New Release: SNAP for WordPress Version 3.1.0

SNAP for WordPress Version 3.1 has been released.

* New – WordPress 3.8 Compatibility
* New – New Ajax based settings page – 7 times lighter and faster.
* New – Filter autoposting by tags and custom taxonomies.
* New – Ability to set all posts “Enabled/Disabled for repost” according to the Categories/Tags/Custom Taxonomies filters
* Improvement – Performance/compatibility improvement with latest LastPass extension.
* Improvement – Better compatibility with SSL.
* Improvement/Bug Fix – HTML tags and shortcodes are now removed from Facebook attached titles.
* Improvement/Bug Fix – Compatibility with new LinkedIn security feature “We just sent you the code”.

More about New Features:

(more…)

New non-numeric “custom” URLs for Google+ pages.

Google is actively rolling out non-numeric “custom” URLs for it’s users and pages.

yes, we’ve got one too: http://google.com/+Nextscripts

This +NextScripts is not our page ID and it cannot be used in our API.

Here is how to get the numeric page ID:

1. Login to your account, go to “pages” and select your page.

2. You will see the front of your page with the new URL. Click “Manage this page” button.

3. You will get to the dashboard and dashboard will show the numeric ID in the URL.

Alternately you can just click “Manage this page” right from the pages selection.

New Release: Version 3.0.4

The long awaited version 3 has been released.

* New – Major release with a lot of new and improved features.
* New – Auto-repost existing and already posted posts based on some rules – one-by-one from old to new, one-by-one from new to old, from specific dates, “older then N days and younger then X days”.
* New – Add auto-posts to the query that will be posted according to some specified rules (like “two posts per hour”)
* New – Select what image to use for “Image” and “Attachment” post types if post has several images
* New – Custom URL for posts
* New – Reset all Settings for existing posts.
* New – Extended debug info.
* New – Ability to send errors by email.
* New – New Option – How to handle spaces in hashtags.
* Improvement – Comments import has been completely redone. Disqus and usernames should be correct now.
* Improvement – Code was optimized for lighter footprint
* New – App.net Support
* New – Reddit Support
* New – Deviantart Support

(more…)

Facebook new [bigger] shared link thumbnail images

Facebook recently has made a change to shared link thumbnail image size. The whole layout of the share has been changed as well. The big image is now located under the text, not in the left column.

While this new layout yet to be transitioned to the regular API shares, there is a way to make this happen right now. Version 3 has an option to let Facebook decide the share info by itself using your OG tags and other info.

If you check this option and your image is up to the specifications Facebook will make your share presented in the new layout. The recommended og:image size for this feature is 1200x627px, minimum is 560x292px.

Update: Version 3.0 has been released.
Update 2 (January 2014): New layout is available to all types of Facebook shares including API shares.

If you don’t see the big thumbnail then your link doesn’t meet the Facebook requirements for big thumbnails.

There are several:

– link MUST be shared, not attached.
– page must have og: meta tags.
– og:image meta tag must be set and contain the correct image URL.
– size of the image listed in og:image meta tag should be minimum is 560x292px, recommended 1200x627px.

Live example – Embeded autoshare of this exact post:

SNAP Version 3 [Beta] Release Candidate 2 – Public Release

We have reached the point where we can offer SNAP Version 3 Beta to anyone. Product is already stable enough not to cause any major troubles. There will be no more new feature added, just some more bugfixes and then it will be released as “stable”.

First of all, thanks to all people who tested betas 1 – 6 and RC1 and provided us with valuable feedback. We made a lot of bug fixes and made some functionality changes based on your suggestions.

Now, you can take V3 Release Candidate 2 for testing. Please go to the SNAP V3 Beta download page.

New Features

New “Free” and “Pro” Features
– Auto-repost existing and already posted posts based on some rules – one-by-one from old to new, one-by-one from new to old, from specific dates, “older then N days and younger then X days”.
– Add auto-posts to the query that will be posted according to some specified rules (like “two posts per hour”)
– Select what image to use for “Image” and “Attachment” post types if post has several images
– App.net Support
– Custom URL for posts

“Pro” only Features.
– Schedule auto-post for the specific time
– Auto-repost existing random posts from from specific dates or “older then N days and younger then X days”.
– Limit random or one-by-one auto-reposting for specific days of the week and times. (like Monday-Friday from 8AM to 7PM Only)
– Reddit Support

New Release: Version 2.7.18

The new version 2.7.18 has been released.

It contains several improvements and fixes for recent changes in various social networks. Comments import issues and additional URL parameters issues has been fixed as well.

This will be the last 2.X.X release. Version 3 is almost ready.

Full list of changes since 2.7.14.

(more…)

[Version 3] Some News

We have some news.

1. Version 3 Beta 4 wasn’t as bad as Beta 3 in terms of new bugs and problems. Beta 5 will be available on Monday to all beta testers and then most probably Beta 6 will be public.

