Jul/08

WP-CMS Post Control plugin

109 Comments · Posted by Jonny in WP-CMS WordPress Plugins

Please note

Homepage and comments have now been moved to the new plugin homepage over at:

http://wp-cms.com/our-wordpress-plugins/wp-cms-post-control-plugin/

post control plugin

109 comments

Wordpress eklentileri resimli 20 adet | bloggertr.com - Türkiyenin en iyi ve en güncel blog'u · November 29, 2008 at 10:19 pm

[...] WP-CMS Post Control plugin [...]
John Pollard · December 8, 2008 at 9:17 am

Does this plug in show posts in original order, not reversed?
Admin comment by Jonny · December 17, 2008 at 2:01 am

Dragunoff – the multi-lingual support was put in place from the original developer, it is not something I know much about (and I think I have screwed it up in areas possibly). I am working on WordPress 2.7 support at the moment, which should be out shortly!

John – This plugin does something quite different to what you describe, to point you in the right direction on that look up query_posts in the WordPress codex.
Seppo · December 21, 2008 at 2:45 pm

Great plugin, thanks!
One more thing I’d like to remove is the “tools”-link in admin left sidebar.
Admin comment by Jonny · January 1, 2009 at 9:00 pm

@Seppo – that’s beyond the scope of this plugin I’m afraid – take a look at the official wordpress plugins repository
Ferenc · January 3, 2009 at 4:31 pm

Hi Jonny,

i use your plugin in combination with role-manager (http://www.im-web-gefunden.de/wordpress-plugins/role-manager/) … i don´t think, that there is further development of role-manager, but in wp 2.6 it works fine and has no problems with your post-control-plugin. if you want to integrate this, it would be fine, if you talk to the role-manager-author if you both could combine your work and melt your further development or (if not) integrate role-manager in your plug-in. for wp as a cms both are important and without real competitors.

two things i´d like to see with the next version of post-control-plugin: an option where to place the messagebox. i´d like to place it directly! above the write-panel or beneath it. in every case above the categories box. the second thing i see as an important feature request is a textarea for the “message box text”. one row of text is for most cases simply too less. could be that there are 100 things you´ll have to tell. maybe a whole tutorial.

thanks a lot.
Ferenc · January 3, 2009 at 4:38 pm

one more thing. i saw, that “ryan´s simple cms” get´s no new version for wp2.7. do you think, you could implement some of the features? i mean disabling main-menu-items. in the best case, this would be possible on a per-user-role base.
Oberfranken Blog · January 4, 2009 at 2:11 pm

Thanks for that great plugin. Especially disabling the post revisions is a real help to keep the database clean.
Admin comment by Jonny · January 5, 2009 at 1:20 pm

@Ferenc: Role manager is a VERY popular plugin, the development was fairly recently picked up by a new developer (around 6 months ago) and I hear that he is fairly committed to it – I’m guessing that a WordPress 2.7 compatible version will be out fairly soon. If the current developer doesn’t upgrade it – I’m sure someone else will pick up the development of this.

I hear you on the message box placement – previously I was only able to use a WordPress hook that inserted it below the text editor window – I will see if there is any new code functionality I can use in WordPress 2.7

I hear you loud and clear on the message box too – I agree it is far too small and I will be increasing the size of this in the next version I release.

RE Simple CMS – I already have a custom plugin I used before WordPress 2.7 came out that does this kinda stuff, but it is not ready for public release (no options page, not too pretty!!). This is something I will consider upgrading for WordPress 2.7 and following that it may get a public release one day… but don’t hold your breath!
Jon · January 6, 2009 at 10:30 pm

Jonny,

Thanks for this rockin’ plugin! I’m using v1.11 because I’m developing a WPMU site and WPMU is still at v2.6.5. I agree with Ferenc’s comments about the message box. By the way, the options page says the message box text supports b and i tags but they don’t seem to work in v1.11; from the change log it appears that feature may not have been implemented until v1.2.

