This year started with many changes in our personal lives in consecuence of this the development of magic fields has been very slow until now

But we don’t leave the development we are still working in the next version (1.4) and actually with this release all the things to we want to fix from the original project will be finish.

For that for the future releases we want to know all the suggestions from you and start to add the more popular requested features in Magic Fields. for that in the wiki of the project  was created a page called “wish list” where if you want to see a particular feature in magic fields fell free to add that feature in the wish list and we will start to evaluate which features will be added in the future..

In another hand, this last two months with no much movement in the development we see a lot of comments and possible bugs in the comments of the blog or as a messages in the mailing list.

Well, we think to is a good moment to start to manage the bugs in a better way, if you found a bug and in the mailling list don’t be able to get a answer of your problem or if someone else has the same bug and is something to you can replicate without problems feel free to open a issue here:

http://github.com/hunk/Magic-Fields/issues

Just leave a little description of the bug and leave a little list of the step to you follow to replicate the bug and which operative system are installed in the server where you are using magic Fields and in which browser are you use for see the issue, with this information we can start to fix any bug.

just for finish, this version of Magic Fields come with a bunch of features and optimizations for that the time for test this version will be bigger the next version of magic fields will be launched the 21 of march.

Magic Fields 1.3 is out, and come with a good number of new features and less bugs.

I’m going to speak a little about the new features.

New Features:

New type of Custom field called “Related Type”.

In Magic Fields 1.3 exists a new custom field type called “Related Type” with this type of field we can make relation between write panels. For example if we are working in our portfolio and we has a write panel called “clients” and a write panel called “services” we can now related some client with many posts “services”, this new field open a new field of ideas and possibilities.

Adding multimedia buttons to the multiline custom field.

Now is more easy add images and files in the multiline custom field, was added more buttons for doing this more easily.

Adding a new engine for make the validations.

this is the most exciting new feature of this release, was rewrote the “engine” for make validations in the custom fields, now Magic Fields use this jquery library for make the validations, with this in the next version will be add a new rules of validations for the custom fields!

Finish the support for the i18n.

Soon we will explain how translate Magic Fields to your language.

Removing obsolete Code.

One of the things to we personally enjoy is make Magic Fields more lighter, We continue removing and refactoring the code for make the footprint of Magic Fields more smaller. In this release was removed a repeated libraries of jquery.js and ui.jquery.js.

This project is made it in our free time and not has any company behind his development for that we are very grateful with the people to encourage us making donations for continue the development.

Thanks to:

• Jens Wedin
• Jan Ramroth
• Eivind  Skjellum
• Albert Ariza

And also we want say thanks to all the people to are helping us doing another kind of donations, like making patches for Magic Fields, reporting bugs and helping us giving support for others users and in general all who gave us any kind of feed back for this plugin.

In the last release we had a very short time for make testing and this was our own fault.

As results of this we had to create a new quickly release (the version 1.2.1) with a critical fix and after of this we found another serious bug. For that now will be separate for more time each release for has a enough time for make testing.

So thinking on this now we will release the version 1.3-beta. if you want to help us to testing this release you can download it here and if you found a bug or issue feel free to leave a comment or open a message in the support group. indicating in the title of the message to this is a bug related with the 1.3-beta version

New features to maybe you want to know for test this beta:

• New field type: Related Type (thanks to Wouter de Winter for this)
• Adding a new engine for make the validations be use   this plugin with this in future releases will be added a new rules of validations (for now only can be used the “required – not can be empty” rule)
• Fix in the Image  custom field
• Now when a group no has custom fields this group is not appear  in the  post/page  (with this “magic fields custom fields” group can be hide)
• bug fixed when a metabox is dragged and dropped and this metabox has a multiline custom field (before when the box was dragged the content of the multiline field disappear)
• removing more obsolete code
• added a little dropdown in the date custom field for choice the year in the calendar
• added option for the user can  choice the “parent page”   when  a write panel type page is created
• Adding media buttons in the custom field  multiline  for upload images and filess

One of the most bigger issues in Magic Fields was the lack of documentation, learn how use Magic Fields was a hard task but this going to change soon.

