Archive for the ‘New Versions’ Category

Event Espresso 4 (Beta) Officially Released

Sunday, February 9th, 2014

2014-02-10_00-10-21Event Espresso 4 (Beta) is now available! This is really exciting and there is a lot we’d like to share with you!

How do I get access to EE4?

EE4 is currently available to the public for sale and is released to Event Espresso 3 users for FREE. If you purchase a EE3 Support License you will also have free access to EE4.

You can even launch your own demo site for EE4 in just a few minutes. Click here to get started with your EE4 test drive site!

Attention Bloggers – Wanna get your hands on a free copy of EE4 to review or want to do an interview? Please reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, or contact us.

 

How is EE4 different than EE3?

2014-02-10_00-06-40EE4 is very different from EE3 in more ways than we can probably list/describe/remember—so you’re going to want to check it out. In general there are several important changes to the EE4: features, user interface, data structure,  coding method and price.

Features

EE3 and EE4 have different feature sets; some features are available in EE4 that have never been available in EE3:

….and 30+ more!

User Interface

2014-02-10_00-07-23The user interface has been rebuilt to follow the new WordPress 3.8+ standard. We’ve rebuilt all the pages, added new icons, added mobile browser compatibility, optimized notifications and much more. We believe that EE4 is more elegant, easier to use and more powerful all at the same time.

Data Structure

The data structure has changed so that some event data is now custom post types (CPTs). CPTs make event-related data more available to standard WordPress functions and themes. This will make Event Espresso more accessible for both back-end (core) developers and front-end (theme) designers.

Coding Method

The coding method has changed from procedural coding to more heavily object-oriented programming. That means there are more files, but less code to do more advanced things. Experienced developers should appreciate all the work that went into this change. We believe it makes our event registration more powerful and robust, helping make your event registration experience better.

We really think you’ll like what you see—especially as you get used to EE4 and realize all the new types of events it can power. We will continue making improvements in all of these areas and look forward for what is to come.

Price

While “in Beta”, Event Espresso 4 will be discounted significantly (approx. 50%). As the EE4 matures to a “stable” development status, the price will rise. Those who purchase at this discounted rate are still entitled to 12 months of support and upgrades.

 

Screen Shots

Here are a few screen shots to show off some of the awesome new features!

2014-02-10_00-13-432014-02-10_00-23-262014-02-10_00-07-53
2014-02-10_00-18-372014-02-10_00-18-12ticket_editor
2014-02-10_00-19-152014-02-10_00-16-372014-02-10_00-17-31

Why did we spend so much time and money building Event Espresso 4?

We have sought feedback from you, the thousands of event managers and developers who rely on Event Espresso to make their events successful. Your feedback has focused on one general theme. You want Event Espresso to do more and be more stable.

It is difficult to add more features to a system that was initially designed to for a more narrow focus. As we continue to add those new features Event Espresso has become more difficult to use, setup and/or customize. The added features has also made the core code more complex and less reliable, thus the increase in bugs.

As your requirements for Event Espresso have evolved (and continue to evolve), it became clear that parts of the code have gotten too complex and must be refactored in order to support new ideas. The longer we delayed refactoring Event Espresso, and the more code is written for EE3, the more difficult it becomes to refactor Event Espresso to meet your needs today and in the future.

In short, we spent a lot of money and several years building Event Espresso 4 because we wanted to help you and your events be more successful.

 

Why did it take so long to build Event Espresso 4?

When we started building version 3.2, we didn’t anticipate that it would be such a major change. However, as we started to refactor one system we saw it necessary (and better timing) to refactor other systems. Event Espresso 4 introduces several major changes including:

  • A new user interface
  • A single page checkout
  • A new messages system
  • New transaction management
  • A new pricing management system
  • A new taxes management system
  • Custom post types for events, venues, and contacts
  • Changing our programming approach to object-oriented programming
  • and much more!

All those systems are quite interconnected and complex, so updating it took a lot of time and resources. We’re just as frustrated EE4 took as long to release as you, but we feel this decision will be the best for you in the long-run. We’re confident that we (and other developers) can build really great event registration websites on EE4 for a very long time to come.

 

What’s coming next in Event Espresso 4?

We view our roadmap in two ways: short(er)-term projects and long(er)-term projects. Our roadmap is subject to change at any time.

Our short(er)-term projects include:

  • Making EE3 add-ons compatible with EE4.
  • Promotion codes.
  • Refactoring gateways.

Our Long(er)-term projects include:

  • Integration with third-party plugins and services.
  • Advanced messages functionality.
  • Advanced registration form functionality.
  • New add-ons.
  • Event themes.
  • Continued code optimization.

