How much does Pods cost?
Pods is free and will remain free, but check out how much effort it’s taken to get it to where it is today!
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sc0ttkclark
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sc0ttkclark
Pods 2.0 has arrived!
Background
The Pods Framework has been around since late 2008. Planning, design, development, and testing started in 2010 for Pods 2.0 leading to an Alpha release on January 2nd, 2012. Beta was released on August 12th, 2012. Now Pods 2.0 has finally arrived, as of September 21st, 2012!
After our soft launch, we’ve been working on bug fixes for the past few weeks to ensure maximum stability and backwards compatibility before going full force with our 2.0 announcement. That point has been reached and we’re ready for the flood of new users that awaits, including our awesome Pods 1.x users who are anxious to upgrade.
Have at it, and most of all — Enjoy the freedom of developing any type of content with any type of field that you can think of for WordPress!
Bug Reports / Feature Requests
Please report bugs and suggest features in our GitHub Issues area. We’ve got an awesome feature line up for Pods 2.1 that is already in progress, we’ll announce our 2.1 testing program in the next month. Pods 2.1 is scheduled to be released alongside WordPress 3.5 on December 5th, 2012.
Big Thanks to our Sponsors!
We have to really thank Automattic and Matt Mullenweg for all they’ve done to help us, we honestly could not have finished Pods 2.0 and taken it to the next level without their support.
RD2 provided some awesome UI design work for our new 2.0 upgrade screens.
MarkNet Group provided extra help when we needed it to keep the project going over the past two years, major kudos!
What’s new?
Below is a feature list that goes over what 2.0 offers, we hope you enjoy it as much as we have while we’ve used it on our own projects.
- Slick new interface, fully revamped to make managing your Pods easy and stress-free
- Large performance enhancements using transients and object caching (reducing queries per page load in both dashboard and site to the lowest possible number, sometimes that’s ZERO)
- New Upgrade wizard screens designed by RD2 will help you upgrade from previous versions and report any potential known issues beforeit actually upgrades your site
- We’ve partnered with Automattic to offer 1 free month of VaultPress service to users upgrading from Pods 1.x, you will see the offer in the upgrade screens.
- We’ve also partnered with iThemes to offer 25% off of a BackupBuddy license to users upgrading from Pods 1.x, you will see the offer in the upgrade screens.
- Add New Pod wizard guides you through creating or extending content types with custom fields
- Create New Content Types
- Custom Post Types
- Custom Taxonomies
- Advanced Content Types (each type lives in it’s own table, outside of the WP object architecture)
- Extend Existing Content Types
- Post Types (Posts, Pages, Existing Custom Post Types)
- Taxonomies (Categories, Tags, Existing Custom Taxonomies)
- Media
- Users
- Comments
- Create New Content Types
- Choose to store your data using meta-based storage (default) or custom table-based storage
- New Field Editor and Field Types
- New Field Type options built in (no more input helpers for most common input types!)
- Date / Time – Date, Time, or both
- Number – Plain Number or Currency
- Text – Plain Text, Website, Phone, E-mail, or Password
- Paragraph Text – Plain Paragraph, WYSIWYG (TinyMCE or CLEditor, or add your own), or Code (Syntax Highlighting)
- Color Picker – Choose colors, because colors are great (Using the default WP color picker, Farbtastic in 3.4)
- Yes / No – You can’t really go wrong with a checkbox, but we’ve added a few charms to make it stand out
- File / Image / Video – Upload new media or select from existing ones with our Media Library integration, or use a simple uploader, your choice
- Relationships – Relate any item, to any item of any WP object type or another Pod, now with improved Bidirectional relationship support
- New Field Type options built in (no more input helpers for most common input types!)