I put in a few simple hacks in my copy but they are highly specialized to meet unique requirements so I doubt you’d want to consider them.

The first, which is pertinent only to WPMU, is to hide display of the settings menu from all but the SITE admin. The settings for new blogs are auto-populated using an MU plugin.

The other hacks hide the post Title box and the editor itself! I know that sounds strange, but in the site I’m working on each blog will never have more than one post and its title will be auto-populated and won’t be displayed and the entire content of the post will be provided by the Kaltura All in One Video plug-in which overlays on the Write Post form via AJAX. So all that is left on the form are the Publishing Status box and the Post Control message box.
Slim0123 · January 17, 2009 at 4:17 pm

I hope I used the plugin the way it was intended to be, but once I turned off the excerpt, Trackbacks, Custom fields, Discussion and Comment & ping options, I was unable to get them back even after turning them on from the options page your plugin provided…..
The options page shows that these options are turned ON but when I go to the new post page, I never find them since I turned them OFF, I tried using different browsers, deleting cache from my computer, reinstalling the core wordpress files(of wp-admin folder), tried to search how your plugin works(a very foolish thing to do), and tried logging in with different users, but the results were same, I m not using any other plugin that can make such options disappear, but now the problem in front of me is that, I really want the excerpt feature back in the new post page, but nothing yet found has worked…..
I hope you might help suggesting some probable causes or something that might work…
Will wait for your reply (if possible, plz email me or buzz me on my email id that you have replied back coz i m a bit alzheimeristic and forget the things at their earliest(like the fact that i asked u for a reply))
popart · January 18, 2009 at 1:31 am

I’d love to have further control according to roles. Specifically, I need to control which media types can be uploaded depending on the role. For example, I’d like to allow authors to upload images but not flash or movies.
Also, I need to disable the HTML editor in tinyMCE. Basically, I’m trying to “idiot-proof” the edit page. Thanks.
popart · January 18, 2009 at 1:53 am

I can’t seem to make go away “Status: Published Edit” go away. I don’t want my authors to be able unpublish pages. I’ve already deselected “Post & Page: Publish visibility” by it’s still showing up.

I’m also using the Role Scoper plugin.
Admin comment by Jonny · January 21, 2009 at 12:45 am

@Jon – Noted on the message box – will certainly improve this as I have personally experienced the limitations! The basic markup works perfectly in the latest version. You are more than welcome to hack up the plugin as you see fit, I’m glad it provided a good base for you!

@Slim012 – Disabling the plugin will fix your issue, the plugin doesn’t change any core files.

@popart – Controlling media upload types is not currently on the upgrade agenda, but I’ll certainly have a think about it – I would imagine there is another plugin that may allow you to do this. You may find unticking the option to use ‘rich text editor’ may idiot proof your editor to a certain extent! I may also consider controlling the HTML tab in future versions of the plugin, but I’m currently very busy with paid work at the moment! RE publish visibility – are you using WordPress 2.7 (or above) – this function should work – I’ll take a look and update the plugin code if I identify an issue.
popart · January 21, 2009 at 8:34 am

Jonny, Thanks for your reply. I managed to disable the HTML editor by commenting out code in wp-includes > general-template.php, however it also applies to Admin. It’s not the best fix, but it works for now. I’m also using the Role Scoper plugin which allows me to assign Editor status to my Authors for certain pages. I believe that may be the reason they are still able to unpublish pages. I’m still trying to figure out how to disable publish/unpublish for those Page Editors. I’ve already deselected Publish Visibilty in Display Options of WPCMS Post Control. Also, I’m still searching for a plugin or fix that will give control over media upload types.
Slim0123 · January 21, 2009 at 10:12 am

@Jonny – Thanks Jonny, for taking time from your busy schedule to reply to our queries and also for reminding me via email(coz I had really forgotten that I asked you).

