Tag Archives: development

AdRotate Pro 4.16 – Improved Stats

This update improves a bunch of things in stats. Graphs draw now faster. Some numbers where shown incorrectly. This has been fixed.
More exciting is a new option for support.

Let me see

A common problem when solving problems is that the user (you) can’t explain very well what goes wrong and some are so bad to even get stuck at “it doesn’t work” (pretty much). This is frustrating for you, because in your perception my support sucks. And it’s frustrating for me, because I can’t see what’s wrong.

This has been made a little easier in AdRotate Pro 4.16 where the support form in your dashboard now has a checkbox to send me login details so I can take a look at your dashboard.

A invasion of privacy? No, if you don’t like it, don’t tick the box.
Is that useful? For the more complex problems it can be very useful and speed up finding a solution.
Is it safe? Just as safe as you sending login details in a follow-up email. The account can easily be deleted if you don’t want it anymore. Keeping your own admin account (and password) out of sight.

And here is what it looks like;

Changelog

[new] Share an account via the support form
[fix] Display of stats for “best” performing advert
[fix] Display of stats for “least” performing advert
[fix] Date picker format more visible
[change] Faster drawing of graphs
[change] Dashboard tweaks

Recently I went on a little road trip from Dumaguete to Bacolod for a few days. A fresh set of clothes, no laptop, and a fistful of pesos. Quite enjoyable 🙂

Post Injection redone and reinvented

The next update for AdRotate Pro and AdRotate Free will be all about Post Injection. The whole system is going to be redone.
I’m tired of theme incompatibilities. And over the last few months, based on user feedback and comments, I’ve pretty much pinpointed the limitations how Post Injection currently works.

I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to fix things, but I’ll probably take the whole option set away from groups and make it a separate thing. This should allow for greater control (hopefully) of where and how many adverts show up in places.

I’ve looked at some other plugins on how they do it, yes I’m cheating a bit, and have some ideas on how to make things right.

So far I’ve always tried to patch things up based on the current mindset, clearly it’s not working and as much as I dispise ever inventing Post Injection, it is a popular feature that is important to a lot of users. So we’re stuck with it, pretty much.

Stay tuned for fanciness and working Post Injection.

No more transactions in AdRotate Pro?

I’m at that point in development where an update is almost ready for release and am going over a few things to test and try to make sure everything works.

The upcoming update will have a whole bunch of improvements and some new features including better support for Borlabs Cache and the new Google Analytics tracker.

Then I came across the advertiser features, transactions and stuff like that. Which is what we’re talking about today.

Who actually uses the transactions feature?

I’m not sure. Pretty much no-one asks for it, talks about it or has questions about it. So is it just working really well? Or does nobody use it? If nobody uses it, is it really worth the development time to pursue these features any further?

The advertiser section in AdRotate Pro is there so that you as a publisher can allow your advertisers access to a small part of the plugin in the WordPress dashboard. They can then see their own adverts, get some insights in stats and performance. For the more adventurous among us you can even allow them access to edit their adverts. That’s all great and useful, but…

Less useful is, or at least that’s my feeling, the basic payment options tied in to it. Overal it’s not very user friendly or feature rich. I’m not looking to turn AdRotate Pro into a marketplace either – It’s a banner management plugin after all.

So why the question?

Feature feature creep is a serious issue in plugins and themes, or WordPress in general. And I’d like to keep things compact and barebones. Or at least focus development on more mainstream features and better UI. Even if that means removing lesser used features from time to time.

I’m seriously thinking about removing the transaction feature from AdRotate Pro. Maybe replace it with a WooCommerce module – WooCommerce is pretty much part of the WordPress ecosystem with Automattic buying it not too long ago.

What to do?

If you don’t know or care much about the advertiser features then this post is not really aimed at you. Business as usual. But of-course your opinion is welcome and important. So if you have one, let me know in the comments or via the contact form.

If you use the transactions feature, let me know as well. Just saying “I love it” or “I use it” (probably) doesn’t count. Constructive feedback is what I need here.

I know that a whole bunch of people use the advertiser options, and those are there to stay. But feedback for improvements are, as always, welcome.

This post is specifically about the transactions feature and what to do with it.
Personally I don’t care much for the payment stuff.

Let me know what you think in the comments or via the contact form. Please describe what you like or don’t like about the transactions feature and what should happen to make it more fun to use.

Thanks for your input!

AJdG Solutions

Development that matters