Plugin Feedback

Thank you Sebastian for a very great plugin.

Wishlist

A. The ability to control what get’s output, so it can take other input than next post. For instance custom fields. WordPress doesn’t have the best taxonomy support. I get around this by using custom fields to control the logic for post, where I, for instance ,have a series of photos that go together. They get the “series name” in a custom field, which I then query to output the thumbnails and links in the sidebar or below the image. Alternatively it could be able to load related posts. Next and previous is a weird way of browsing a site.

B. Better documentation of how to install this great plugin for particular themes. Or better explaination as to which divs we should select and why we should select them. Would it be possible to have the wordpress base themes as preinstalled templates, like for twentyfifteen?

Oh, and if you use Theme Test Drive, note that, for some reason, the Theme Test Drive plugin somehow chokes the output, when you are testing. I can see that the javescript fires, but nothing is output. If you use another browser, where you are not logged in, it works fine, so I hope this saves someone else a few hours and grey hairs.

Keep up the good work!

Hi Mikker.

Thank you for liking my plugin. I am currently working on a premium version of the plugin that provides a little more support on the type of content that is displayed and how it is displayed.

Documentation is something that I will be improving on with possible video demonstrations but to do it for every theme out there would be a lot of work. That is why I am trying to make the plugin compatible as much as possible, but I do find that some themes that are used are not well structured so it becomes more hacky for those who use them with my plugin.

The plugin comes with a default template based on TwentyFifteen which you can copy into your own theme and alter to your needs. So far I have tested the template with all default WordPress themes and works fine out of the box once the plugin is setup. It also works well with the theme called Make.

I hope with other people’s feedback, that I can integrate support for many more themes out of the box. One option I am thinking of is the plugin detects the theme that is currently active on the site and if it is in a list of themes I have tested with, the plugin will automatically setup the selectors based on that theme. At the moment, the default selectors are TwentyFifteens.

I have not actually used the Theme Test Drive plugin when debugging because I didn’t think it was the right tool as this is a plugin I am building not a theme. If there is a problem with my plugin when using Theme Test Drive I will look into it but I don’t see how it should be affecting the site overall.

As for you wanting to display custom content, you can do so using the hooks I have put in place.

Thank you for your feedback and if you have any other suggestions, please let me know.

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Hi Sebastian.

I use Theme Test Drive to do tweeks to a theme other than the one shown to visitors. I know you shouldn’t tweek on live websites, but this way it is so much easier.

As far as I can see, the hooks only deal with post formats. Or maybe I don’t understand the documentation. Could I use add_action( 'alnp_load_after_content', 'your_function_name' ); with a function that queries the database for certain posts with certain custom field values and have the query be used instead of next post.

In pseudo code:
$seriesname = get_post_custom_field(“series name”)
$newposts = get_post(custom_field_value = $seriesname)
while $newposts as $NEXTpost
echo $NEXTpost->link, $NEXTpost->headline, $NEXTpost->thumbimage

Obvously I could rearrange post’s dates and go that route, but I’d rather not, as this still would not give me the control I want in directing the user in the direction I want them to go.

Once you have copied the template file into your theme, you can query the posts how you want on line 12.

You can also replace line 26 with your own content including custom meta data.

For the plugin to remain working you need to leave the post navigation within the loop.

Maybe this is a crazy request, but right now I use the “Next Page, Not Next Post” plugin so that visitors can work their way through a hierarchy of pages. It would be so much easier if the next page in the hierarchy simply loaded, rather than the visitor having to click on a “next page” link.

Please provide feedback for the plugin via the survey linked below.

Thank you.

https://sebd86.polldaddy.com/s/auto-load-next-post