Custom Post Type UI has been around for the better part of five years and is one of WebDevStudios’ oldest plugins in the WordPress.org repo. It has amassed over 640,000 downloads and maintains a rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars.
Since its initial release, it has largely maintained the same user interface and has only had minor tweaks through its evolution. However, that consistency meant it hasn’t kept up with the evolution of the WordPress admin since the days of WordPress 3.0, including the huge change from WordPress 3.8.
As a result, I wanted to give the the plugin a UI overhaul for the next major release, and I hope the new version provides a better, more easy to use user experience for our existing and future users. I also used it as a chance to refactor the existing code and make it more maintainable and customizable by 3rd parties. Everyone wins!
However, I need beta testers to make sure the upgrade goes smoothly and no settings are lost in the transition from 0.8.5 to 0.9.0. I also need new users to make sure it’s usable and not confusing.
That’s where YOU come in!
Things I need tested by both current and new users include:
- Seemless migration from 0.8.x to 0.9.0. No behavior lost. The migration will be automatic, but making sure the provided settings match in the new UI needs to be checked.
- If you have existing post types or taxonomies registered by CPTUI 0.8.x, check that their behavior remains as it was before.
- Importing and exporting between sites using 0.9.0. This will be one of the new menu items available, and all of the data should be provided for you automatically–you just need to have a post type or taxonomy set up on one site, and not on another before clicking import.
- Get code functionality. This one should be familiar to you already from the previous versions, but we need it to provide all of the expected values when set, and not empty values when not set.
- General usability of the new UI. Is it more clear how to do things? Worse?
- If you have multisite, that needs a really good tire kick that I will be doing myself as well soon.
- Any bugs you find.
- Translation updates, if you’re fluent in more than one language.
How to beta test the new version
A dev site copy of an existing site or a localhost setup would be ideal for this. Version 0.9.0 preserves the original settings in the options table, so it will be possible to downgrade if necessary, but it’s still better to not test on production if everything is critical.
To acquire a copy of the beta version, you can download a zip of the dev branch from GitHub and upload or save it to your plugins folder on the intended site.
If you have 0.8.x already and want to retain those files, just make sure the beta copy has a different folder name. After that, deactivate the current version before activating the new version. It will show up as a “duplicate” listing in your plugins admin screen.
If you are not upgrading from a previous version, simply put the folder in your plugins directory and activate like usual.
How to submit feedback
Once you’re ready to submit feedback, you can do it in a couple of ways:
The first way will be through the Custom Post Type UI support forum. Simply start a forum topic and preface the thread that it’s a feedback post for 0.9.0. I monitor the forum regularly, so your feedback won’t go missed!
The second way, if you prefer, would be to simply email the feedback to me at michael@webdevstudios.com.
Any feedback from you, our plugin users, would be much appreciated!