As always, you’re invited to participate as developers or sponsors.

 

What’s the plan for Event Espresso 3?

EE4 beta begins the official process of phasing out EE3. Going forward, we will focus new feature development resources on EE4 and only maintenance resources to EE3. As the EE4 feature set (including add-ons) exceeds those that are currently available with EE3 we will no longer sell or support EE3.

Those who purchase a EE3 support license  also have access to the core EE4 files and we recommend that they evaluate EE4 to see if will meet your needs at this time. We have provided tools to use EE3 data in EE4 which can help you start using EE4 sooner.

The future of event registration and ticketing is with Event Espresso 4 and we hope you’ll join us today for that amazing journey.

 

Can I Use EE4 instead of EE3?

Depending on your situation you might (or might not) want to replace EE3 with EE4. In general, our recommendation hinges on: what features you require, and whether you want to use your EE3 data in EE4.

Some features are not available in EE4 that are available in EE3:

  • Coupon/Discount codes
  • Wait lists
  • Staff manager
  • Support for EE3 add-ons (see below)
None of the EE3 add-ons are compatible with EE4 at this time (but they are on our short-list). You will need to make the determination about which features your project requires and which Event Espresso version will meet your needs.

Using EE3 Data in EE4

Event Espresso 4 is ready to accept unaltered data that has been prepared by Event Espresso 3.1.36 (or greater). If you’ve not modified your EE3 database structure then you can migrate your data from EE3 to EE4. If you have modified your database structure, the migration scripts may not function properly (see below).

As a good practice, please backup your website database before migrating.

When to migrate EE3 data to EE4:

If you are using  Event Espresso version  3.1.36 (or greater) without customization that changes the data structure (e.g. additional database tables, columns, etc.) you can migrate your database from EE3 to EE4.

As a good practice, please backup your website database before migrating.

When NOT to migrate EE3 data to EE4:

We recommend NOT migrating your EE3 data to EE4 if you: have customized Event Espresso database tables or columns that weren’t included with EE3 OR are using EE3 on a multi-site installation of WordPress.

 

What is the development status of Event Espresso 4?

After years of development and months of testing, we have finished adding features (to this version) and all major bugs have been resolved. We do expect you to be able to use EE4 as if it were a stable product, with the exception that additional bugs may be identified through more extensive testing with your specific use-case. Please report any suspected bugs to the support forums. For a short period, we will be focused on fixing bugs that are found by users and that can be verified by our support staff, then release patches ASAP. After EE4 is released as a “non-Beta” product we will commence work on our development road map.

 

Reporting Bugs

We have spent, literally, thousands of hours developing, testing and debugging EE4, but undoubtedly some of you may encounter issues with EE4 while testing it in your given use-case, the plugins and themes you use, etc. Please report any unexpected behavior, error messages, or bugs to the support forums so we can keep all the requests organized and fixed as soon as possible. Please create a new thread for each issue so that it can be addressed specifically. Otherwise it might confused with other issues or missed among a lengthy discussion.

As a good practice, please backup your website database before using EE4 on the same website where you are using EE3 and before migrating.

 

Questions or Comments? Tell us what you think

Event Espresso 4 is a big step forward in the functionality and power of WordPress events plugins. We really think you’ll like what EE4 is now, what you can do with it now, and what it will become. Launch your own test drive of Event Espresso 4 in minutes and let us know what you’re thinking.

Posted in Beta, Home Page, News, New Versions, WordPress Plugins, EE4 | 45 Comments »

Online Ticketing and Event Registration You Can Trust

Friday, September 20th, 2013

Online Ticketing and Registration You Can trust

We recently heard about an unfortunate event that affected a group organizing a Christian writing workshop. The group hired an outside company to handle its online event registration, only passing along the payments to the organizers once the event was finished. Unfortunately, the registration company’s checks began to bounce, eventually leaving the workshop group short $65,000 in registration fees.

At Event Espresso we were disheartened to that one company takes advantage of a group that placed a great deal of trust in it. At the same time, this is a good opportunity for us to reiterate the flexibility and security of the Event Espresso model, and assure our customers that their confidence in us is well placed. Here are three reasons Event Espresso customers can rest easy, knowing that they have made the right choice to trust us with their online event ticketing and registration.

