We are proud to announce the release of the PixoPoint Menu plugin 0.8.x beta. The most noticeable change when you install the plugin, is a slick new tab navigation system for the admin page. However the main changes to the plugin are under the hood.

PixoPoint Menu tabs

Download

The latest download is only available from here: Download PixoPoint Menu plugin v0.8.24 beta (updated 10/6/2010)

Note: As this is only a beta release, this version of the plugin is not recommended for use on production websites.

List of changes

  • Total rewrite of the plugin
  • Checks for correct path of wp-load.php. This allows the plugin to work even when the plugin folder is moved relative to the WordPress root folder.
  • Restyled admin page
  • wp_enqueue_styles() used to load the stylesheet. This is useful for other plugins which may concatenate/compress the various CSS files used in your plugins
  • All WP Options collated and added into an array inside a few options
  • Options whitelisted for security
  • More validation checks used in the admin page for improved security
  • Some unnecessary global variables removed
  • Contants used to define URL’s and paths
  • PHP Doc comments added
  • Tabber script to jQuery version
  • Collated jqanimated scripts into single chunk of code
  • Added ‘library’ folder including common functions and legacy support
  • Added legacy support to upgrade from other/older plugins
  • Changed ‘Help’ section to read in data from PixoPoint.com. This is useful as it ensures that the same information is available on both our site and inside the plugin itself.
  • Moved “Update Options” button to inside each tab
  • Depreciated second menu functionality and added support for loading it via a plugin. Many users found the number of options in the plugin confusing, so by moving the second menu functionality to a separate plugin this problem will hopefully be reduced
  • Depreciated Superfish functionality and loaded it via a separate plugin (currently provided in the core download). This plugin will eventually only be available as a separate download. Many users don’t require the full functionality of the PixoPoint Menu plugin, so by extracting this functionality out into a separate plugin makes it more useful to a broader range of users.
  • Another animation option called “Basic” was added to the separate animations plugin.
  • And a bazillion other things we’ve forgotten to mention here

Drag and drop

Some minor bugs have been removed from the drag and drop facility, but it pretty much works the same as the original PixoPoint Menu plugin.

You can modify the menu contents via the same drag and drop method as the original PixoPoint Menu plugin

Settings Tab

Many of the users of the original PixoPoint Menu plugin found the number of settings too off-putting, so we have simplified things as much as possible for them.

The settings page is now simplified in comparison to the original PixoPoint Menu plugin.

Advanced Tab

The CSS editing area is now present in the advanced tab.

You can upload/modify your CSS directly via the 'Advanced' tab. As always, this system works well with our dropdown menu CSS generator.

PixoPoint Animations plugin

On upgrading or installing a fresh new version of the PixoPoint Menu plugin, an extra plugin called “PixoPoint Animations” will be activated. This plugin includes all of the dropdown menu animation functionality originally included in the core plugin, along with an extra option called the “Basic” animations which creates a different animation effect with slightly less code than is required for the Superfish script. This plugin will be eventually extracted and released as an entire separate download. For the mean time, it is bundled with the original plugin to ensure that upgrades go smoothly.

On upgrading, or installing a fresh installation of the plugin, a second plugin called 'PixoPoint Menu Animations' will be activated. This will eventually be available as a separate download.

Known Bugs

  • The PixoPoint Animations plugin is detected as being the PixoPoint Menu plugin and so immediately says it needs updated, except instead of updating, it gets deleted and is replaced by the original PixoPoint Menu plugin. A solution to this is being sorted on WP Tavern.

Multi-level Navigation plugin

This plugin is intended as a replacement for both the PixoPoint Menu plugin and the Multi-level Navigation plugin. If installed while the Multi-level Navigation plugin is running, it will deactivate that plugin, then transfer all of your settings (including your CSS) over to the new plugin and then clean your database of all of the old Multi-level Navigation plugin data (that plugin added lots of pointless junk to your database).

Future versions of the Multi-level Navigation plugin will automatically upgrade themselves to the new PixoPoint Menu plugin. This will not be happening until extensive testing has been undertaken to ensure there are no glitches during the upgrade process.