- New grouping fields API on the Add/Edit forms for Post Types, Taxonomies, Media, Users, and Comments (We’re adding a management UI for this coming in 2.1)
- New Shortcode popup integration with TinyMCE editor (now provide one-off templates within the shortcode itself)
- New Widgets (and provide one-off templates within the widget itself)
- New Form UI front and back
- New Attachments option available for File Uploads allows you to click “Attach” and select media items from the normal built-in WP Media Library pop-up
- New Componentsallow additional functionality to be enabled but not loaded if you don’t want/need them
- Pod Templates
- Pod Pages
- Pod Helpers
- Roles and Capabilities
- Add / Edit Roles (Administrator, Editor, etc..)
- Add / Edit Capabilities for each Role
- Markdown Syntax for Paragraph Text fields
- Migrate: Import from Custom Post Type UI
- Import Custom Post Types and Taxonomies created by the Custom Post Type UI plugin
- Import them all, or choose a few
- Optionally cleanup the Custom Post Type UI options when done, removing the imported objects from it’s control
- Basic WPML Integration and confirmed Polylang compatibility
- Fully Localized interface and error messages! All of our text strings in the plugin now run through the i18n functions. We don’t have any translations yet, but we’re looking at getting GlotPress setup for translators to start getting in.
- Requires at least WordPress 3.4 and is tested against WordPress 3.4 and 3.5 releases
Not sure about Pods 2.0 yet? Screenshot time!
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hsatterwhite
Holy Cow in a plugin Scott! I’ve been looking at it since Thursday afternoon and it’s absolutely wonderful. The UI is great, intuitive, and very forgiving when you’re making mistakes. Love seeing how far you’ve come with Pods as it is by far one of the most powerful plugins/frameworks/extendomatic-in-a-box things to to ever happen to WordPress.
I’m a big fan of how you re-vamped “Helpers”. Using it as a custom post type with the built-in WordPress revisions feature is spot on smart. This is honestly the first time I’ve ever looked at Pods 2.0 in any of its forms. The really cool thing to me is that you created “Helpers” in a way that provides flexibility and history. Using Code Mirror for syntax highlighting, storing it as a custom post type, and utilizing WordPress’ built-in revisions function takes “Helpers” light years beyond what it was in the 1.x.x releases. As a long time user of Pods I’m completely overjoyed with Pods 2.0!
Again, thanks for all that you’ve contributed to the WordPress community.
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sc0ttkclark
It’s messages like these that make what I do worth it. That’s exactly what I set out to do for Pods 2.0, so I’m very glad that was successful!
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sc0ttkclark
If you run the function, the class will init
Calling from the depths of hollywood, I think it’s safe to say not everyone wants random ghostlike baseball players on their farm. As an example of this, I think we should start implementing some sort of class shift from inclusion by default into inclusion via need.
So, instead of the entire site loading up PodAPI and all other classes on every page load, I believe using the following will provide the best solution long-term.
So running $api = new PodAPI(); or $pods = new Pod(‘podname’); would actually map to a function which includes the real class object itself. This would be for backwards-compatibility, in which future use would be through $api = pods_api(); and $pods = pods(‘pod_name’);
Make sense? Throw rocks if you don’t like this idea, but if you throw rocks I’ll make sure it snows more in the north east with my fancy weather producing satellite.
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sc0ttkclark
Also, I’d like to also propose the Import / Export code be ported into it’s own class and out of the normal day-to-day operations of PodAPI() — anyone have any naming thoughts here – was thinking maybe PodDataAPI() or something.. not sure.
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hsatterwhite
PodMigrate() ?
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sc0ttkclark
Sounds good to me, I was thinking about that too, just want to make sure it makes sense and isn’t too long, PodMigrate() sounds like a great fit, will see what everyone else thinks
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hsatterwhite
What kind of export/import options will there be? For instance doing either one from PHP, CSV, MySQL, etc.? And are there any ideas for field mapping being tossed around?
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sc0ttkclark
import / export will use one function each, which handles the bulk of the work – subbing out to a function for each format to either convert from or convert to. PHP / CSV (or other separated values) / XML / JSON / MySQL are definitely options for both import and export.
What are your thoughts on field mapping?
