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2.9.0 – Equitable Erudition

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Updated

Changelog

Courage is found in unlikely places – J.R.R. Tolkien

Release date:

  • 25th March 2017

Summarized:

  • This update focuses on fixing bugs and expanding the API for developers.
  • To expand the API for per page (in-post) SEO settings, tabs had to be added in the SEO settings metabox.
  • The JavaScript code has also been overhauled to improve performance and allow third party implementation.
  • Moreover, the home page settings now allow you to upload a social image.
  • Structured data markup has also been improved, like the inclusion of an alternative Sitename and fixes for Breadcrumb images.
  • The sitemap can now include the blog page. The lastmod value of which listens to multiple pages to automatically determines what’s best.
  • Unfortunately, Twitter has removed support for photo cards. This update makes sure that the regarding settings correctly convert to the current format.

Only one week left for the earliest of early-bird discounts:

Survey:

  • After updating, please fill in our Update Survey: tell us what you like or can be done better.

For everyone: Tabbed In-post SEO layout

  • This release brings tabbed layout to the in-post SEO settings.
  • With this change I’ve also altered the overall looks, with the help from Daniel.
  • This layout allows extensions from the Extension Manager to be implemented much easier.
  • This layout is self-responsive! This means it’s not dependent on the browser-size, but on how much content will fit.
  • This layout therefore allows the SEO settings to be placed in the right sidebar! Take a look at the new screenshots.

For everyone: Browser support

  • This release brings CSS Flexbox to the new in-post SEO settings metabox.
  • The flexbox module is still experimental, in a way that not all browsers correctly support this to the fullest extend.
  • However, support for as many browsers feasible has been implemented. Check out the list. Enjoy!
  • The gist is that Chrome, Firefox, IE10 and Safari 6 or later are supported.

SEO Tip of the Update – Trust in layout

  • Is your website glitchy and has placeholder images, unmatched colors or weirdly contrasting borders all over the place?
  • Consider going for a more modern and clean layout. Strip out what isn’t necessary. A clean layout implies professionalism and increases visitors’ trust.
  • Even if you’re just starting out with your website, remove all that could be but really isn’t. Because if you leave in placeholders for the future, it implies amateurism.
  • People want their truth to be confirmed or their problems to be solved. If you can’t confirm or solve the layout of your website, then they won’t trust you to do so for their issues.
  • Simply put: It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just must be done.

Browser Support:

  • Confirmed browser support:
    • Internet Explorer (Trident):
      • IE11 (glitchy on resize, but fine at all other times)
      • IE10 (leave page bug, wont-fix — support is not maintained)
    • Edge (EdgeHTML):
      • Edge 14
      • Edge 13
      • Edge 12 or lower unconfirmed
    • Safari (Webkit):
      • Safari 10
      • Safari 9.1
      • Safari 8
      • Safari 7.1
      • Safari 6.2
    • iOS (Webkit):
      • iOS 9+ Chrome/Safari
      • iOS 7+ Chrome/Safari (box shadow glitch on menu, wont-fix as it’s extremely minor)
    • Chrome (Blink):
      • Chrome 57 (dev)
      • Chrome 49+,
      • Chrome 48 or lower unconfirmed
    • Android (Webkit/Blink):
      • Android 4.4+ (Chrome Blink)
      • Android 4.3+ (Chrome WebKit)
      • Android 4.2 or lower unconfirmed
    • Firefox (Gecko):
      • Firefox 54 (dev)
      • Firefox 45+ (displays menu callouts in wrap, as was originally intended)
      • Firefox 44 or lower unconfirmed
    • Opera (Blink):
      • Opera 44
      • Opera 35+
      • Opera 34 or lower unconfirmed
    • Yandex (Blink):
      • Yandex 14.12
      • Yandex 14.11 or lower unconfirmed
  • Confirmed not to work:
    • IE9 or lower
    • iOS 6 or lower
    • Safari 5 or lower

Detailed log:

It is some miles, but it will shorten your journey tomorrow.

