In AdRotate Professional 5.16 a lot of smaller things got improved and fixed. Most notable is the removal of the use of
$_SESSION
. The whole session code has been reworked to use WordPress transients instead. This should improve compatibility and reliability of Geo Targeting, Duplicate Ads filtering and a few other things that use ‘sessions’.
Geo Targeting
Geo Targeting has been improved. The lookup quota code has been re-done to work more smart and not get stuck on 0 all the time. If however it does get stuck or something doesn’t work for Geo Targeting you can reset your local Geo data to ‘unstuck’ things and quickly serve ads to the right people again.
Look for the reset button in Settings > Geo Targeting, to be used if you get persistent quota errors or have issues with your chosen Geo service disabling itself.
Code formatting
Throughout the entire plugin I have gone through every line of code that has a single or double-quote in it and applied them more consistently. This makes little difference for how AdRotate functions. But predictable code is always nicer. All translations have been updated accordingly. If you see quotes with a \ in front of it, please let me know. But I think I caught all of them.
If you’ve made a custom translation (one that is not included with the AdRotate Pro download) you may need to update it to be compatible with the new quotes format.
Security
AdRotate Pro (And AdRotate Banner Manager too) now require the Unfiltered HTML permission for certain types of code to be saved. This includes Javascript adverts such as those provided by Google Adsense and many Affiliate networks. Actual Javascript and inline functions like
onclick()
and
onload()
are stripped out if unfiltered HTML is not enabled. This is to prevent XSS attacks.
I’ve created a little guide explaining how to enabled Unfiltered HTML in WordPress here – Enable unfiltered html in WordPress.
Users without the Unfiltered HTML permission, anyone lower than Editor by default, can also no longer upload Javascript or zip-files for the same reason.
Bits and bops
The sorting of tables should not work everywhere again. You can now add webp images to the AdRotate file manager.
And all admin code of the plugin (Or most anyway) is now only loaded when you access your dashboard. This should help with your websites performance. If you spot missing features or weird errors about missing functions, let me know. But also here, I think I got it all working.
Changes in AdRotate Professional 5.16
- [new] Upload webp banner images through the media manager
- [new] Reset function for Geo Targeting
- [fix] Added missing sortable classes to some dashboard pages
- [fix] More reliable midnight lookup reset for Geo Targeting
- [fix] Check if an invalid combination of Device and OS is made
- [fix] Geo Targeting city/state filter more reliable
- [fix] Duplicate ads filter more reliable
- [fix] Some cancel buttons not going to the right page
- [security] Low level users can no longer upload html/js/zip files
- [security] DISALLOW_UNFILTERED_HTML required for Javascript ads
- [security] DISALLOW_UNFILTERED_HTML required for header code
- [security] DISALLOW_UNFILTERED_HTML required for group wrapper
- [change] Separated most dashboard code from the front-end
- [change] Replaced $_SESSION with WordPress Transients
- [update] Consistent use of single and double-quotes
- [tweak] Force certain variables to be strings before saving
- [tweak] Better descriptions for Device Type and Mobile OS
- [i18n] Added missing and new strings to translations
- [removed] Welcome pointer when first activating the plugin
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.