  1. First, our customers all receive a copy of our software for their own use. The great draw of our platform is that you get to use EE the way you want to meet your specific needs. Once you purchase your license, it’s all in your hands and we CAN’T run away with your money and you shouldn’t trust anyone who could.
  2. In addition, our fees are all handled up front in a completely transparent transaction, which means we’re not holding your registration funds at all. Instead, we partner with many of the most secure and trusted payment gateways on the Internet. You have the freedom to choose how you collect payments.
  3. We have worked with non-profit organizations from our earliest days, including religious and community groups. We understand the unique needs of the non-profit community, and in many cases we even offer discounts. If you think your event merits a discount, we invite you to fill out our Non-Profit Application form; we’ve already given away more than $20,000 in discounts to non-profits.

In short, there is one more reason Event Espresso is the premier event registration and ticketing platform around: trust. With our dedication to constant improvement, and best-in-class support, we’re helping you make the world a little better—one event at a time.

To see some of the great things our customers are saying about Event Espresso, visit our Testimonials and Reviews page.

I want to commend you on a fabulous product which is just the right price for a small non-profit. People are happy with the registration process, as are we! ...Thank you SO much for a great product.

Sandra Forero Bush

Sandra Forero Bush
World Trade Center Tacoma

Posted in Home Page, News, Events, New Versions, Tips & Tutorials | No Comments »

Event Espresso 4 Feature Showcase: Ticket Quantity, #Uses, Min and Max

Tuesday, September 17th, 2013

At Event Espresso we’re never content with what we’ve already accomplished with online event registration for WordPress. We’re always looking to make improvements so our customers can sell tickets online. There are so many significant developments coming soon to Event Espresso that we wanted to highlight some of the great changes that are on the way.

A New Ticket Selector to Control Every Option

The Ticket Selector in Event Espresso is being completely redesigned. we’ll show you the full redesign later, but just one powerful function will be the ability to control single ticket options.

Part of that redesign includes the power to control the Ticket Quantity, #Uses per Ticket, Minimum Number of Tickets and Maximum Number of Tickets.

Options Online Ticket Sales

Ticket Quantity

WordPress event managers will be able to set how many of each specific type of ticket is available. You may have only one type of ticket, or many different ticket options for attendees. You will be able to offer a limited number of, say, VIP tickets so you can give a certain number of attendees a special experience. You could also limit the number of promotional tickets that are available for sale, and so on. There are a lot of powerful things you can do with setting quantity limits to your online ticket sales.

Pro Tip: We’ll address this again later, but setting quantity limits for individual online tickets will be one form of setting seating limits for your event or venue in Event Espresso.

Number of Uses per Ticket

When you combine Number of Uses per Ticket with our mobile ticketing apps and ticketing add-on, you really become a professional event manager; you also make online event registration a breeze for your attendees. With the Number of Uses per Ticket, you can sell tickets to attendees that can be used any number of times. For example, if want to sell a ticket that will let people return to the same event twice (or more) then you can do that. You could configure your ticket sales so that attendees can reuse one ticket for all the events in your event series instead of having to print off and bring new tickets each time. This also allows you to let attendees use their ticket as a badge. On the other hand, if you want limit how many times someone can go through the food line, then you can do that too!

Pro Tip: What if you want offer unlimited access to your events or unlimited number of uses during a certain time period? Well, you’ll be able to do that too!

Minimum Number of Tickets  Allowed to Purchase

It’s obvious that attendees have to purchase at least one ticket to attend your event. But what if you wanted attendees to purchase more than one ticket? You can sell tickets online with WordPress and require that attendees purchase more than one ticket at a time. For example, if you want to sell sponsorships to your event with the  requirement that the sponsors purchase more than one ticket for their company, now you can set it up that way. What if you want to sell a family pack of tickets online and offer a discount for purchasing multiple tickets? Well, you can do that too.

Pro Tip: What if you wanted to sell tickets online with tiered pricing? You can now configure the price of each ticket to be different based on the minimum number of tickets they have to purchase. The more tickets you require, the bigger the discount. That’s awesome!

Maximum Number of Tickets Allowed to Purchase

What about the opposite situation, when you knew people would want to attend your event multiple times, but the goal of your organization was to engage with more unique individuals? Now you can specify that someone can only purchase a single (or any maximum you want) number of tickets per transaction. The Maximum Number of Tickets Allowed to Purchase also means you can specify the price of each ticket for a quantity range of tickets (e.g., purchase 5-10 tickets and the price of the ticket is $xx each; purchase 10-20 tickets and the price per ticket is only $x).

Pro Tip: Want to make it less convenient for ticket scalpers to hoard tickets? You can at least get in their way with Maximum Number of Tickets Allowed.