Hunk the last week  spent his time writing a good  number of tutorials you can found them here:  http://wiki.magicfields.org/doku.php?id=es:tutorials

If you are user of Magic Fields i’m sure to you realize to our english is not perfect for that reason our first concern for write the documentation was not be able to be the enough clear for explain how magic fields works

For that we  take the decision of write the documentation in our mother language and  wait for somebody to help us to move this  documentation to another  language, if you want to help us to move the documentation to another lang feel free to  register as user in the wiki of magic fields and start to translate.

Magic Fields logo

Magic fields 1.2 is out and this is our first release with new features.

In this entry we will speak a little about to what is new in this version, we  hope to you enjoy  this new release

New Features.

Condense Menu mode.

In our first release a lot of people ask us for add the “condense” feature made by Doc4 (http://bit.ly/8Gy9q) and now this feature is part of the Magic Fields.

And we added a little improvement for this new mode, when the user  see the “edit” page while has the “condense menu”  mode active  will be appear a new column with the name of which write panel belongs the post.

New Functions for get data in the frontend.

One of the weak points of the last version was the performance. For get the values of a Duplicate group was neccesary did a bunch of calls of the “get” function. So in this new version was added new ways to get the data.

get_field_duplicate: When we has a duplicate field with many values now we can get the data in this way:

In this image we has a duplicate field with some values:

And in the theme we can get this values using this:
And we will get this result: get_group: In a duplicate group with many fields like this: And in the theme we can get this values using this:

And we will get this result:

gen_image: Now  is possible create new thumbs of our images dynamically   for example if we has a image custom field.

We can do something like this:

Using this code:

Add a new option for hide non-standart content in Post panel.

normally  in the edit page in the Post panel appears all the posts created with and without writepanels, with this option we can only display the posts created without write panels.

Tooltip feature.

Sometimes can be confused for the clients knows  for what is each custom field in the write panel now we can add a message and this will be appear as a tooltip in our custom field page.

We want say thanks.

In this last month many people help us to improve   Magic Fields and we want say thanks to them

• Jeff Minard: Helped us adding new features and fixing bugs.
• Michael Bayard: For the Magics Field Logo.
• Carlos Mendoza: For the new help text feature.
• Doc4: For the Condense Menu mode.
• Sascha Schwartz:  Donation
• Dan Armstrong: Donation

Giving Support to Wordpress MU.

In this  release we wanted add support to Wordpress MU unfortunately we can’t finish to test in deep the support for Wordpress Mu, but we has a beta version, if you has time to help us, please download this package and test it

Any  bug to you found it let us know in the  support group.

You can download the beta version here: Magicfields-wpmu-beta

Hi Folks.

Edgar wrote a script for  migrating from the last version of flutter (v1.0 or v 1.1)  to magic fields (v 1.1).

You can download the script from here:

http://gist.github.com/198537

or from here:

http://magicfields.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/migra.txt

How use it.

Just follow the next steps:

Download the script here you have a raw version.

Make a backup of your database (for any unexpected bug).

Unactive flutter

Put the script in your parent folder (where you has the wp-config.php and all these stuff)

Rename the script from migra.txt to migra.php

Enter to  http://yoursite.tld/migra.php

And its all,  this script change all reference from flutter to magic fields.

Change the name of your  folder  files_flutter to files_mf

Put the Magic fields plugin in your plugins folder.

In your admin area active Magic Fields.

And its done.

UPDATE:

for the version 1.2 of Magic Fields uses this script. http://gist.github.com/227581

UPDATE:

for the version 1.3 of Magic Fields uses this script. http://gist.github.com/284805

In these release we continue focus in make Magic Fields more stable and lightweight.

Files like prototype,jquery and jquery.ui.core.js already exists in wordpress and was removed of the magic fields.

We started to take in account the performance in the frontend and was reduced the queries in a 30% when is called any custom field value. this is not enough but is a start.

