert work for you? Or if not, what would you like to see changed?

Mobile adverts

For Mobile ads the “Other” Operating system has been removed as it was largely unused.
The remaining “iOS” an “Android” options are only used when the “Mobile” or “Tablet” options are enabled.
The idea here is that the Mobile function offers less combinations to go wrong on, improving the ease of use.

Changes in AdRotate Professional 5.14.2

  • [fix] Block groups showing adverts more than once
  • [fix] Dynamic groups not always hiding first advert
  • [change] Improved PHP 8 compatibility

Download

The update is available now, you can update through automatic updates in your dashboard or via direct download in your dashboard.
Or if you do not have AdRotate Pro yet, get your copy today through the product pages below.

AdRotate Pro 5.14.1 – Fixing groups

Version 5.14.1 is a quick update following user feedback. Duplicate adverts didn’t work reliably and the weight picker picked the wrong weights. Both these issues have been fixed in this update.
The issue went unnoticed in my testing because the filtered array of adverts happened to keep consecutive IDs. If in your setup this isn’t the case, then the advert selection was messed up.

As a larger update AdRotate Professional 5.14 comes with a slew of other improvements and tweaks. Most importantly Multisite Networking features have been re-done and expanded. This makes it much more easy for you to share groups of adverts across instances in your network.

The Gutenberg blocks included with AdRotate Pro got an upgrade and now support caching features, just like widgets do.
And groups work more efficiently as a whole, looping less data around, which should make them a tiny tiny bit faster and more memory efficient.

Multisite instances

For groups you can now select which group to pull ads from in the dashboard. This renders the site attribute/variable you’d use in Shortcodes and PHP Snippets mostly obsolete. The aim is to remove it at some point, but that’s not decided yet.
A big change is that the shortcodes and PHP code behaves a bit different from this version onwards. You now place the local group and the Site variable tries to add in the network ads, with the local ads. The local ads can be empty… But it has to be a local group.

This allows for networked groups to be mixed in with local ads in that group. Which was never possible before.

If you have a Multisite, check out the new option in your group settings (When editing a group, Advanced section) for the new dropdown menu. Once saved, you can also see the network ads listed in the Adverts list when editing the group highlighted in blue.

Video adverts

Video ads are becoming more popular for some reason. AdRotate Pro’s Advert Generator can now generate a basic video advert.
This is very much an experiment, but the basic code should work and be responsive.

You’ll find the new options in the Advert Generator. For now only mp4 files are supported.
Let me know what you think, does the generated advert work for you? Or if not, what would you like to see changed?

Mobile adverts

For Mobile ads the “Other” Operating system has been removed as it was largely unused.
The remaining “iOS” an “Android” options are only used when the “Mobile” or “Tablet” options are enabled.
The idea here is that the Mobile function offers less combinations to go wrong on, improving the ease of use.

Changes in AdRotate Professional 5.14.1

  • [fix] Duplicate ads filter not working for all adverts
  • [fix] Weight filter not working properly for some groups

Download

The update is available now, you can update through automatic updates in your dashboard or via direct download in your dashboard.
Or if you do not have AdRotate Pro yet, get your copy today through the product pages below.

Goosle for a better search experience

Over the past few months I’ve been working on improving my search experience and couldn’t get it quite right. So finally I’ve created my own. With Goosle, a fork and rewrite of LibreY. The aim is to create a more hassle free search experience for basic search.

Goosle searches in DuckDuckGo and Google and reformats the results in an easy to read template. Image search is handled by Qwant.
On top of that Goosle can crawl and search popular torrent sites for magnet links.
And for some fancy features you can convert currency, look up words in dictionaries and search Wikipedia and Php.net directly with special search queries.

To speed things up quite a bit results are cached for a few minutes in APCu, to benefit from this APCu for PHP must be enabled of-course.