Are you a developer? Are you interested in having early access to Event Espresso 4 for preparing for its release? Take a look at our developer resources where you can request access to our GitHub repo and more.
All these features and more are coming soon to Event Espresso, the best registration and ticketing plugin available for WordPress. These features are in active development and could change between now and the first release. If you have an idea for a feature you’d like to see in the future, let us know! We’d love to hear from you.

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Posted in Home Page, News, Ticketing, Development, New Versions, Tips & Tutorials | 16 Comments »

Now Integrated with the Moneris Solutions Gateway

Friday, May 17th, 2013

We are pleased to announce that Event Espresso is now fully integrated with the Moneris Solutions payment gateway.

About Moneris and Event Espresso

Moneris GatewayMoneris processes more than 3 billion credit and debit card transactions a year, for over 350,000 merchant locations across North America. We have over 1,300 dedicated employees who understand transaction processing and know how to make it work for you.

Moneris touts that more businesses choose them because:

  1. Proven Expertise
  2. Industry Leadership
  3. Easy Solutions
  4. Innovation

Moneris offers 99.9% system reliability and 90-day risk free trial to cancel without penalty.

Event Espresso is the world’s most advanced event registration and ticketing plugin for WordPress. With Event Espresso you can manage your events, collect payment and customer information, create  printable tickets for attendees to bring and verify them at the door with our mobile ticketing apps and much more. Event Espresso is integrated with dozens of other payment options and merchant accounts in addition to Moneris.

The Moneris gateway is compatible with Event Espresso 3.1.32+ AND is currently only available for Canadian customers.

Event Espresso is integrated with dozens of merchant accounts where Moneris is just one of the latest. Download Event Espresso and activate Moneris today!

Posted in Home Page, News, New Versions | No Comments »

Event Espresso Plugin updates – May 2, 2013

Friday, May 3rd, 2013

Wow, we have a lot of updates going out. Don’t believe me? Check it out:

Event Espresso plugin updates

I was going to split this out into separate posts, but there’s just too much stuff. It would take a month to separate things out. Instead I’ll give you the highlight reel.

Event Espresso 3.1.32

The big new changes with Event Espresso is the database optimization. Some serious database optimization. Admin pages in this version load 200% faster, even with a lot of events or attendees. We’ve also fiddled with the event overview ordering so the stuff you want to see is in front of you, rather than having to page down to it.

There are four new gateways introduced in 3.1.32, including Google Wallet and the Canadian gateway, Moneris.

But the thing you’ll see right away is this thing:

user experience improvement program

The main reason for this is that now that we have finished the beta version of Event Espresso Arabica (which, as has been mentioned previously, is the “decaf” — or “lite” — version, with no premium gateways added) and have moved on to Event Espresso 4.1, we need to start gearing our development toward how the plugin will be best used. We have no real idea, for example, how many people are using the eWay gateway, or how many people are using 2Checkout as compared to, say, FirstData. And since there may be gateways that no one is using, we are trying to optimize our development by building the gateways that are being used most first for 4.1. In the future, this will give us information about what features you are using, so we can get an understanding of how you are using Event Espresso which will help us gear our development more toward your needs. Surveys are great, but you only get a limited number of people responding to surveys and that might not be representative of the whole picture. This will securely transmit information to our server that we can aggregate and use to directly guide the future development of the plugin. You can read more about the User eXperience Improvement Program here.

Event Espresso 3.1.33 Pre-release

A new version in the wild means a new pre-release. 3.1.33 will be a smaller release but adds three new gateways, including an Infusionsoft integration and a Quickbooks gateway. Oh, and a cool new function, espresso_get_event that can be used to get all the information for an event when passed an event_id (e.g. espresso_get_event($event_id). This is used by the updated Espresso Social add-on, described below.

Espresso Mailchimp 1.1 Pre-release

Mailchimp 1.1This update adds only one thing, but it’s a biggie. The Mailchimp 1.1 add-on adds support for Mailchimp Groups. You may have heard us talk about it on the Espresso Bar hangout with Eric from IvyCat (if not, go check it out). This is a sweet little feature that we thought warranted a major feature version bump and came out of some real-world scenarios and uses of Mailchimp and the Event Espresso Mailchimp Integration add-on. You can thank Eric in the forums or send him some love via the Event Espresso Pros page.

Infusionsoft Integration 1.0 Pre-release

This one was probably largely inspired by Seth’s insomnia. We’ve had requests in the past to integrate some kind of CRM into Event Espresso. Infusionsoft is great because they have an open API that made it really easy to do some really interesting things. If you’re already an Infusionsoft user, you can basically use your Infusionsoft dashboard instead of your Event Espresso dashboard in the WordPress admin. Customer records are created automatically even when the attendee was registered with a manual or offline payment. Payment records are updated automatically and you can use any of the built-in Event Espresso gateways or your Infusionsoft Merchant Account.

