I have been working on Verse-O-Matic as of late. Most of the changes to the new version will be of a back-end nature.
- Remove the wp_vom_settings table in favor of storing settings in the wp_options table and using WP’s get_option functions
- Clean up the use of the date for date specific verse display
- VOTD highlighted in admin
- Add sorting options to the admin panel verse table
Using the wp_options table to store the settings is a great improvement in this plugin. By doing that, we reduce the necessary tables for Verse-O-Matic to one just to store the verses you are using. We also eliminate using our own db queries in the plugin (at least for settings) in favor of using WP’s native functions for get_option, add_option, and update_option. This should improve the plugin’s overall performance.
The previous way that the date was used for a VOTD (Verse of the Day) tool wasn’t quite right before. To begin with, the field wasn’t available when adding a new verse, but was when editing. That doesn’t make much sense, so I fixed that. I also added a date column so if you are setting up a bunch of verses for use as VOTD verses, then you can intuitively see which ones are which. That set up another change.
More ways to sort the verse display were needed for the admin. By default, it sorted by the database ID. But what if you were using VOTD and wanted to sort by date? Or what if you wanted to sort by book of the Bible (alphabetically of course… maybe I’ll take a stab at the actual order sometime)? So I added sorting to the display table to make this easier to use.
Lastly, if you were using it for VOTD, it should have been highlighting the row that is today. I changed the css class that was used to make this stand out a little more.
I hope you find this a useful and versatile plugin! Enjoy it!
Next Steps:
In order to speed up set up beyond just the verses included as examples, I am going to release a script that will load a large number of verses for you to use. This will be for users more verses in their Verse-O-Matic, but don’t want to set them all by hand. This will be an add-on and will make for a quick setup.
For VOTD users that are not entering their own verses, I will be adding a couple of feeds. That way, all you have to do is set the feed and you are off and running.
The first release candidate is nearly complete and should be available in the next few days. In the meantime, the current version is available on the Verse-O-Matic page (which will also be getting an update).
