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Cricket Moods 3.7 is officially tagged.  It has been 13 months since the previous release.  That’s quite a development cycle, there.

This release primarily fixes compatibility with WordPress 2.6.  It includes some really old changes for WPMU compatibility that I can’t guarantee still work.  The bottom line: if you want to use Cricket Moods with WordPress 2.6, get this new version.

About a month ago Alex King discovered an “undocumented feature”¹ in Wordpress 2.6 that affects plugins like Cricket Moods.  The bug causes post metadata to be duplicated due to the addition of post revisions.  Basically, with every new revision you’ll get a duplicate set of moods.

I have hopefully fixed the issue in the 3.x branch of Cricket Moods.  I haven’t tagged a new 3.7 release of Cricket Moods because, frankly, I don’t know if these changes break anything.  I tested the changes on one Blog running WordPress 2.6.  So, before I tag and zip up a release, it’d be great if some folk² could test the new plugin.  Grab the file from the Subversion repository.

To fix any old duplicated moods, remove all moods from the affected post, save the post, add the moods again, and save the post.

1. A bug. [↩]
2. guinea pigs [↩]

… will not be called “Cricket Moods.”

I always wanted the plugin to be something for more than just moods. Sure, you can set it up to let your readers know how the weather was on that day or gauge of how bad the traffic was on the way home from work, but you could only do one or the other. You should be able to do all three: moods, weather, and traffic!

Therefore, I have decided to refactor Cricket Moods into a new plugin. I have decided on the name PostBits. Each selectable option, like a mood (“Happy”) or a weather (“Overcast”), will be called a Bit. Bits can then be sorted into categories, like Moods or Current Weather. Each category can be set to independently AutoPrint, and can have independent HTML wrappings.

At the moment, I have about a third of the work done. The core functionality of installing the plugin and printing Bits is very nearly complete. It’s currently missing a UI and the UI logic. Once it’s done, it should be pretty powerful and, hopefully, easy to use.

I’ve been sitting on Cricket Moods 3.7 since late October. I’ve had little motivation and even less time to test it. The biggest change in this upcoming release is some basic WPMU support. Most of the other changes are just minor back-end things that don’t really make an end-user difference.

There is, however, a new string that needs translation (help, tikurion!).

So, anyone that feels inclined to, please test the updated version. It particularly needs testing on WPMU installations. Thanks bunches!

I almost forgot to annouce my latest release of Cricket Moods. Changes follow:

• Now fails silently if the mood image directory does not exist.
• Fixed a silly omission in cm_list_mood_images for the manage and admin panels.
• Fix for a possible problem in the manage and admin panels that may cause some mood images to not display.
• Tried to beef up security by adding nonce and capabilities checks in various places.
• Switched out my broken JS for jquery.
• The blank mood lines will now update their mood images properly.
• Added a warning if the selected mood image directory is not readable.

Go get it and enjoy!

So, I dragged my ass out of WoW, and set up a testbed for Cricket Moods on WordPress 2.2.1. On a base install, I can’t reproduce the doubling-up-of-moods issue that some people are experiencing and have reported in the blog comments.

I need more information from you folks. Are you sure you’re running version 3.5? What other plugins are you using? What version of MySQL is your host running? Are there any relevant errors in your logs?

First of all, I’m sorry if you posted a comment and it hasn’t shown up on the site yet. I had to turn on moderation because Akismet is absolutely craptastic. Until I move back to SpamKarma, posting comments is probably not the best way to get a hold of me.

If you’re having trouble when using Cricket Moods with WP 2.2, keep in mind I have not tested at all with 2.2. It specifically says in the readme that it’s only been tested up to version 2.1.2. I simply don’t have the time to take care of this right now. If anyone wants to submit a patch that fixes the issue, I’ll be more than happy to incorporate the patch, give them credit, and release a new version.

Until then, I apologize.

(Having been written on April first, this is, of course, a joke. I was hoping for something more than one weird pingback. No one loves me… Well, okay, Mr. Biech loves me.)

I have just released Cricket Moods version seven point oh! I think you’ll enjoy the changes I’ve made in this version:

• The main portion of the plugin is now developed in Visual Basic .NET.
• Smilies are now required to be flash animations, allowing for a greater degree of flexibility and “wow! factor.”
• Interfaces with a database of moods contributed by thousands of users across the globe.
• Smilies can now be uploaded directly from your browser (requires Internet Explorer 7 and installation of ad-supported browser toolbar; Firefox, Safari, Opera support soon!).

In order to maintain a higher quality product, Cricket Moods is now a closed-source commercially supported plugin. A license key is now required in order to use the plugin. Personal licenses can be purchased for as low as five US Dollars. Thanks for your support!

Cricket Moods 3.5 is an update to fix a rather serious issue when used with WordPress 2.1.x (it may also affect WordPress 2.0.x, not sure). Submission of a comment to a post will cause that post’s moods to disappear. This was caused by changes in the WordPress codebase that I did not anticipate. The full changelog:

• Removed redundant cm_update_post_moods action hook (this may make it incompatible with WP < 2.1.2).
• Added sanity check to make sure that moods were supposed to be POSTed before trying to act on those moods (thanks Jana! <jana AT janasjibberish DOT c o m>).
• Sanitized the output of the Image Directory on the options panel.

I haven’t had a chance to thoroughly test with WordPress 2.0.x, so those users should tread lightly. I’d appreciate it if anyone could test that for me.

I have recently updated Cricket Moods to allow the plugin to be translated into other languages. I would be absolutely ecstatic if anyone wanted to attempt such a translation.

If you’re not sure where to start, the WordPress Codex has a decent article on the process. The translation template (POT) file for Cricket Moods can be found in the wp-plugins.org subversion repository.

I won’t officially release the new localizable version of Cricket Moods until I have at least one complete translation, since it would be pointless to otherwise. It is, however, available on the subversion trunk if you’d like to have it.

Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.