By the way, I think I have found one bug in the plugin. this works as follows:

Step 1: You turn off these options from the Post Control Options’ page:
Excerpt
Trackbacks
Custom Fields
Discussion
Comment & ping options
Tags

Step 2: You go to the “Create a New Post” page

Step 3: You again turn on the above options from the “Post Control’s” options page.

Observation: Now even when you have turned on these options, still you wont be able to see these in the “New Post” page even after restarting browser, computer, clearing cache, etc, etc
But this is observed only on the accounts that tried to create “New Posts” when these options were “turned off”
All other accounts work fine. If you create new accounts then too the options are there. But since you post ur posts from your account, so you want to turn these options “on”.

Solution:
1. Create a new administrator account.
2. Login with that account and delete your current account transfering all your posts to this new account(be cautious don’t forget to transfer else all your posts will be deleted(as happened with me)).
3. Create a new administrator account with the previous account name.
4. Login with that account and delete the temporary account transferring all your posts to your account again.(don’t forget to transfer).
And thats it, you have the options back to your account.

What it took: All my posts from my first wordpress site(No newbie thinks of taking backups till such incidents happen n I just came to know about the word wordpress only two weeks ago)

I hope now you can try this too and I hope you’ll fix this bug(if its really there) in the next update we all are waiting for.

The Plugin is best of its kind and gives best results when used in conjunction with Role Manager plugin.
Jono · January 27, 2009 at 11:15 am

Hi there,

This is a great plugin. I tried using it and removed some things to get an idea of how it worked. Now however I can’t get them back! I have lost Custom Fields from the Post page for example. I have disabled the plugin and that didn’t work – in fact i disabled all the plugins to see if there was a clash – nothing. I have enabled it and then disabled it in your control panel – nothing. How can I get the original settings back? Is there a part of the table or cache that i can clear?
Thanks Jono.
Admin comment by Jonny · January 27, 2009 at 2:31 pm

@Popart – sounds like you worked it out!! You have got me thinking and if I can incorporate this functionality into the plugin easily I shall! REMEMBER, when you change core files, you need to make a note of what you have changed so you can roll-out these changes when you update WordPress.

@Slim0123 – Interesting, I have not been able to replicate this myself, but will look into it in more detail and if a fix is required it will be incorporated into the next version of the plugin.

@Jono – this plugin doesn’t change any core files – so disabling it will return your write panels back to full functionality. Make sure you clear the cache in your browser and do do a force refresh once you have disabled it… the core WordPress functionality will return!
C0BALT · January 27, 2009 at 11:28 pm

I am trying to use this plugin to allow me to create a “highly customized post”
I want posts with Category “STATUS” to have a certain look. I want the edit screen for these posts to have NO text area at all, and to only have the custom field (from custom field plugin) is this possible? thanks!
8 Sledge Hammer Effect WP Plugins, Have you lost control of your WP? : Speckyboy - Web Design, Web Development and Graphic Design Resources · January 30, 2009 at 11:42 am

[...] WP-CMS Post Control plugin [...]
Christian · February 5, 2009 at 11:25 pm

Same bug than Jono : cannot recover some features even after I disabled the plugin, cleared the cache and refreshed my page
Seppo · February 6, 2009 at 11:25 pm

Thanks for a great plugin!
The message box is one of the great features in this plugin. It would add some functuality to it if line break would be one of the basic tags allowed.
Jono · February 7, 2009 at 10:00 pm

Hi,

I played around with this plugin and it worked fine. I disabled a number of areas like Custom Fields, Track-backs and comment/ping options from showing. I then decided I didn’t really need the plugin and disabled it. Now however even though it’s disabled and not even in the plugin page, the settings have remained.

I don’t think it’s striped out the database entries.

I have done a number of things to try to get it working, disabled all plugins, re uploaded Wordpress original files (Expect config), Opomized database, repaired database, I have even tried to re-install the plugin (and turned things off and on) and even lower versions to try and fix it, but it’s still the same

Can anyone help?

