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!
Tagged: updates RSS Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
sc0ttkclark
-
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!
-
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.
-
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!
-
-
sc0ttkclark
Introducing the new Pods 2.0 Upgrade screens
Upgrading Pods to new versions has previously been a silent background process. Things were done, you weren’t given substantial information in case of an error, and there was no UI to guide you through the process. No more!
Our new Pods 2.0 Upgrade screens will guide you through upgrading from Pods 1.x to Pods 2.0, and any future upgrades that may be necessary throughout Pods 2.x – and it’s beautiful! Thanks to the incredibly generous RD2 team and designer Rey Latham for making this happen!
We’ve also partnered up with iThemes to offer 25% off of any BackupBuddy license! BackupBuddy is the all-in-one WordPress backup plugin that lets you backup, restore, migrate, and do it all locally or remotely to a number of different services. Together, we’ve got you covered for whatever your needs are during the upgrade process and beyond.
Screenshots
-
davidangel
Aww man, looks awesome!
-
anditko
Nice and clean design that fits the admin theme. Great job!
-
sc0ttkclark
Pods 1.14.1: Bug fixes
Release Notes
- Changed: Uploaded files now uses data-post-id attribute in file row div to avoid issues with IDs, backwards compatibility maintained for old input helpers using IDs
- Fixed: Uploaded files not showing in form in the order of upload on subsequent edits
- Fixed: Fixed an issue with adding / editing fields where “Related to” dropdown would not show
-
sc0ttkclark
The good news is we’re launching our new site on June 25th! The bad news? Nope, none of that! More good news also arrives on June 25th, perhaps earlier, but we’ve got a lot planned for June so keep an eye out! Hold tight, and don’t get lost in the sea of commits!
-
sc0ttkclark
Pods Framework Gets Backed by …a Few Big Names
Code is poetry
Developing solutions
Now the game has changedWe’ve got some very big news.
We would first like to give a big thank you for the generosity and help from our Kickstarter backers, the donations from our users, and time from our contributors! Without you, the innovations in this plugin would not have been possible. Now, our new sponsors will also help to ensure we can continue making awesome features and fine tune everything we do for Pods 2.0 and beyond.
Keeping a free plugin of this magnitude alive is not for the faint of heart. We’ve managed to keep it going for the past few years on a shoestring budget and enormous contributor effort. It’s been an amazing road, despite the bumps, and I’m so proud that we’ve made it to where we are today.
Stick around below the jump for more, but without further ado, we’re excited to announce the first three official sponsors of the Pods Framework!
That’s right! Automattic, as our new Premiere Sponsor, has decided to back Pods
and provide us with the funding we needed to get to the next level!
MarkNet Group has continued to provide us with much needed funding
and has even donated their development time to help our continued growth.
RD2 has also generously joined our cause!
Look for very awesome stuff coming from RD2 in the future!
I can’t thank Automattic and Matt enough for backing Pods, it really hits home on a very personal level for me. MarkNet Group and RD2 are devoted to building awesome projects using WordPress, which is really important for us. Now our team can focus on developing the features you’ve been craving. Speaking of team.. check out the right sidebar of the dev blog to see a revamped list of our contributors!
-
mbrinson
Wow, that’s big time!
That’s super awesome news Scott. I’m so glad your tenacity and perseverance has paid off for you and for the PODS community. You are one dedicated guy! -
davidangel
HECK YES. This is great news!
-
Dan Farrow
Fantastic and well deserved news Scott!
-
carlosfaria
Congratulations!!
-
Perry
When you said the announcement would be big I wondered if it might be related to some sort of official support from WordPress, heaven knows you earned it, but thought that may be far fetched!
Excellent news and vindication for the grief you must have gone through while working towards Pods 2.0.
-
sc0ttkclark
Thanks for support gang, can’t wait to see all of this good news put to good use as we can finally step our game up and get this done on a real schedule!
-
-
sc0ttkclark
Pods 1.14: New Uploader (plupload) and Bug fixes
Release Notes
- Important Change / Addition: For installations using WordPress 3.3+, we have switched the default uploader to Plupload from SWFUpload due to incompatibilities introduced in WP 3.3.2 that effect all plugins and themes using the styled button. Be sure to update your file upload helpers using our examples at http://podscms.org/packages/file-uploader-input-helpers/
- Added: edit_where_any option in Pods UI now lets you set (true/false) whether for edit_where to be an ANY or ALL match (default false = ALL)
- Fixed: Date Input field was throwing a JS error if you used YYYY-mm-dd format without the time included
- Fixed: parse_url fixes for when path isn’t set (localhost or custom ports usually causes this)
- Fixed: When there was extra output above or below JSON strings like errors from other plugins, whitespace, or anything else – we now explicitly match the JSON {…} string before using it in JS to avoid confusing errors for the user
- Fixed: .pods_form style tweaks to help cover themes which display the form incorrectly
- Fixed: Forcing (int) on getRecordById when is_numeric( $id )
- Fixed: Resolved incompatibility issues with certain MySQL configurations which were throwing errors when saving a Pod
-
sc0ttkclark
Pods 2.0 Update
It’s been a crazy few months to say the least.