Now the datepicker used in the date custom field is the jquery’s date picker, in this way we use the jquery, jquery-ui to already has wordpress and was removed ~700 lines of code with this change.

Was added a feature for the functions used in the frontend (get,get_image and get_audio) for we can used it outside of the loop.

Download  Magic fields 1.1

more detailed list of changes below.

Change Log:

• Remove a bunch of obsolete files and Code
• Fix bug #172 of flutter’s tracker (http://bit.ly/4iQf95) thanks to Pixelate
• Fix issue related with the Listbox field type
• 30% less queries in the functions of front-end [get, get_image, get_audio]
• Fix bug #185 of flutter’s tracker (http://bit.ly/kcOPb)
• Fix bug #201 of flutter’s tracker (http://bit.ly/UAeEz)
• Fix of some paths for works fine at windows server.
• Adding a new function called gen_image ( more info about how use it, soon)
• Removing all the short-tags of php.
• Now is used the jquery ui datepicker for the Date custom field
• Now you can use getimage, getaudio, and gen_image outside of the loop. ( more info soon )
• Fix some issues related with the import/export of writepanels.
• Fix the uninstall proccess.
• Little fix in the Edit In Place editor.
• Fix in Assing Custom Write panel.

In Magic Fields, there are 12 types of “fields”. Below is a detailed explanation of each “field” and how to use them in Wordpress.

Please note that the code used to display each “MagicField” must be inside one of the Wordpress loops. E.g. In the default theme, “the_content();” is displayed within the “single.php” file – please see the image below:

Textbox.

Usage:

Return:  String.

Multiline.

For this field, the same filters used for “the_content();” may be applied using “shortcode“. Please see the images below:

Usage:

Return: String.

Checkbox.

Usage:

Return: Bool.

Checkbox List

Usage :

Return: Array

DropDown List

Usage:

Return: String

ListBox

Usage:

Return: Array

Images

Usage:

Return: String

Date

Usage:

Return: String. (Return the date in the same format  to was selected when was created the custom field, actually exists 8 differents formats of dates)

Audio

Usage:

Color Picker

Usage:

Return : String  (hexadecimal number of the Color )

Slider

Usage:

Return: String.

Edgar the last night create a google group for give support of magic fields. Please if you have some doubt,suggestion or your need support don’t hesitate to publish a message.

The  google group is:

http://groups.google.com/group/magic-fields

This tutorial will be explain the basic use of Magic Fields, how create write panels, how create custom fields and how print in the template.

Installing Magic Fields.

Magic Fields is installed as any wordpress plugin, you just need download from his download page, put the folder in:

wp-content/plugins

And in the admin area in the plugins section do click in the “activate” link and its all.

When you active the plugin the first thing to Magic Field ask is for create two folders, this folders are:

/wp-content/files-mf /

and

/wp-content/plugins/Magic-Fields/thirdparty/phpthumb/cache

Is enough to you create these folders and give them enough permissions for be writable by Magic Fields

Now we are on road for start to use Magic Fields!

Basic Usage

The best way to understand how Magic Fields Works is with a example, in this example i want create a portfolio of my work. So, the first thing to do is a create a category called “portfolio” and after that create our write panel and assigned the category “portfolio”

Add a new write panel

In the write panel page exists many options, this options will be explained more a detail in the future for now i just leave the options by default.

After to create the write panel I’m going to add custom fields for this write panel, for now I will create just one custom field for add the services to I gave to the client.

In this page I can choice what type of custom field I want in this case I want a textbox field, and I give the name of “services” and the Label of Services.

I don’t want to this field be required and I don’t want to this field can be duplicated. (the duplicate featured will be explain in detail in the next’s posts)

And it’s all now we can enter to the portfolio panel and now we can start to create content.

We can view our post created with our write panel in the “Manage” option.

Displaying our information in the template.

Well now we need display the information to be added in our template, for that Magic Fields give us a little api for this. Lets go.

In our single.php file we can add this:

And it’s all.

Now if we visit the post we will see the information to we put in the services field.

Exists many more things to we can do with Magic Fields, in the next’s posts I will talk about the differents types of fields.