On December 19th, an update to Edit Flow, a popular plugin used on multi-author blogs was released. Prior to December 19th, the most recent update was on January 30th, 2013. In previous articles, I outlined a number of issues that nearly forced me to stop using the plugin. The latest version fixes those problems and adds a few new features.
The changelog for this release is a mile long but that’s a good thing. One of the most annoying bugs that has been addressed is that posts, pages, and custom post types can now be previewed correctly. This version also includes a new feature named Dashboard Notepad. The new dashboard widget provides an easy way to leave instructions or notes to other administrators or users of the site.
For those that extensively use the editorial comments functionality within Edit Flow, you’ll be pleased to know that subscriptions are now saved via AJAX, which means you can add or remove subscribers without hitting “Save Post“. This release also contains updates to the Japanese and Dutch localizations. Some other notable changes include:
- You can now double-click to create a new post on the calendar or edit details associated with an existing post
- Subscribe to a post’s updates using a quick “Follow” link on Manage Posts, the Calendar, or Story Budget
- Assign a date and time to editorial metadata’s date field
- Modify which filters are used on the calendar and story budget, or add your own
- Scheduled publication time is now included in relevant email notifications
- Calendar and story budget module descriptions link to their respective pages in the admin for usability.
Since WPTavern became a multi-authored blog, Edit Flow has become an important plugin that helps manage the workflow and communication between authors. I’ve spoken to a number of people via email who love using Edit Flow. However, most of them stopped using it because of bugs and no sign of active development during 2013. One minor suggestion I have for a future update is to change the Edit Flow menu icon. It’s too hard to see when using a dark-colored admin color scheme.
I hope this update is a sign of great things to come.
I was able to fix Edit Flow’s icon with a few lines of CSS:
#adminmenu #toplevel_page_ef-settings div.wp-menu-image:before {
content: "\f327";
}
#adminmenu #toplevel_page_ef-settings div.wp-menu-image img {
display: none;
}
You can include the CSS code in a plugin, theme’s functions.php or code snippet by wrapping it with this PHP code:
function replace_admin_menu_icons_css() {
?>
<style>
/* CSS code goes here */
</style>
<?php
}
add_action( 'admin_head', 'replace_admin_menu_icons_css' );
See this post for more information: http://bungeshea.com/change-wordpress-admin-menu-icons/