Espresso Social Media add-on 1.1.5

Here’s one that I worked on. This update fixes the Facebook like button! However, even more exciting is that it will roll out a feature, when combined with Event Espresso 3.1.33, that will add opengraph tags to the header of your site, allowing better and more specific information to be sent to Facebook with your like. What information, you ask? How about support for event thumbnails? Or descriptions that pull from your event descriptions? This is made possible by the new espresso_get_event function added to core.

But wait, there’s more

What else got some love? I’ll tell you:

  • JSON API 2.0
    • The Event Espresso JSON API is officially available to download. If you didn’t sign up for the pre-release channel when we first added the API, you can get it now with your regular downloads. The latest update fixes some minor bugs as well as speeding up some of the queries.
  • WP User Integration 1.9.7.1 HOTFIX
    • A minor update that adds a security fix to the My Events shortcode.
  • Roles & Permissions Basic 1.5.4 and Pro 2.0.6
    • These have been available for a month on the pre-release channel and add some minor fixes.
  • Espresso Ticketing 2.0.10
    • This update fixes some minor issues as well as addresses the Venue Address 2 line that was not displaying on the ticket by default. It also takes care of some issues with the iPhone app as well as fixes some untranslatable strings.
  • Attendee Reassignment Add-on 1.0 Pre-release
    • The plugin formerly known as the Attendee Mover Tool, this add-on allows you to migrate attendees from one event to another. Pretty cool, huh? This is something we’ve been asked about for a long time. Seth made a video where you can see the plugin in action.
  • Price Modifier Add-on 0.0.3 Pre-release
    • An early version of this plugin, it adds the ability to attach a price to a question. Why would you need this? How about adding a question like “Do you want dinner?” to your event, and if the answer is yes, it adds $15 for a meal. This is a pre-release, so we’re anxious to hear your thoughts about how this plugin can be improved in the pre-release forums.
  • Espresso Calendar 2.0.5 and 2.0.6 Pre-release
    • 2.0.5 adds some new tooltip styles to the calendar as well as fixes some issues with displaying events and other minor issues. 2.0.6 adds the updated styles and javascript from fullcalendar.js.

What about that Arabica thing?

Don’t worry, we’re still busy working on the next generation version of Event Espresso. Development has moved on from the decaf version (4.0) to the regular version which will make it’s first appearance as 4.1 and include a migration script to get you moved over from the legacy (3.1.x) versions of Event Espresso.

Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think in the forums or the comments below.

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Posted in Addons, New Versions | 10 Comments »

Event Espresso Arabica is now available on the Pre Release channel

Tuesday, April 16th, 2013

Event Espresso Arabica can be downloaded from the pre-release channel

Event Espresso Arabica can be downloaded from the pre-release channel

In case you missed it this morning, Event Espresso Arabica (4.0, the plugin version formerly known as Event Espresso 3.2) is now available on the pre-release channel. Now before you go nuts, there are a few things you should know about this version. Read through these caveats, then go nuts.

What this plugin is

Event Espresso Arabica is an almost complete rewrite of the Event Espresso core plugin. To start, Arabica will be supporting all of the features of the free plugin (which will henceforth be referred to as the decaffeinated version). This means that the initial release, Event Espresso 4.0, will only be supporting the features of the decaffeinated Event Espresso. Many features will be unavailable until 4.1. Event Espresso Arabica is also currently still a beta version, which means there may be bugs. We will be leaving it in beta for an extra month while we work on developing and testing 4.1 so that we can be sure that when it’s released into the world that we’ve had enough hands and bodies testing it. What’s new in this version? Plenty. Here’s a breakdown:

  • New messaging system that Darren talked about in our last Espresso Bar hangout
  • Completely reworked pricing, attendee management and registration administration system
  • Admin pages have seen a complete overhaul
  • For WordPress developers, we’ve packed the code with hooks, filters and easy to understand classes and models for developing  your own integrations and add-ons
  • Want your permalinks to be pretty? We’ve got you covered.
  • Want an easier to use payment page, with all the steps in one place? We’ve got that too.
  • Want to add multiple ticket types for different price levels on a single event in one registration process without having to use the Multi Event Registration add-on? Done.

In short, we’ve tried to fix all the stuff that you’ve been frustrated with over the past 2 years and pack it into a new system that’s built on a much more solid foundation.