  • For everyone:
    • Added:
      • The inpost SEO settings are now divided in tabs.
        • This allows me to add more options in the near future, either through this plugin or even extensions.
        • Stay tuned on its enhanced implementation!
      • Schema.org sitename alternateName output.
        • This name is now also considered by Google.
        • This name is only set if the Organization or Personal Name option is filled in and when it’s not identical to the site name.
      • The home page has a new tab: Social Settings.
        • In which you can set your favorite social image.
        • This image is used on Open Graph, Twitter and Schema metadata.
    • Improved:
      • Post overview SEO Bar data rendering is a lot lighter now.
      • Breadcrumbs have been improved:
        • Breadcrumb images are no longer output when there’s none present in the crumb.
          • Breadcrumbs’ cache isn’t invalidated, because this wasn’t incorrect nor does it change the behavior; the output is just cleaner.
          • Its presence used to be required (a few months ago), this is no longer the case.
          • As stated various times: Schema.org usage is under heavy development and I’m trying my best to keep up.
          • Breadcrumbs no longer use fallback images, only set page/post images.
          • Breadcrumbs’ cache isn’t invalidated, because this doesn’t change the current usage behavior.
          • Parent pages’ breadcrumbs now output social image, when applicable.
          • The Blogpage-as-Homepage can now output a breadcrumb image, because you can now set an image in the homepage settings.
      • Navigational tabs in on the SEO settings page now quickly fade, rather than “instantly” change.
        • This subtly initiates a guided focus and hints you subconsciously to what has changed. Yes, TSF invades your mind.
      • When you use browser navigation (go back/forward), the navigational tabs are now corresponding to the previous selection.
        • Yes, this is glitchy because browsers are slow, but it’s not common for this to happen.
        • No, this can’t work on the new In-post tabs. Because WordPress resets all radio buttons on navigation.
      • The “homepage as blog” page can now be included in the sitemap, when present.
      • When the homepage is a blog, and a new post has been posted; the sitemap lastmod entry for the homepage now also updates for its publishing time.
      • The blogpage now outputs the lastmod date as either the latest post publishing time, or the latest blog page update; whichever was most recent.
    • Changed:
      • Redesigned In-Post SEO Settings layout. Thank you Daniel!
      • A source link is no longer generated on feed entries without content.
      • The social image selection buttons have been moved below the bound text input.
      • Contributors (capability: edit_posts) can now select their own counter type, rather than only Authors (capability: publish_posts) and above.
    • Removed:
      • Twitter photo card. This has been deprecated and has been replaced with summary_large_image.
        • All related options and outputs have been updated.
        • When updating the plugin the upgrade handler will scan for the photo card option, and will change it to summar_large_image if it’s photo.
    • Fixed:
      • Authors (capability: upload_files) and above can now crop social images, rather than only Administrators (capability: customize) and above.
      • The terms and taxonomies SEO bar now correctly display the robots values again.
      • When emptying the Home Page Custom title, the Additions are now correctly updated once again.
      • The feed excerpt generation and original content link generation work again.
        • The call was misplaced. Sorry about that!
      • When emptying the floating title (while it’s being on the right), the placeholder no longer jumps or animates.
      • When the Home Page Settings metabox is closed on load, the dynamic placeholder is now no longer stacked when opened.
      • When you switch between other tabs and the General tab in the Home Page Settings metabox, the “are you sure you want to leave” is no longer triggered by accident.
      • When the In-post SEO Settings metabox is closed on load, the dynamic placeholder is now no longer stacked when opened.
      • When moving your mouse up fast over The SEO Bar, some tooltips could’ve possibly hung.
      • When on mobile, when you tap on a second or later SEO Bar while the first bar was hidden from visibility, the arrow could’ve been moved off-tap when the first entry was closed.
      • RTL: When Title additions have been set to “Right”, the indentation of the title no longer shifts all the way to the left.
