Help Test the New BFO Feature in WPSSO v3.47.0

JS Morisset Leave a comment WPSSO

As my recent post on Make WordPress Plugins explains, there’s a serious problem in many themes and plugins using the content filter, and although this problem well known, it has largely been ignored by the WordPress community. :-/

I’d like your feedback on the new Block Filter Output (BFO) feature that will be enabled in WPSSO version 3.47.0 (currently in pre-release) — the Block Filter Output (BFO) feature attempts to make the content filter usable by monitoring the content filter for webpage output, and fixing incorrectly coded filter hooks (that send text to the webpage instead of returning it, as all filter hooks must). WPSSO version 3.47.0 will also enable the “Apply WordPress Content Filter” option by default, and use the BFO feature to report any content filter issues.

If you are a Pro version user, you can try the latest pre-release / release candidate version by selecting the “Release Candidate and Up” version filter for WPSSO under the SSO > Update Manager settings page. Let me know if WPSSO reports any issues with your content filters — hopefully it won’t, but if it does, you’ll have the necessary information to contact the theme or plugin author and have them fix their code. ;-)

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Is your filter going to break the WordPress layout?

JS Morisset Leave a comment PHP, WordPress

If you’re not clear about the difference between WordPress actions and filters, you may end up breaking the page layout of WordPress – maybe days, months, or even years after you’ve written and implemented a new filter hook. The difference can be difficult for new developers to grasp – after all, hooking an action or filter runs your code, either way, right? Well, yes, it does, but filters can be executed several times, in different locations as the webpage is being built (header, body, footer, etc.), and even in the admin back-end. But more importantly, filters do not send anything to the webpage! Filter hooks receive their data / text as an argument, and then “return” the modified (or original) data / text at the end. They do not use “echo”, “print”, “printf”, etc. – they should not send anything to the webpage. If you need to output something directly to the webpage, use an action – that’s what they’re for. ;-)

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Monitor and Fix Incorrectly Coded Content Filters

JS Morisset Leave a comment JSM BFO, Plugins, WordPress

I’ve just released version 1.1.0 of JSM’s Block Filter Output – a new plugin to monitor the content filter and fix incorrectly coded filter hooks (that send text to the webpage instead of returning it, as all filter hooks must).

A notice is also sent to the PHP error log when webpage output is detected:

[01-Oct-2017 01:48:28 UTC] Block Filter Output: The “ClassName::echoText” filter hook with priority 10 in the “the_content” filter has mistakenly provided some webpage output. All WordPress filter hooks must return their text – not send it to the webpage output. Please contact the author of that filter hook and report this issue as a coding error / bug. Incorrect webpage output:
—BEGIN—
<strong>Some output that should have been returned instead of echo’ed.</strong>
—END—

The plugin is fully tested and compatible with PHP v7.x (PHP v5.3 or better required).

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NextGEN Facebook Replaced by WPSSO

JS Morisset Leave a comment NGFB

The NextGEN Facebook plugin was forked in 2014 and replaced by the WPSSO Core plugin — they’re both Free and available on WordPress.org, have the same author and developer, the same solid core features and code-base, but WPSSO Core is distributed without the social sharing buttons and their related features. Social sharing buttons are distributed separately, as optional extensions for WPSSO Core. WPSSO Core also provides several other useful and optional extensions:

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NGFB / WPSSO – “Social Settings” Metabox Renamed

JS Morisset Leave a comment NGFB, WPSSO

The “Social Settings” metabox, shown at the bottom of every post / page, term, and user editing page, has been renamed to “Social and Search Optimization” in the latest version of NextGEN Facebook (aka NGFB) and WPSSO (v8.46.0 and v3.46.0 respectively).

The “NGFB” top menu item has also been renamed to “NGFB SSO” and a “Social and Search Optimization” tagline has been added to the top of every settings page (50% transparent). The top menu item for WPSSO has not changed, and is still named “SSO”. :-)

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New Plugin – WPSSO Ratings and Reviews

JS Morisset WPSSO UL

A new WPSSO Ratings and Reviews (WPSSO RAR) extension for WPSSO has been released. This Free plugin extends the WordPress comment system with a new star rating and review feature — ratings and reviews can be enabled / disabled per post, new reviews are labeled as reviews (not comments), a star rating can be required before reviews are accepted, replies to reviews are properly labeled as replies / comments, and the colors of star ratings can be customized from the settings page.

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WPSSO SSM – Remove Duplicate HTML Meta Tags

JS Morisset WPSSO SSM

The WordPress Strip Schema Microdata (WPSSO SSM) v1.1.0-1 extension has been released (see the complete Changelog here) — this new version adds a “Strip Microdata” settings page to the SSO menu and allows you to enable / disable the removal of specific markup from the head and body sections, including the removal of duplicate / conflicting meta tags in the head section (disabled by default).

The WPSSO SSM filters are very fast – generally running in under 0.003 seconds – and enabling the removal of duplicate meta tags won’t add much to this, but I would suggest not enabling that feature unless you need it. If your theme and/or other plugins are adding duplicate meta tags, it’s always best to disable them at their source instead of filtering them out afterwards – but if that’s not possible, then I’m sure you’ll love this new WPSSO SSM feature. ;-)

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WPSSO – Product Condition and WP / PHP Versions

JS Morisset WPSSO

WPSSO v3.40.3-1 plugin has been released (see the complete Changelog here) — this new version adds a custom “Product Condition” option in the Social Settings metabox, along with updating the minimum & recommended versions for WordPress and PHP.

The new “Product Condition” option will be visible only if the Open Graph og:type meta tag value is a “product” — which is the default value for all product pages from Easy Digital Downloads, MarketPress – WordPress eCommerce, WooCommerce, WP eCommerce, and most other e-commerce plugins (developers can also hook the ‘wpsso_og_type’ filter to change the default value – see the complete list of filters here).

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WPSSO JSON – Recipe Instructions and Nutrition

JS Morisset WPSSO JSON

The WPSSO Schema JSON-LD Markup (WPSSO JSON) v1.13.0-1 extension for WPSSO has been released (see the complete Changelog here) — this latest version adds several custom Recipe Instructions and Nutrition Information options to the Social Settings metabox, along with including some new integration modules for WP Recipe Maker and WP Ultimate Recipes.

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WPSSO – Product Availability, Price and Currency

JS Morisset WPSSO

WPSSO v3.40.0-1 has been released (see the complete Changelog here) — this new version adds custom Product Availability, Price and Currency options to the Social Settings metabox.

These options will be visible only if the Open Graph og:type meta tag value is a “product” — which is the default value for all product pages from Easy Digital Downloads, MarketPress – WordPress eCommerce, WooCommerce, WP eCommerce, and most other e-commerce plugins that use a “product” custom post type (developers can also hook the ‘wpsso_og_type’ filter to change the default value – see the complete list of filters here).

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