What this plugin is not

Event Espresso Arabica (particularly 4.0) is not a straight upgrade from the current version and probably won’t be until 4.1. At that point there will be an upgrade script to help the migration process from 3.1 to Arabica, but this will not be added in the initial release. (When this script is created, we will be doing our best to make it possible to import the majority of your critical event related data from the old system. However, as has been the case in the past, there will likely be cases where the data structure is too different to do a reliable import. In those few cases, we will give recommendations on how to set things up.) If you have a previous install of Event Espresso, you will need to dump your Event Espresso data before you can use Event Espresso Arabica or install it on a new site. For a lot of people, this could just mean creating a new database, exporting your WordPress content from it with the built-in export tool, delete your wp-config.php file and start fresh. For people a bit more savvy it could mean dropping all the tables in the database that start with wp_events_. As mentioned above, this is going to support the features of the free version. Which means that it probably won’t support your choice payment gateway…at least not right away. We’ll have the PayPal standard gateway from the start, as well as offline payment methods. Other gateways will be added based on usage, which we are going to start tracking in Event Espresso version 3.1.32. It’s also not going to support all of the add-ons — that support probably won’t become available until after 4.1, possibly around 4.2. (If you’re worried about the versioning system, don’t. While in the past we stuck on 3.1 release for more than a year, these version numbers will iterate at a much more rapid pace with our current development schedule.)

Where to get it

If you’re still reading, that means you’re probably as excited to get your hands on this thing as we are to get it out there. That’s what we want. It’s frustrating having this thing that hardly anyone can use and we’ve been anxious to get it out but we want to make sure what we put out is worth your time, especially considering the initial limitations. If you aren’t signed up already, you should sign up for the pre-release channel on your account page to get access to Event Espresso Arabica. If you have signed up for the pre-release channel, you will already have access and all you need to do is download it. If we haven’t already, we will be adding an Event Espresso Arabica forum in our support forums, where you can post any questions, problems or bugs you find after downloading 4.0.

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Posted in Beta, New Versions | No Comments »

WordPress Event Registration Ticketing Plugin Version 3.1.31.B (Beta) Now Available

Saturday, March 2nd, 2013

Event Espresso is an online event registration and ticketing management plugin for WordPress. We help event managers, businesses and organizations achieve their goals with more efficient and profitable online event registration and ticketing.

This beta version brings more than 45 improvements that range from front-end design changes to new gateways and security improvements. If you’d like to get your hands on the newest up-coming version Event Espresso customers can download it now from the Pre-release (beta) channel.

In 2013 we began a new process for developing, testing and releasing new versions of our online event registration and ticketing software plugin for WordPress. So far the new process has served us well. We’ve been able to stick to a regular schedule and our products undergo more thorough testing than ever before. Part of the testing and announcement process is to make the new version of Event Espresso available for customers to for testing (both our code and their applications for the next version).

3.1.31.Beta Includes

Fixes

  • British pound character encoding issue on the invoice template
  • Venue information not being copied into a duplicate event
  • event_espresso_do_ajax not working with Jquery 1.9
  • Cross-side scripting vulnerabilities and the “ee” and “event_id” parameters
  • SQL injection vulnerabilities in “event_id” parameter
  • WorldPay button option does not get checked
  • Miscalculating amounts and discounts in the PayTrace gateway
  • warning: missing argument 2 for wpdb::prepare() in /includes/functions/pricing.php line 333
  • Remove translation function from $payment_status value
  • Quickpay not receiving correct total
  • Realex: Add additional hook to init gateway file
  • South Korean currency incorrect
  • Rcurring Events Manager: Undefined Variables
  • Fixed Authorize.net Payment button
  • EVENT_LIST event_category_id not working
  • Add support for PayPal tax and shipping
  • Added a bypass_nonce flag to recurring events manager
  • Filter Month in Event Overview not showing all events and other filter issues
  • Creating ellipsis’ on some servers – fixed by truncating event names
  • Missing featured image shows broken image icon
  • Prevent XSS attacks
  • USAEpay Itemization
  • page dropdowns in the Page Settings section of the General Settings admin page, broken due to recent WP changes
  • Fatal error: Cannot redeclare mb_substr()
  • Undefined variable: category_met
  • Datepicker in Event Editor doesn’t work in WP 3.5
  • Quickpay gateway errors when used with Multiple Events Registration
  • Email shortcode for attendee list