      • RTL: The Dynamic Title for the home page was reversed.
      • bbPress topic tags now (mostly) output the correct data.
      • Some options were incorrectly set to default upon plugin update.
        • This has been handled correctly, so you won’t notice anything from this bug upon upgrade.
      • With WPMUdev Domain Mapping, when no scheme has been preferred in mapping selection, the SEO settings preferred scheme now kicks in.
      • The preferred URL scheme selection now works, rather than always detecting it automatically. Sorry for that!
      • Social Image selection labels now correctly focus on the input field when clicked.
      • 301 redirect labels now correctly focus on the input field when clicked.
      • The floating title placeholder’s offset is now perfectly calculated and no longer uses the padding of the input box, but an actual typographic space instead.
      • The floating title placeholder is now also correctly recalculated on resize.
      • The sitemap location URLs are now correct on subdirectory installations.
        • This now makes pinging of the sitemap work on those installations too.
      • The robots.txt file isn’t generated on subdirectory installations. This is intended, and the link has now been omitted from the settings.
      • The homepage noindex option is now also considered for its sitemap entry addition.
  • For translators:
    • Updated:
      • POT translation file.
    • Changed:
      • “Adding a backlink below the feed’s content will also let the visitors know where the content came from.”
        • Now is: “Adding a backlink below the feed entries will also let the visitors know where the content came from.”
        • Clarity: A feed is a list; a feed entry is a part.
      • “Convert feed content into excerpts?”
        • Now is: “Convert feed entries into excerpts?”
        • Clarity: A feed is a list; a feed entry is a part.
      • “Add backlinks below the feed content?”
        • Now is: “Add link to source below the feed content?”
        • Vague: Backlinks are an SEO term (which the option doesn’t affect), rather than a literally implied thing (which it actually is).
      • “The shortlink tag might have some use for 3rd party service discoverability, but it has little to no SEO value whatsoever.”
        • Now is: “The shortlink tag can be manually used for microblogging services like Twitter, but it has no SEO value whatsoever.”
        • Vague: Even I couldn’t explain it. Also, no prominently known services use the tag (anymore).
        • Altered: Added the word “manually”, because you’re better off manually copying it from the source code for shortening the URL; e.g. for Twitter.
        • Altered: “little to no” now is “no”, because it really has no SEO value.
      • “A social image can be displayed when your website is shared. They are a great way to grab attention.”
        • Now is: “A social image can be displayed when your website is shared. It is a great way to grab attention.””
        • Grammar: It’s one image.
      • “Start The Seo Framework” / “End The Seo Framework”
        • Now is: “Start The SEO Framework” and “End The SEO Framework”.
        • Typo: “Seo” should’ve been SEO.
      • “Another robots.txt sitemap location addition has been detected.”
        • Now is: Another robots.txt sitemap Location addition has been detected.
        • Ugly capitalization: I tend to add capitalization on words that carry the most important subject at hand. This should be done differently in the future.
        • More of these fixes will take place in the future.
  • For developers:
    • Added:
      • (JavaScript) A triggered event after The SEO Framework’s jQuery code has been initiatlized on document.body: tsf-ready.
      • (JavaScript) A triggered event after an SEO settings tab has been toggled and when the content is visible (i.e. display:block;) on the tab’s radio button: tsf-tab-toggled.
      • (JavaScript) A triggered event after an in-post SEO settings tab has been toggled and when the content is visible (i.e. display:flex;) on the tab’s radio button: tsf-flex-tab-toggled.
      • (JavaScript) A triggered event that runs on any call that can affect the flexbox’ size, like window resize, or admin menu collapse: tsf-flex-resize. Only runs when tsf-flex is found.
      • (JavaScript) A new object parameter: nonces, this replaces nonce (which still exists) and can be easily expanded in the future for enhanced security. A few defaults are automatically set for currently used roles.
      • Method do_redirect(). Only use this on action template_redirect.
      • Method update_option, allows for easily updating single SEO options. Use update_settings if you wish to update multiple option values at once.