2. New Version 3 feature.

Due to many requests we have added the ability to share some different URL with autoposts.

You will be able to setup custom URL for all networks and for each one individually.

3. We set a separate blog and social networks accounts for API updates announcements.

You can always see the latest release news here: http://www.nextscripts.com/updts/

Follow any of our special accounts to stay in touch with API releases, news and updates:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NextScripts
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/nextscripts
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/114111009058659350987/posts
RSS: http://www.nextscripts.com/updts/feed/

4. One more thing. Pinterest is rolling out new interface to everyone. Old interface become obsolete and unstable. Starting with API 2.8.0 we are no longer support old Pinterest interface. Please login to your Pinterest account and accept new changes, otherwise you will be getting 502 errors.

Twitter V1 API retirement and SNAP version 2.7.15

While most of the plugin were written using new V1.1 Twitter API, one function were still partially dependent on old V1 API functionality. Twitter V1 API is now officially retired, so SNAP has stopped working for some people who were using that function.

We just released SNAP version 2.7.15. This version has all Twitter code updated to the latest V1.1 Twitter API and all functionality is working again as it suppose to. Please upgrade your plugin to this version.

[Version 3] New Features

Schedule auto-posts for the specific time

You can set a specific time when the post will go to the configured social network. This feature expands the existing “delayed postings” functionality.

Please see more info here: Schedule auto-posts for the specific time

Auto-repost existing and already posted posts based on some rules (one-by-one, random, from specific days, etc..)

This is actually two features in one.
1. You can use it to import all your existing posts one by one on specific schedule.
2. You can use it to recycle your old posts by reposting them (randomly or one by one) to your social accounts.

Please see more info and instructions here: Old Posts Auto-Reposting

Add auto-posts to the query that will be posted according to some specified rules (like “two posts per hour”)

This will be useful if you import RSS or other feeds to your site. Your posts are imported all at once, but will go social networks one by one with specified intervals.

Select what image to use for “Image” and “Attachment” post types if post has several images

You can select what image to use for autoposting if your post has several.

Short video demo of auto-posting to Google+ with selected images. Video shows that image selection is working for both “Image Posts” and for thumbnails for “Text Posts with “attached” blogpost”

New Networks

App.net, Reddit and deviantart.com will be added.

Demos:
https://alpha.app.net/nextscripts
http://www.reddit.com/r/NextScripts/
http://nextscripts.deviantart.com/journal/

Release Date

Version 3 will be released once we finish beta testing and work out all bugs.

Beta number 4 will be sent out next week. We will be taking more people for it. If you recently requested to become a beta tester, you should get it. If not you can still request it here: http://www.nextscripts.com/version-3-beta/

New Release: Version 2.7.14

The new version 2.7.14 has been released.

It contains some improvements like support for Categories for  Google+ Community Pages, Facebook Secret Groups,  many bugfixes and new security model. This version adds an ability to skip the check for user privileges as well as an ability to allow users to autopost without seeing to changing any options. This change  makes a possibility to resolve the issues caused by previous security fix.

Full list of changes.

(more…)

Version 2.7.13 – Security fix caused some troubles.

The latest 2.7.13 release caused some troubles.

Let us explain what happened.

Administrators can give or not give the rights to autopost to specific user groups. That feature had a security hole that was allowing users who has no rights to autopost still do that. That was fixed in the latest version. We won’t unfix it or roll it back. That was a real security problem and it was causing real troubles.

If you are getting “User ID XXX can’t autopost” errors please go to the settings tab and give the user group where user with ID XXX rights to autopost.

However this fix backfired to users who were using that security hole as feature.

Examples:

– WordPress used as classifieds website. Visitors submit posts from frontend.

– Administrator doesn’t want contributors or authors to change autoposting settings, but still want their posts to be autoposted to all configured networks.

– All posts are imported by some automation plugin. That plugin is not brilliantly written and it inserts all posts using hard-coded user id #1. Website doesn’t even have the user with ID 1, so the result is “User ID 1 can’t autopost” error.

We will re-think our security model and might add another privilege, so some user groups will autopost without seeing or being able to make any changes to the settings. We also might add the ability to skip this whole security model and use plugin without any restrictions (as it was before the fix).

UPDATE: Version 2.7.14 has an ability to skip the check for user privileges as well as an ability to allow users to autopost without seeing to changing any options.

[Version 3] New Features – Autopost Image Selection

Note: This is upcoming version 3 functionality. It’s not available in the current 2.x.x version.

New field on “New Post”/”Edit Post” page – “Image(s) to use”.

Default is “Auto” which make plugin select image automatically. Plugin will take featured image from the post. If there is no featured image it will take the first image from the post body. If your post body has no images it will take the specified default image.