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hsatterwhite
I’ve used a few programs that included field mapping as an option when migrating data from an offline template in to the application or from a completely different type of application and importing it in to the application. Would there be any possibility in offering a point and click mapping option? For instance having the import script intercept the file upload in the admin and then offer a mapping screen before running the actual import?
I’m more or less thinking of this in the practical sense of a user moving from Drupal to a WordPress/Pods platform and similar scenarios.
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sc0ttkclark
Actually, the import / export script will allow for mapping via the API, but the UI is a separate beast and I can see use in what you’re talking about here for 2.x
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hsatterwhite
I concur. Being able to migrate a project from Drupal to WordPress/PodsCMS by modeling your Pod(s) out and then point and click field mapping can be extremely powerful.
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sc0ttkclark
Being able to migrate a project from Drupal to WP + Pods would be a great ‘built-in’ template, in which you can maybe migrate “automagically” just by giving the drupal table prefix name and the content types you want migrated
maybe we can do a “conversion” script that would build your Pods out for you too..
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jchristopher
TL;DR: +1
Longer version: It might take a bit more in the docs department, but for the sake of longevity I like that direction. Lean and mean.
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ssteinerx
I’ve used this type of lazy loading/initialization quite a bit. It can really decrease load time and size if done properly.
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sc0ttkclark
Pods Gravity Forms Add-on
So many of our users enjoy the awesomeness that is Gravity Forms! It’s been in the works for a while now but I’ve finally got some traction on this. I’d like to take a moment and get everyone’s input on what they’d like to see this new Add-on do, how it would work, etc.
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sc0ttkclark
BTW, this would be a free add-on available to any Gravity Forms license holder! I know Add-ons are restricted to only those who have the Developer License, but we’ll be maintaining / supporting this one separately. Might even bundle it with the Pods plugin itself (just running a check to see if Gravity Forms is installed and if so including the GF-specific code.
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sc0ttkclark
Some features I’m looking at out of the door:
1. Another face for publicForm – in which you create your Gravity Form and point it at a Pod, choose which fields go where, and when people fill out the form it will save data to a specific Pod via the PodAPI.
2. Add drop-downs, radios, and checkboxes to your Gravity Form based on Pod data, keeping things dynamically populated and up-to-date with your Pod items as opposed to having to update a static list of items all the time. Think of how Pods lets you add Relationship fields, except in GF and pointed only at Pods.
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Dave Fuller
My two favourite plugins, together at last
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chris
Absolutely. I’m putting off using pods because i need to accept user data via grav forms and publish the data in a post. I would love to do this via PodAPI making the use of custom fields redundant and publishing data via pods.
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Ben
This would be awesome!
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redconservatory
That would be amazing.
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sc0ttkclark
I had my meeting with one of the GF developers and he’s given me a lot of information to work with. So now it’s just a matter of finishing up 2.0 and getting onto this feature for 2.x
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kirstenbrooks
That is so cool! Pods and Gravity would be like peanut butter and chocolate!
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Mike Van Winkle
So I’ve used GForms a ton and some of their addons a little and the best integration between GForms and Pods would be to sync up and existing form to an existing pod. Perhaps the approach should be a “mapping” approach. Select a form and then select the appropriate pod fields that should be populated. There’s potential for a lot of redundancy here since a big part of Pods is the “public forms” functionality. But I guess the appeal of gravity forms is that there’s a slick GUI for creating the forms.
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sc0ttkclark
Mapping is exactly where I’m headed in #1 of my above comment.
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Rhys L. Bartels-Waller
I like the idea very much, can’t wait to see it in action
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samantha9
Is this still in the works?
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sc0ttkclark
Yes, I’ve got a significant amount of code for this, it needs to be a little more generalized, and then have the UI tied into it so devs don’t have to do a ton of extra coding for normal day-to-day field mapping.
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bjornet is discussing. 
samantha9, 
bjornet 8:23 pm on September 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I really appreciate you for showing this, this example helps me as developer to set a decent pricetag on my work and of cause understand the tremendous amount of work you guys have put into Pods.