Tag: Website

Site reorganization – Forums closed

Over the course of many weeks I’ve been unhappy with how my website works. Many attempts to remedy this have failed but last night I finally realized that the forums were a real bother, along with the clumsy setup for Manuals and guides.

I hate how complex things have been over the past few years.

So much so that I couldn’t even attempt to modernize the theme as nothing would suit the site, or the layout would fail or whatever was going wrong.

Having finally something to do to simplify the overall website I’ve decided to just close the support forums outright. I have also re-organized the Support pages into the support system I’ve been running for the past 2 years. This makes the main website much smaller and easier to deal with. And it better utilizes the support system.

New support routine

For the support forum, which was bbPress and duct-taped on with a heap of custom templates, plugins and other nonsense, I‘ve decided to just not have a Forum anymore.

The plugins that are hosted on wordpress.org have a support option there. You can post your questions there for a timely answer.

Every plugin that does not have a presence on wordpress.org will be updated to link to the support ticket system for ’lower priority’ ticket support.

Paying customers always come first of-course!

If you’re curious what this all looks like you can click the “Support” link in the top right of the website and check it out.
Clicking the Knowledge base button you’ll find all support pages that were previously parked under /support/.

All excisting urls and links have been redirected there as well. So no ugly 404 errors for anyone I expect.

And finally I have updated and rewritten every knowledgebase page to be more up-to-date with current features and I fixed a million and one spelling mistakes.

Plugin updates

Over the coming weeks, or when I find the time and energy, I‘ll update all plugins to link to the appropriate support options directly so that nobody has to rely on redirects.

That, along with a few other updates that are in the pipeline, among other things, for AdRotate Banner Manager and Goosle. Maybe sometimes soon(tm) I can finally overhaul the site as I envision it after using this theme for 11 years.

Analytics Spam Blocker 4.0 – Thousands more domains blocked!

Over the last few weeks and days I have re-done most of the plugin to make getting more domains to block more easily. As a whole the whole reporting system didn’t really work and the plugin never really took off like I hoped. So I devised a new system for referral spam protection.

Instead of dealing with 10-20 reports per year I’ve closed the whole reporting system effective immediately. Instead Analytics Spam Blocker will rely on publicly available blocklists and use those.

As an extra you can create your custom list and add more domains to that. The dashboard has been updated to reflect these changes. The blocklist is updated weekly through a background task. Currently the list holds about 2280 domains, which is already way way more than Analytics Spam Blocker had to begin with. This makes the plugin much more hands-off but also more effective for everyone.

Changes for Analytics Spam Blocker version 4.0

  • [new] Referral spam list from Matomo
  • [new] Weekly update referrel spam list from Matomo
  • [new] Check if domain already is blocked
  • [change] Code cleanup
  • [removed] Spamblocker API reporting

The download for Analytics Spam Blocker should pop up in your dashboard shortly. Or you can download the plugin here: https://ajdg.solutions/product/analytics-spam-blocker-for-wordpress/

AdRotate Pro 5.15.4 – Better groups, imports and fixed clicktracking

Based on more recent user feedback I have removed the restriction for dynamic groups on mobile devices. Dynamic mode is now always enabled if the group is using it. Geo Targeting has been refined a bit and now better deals with error responses, this will help with a smoother user experience.

Click tracking

The pure-JS clicktracker for groups didn’t reliably work for all adverts. So this has been reverted to the previous iteration. Let me know how this works for you. With that, the clicktracker requires jQuery again. If your theme or another plugin doesn’t already load jQuery you can enable it from Settings > General in the AdRotate Settings. Just like before.

Imports and Exports

With all the updates and changes to adverts over the years the way ads are imported no longer worked reliably. This has been updated to modern standards. Importing adverts from a CSV file should now reliably. This has been tested with files containing up-to some 2000 adverts. Common files are expected to have a few dozen to a 100 or so. So in practice, there is no real import limit anymore other than the file size.

The file size restriction of 4 MB still exists. This is more of a server thing than anything else. Not all servers allow larger files. If your file is larger, simply split it into multiple smaller files.

For exporting files all current features have been added to the export file. This includes mobile options and Geo Targeting settings.

Changes in AdRotate Professional 5.15.4

  • [update] Rollback to v1.1 for clicktracker Javascript
  • [update] Export files now include all current ad features
  • [removed] Restriction on dynamic groups for ads cycle length
  • [removed] Restriction to disable dynamic groups on mobile devices
  • [fix] Better handling of large CSV files for imports
  • [fix] Better handling of MaxMind error responses
  • [fix] Removed left over ‘other_os’ code from export columns
  • [fix] Better validation of numeric values in export files

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 5.14.4 – Improvements and PHP8 compatibility

This update improves a number of features with small fixes and tweaks. PHP8 compatibility has been improved by better defining arrays in certain routines. Clicktracking no longer requires jQuery making things more lightweight and fast. This code is contributed by a user.

The advertiser dashboard had some faults and quirks which have been resolved and things work much much better now for your advertisers.

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 5.14.4

  • [change] No longer requires jQuery for clicktracker
  • [change] No longer lists image files that do not belong to the advertiser
  • [fix] Wrong variable count when de-activating a license
  • [fix] Array conversion in PHP8 for advertisers
  • [fix] Variable names for mobile devices for advertisers
  • [fix] Missing variable defaults when saving adverts
  • [fix] Stats graph not rendering for advertisers

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 5.14.3 – Bugfixes for stats and device detection

Version 5.14.3 fixes a number of inconsistencies with loading stats in the Manage dashboards of Adverts, Groups and Schedules. Stats are no longer attempted to be loaded if you do not use the internal tracker. Also the check if MobileDetect is already loaded didn’t really work. This has been fixed as well.

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. This version fine tunes and builds on the larger changes from that version.

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 5.14.3

  • [fix] Better check if MobileDetect is already loaded
  • [fix] Better check if stats are enabled in groups
  • [fix] Better check if stats are enabled in schedules
  • [fix] Better check if stats are enabled in disabled ads
  • [fix] Column count for Manage dashboards when stats are on or off

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.