Try it for yourself

I’ve made the code available on Github. https://github.com/adegans/Goosle

Goosle should work on most modern servers that use PHP7.4 or newer and should take less than 5 minutes to install and set up. Check the included readme.md or the Github page for details.

Getting help

You can post your questions on Github or on my support forum.

AdRotate Pro 5.14 – Multisite Networking re-done and improved

This version of AdRotate Professional comes with a slew of improvements and tweaks. Most notably a revamp of the Multisite Networking features. Making it much more easy to share groups of ads across instances on your network and see on those instances where and which ads are included.

On top of that WordPress’ Gutenberg blocks got an upgrade and now support AdRotate’s Caching features, same as widgets.
And groups work more efficiently as a whole, looping less data around, which should make them a tiny tiny bit faster and more memory efficient.

Multisite instances

For groups you can now select which group to pull ads from in the dashboard. This renders the site attribute/variable you’d use in Shortcodes and PHP Snippets mostly obsolete. The aim is to remove it at some point, but that’s not decided yet.
A big change is that the shortcodes and PHP code behaves a bit different from this version onwards. You now place the local group and the Site variable tries to add in the network ads, with the local ads. The local ads can be empty… But it has to be a local group.

This allows for networked groups to be mixed in with local ads in that group. Which was never possible before.

If you have a Multisite, check out the new option in your group settings (When editing a group, Advanced section) for the new dropdown menu. Once saved, you can also see the network ads listed in the Adverts list when editing the group highlighted in blue.

Video adverts

Video ads are becoming more popular for some reason. AdRotate Pro’s Advert Generator can now generate a basic video advert.
This is very much an experiment, but the basic code should work and be responsive.

You’ll find the new options in the Advert Generator. For now only mp4 files are supported.
Let me know what you think, does the generated advert work for you? Or if not, what would you like to see changed?

Mobile adverts

For Mobile ads the “Other” Operating system has been removed as it was largely unused.
The remaining “iOS” an “Android” options are only used when the “Mobile” or “Tablet” options are enabled.
The idea here is that the Mobile function offers less combinations to go wrong on, improving the ease of use.

Changes in AdRotate Professional 5.14

  • [new] Blocks now support fragmented cache
  • [new] Generate video ads with Advert Generator (experimental)
  • [new] Option to select a multisite group when editing groups
  • [fix] Removed periods/dots from widgets
  • [fix] Added default status when Geo Targeting is disabled
  • [fix] Groups no longer redundantly switch instances for multisites
  • [fix] Hide group size in Manage Groups if it’s set to ‘auto’
  • [fix] ‘Auto delete’ not as bold text in Manage Adverts
  • [change] Reworked operating system selection for mobile adverts
  • [change] Reworked group output and made it more efficient
  • [change] Reworked multisite site switch, use dashboard option instead
  • [change] Requires PHP 7.4 or newer

Download

The update is available now, you can update through automatic updates in your dashboard or via direct download in your dashboard.
Or if you do not have AdRotate Pro yet, get your copy today through the product pages below.

Order Again Button is now available!

Header E-Commerce

Today I’ve created a new plugin Order Again Button for Classic Commerce and WooCommerce. This plugin gives your customers the option to re-buy everything from a previous order with one click. This is very handy for various reasons.
You’ll find a new button in the Orders page on people’s My Account pages called “Order again” which if you click it puts all items from that order in the shopping cart, ready to check out.

The plugin has no settings, no dashboard, and just works quietly in the background once activated.
And unlike other plugins, this plugin does NOT require a subscription to use it. Just buy it once, use it for as long as you want.

Grab your copy here

To install the update simply upload the zip-file through the "Add plugin" feature in your WordPress or ClassicPress dashboard and activate it after. Of course you’ll need to have Classic Commerce or WooCommerce installed as well.

Getting help

All my Classic Commerce plugins get limited support through my ticket system. If you run into any trouble or have questions please click the support link on the Plugins page in your dashboard. You’ll see the link on the plugin listing.