@nightl – To review, I think you’ve pointed out issues on three settings here.
- Animation duration. Yep, I can confirm that issue. I’m honestly surprised you’re the first to report it. It’s not the right field type. I’ll work on a fix today.
- For the ‘Load JS in footer’ setting, I cannot duplicate what you’re seeing. For me that settings works as expected. When checked, the plugin’s JS is in the footer, and the lightbox continues to work as expected. To confirm for you, even if you re-check that setting and save, the lightbox is not working for you?
- For the ‘Show download button’ setting, again I cannot duplicate what you’re seeing. If checked, the Download buttons show for me (as long as I have the toolbar set to show).
For the latter two issues, I was thinking maybe it was some particular interactions of settings, but I’ve tried a wide range and wasn’t able to duplicate.
I’m trying to think of how to troubleshoot what maybe happening with those settings. Any chance you could screenshot your settings so I can see them? Also, can I ask if you are using any particular caching plugin?
On Updates
On a broader note, about changes to the plugin and to monetization, I just wanted to add a few thoughts….
First, if there are issues here, they are likely related to modernizing the code base and changing how the options page works, not to monetization. None of the monetization-related changes will affect how the free lightbox works. We’ve simply offered a more modern lightbox for this who want it, and added a landing page.
There have been a lot of updates – but these reflect a general effort to modernize the plugin. And this brings me to the second point: the plugin desperately needed and needs to be modernized. When I took it over, there has been no updates in over a year, and no significant update in many years.
In the meantime, WordPress has advanced. The block editor has arrived. PHP has updated. JavaScript has updated. WordPress coding standards have moved forward. The plugin was way out of alignment with basic coding standards. Without some love and modernization, the plugin was on its way to slowly dying.
It is a great testament to the plugin that it was continuing to work with so few updates and despite WordPress changing around it.
And unfortunately, any big push to refactor code for such and old and popular plugin was likely to introduce some bugs or bumps. I worked hard to minimize that, and obviously missed at least a few things here.
All that said, you are 100% justified to feel some frustration. The need to update / modernize does not excuse introducing bugs. So I’m sorry about that. I’m not trying to minimize that, just provide context for why you’re seeing some of these changes.
I’m actually even more sorry that I took so long to respond to your support post here. If I’m going to introduce big changes, I should at least be available to immediately jump on and resolve any new issues that get introduced.
I’ll do that now, and (if you’re still using the plugin) try to work with you closely to get your remaining issues resolved.