Updates

  • Centralized espresso_email_after_payment action hook
  • Security audit on the add_attendees_to_db.php file
  • Added a phone number field to the Merchant Warrior gateway
  • Add attendee count (quantity) as email shortcode
  • Make the Add More Attendees option more noticeable on the registration page
  • Fix the event ordering in the event overview of the admin
  • Add autocomplete=”off” to the credit card forms
  • Audit the event (and Front-end Event Manager addon) and venue create/update for security
  • Add action hooks to Event Espresso templates
  • Comment out the var_dump lines in realauthprocesspayment.php
  • Better-document first data e4
  • Create github language repo branches for individual languages
  • Add /languages to /uploads/espresso
  • Prefix authnet classes for greater compatibility when using both authorize.net gateways

New Features

  • Added support for Megasoft gateway
  • Added support for PayChoice gateway
  • Added support for USAEpay gateway
  • Attendee Mover: Add a function/action hook to add/save/delete attendee meta
  • Add pricing options when editing an attendee

Posted in Beta, News, New Versions | No Comments »

Event Espresso 3.1.30 is out! Here’s what’s new.

Friday, February 1st, 2013

A new version of Event Espresso is available, packed with fixes and some new features to make your event management a smoother and faster process.

Compatibility with Jetpack

As always with our minor point releases, the focus of Event Espresso 3.1.30 was bugfixes, and the biggest of those was the Jetpack compatibility fixes. If you are a Jetpack user and you’ve had to deactivate Jetpack or downgrade to an older version, you’re in luck. This version of Event Espresso has been tested to work with the latest Jetpack.

Payment gateway updates

Another issue that might have affected some of our Dutch users who are using the iDeal gateway was the conflict with the WooCommerce iDeal gateway. That’s been resolved as well, along with a number of other important updates to the rest of the payment gateways. We also removed some of our old, hard-to-support legacy gateways. The reason these were removed was because those gateways do not provide developer accounts — so we couldn’t test them — and we don’t have a lot of users using those gateways. Instead of trying to invest the time in updating them blindly, without knowing if they actually work or not, we’ve put them up in a public GitHub repository. Anyone interested in taking over updating these gateways, can fork them or submit pull requests.

Language file changes

language-files

Speaking of GitHub, did I mention that our language files are there now? 3.1.30 introduces the new language “side-load” feature, removing the languages from the core plugin (for a smaller package size) and hosting them on GitHub, automatically downloading them to your site if you are using WordPress in another language. Additionally, .30 introduces the ability to upload your modified language files to /wp-content/uploads/espresso/languages.

Cart registration process and other fixes

We made a modification to the Multi Event Registration cart registration process for events that did not have group registrations active. Previously, those events would display a radio button, but that didn’t always send the number of attendees and a radio button, with no other options, isn’t exactly the best use of a radio button semantically. We’ve replaced this with a dropdown, which makes more sense and actually sends a value every time.

3.1.30 also adds a number of security fixes and updates.

New features

We did add some new stuff, too. The EVENT_LIST shortcode now supports multiple categories in one event list. A new System Status page gives you an overview of your server information and what plugins you have active. And we’ve added support for using hooks in WordPress themes for your Event Espresso registration pages to provide more customization options.

Updated Seating Chart

WordPress Event Ticketing Seating Chart

WordPress Event Ticketing Seating Chart

This release also is required for the new version of the Seating Chart alpha. A number of fixes were made to the Seating Chart to fix things like mis-aligned rows, section alignments, and registration prices.

So go update Event Espresso now, or download the latest version in your account area. If you have any questions or problems be sure to let us know in the support forums.

Please note: WordPress 3.5 is required for the latest version of Event Espresso. Please upgrade WordPress before updating to the latest version of Event Espresso.

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Posted in New Versions | 9 Comments »

Event Espresso pre-release channel

Friday, January 25th, 2013

We are happy to officially announce a new feature for Event Espresso users that we quietly rolled out on the website a couple weeks ago: the Event Espresso pre-release channel.

What’s the Event Espresso pre-release channel?

pre release channel downloads

Pre-release channel downloads

The pre-release channel is where we post early versions of Event Espresso and any add-ons for user testing. Since we are just barely rolling this new feature out and switching to a new development schedule all at the same time, the first couple versions we released on the pre-release channel were still very early in the testing. However, our new development cycle goes into effect with the release of 3.1.30, which will include a full month of testing by the support team. After we’ve gone through our testing (the alpha stage), we will post the plugin to the pre-release channel. These should be considered solid release candidates that you can use on your live site, but if you are still nervous, you can hold back, stick with the stable version, which will have had a month of beta testing on the pre-release channel. Any bugs that come up during the beta period (via your testing on the pre-release channel) will be addressed before the final release of Event Espresso.

The great part about the pre-release channel is that it installs into a separate directory on your site, so if there are any issues, you can just switch back to the stable version after reporting the issue.