Jono.
Admin comment by Jonny · February 12, 2009 at 10:32 am

I’m sorry you are having trouble with this plugin, but it doesn’t change any core files!! The way it works is simply by hiding with CSS the elements you don’t need… all I can suggest is that either you are not clearing your cache or your ISP is caching the files.

I have been over the code again and again – there is NOTHING that can cause this!! I (along with many thousands of other users) have used this plugin just fine!

DEACTIVATING THE PLUGIN WILL RESTORE WORDPRESS BACK TO DEFAULT OPTIONS IN THE WRITE PANELS
Nboxters · February 15, 2009 at 1:24 am

What you thought of that suggestion?
http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/topic.php?id=2390

It would be interesting also you make a plugin with this functionality as it would be related to this actual plugin. Or is something very complex to be done?
I speak this because I do not know much programming, I do not know the level of difficulty of doing this, and would a clarification.

Thank you.
Admin comment by Jonny · February 17, 2009 at 10:21 am

I like the idea – and it does fit in with the theme of this plugin, but at the moment I am just too darn busy with work (paid!) to integrate this, sorry! I also have a bit of a list of things that I want to develop for this plugin that I think a wider range of users would benefit from. I hope another plugin developer picks up on your idea – it’s good!
Kevin · February 18, 2009 at 3:55 am

Krissie said:
Unfortunately, the role scoper plugin adds three fields/options to the advanced section on the edit screen for posts and pages.
———————————————
FYI, a recent revision of Role Scoper adds the option to prevent users who are not blog-wide editors from assigning roles for their posts/pages.
Simon · February 23, 2009 at 8:59 pm

Great plugin Jonny! It’ll make a project of mine much more comfortable. I’ve got one suggestion though, would it be possible to bind “non-admins” to a specific category (and it’s sub categories) –> hide all other categories (not just all categories).
Also as a second possibility to nofollow all links in these categories?

As examples: http://is.gd/kzTX and http://is.gd/kzUd

That would be great!
Admin comment by Jonny · March 11, 2009 at 1:43 pm

Simon – that’s a good suggestion for more development, although sadly I have to concentrate on my paid work first… and I’m stacked out at the moment!

Things I’m looking into at the moment is custom field creation and more advanced message boxes… but I’ll add it to the list!
jillies · March 15, 2009 at 4:43 pm

Hey Jonny,

Is it possible for my Admins and Editors to be able to view the default Post settings (and everyone else to view the selected settings) without recreating the Admin and Editor accounts? Just curious.
Admin comment by Jonny · March 25, 2009 at 10:03 am

Jillies – the plugin doesn’t currently have this functionality but it could fairly easily be modified to do this with 10 minutes – take a look on the WordPress Codex on ‘Roles and capabilities’.

This is something I’d like to look at for future releases, but sadly I don’t have time to roll this out now – and I would like to extend this a-little to make it flexible so the plugin can control all roles and what is displayed (a bit more complex than a 10 minute hack I’m afraid!).
Terence · March 25, 2009 at 7:06 pm

Great plugin! Does anyone know how to get this plugin to work for Wordpress MU? It would be nice to have the Site Admin set the post controls for every blog that is created on the system. When i installed it on WPMU it enabled each blog to set the post controls. Any ideas. Thanks
Terence
james · April 8, 2009 at 8:19 am

Thanks for such a good information. your plug in is really great and working well.
Admin comment by Jonny · April 16, 2009 at 6:09 pm

@Terence – I’m not using WordPressMU at the moment, but have a project lined up that I’d like to use MU for maybe. When (and if!) I get that project rolling I may update the plugin for MU compatibility.
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[...] WP-CMS Post Control Plugin, CMS-Like Admin Menu y Simple CMS permiten personalizar el panel de administración de Wordpress, añadiendo o quitando elementos. [...]
Nimwit · May 11, 2009 at 1:42 am

Hi there,

Great plugin.