Uncheck “Auto” and plugin will show the grid of images from your current post. You can select the image that will be autoposted to your account.

Version 3 is coming soon, you can request to become an early beta-tester here

NextScripts API: New Social Network – Reddit

Many people mentioned in the comments to the previous post, that Reddit allows you to post your own links to your own subreddits.

Well, we have heard you and the next version of the SNAP will support autoposting to Reddit.

You can check out our subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/NextScripts/

Digg and Reddit

We are getting a lot of requests to add Digg and Reddit to our list of supported networks.

1. Digg. As you may notice old Digg (that allowed anyone to share links) is not here anymore. New Digg it still undergoing development and has no API and no way to submit new links using their own accounts. They don’t even allow their accounts to be created yet. We are monitoring the development, and we may consider adding it as soon as their system allow it in any way.

2. Reddit. Technically we can add reddit, but it’s basically useless. Reddit does not allow you to post your own links (and they force this policy):

http://www.reddit.com/wiki/faq

What constitutes spam?

If your contribution to reddit consists mostly of submitting links to a site(s) that you own or otherwise benefit from in some way, and additionally if you do not participate in discussion, or reply to peoples questions, regardless of how many upvotes your submissions get, you are a spammer. *****If over 10% of your submissions are your own site/content, you’re almost certainly a spammer.*****

Update: Reddit actually allows autoposting to your own subreddits, so next version will be able to autopost to Reddit

.

We are going into the “all hands” development mode for the next two weeks

We are going into the “all hands” development mode starting tomorrow an going till the Apr 15. We will be making version 3.0. We want to reinvent the SNAP for the third time and make it faster, simpler and more efficient. We will also add a lot of cool features in a process.

Some of the features we are considering:

Ability to scheduled auto-posts for the specific time.
Ability to add auto-posts to the query that will be posted according to some specified rules (like “two posts per hour”).
Ability to auto-post already existing posts
Ability to auto-repost existing and already posted posts based on some rules (one-by-one, random, from specific days, etc..)
Ability to make multi-image posts to Facebook and Google+
Ability to select what image to use for “Image” and “Attachment” post types if post has several images
Support for each user to be able to setup and autopost to his/her own accounts

Important notice: We will concentrate on development and we will be much less available for support during this time. The current version 2.7.8 is very stable, has been thoroughly tested and has no major bugs. 85% of support tickets we are getting now are already answered in the FAQ. Please check the FAQ page, installation instructions, “Pro” update instructions and contact us only if you don;t find the answer there. Although response time will be much longer then usual.

Important notice #2: Our plugin comes with free upgrades for lifetime. Version 3.0 will be free upgrade. All settings and configured networks from previous versions will be auto-imported to 3.0 without any actions from you.

Twitter: “Status contains malware” problem.

Twitter has blocked the whole gd.is URL Shortener. Please switch to some other URL shortener until that resolved. You can also upgrade to version 2.7.5 it has goo.gl as new default URL Shortener

Google+ New Interface – How to distinguish profile from business page

Google recently changed Google+ design a little bit and as part of it the “Page” icon has been removed from the business pages. While now profiles and business pages look almost exactly the same, there is still a way to tell the difference.

Please look at the top right corner under the cover image. If you see “Start a hangout” icon you are on the profile, if you see “Share this page” icon you are on the business page.

New Release: Version 2.7.4

The new version 2.7.4 has been released.

It contain very important fix resolving the “Duplicate Posts” problem. Please install this upgrade if you are getting duplicates or if you missing some posts.
Release also adds support for use of featured images from Yet Another Photoblog (YAPB) plugin. Several other bugs have been fixed as well.

Full list of changes.

= 2.7.4 [03/12/2013] =

* New – Support for images from Yet Another Photoblog(YAPB) Plugin.
* Improvement – Pinterest will recognize entered price.
* Improvement – VK – video attachments. (Pro Only)
* Improvement/Bug Fix – Changed/Improved the way of finding images in posts
* Improvement/Bug Fix – Title template for LinkedIn Groups
* Improvement/Bug Fix – Perfomance and Duplicate handling improvements
* Bug Fix – Duplicate posts issue.
* Bug Fix – Sometimes “Individual Category Selection” checkboxes were ignored
* Bug Fix – Broken VK Image posts.
* Bug Fix – Twitter Error – in_array() expects parameter 2 to be array

= 2.7.3 [03/06/2013] =

* New – New network “YouTube” (Comes with Google+ API Only)
* Improvement/Bug Fix – Better Duplicate handling.
* Bug Fix – vk.com “Access Denied” errors
* Bug Fix – Blogger removing some letters from the posts
* Bug Fix – %HTAGS% tag was not working for some networks

New Release: Version 2.7.2

The new version 2.7.2 has been released. It has better settings page interface, FriendFeed support, ability “Spin” message post templates, support for goo.gl and YOURLS URL shorteners and many other improvements and bug fixes.