We need your feedback! We are hard at work on the next version of Event Espresso, and we’d like you to take it out for a spin. When you test out a pre-release edition of Event Espresso you can:

  • Help test the upcoming software release against a wide variety of server environments and WordPress installations
  • Get a heads up on new features
  • Ensure that your customizations will work with the very latest software
  • Influence how the final product will look and function
  • Help contribute to a more stable final product
  • Try out new add-ons before they are officially released

Where to download

If you log into your Event Espresso account page and scroll down to the downloads section and you will see a new checkbox (tickbox) for signing up to the Pre-release channel. You can tick that and agree to the waiver and the Pre-release items will appear in a box below your regular downloads.

Pre-Release Toggle

We have set a waiver in place because we may also be using this space for new, experimental products that may not be fully stable, however, again Event Espresso core and the current add-ons will have gone through testing by our support staff before being posted to the pre-release channel. Full details can be found in the Pre-release documentation.

How to report bugs and give feedback

If you notice anything that isn’t working please report it in the Pre-release forum. There will be a new thread for each major point release.

We will be posting the beta version of 3.1.30 to the pre-release channel today with a planned release of Monday. That means you can get started with the next version a few days early and let us know in the forums if there are any problems.

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Posted in Development, New Versions | 2 Comments »

Changes to the Event Espresso language files in 3.1.30

Friday, January 4th, 2013

language-files

We’re making some exciting behind-the-scenes changes with how we’ll be handling the language files in the next version of Event Espresso and moving forward. Some things will be drastically different but we’re doing this with our users in mind so there will be very little on your end that you need to worry about except in some very specific cases, which I’ll cover in this post.

How we’re currently handling languages

Currently, Event Espresso bundles all of our language files in the plugin. This leads to a very large plugin. Over 25MB is used just for the language files after they are extracted. Some hosts — particularly shared servers with limited resources — will throw script timeout or max_file_upload errors when uploading or installing Event Espresso. The compressed size of Event Espresso is over 7MB currently, which exceeds the 5MB threshold that’s often the default for shared servers. The new compressed size of Event Espresso with this update is just over 3MB!  No more max_file_upload issues. No more script timeouts. The install and update process will be much smoother and faster.

What’s changing?

Starting with the next release, 3.1.30, we will be discontinuing the inclusion of all language files in the core Event Espresso plugin. This will drastically reduce the size of the overall plugin, making installs and upgrades much faster and eliminate a lot of the current issues that people have with their installs and updates.

Instead of bundling the language files in the core plugin, we’re offloading those files to a GitHub repository. If you are using one of the language files (e.g., you have a locale set in your wp-config.php via the WP_LANG definition), Event Espresso will dynamically fetch just those language files from the GitHub repository and download them into your /event-espresso/languages/ directory.

What changes for English (US) language users?

Nothing. If you aren’t using the language files, you won’t notice any changes with the possible exception of updates being faster than they were previously.

What changes for everyone else (non-English (US) language users)?

It’s possible that the files don’t download correctly from GitHub. This is a worst-case scenario as it should magically work out of the box when you update. If this happens, you can download the relevant language file from our public GitHub repository and upload it to your /languages/ folder.

With every Event Espresso update, if there have been updates to the language files, they will automatically get downloaded to your /languages/ directory and overwrite the existing language files. If the language files have been updated and you would like to incorporate the updated language files before the next release of Event Espresso is available, you can do so by downloading the files from GitHub.

Special cases (if you’ve modified your language files)

If you’ve modified your language files (for example, to modify a string to display a different message), you will now be able to upload your customized language files to /wp-content/uploads/espresso/languages/. This will override the language files in /event-espresso/languages/. You will be responsible for updating the language file if there are changes to the source.

What this means to translators

For translators, nothing has changed, really, except that you can now download the final .mo/.po files from GitHub once they are added to the repository. However, for people who are familiar with Git and Github, please do not submit pull requests to the GitHub repository. They will be ignored. The proper process is still to get validator access on the GlotPress site and make your translations there. However, you will now also be able to upload customized/modified language files to /wp-content/uploads/espresso/languages/ if, for example, you wanted to test a translation you were making changes to.

Our translation project is 100% community-supported, and we are proud of how it’s grown. There are now 26 language files in development and we hope to continue to watch that figure grow and those translations fill out in 2013 and beyond. If you would like to be involved in one of our translations or to translate Event Espresso into a language we don’t have yet, please fill out our translator application and we will get your account set up.

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Posted in Development, New Versions, Features | 1 Comment »

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