I’m tying to get it to work on Wordpress MU (sitewide) on every blog and user. It works fine with no errors but I need to save changes on all blogs without the need to go in to each blog and configure the options.

So, is there a simple hack or change of the code that would pre set the custom options as soon as the plugin is activated, rather than going in to the settings page of the plugin options and setting the selections in there, then saving…

I’m not really a pho coder, but if this is possible I can change the code if someone could tell me what I would need to change on one of the selections then I can copy that code change to all the selections I need active in the plugin before I activate it in WPMU sitewide…

N.
xtofe · May 23, 2009 at 10:49 pm

hi,
I would like to be able to remove some ofthe menus and submenus in admin menu(such as comments, tools, etc.).
Any plan on such a feature?
EL · May 27, 2009 at 3:16 pm

Your plug-in completely SHUT DOWN and broke the the Log-in behavior to my site (the dashboard). I’ve been dealing with this a week, went through extensive trouble shooting with WordPress Trac and Web Host, and finally narrowed it down to your plug-in. When your plug-in is active, I was unable to stay logged into the dashboard, rand kept getting shunted back to log-in page (only able to move one step at a time between log-ins). I am using WP 2.7.1, and current versions of all browsers (Firefox, Camino, Safari for Mac, and Firefox and Explorer for PC). It doesn’t matter the platform or browser, when the log-in feature is broken, I’m dead in the water. I did some searching on-line, and other people have had very similar problems (which were never identified). Turning off your plug-in fixed EVERYTHING for me. Please advise and correct.
Admin comment by Jonny · May 28, 2009 at 11:15 am

@Nimwit – WPMU integration is something I may look at in the future, but not at the moment, sorry!

@xtofe – This plugin only controls post functions, although I have a plugin in private development that alters the admin panels and menus. It is in no state for a public release (doesn’t even have an options page!), so don’t hold your breath waiting for it to be released!

@EL – I’m sorry you are having issues with WordPress, but I have to disagree with your assumption that it is the Post Control plugin causing this. If you look at the PHP code of this plugin it doesn’t do anything with the login function – it only controls CSS code basically. It would be impossible for this plugin to stop you logging in, there must be something else causing your troubles, which is hard to work out as there may be any number of issues causing this including a corrupted WordPress install, server configuration etcetcetc. I am also using this on WordPress 2.7.1 across a number of sites and I have no issues what-so-ever (and that’s on different servers too!).
EL · May 29, 2009 at 6:01 pm

Yes this is a very frustrating “plug-in” related bug. I’m still trying to track it down, and I have ruled out CMS Post Control. I am sorry for the assumption above, and you are right, it does not appear to be related to your plugin. Please erase my post, or otherwise indicate that the issue has been resolved and the problem rests elsewhere. Sorry to clutter your comments with an unrelated issue.
David McGowan · June 4, 2009 at 3:47 pm

I’m using WP 2.7.1 and the version of this plugin 1.2.1 and it’s not doing a thing. Any clues? This plugin is exactly what I’m looking for.
JB · June 4, 2009 at 6:36 pm

Your plugin is BROKEN. I’m experiencing a problem where I cannot REACTIVATE any items initially deactivated. I turned off ‘custom fields’ on my site to clean the look, decided I need them, and now NOTHING will reactivate them. I’ve tried disabling the plugin, removing it entirely, removing and reinstalling a fresh download, NOTHING WORKS. Please reply to my email if you have a solution for this. For other users, please BEWARE OF THIS BUG. I’m running the latest version of the plugin (1.2.1) and Wordpress 2.7.1

Thank you,

J
Admin comment by Jonny · June 4, 2009 at 8:47 pm

@EL – Once again, I’m sorry you are having trouble and am glad you have ‘ruled out’ Post Control – it would have simply been IMPOSSIBLE for Post Control plugin to cause the issues you described.