      • Method delete_object_cache, allows for easily deleting The SEO Framework object cache.
        • This has been disabled for now. See issue 104.
      • Method get_image() now has a new argument for the second parameter: skip_fallback. Useful in some scenarios.
    • Improved:
      • (JavaScript) tsf.dynamicPlaceholderOnLoad has been removed and is no longer called. It caused a duplicated method call.
        • It has been removed from the protected externs file too.
      • A doing it wrong notice is now displayed when a query-capable method is called too early, which is therefore error-prone.
        • All internal methods that did it wrong have been adjusted accordingly.
        • This is mainly added for internal debugging purposes, but might eliminate external plugin errors.
    • Removed:
      • Method init_feed(), it’s now _init_feed_output() and is now marked private.
      • Method custom_field_redirect(), it’s now _init_custom_field_redirect() and is now marked private.
      • Deprecation handler of method reparse_image_args(), introduced in 2.5.0
    • Changed:
      • Method delete_main_cache() now flushes SEO Meta object cache too.
        • This has been disabled for now. See issue 104.
      • Method get_warned_site_options() no longer returns non-warned settings keys. This reduces plugin memory usage.
      • Method get_image() parameters have been changed.
        • First parameter is now used for arguments.
        • Second parameter is now deprecated.
        • Backwards compatibility has been put in placed with a “doing it wrong” notice.
        • Warning: Method has been deprecated.
      • Method get_social_image_url_from_post_meta()
        1. It no longer checks for fallback page ID.
        2. The first parameter is now required.
      • Method get_image_from_post_thumbnail() no longer checks for fallback page ID.
      • Method parse_og_image() now has a third parameter: $set_og_dimensions, whether to set OG image dimensions for output, default false.
    • Deprecated:
      • Method get_image(), use get_social_image() instead.
      • Method get_image_from_post_thumbnail(), use get_social_image_from_post_thumbnail() instead.
      • Method is_front_page(), use is_real_front_page() instead.
        • Warning: The input parameter has been removed. It will check only for the current page.
        • Alternative: Use the new method is_front_page_by_id() if you wish to check only for the input ID.
        • This change has been introduced because the query would otherwise always return true on the frontpage. This way it’s split.
        • More of these query changes will be introduced in the future.
    • Fixed:
      • Method the_seo_framework()->get_social_image_url_from_post_meta() second parameter now works.
      • Method the_seo_framework()->convert_markdown() had some fixes implemented:
        • Header markdown now works (h1 to h6).
        • Numeric values 2 now no longer stops strong from working.
        • Numeric values 1 now no longer stops emphasis from working.
        • Numeric values 1 now no longer stops code from working.
    • Filter Notes:
      • Added:
        • (bool) the_seo_framework_use_breadcrumb_seo_title, determines whether to use custom SEO titles or WordPress set only.
        • (string) the_seo_framework_custom_field_description, alters the Description from custom field.
        • (string) the_seo_framework_generated_description, alters the generated Description.
        • (string) the_seo_framework_fetched_description_excerpt, alters the excerpt to use for generating a description.
        • (int) the_seo_framework_current_admin_id, allows changing of the admin query ID.
        • (array) the_seo_framework_available_twitter_cards, lists the available Twitter cards. Not index sensitive.
        • (string) the_seo_framework_metabox_context, alters the metabox screen context.
        • (array) the_seo_framework_inpost_settings_tabs, allows for in-post metabox manipulation.
      • Changed:
        • (bool|string) the_seo_framework_inpost_seo_bar no longer has effect on Singular post types.
    • Action Notes:
      • Added:
        • the_seo_framework_pre_tt_inpost_box, starting master terms/taxonomy wrapper.
        • the_seo_framework_pro_tt_inpost_box
        • the_seo_framework_pre_page_inpost_box, starting master in-post wrapper. Perfect action for adding tabs.
        • the_seo_framework_pro_page_inpost_box
        • the_seo_framework_pre_page_inpost_general_tab
        • the_seo_framework_pro_page_inpost_general_tab
        • the_seo_framework_pre_page_inpost_visibility_tab
        • the_seo_framework_pro_page_inpost_visibility_tab
        • the_seo_framework_pre_page_inpost_social_tab
        • the_seo_framework_pro_page_inpost_social_tab