Main Improvements:

New network: “FriendFeed”.
Ability to “Spin” message post templates.
New template tag %ANNOUNCE% Inserts the text till the <!–more–> tag or first N words of the post.
New Pinterest interface support.
New Twitter length of the URLs is now supported.
Includes post tags with tags for LiveJournal/Dreamwidth.
Woocommerce product tags supported for %TAGS% and %HTAGS%.
Ability to use “Custom Fields” %CF-CustomFieldName% in autoposter message templates.
Support for YOURLS URL Shortener.
Support for goo.gl URL Shortener.
Better interface for “Settings” tab.

Full list of changes.

= 2.7.2 [02/28/2013] =

* Improvement/Bug Fix – New Pinterest interface suppport.
* Improvement – Post with tags for LiveJournal/Dreamwidth
* Improvement – WordPress to WordPress posts will include “Excerpt” as well.
* Bug fix – WPMU – Accounts loosing selected mode.
* Bug fix – Twitter – “Your Message is too long” problem caused by Twitter increasing URL length from 20 to 22 characters.
* Bug fix – LinkedIn – Posts were not attaching when posting to LinkedIn Groups.
* Bug fix – Incorrect skipping of individual categories selection for automated (non-human) posts

= 2.7.1 [02/26/2013] =

* New – New network “FriendFeed”
* Improvement – Indicators that some networks have excluded categories.
* Improvement – Woocommerce product tags supported for %TAGS% and %HTAGS%.
* Bug fix – Broken checkboxes in “Post Edit”
* Bug fix – Tumblr Post URLs
* Bug fix – Broken %ANNOUNCE% tag
* Bug fix – Blogger line breaks.
* Bug fix – Some issues potentialy causing duplicates.
* Bug fix – Blogger line breaks.
* Bug fix – Warning: _() expects exactly 1 fixed
* Bug fix – vk.com connection error

= 2.7.0 [02/23/2013] =

* New – Ability to auto-import “Replies” and “Mentions” from Twitter and post them as WP Comments
* New – Ability to use “Custom Fields” %CF-CustomFieldName% in autoposter message templates.
* New – New template tag %ANNOUNCE% Inserts the text till the <!–more–> tag or first N words of the post.
* New – Ability to “Spin” message post templates.
* New – Support for YOURLS URL Shortener.
* New – Support for goo.gl URL Shortener.
* Improvement – Better interface for “Settings” tab
* Improvement – Tumblr include categories as tags
* Improvement – More clear and understandable log
* Improvement – All “Message Format” fields are now multirow fields.
* Improvement – no _ in hashtags anymore
* Improvement – Featured image custom field could be an array
* Improvement/Bug Fix – additional protection against magic quotes.
* Bug fix – Stumbleupon category selection.
* Bug fix – Twitter characters limit when %TEXT% is used.
* Bug fix – Autoposting stability improvements.
* Bug fix – Featured image location in custom field.
* Bug fix – International characters for Blogger (Free API).

New Release: Version 2.6.1

The new version 2.6.1 has been released. It has better interface, DreamWidth support, ability to auto-import comments from social networks and may other improvements and bug fixes.

1. DreamWidth. Technically DreamWidth is running on the modified LiveJournal engine, so it was logical to add a support for it. Just click “Add new Network”, select Livejournal from the list and then choose DreamWidth as the website to post

2. Import Facebook comments and post the to WordPress.

a. Go to the SNAP Settings->Other Settings and activate “Comments Import”.

b. Go to the Facebook account settings and activate this feature for each account.

Plugin will check hourly for new comments and automatically import them and add to your posts as WordPress comments. You can also click the “Import Comments” button to get them manually.

3.

Full list of changes.

= 2.6.1 [02/01/2013] =

* Bug fix – Critical bugfix for Facebook Authorization.
* Bug fix – “Import comments” interface tweaks.
* Bug fix – “Add new network” interface tweaks.

= 2.6.0 [01/31/2013] =

* New – Ability to auto-import Comments from Social Networks and post them as WP Comments (Facebook only so far)
* New/Improvement – New Settings Interface
* New – New network (kind of): DreamWidth.org – LJ Based Website
* New – Additional URL Parameters
* New/Improvement – Plugin will invoke it’s own cron in case of broken WP Cron.
* Bug fix – vKontakte – NXS API Fixed.
* Bug fix – Pinterest – fixed “board retreive” that could break the settings.
* Bug fix – Pinterest – fixed “0” board ID problem.
* Bug fix – Pinterest – fixed problem with wrong default image.
* Bug fix – Plurk – Better error handling.
* Bug fix – Fixed broken posting to selected categories only.
* Bug fix – Account assigned categories were not saved.
* Many other minor bug fixes and improvements