@ David McGowan – I have this plugin installed on a number of WordPress 2.7.1 installations (on a couple of different servers too) and it works perfectly for me (and for thousands of other people). I can only guess that you need to change the drop-down menu to change the option that ‘admin sees all post control options’ or ‘admin see only options selected’.

@ JB – Please don’t make sweeping statements like that without reading the instructions first – your issues are clearly not caused by the Post Control plugin! If you looked at the code and read the instructions you would see that it simply uses CSS to hide some of the post controls – NOTHING IS CHANGED PERMANENTLY IN YOUR WORDPRESS INSTALLATION! I would suggest that you delete your temporary internet files from your browser or ‘hard refresh’, this should bring back your hidden options.
Annie · September 17, 2009 at 5:26 pm

Hi, sorry for my ignorance, but I am relatively new to WordPress and new to this plugin. How do you implement cloaking with this plugin? Thanks.
Annie · September 22, 2009 at 8:36 pm

Thanks a lot for deleting my question without responding to it. That totally sucks.
Admin comment by Jonny · September 22, 2009 at 11:48 pm

Annie – yours is one of quite a few comments waiting for approval… ti wasn’t deleted or caught in my ever growing spam catcher so relax a-little! I’m a very busy self-employed designer and web developer working as hard as I can!!

From your first question – I’m not sure what you mean by ‘cloaking’. If you mean hiding the controls of a write post or page then you probably want to change what admin users see with the drop-down option. If not, I’m sorry… would you like a refund?!

IMPORTANT UPDATE NEWS FOR WORDPRESS 2.8+ USERS
Things have changed a-little with WordPress 2.8 and while quite a-lot of this plugin functionality still works, some things don’t. I’m in the middle of some very big web projects at the moment with clients and WILL get around to updating this plugin for 2.8 compatibility… but it will be in the next 4 weeks or so.
Admin comment by Jonny · November 14, 2009 at 12:07 pm

I have had loads of comments in moderation on this and am tied up completely on some big projects at the moment.

Just to let you know, I have developed a new beta version of this plugin for a site I am working on. It is far more sophisticated than the existing version (a complete re-write from scratch!). I also have included WordPressMu compatibility for those that want it!

It is not finished yet (doesn’t even have an options page at the moment!) but I have adhered to the full WordPress 2.8 plugin coding standards.

I hope to have this finished and launched (at-least in beta form) by the end of November, so please hold tight!
Admin comment by Jonny · February 24, 2010 at 2:11 pm

Everyone – I have many, many comments in moderation and am so busy with commercial work (yup – the stuff that pays the bills!!) that I have been unable to update this plugin as expected and respond. Please don’t think I am ignoring you, and I notice that some people seem to be reporting options not returning – please look over the comments. The current version of the plugin simply uses CSS to hide the controls, so once disabled you probably need to give your cache a good clearout and refresh your page… NO CORE OPTIONS ARE OVERWRITTEN OR MODIFIED IN ANY WAY.

The new version of the plugin works much more efficiently – but I have had no resource to actually tidy and complete this for public launch.

However – there is some good news, I have a number of active WordPress projects that really need the new Post Control plugin completed so I really do expect to have this launched soon… and of-course it will be fully updated to WordPress 2.9.2 (current release).
Admin comment by Jonny · March 3, 2010 at 11:16 am

Everyone – thank you for your valuable feedback (Peter etc) – as I said, over 100 comments in moderation (no, not all bad!!).

I’m really up against it on a deadline for a couple of clients this week, but as I said I do have a fresh new version of this plugin (works completely differently – no more CSS woes!) developed – and have made some progress with the options page.

You may be pleased to know that the next version has MULTI-ROLE SUPPORT, not just admin/everyone else settings! Coded from the ground-up again the new version will be released in the next 7 days, so please bear with me! It works perfectly works with WordPress 2.9> (tested to 2.9.2) of-course.
Peter · March 3, 2010 at 11:30 am

omg omg looking forward to it! this “maverick css behaviour” of some part of the wp engine is freaking me out