I released WP Responder v4.9 last week.  And it has been one swell week ever since. Since I released the version 4.9 of WP Responder last weekend I have found many more bugs. Please read on.

Plugin Directory Name Mayhem

I was very optimistic and very happy with the WP Responder release I made last week. Little did I realize the number of bugs that were in the release as a result of the unforeseen directory name. You see, I wanted to make sure that those who wanted the plugin will be able to find it without any difficulty so I choose a really long name that is very descriptive of the plugin’s features.

Last year when I started making this plugin I implemented many features counting on the plugin being stored in:

 /wp-content/plugins/wpresponder/

When submitting the plugin to the WordPress directory I used the really long name. They replaced the spaces with hyphens and made that the directory name when creating the SVN check in account. That is not the only problem in this plugin. The WordPress MU installations may not use the above mentioned path for the plugin directory.

Drag And Drop Of Widgets Interface Fail

The drag and drop widgets interface are found to not work when WP Responder 4.9 is enabled. This is because jQuery UI seems to get loaded into the page when it is not required causing a clash. I have removed this bug in the upcoming version.

The solution for the time being:

1. Deactivate WP Responder.
2. Use the plugins interface to modify the widget layout
3. Reactivate WP Responder

Other Known Bugs Are:

1. Preview email button doesn’t work – The preview email button in the New Broadcast page will not work as a result of the plugin name mismatch
2. Customization of recipients doesn’t  not work – Again because of the plugin directory name mismatch.
3. Images in the WP Responder dashboard will not load – ditto.
4. Deletion of a mailout will not work – Once you create a email mailout you will not be able to delete it. Same reason as above.
5. Import/Export Subscribers – Import and Export of subscribers will not work.
6. Some Short Codes On The New Post Page Don’t Work – The [!delivery_date!], [!post_url!] , [!post_date!] short codes do not work.
7. Activation Errors: You will see a message mentioning that the plugin generated 2096 characters of unexpected output.
8. Unsubscription doesn’t work – The unubscription and subscription management URL in email broadcasts and the other outgoing email will not work as it points to a URL that doesn’t exist. Readers will not be able to unsubscribe.
9. Subscription Confirmed e-mail doesn’t have a unsubscription link – When newsletter subscribers verify their email address, the email that is sent immediately on confirming th email will not have the required subscription management option.

All of these bugs will be fixed in the upcoming version.

WP Responder Works Only On PHP 5+

I received a few emails from users who have seen some basic syntax errors when activating WP Responder. These are because the plugin uses some features of PHP 5. Particularly the SwiftMailer library which is used by WP Responder to send all e-mail works only in PHP5.

WP Responder doesn’t support PHP 4.

Please get your web hosting company to upgrade your server. PHP4 is no longer actively developed. There are even many security bugs that are well known but will not be patched. The core PHP project members have stopped working on PHP 4.

What Have I Learnt From All This?

1. To use subversion. A plugin developer gets this for free in the WordPress repository.
2. Do not hard code the path to the plugin.

What is coming up?

1. WP Responder 4.9.1 will be released in this weekend
2. A new website will be available at WPResponder.com

I am working on it

You can rest assured that I am identifying the problems in the plugin and am removing them. Instead of making a hasty release with a whole new set of bugs to remove, I am working on making the next one a stable release. For now I am working on removing the bugs in the existing features before moving on to implement new ones. So the next version will not have any new feature. Nevertheless I am sure you are eager to start using the WP Responder plugin even with its current feature set.

Stay tuned!