I’m happy to announce that FeedWordPress version 2011.1018 is now available for download.

This announcement is actually going to sum up the changes for a couple of different releases of FeedWordPress. The previous public release, 2011.0721, was released some time ago, and has been available at through the WordPress plugin repository, but I was unable to post the announcement on the project due to an unfortunate combination of two factors: a technical breakdown at the old project website, and a cross-country move that effectively prevented me from taking the time to fix the breakdown. Happily, the move is over and, rather than fixing the breakdown, I have simply decided to migrate the project website over to a brand new home. (Same URL as before, but running the latest release of WordPress.) So, without further ado, here are the changes made in today’s release, along with the changes that 2011.0721 had already introduced:

Version 2011.1018

• HTTP BASIC AND DIGEST AUTHENTICATION SUPPORT: FeedWordPress now offers
  improved support for syndicating feeds that make use of HTTP Basic or HTTP
  Digest authentication methods. In order to set up authentication on one of
  your feeds, just go to its Settings > Feed page, and click on the “Uses
  Username/Password” link underneath the Feed URL. Enter the username and
  password for accessing the feed, then select the authentication method. (If
  you’re not sure which method your feed provider uses, try Basic first.)
  Save Changes, and syndicate away.

  NOTE: HTTP Digest support requires the curl module for PHP. If you are not
  sure whether this module has been installed, contact your web hosting
  provider to check.

• WP 3.3 (BETA) COMPATIBILITY: This version fixes an init-sequence bug that
  could cause intrusive warning messages or fatal errors in WP 3.3 beta
  versions.

• BUGFIX: FIXES LONG DELAYS IN UPDATES SCHEDULES IN LARGE INSTALLATIONS. A
  performance feature introduced in version 2011.0721 had some flaws in its
  implementation, which tended to create serious delays (on the order of
  several hours) in FeedWordPress’s attempts to schedule updates for feeds,
  when users had a very large number of feeds (several dozen or more) in their
  FeedWordPress installation. This feature has been reconfigured to adjust
  dynamically to the number of feeds in Syndicated Sources and the frequency
  with which they are updated. If you’ve seen a lot of ready-to-update feeds
  piling up, several hours after they were supposed to get updated, then this
  upgrade should better ensure that your feeds get updated in a timely fashion.

• BUGFIX: syndicateditemguid FILTERS FIXED. Previous versions of
  FeedWordPress theoretically allowed for filters on the syndicateditemguid
  hook, which was intended to filter the globally-unique identifier element
  (rss:guid or atom:id) — useful if you need to convince FeedWordPress to use
  different guids, or to recognize two or more incoming posts as versions of
  the same post rather than as distinct items. However, while the hook
  affected the guid stored in the WordPress database, it did not affect the
  guid used to check whether an incoming feed item had already been syndicated
  or was a new item — which greatly limited the practical usefulness of the
  filter. This bug has been fixed: syndicateditemguid filters should now
  properly control not only the final database record, but also the initial
  uniqueness test applied to posts.

Version 2011.0721

• BUGFIX: SERIOUS BUG CAUSING RARE UNEXPECTED DELETION OF PAGES AND OTHER
  CONTENT. A bug in the guid-checking code for some rare kinds of guids could
  cause content in the wp_posts table to seemingly disappear at random after
  FeedWordPress updates.This most frequently but not exclusively affected
  static pages. What actually happened is that in these rare cases the
  existing static page was mistaken for an older version of the new incoming
  syndicated post, which was then stored as a new revision of the original
  page. The bug that caused these mistaken identities has been fixed.

• BUGFIX: UNWANTED AUTOMATIC PAGE-LOAD-BASED UPDATES NO LONGER A NUISANCE.
  Some users encountered a bug in which FeedWordPress would adopt an automatic
  page-load-based update method, even if they had requested that it not do
  so, and that it use a manual or cron job update method instead. The bug
  causing this has been fixed, and page-load-based updates should no longer
  trigger unless explicitly turned on.

• WP 3.2 USER INTERFACE COMPATIBILITY: POST TAGS BOX NOW WORKS AGAIN. The
  release of WordPress 3.2 caused a breakage in the tags box which prevented
  you from adding or removing tags under Syndication –> Categories & Tags.
  (The breakage was the result of an incompatibility introduced by the new
  release of jQuery.) This breakage has now been fixed, and the tags box
  should work correctly again.

• FEED UPDATE SCHEDULING IMPROVEMENTS: UI. The Syndicated Sources table now
  provides considerably more data to understand update scheduling, when
  specific scheduling decisions are made because of, e.g., requests from the
  feed producer.

• FEED UPDATE SCHEDULING IMPROVEMENTS: ENFORCEABLE “MINIMUM INTERVAL” SETTING
  TO SPACE OUT UPDATES. Some feeds request specific update schedules, using
  standard elements such as sy:updateFrequency and rss:ttl. Normally,
  FeedWordPress respects any scheduling requests that a feed makes — if it
  requests a longer gap between polls than what FWP would normally adopt, then
  FWP slows down to meet the request. If it indicates a shorter gap than what
  FWP would normally adopt, FWP speeds up and checks that feed for updates
  more often than it normally would. Now, there should not be any way for user
  settings to override an explicit slow-down request from the feed producer –
  if producers indicate a particular update schedule, then polling the feed
  more frequently than they request is considered abusive behavior. But
  there’s no reason why users should not be able — if they so desire — to
  override speed-up requests, and poll a feed less frequently than the
  indicated update schedule, if the FWP user wants to space update checkins
  over a longer interval of time. Before, they could not do this: FWP always
  sped up to meet the indicated update schedule. Now, they can do this, by
  using the new “Minimum Interval” setting in Syndication –> Feeds &
  Updates..

As always, if you notice any problems, have any questions, need any help, or just want to say “Hi,” don’t hesitate to drop me a line via e-mail or through the comment form. Keep in mind that while I do my best to answer any e-mails I receive about FeedWordPress, I’m currently working through a significant backlog of e-mails (somewhere in the high dozens or low hundreds) that accumulated while I was making my move. So for the time being, you can assume I’ll be getting back to you, but it may be a few days before that happens.

Now download and enjoy!