Back in October, I started a full time PHP job that was supposed to give me more time with family and to code. It did, but there was a huge piece missing out of my day, WordPress. Since 2007, I’ve almost exclusively been working with WordPress, developing plugins and pushing it’s boundaries.
In October, my new job didn’t involve WordPress, and at first I thought it would just strengthen my PHP skills. Unfortunately it didn’t really do much of either and I decided to move on.
As of last week, I am now part of the RD2 team. My job is multi-faceted, but I was mainly brought on to be their WordPress “guru”, and I can already tell that it’s a great fit.
The above is just the backdrop to this post though, I really want to get right to it. My new years resolution was to be more involved with WordPress day-to-day, spend more time with my family, and foster the next phase of Pods’ life: Pods 2.0.
Many things have led to delays and I won’t stand here and list all of those excuses. The bottom line is that 2.0 is not yet finished. The website isn’t even finished. The ‘free contribution well’ has sort of dried out, I have been paying developers for their help with the project and it’s strained my personal finances. I’m considering some more options for funding but I know so many people have already contributed.
Everything was in place for success, but time worked against me and others involved and I lost my work window I had set. If you can remember back to September, I set aside a few weeks of my work schedule to solely work on Pods 2.0. Then some who were involved to help were unable to contribute as much as they had planned, if at all. I went looking for help, but that became a huge time sink. I should have just gone at it on my own and dealt with the delays. I was impatient and didn’t want to fail, I looked for dev help that just wasn’t there at the time.
Pods 2.0 isn’t stopping
No, no. Far from it. While I’ve had spare time over the past few months, I’ve been planning bigger and better things for Pods, namely, funding. I’ll unveil the new funding idea soon, once I get the remaining details lined up. First, to answer what I can, yes Pods will remain free. I’m however looking at existing models and other funding options to keep development flowing more than just donations. There simply isn’t enough donation power coming in to sustain it. If you want to prove me wrong, please, by all means — you can impact the development of Pods greatly through your donation. If you have time and are experienced with Pods, you can jump in now to contribute.
I will continue to work on getting the new site launched and finishing up Pods 2.0 Alpha, there’s so much I can’t wait to commit for you to test! I’m trying to limit the commits so everything doesn’t break at once
I want to thank everyone who has contributed to Pods 2.0 so far, either monetarily, or through development. Your contributions do not go unnoticed!
-
vingogly
Personally, I wouldn’t have any problem paying a fair price for Pods CMS 2.x (assuming it’s as good as I think it’s going to be), either on a per site or bundle basis. I’m already paying for professional-quality plugins like WPTouch Pro, BackupBuddy, a number of others I consider essential for certain sites (and BackupBuddy is included with every site I build for clients).
-
sc0ttkclark
That’s great to hear, more than likely things are leaning towards freemium though, with the bulk of 2.0 remaining free while some more special features would be premium. And anyone who has donated or contributed to the kickstarter a certain amount or over will have access to that for free! Thanks for keeping with Pods and using it on your projects, the best has yet to come!
-
-
vingogly
Actually, that’s how plugins like WPTouch and Ninja Announcements do it … a free version plus a “pro” or premium version with special features. I’ve installed the alpha on my sandbox and haven’t had a lot of time to play with it yet, but oh my, it’s a whole new world.
-
sc0ttkclark
I always hate that word usage, “pro” lol
Alpha is night and day in terms of UI, I put in a lot of time planning and making it usable, an paying fancy smart people to help! Glad you’re enjoying it already, much more to come.
-
-
jeremy
Glad to hear you are going to adopt a structure that will give everybody the pods they love free but allow you to get a little reward for the probably hundreds of hours you put into the pods framework by selling extras.
Best of luck getting pods free versions going and for the addons thereafter!
My main suggestions to you would be to look at the strengths of pods as a framework (for example, you could consider the most common applications of pods as an information system), and then develop a suite around this.
When I’m buying extra’s on freemium products, my considerations before purchase are always a matrix like:
The developer spent x hundred hours developing this extra ‘pro’ feature, and it has updates.
The price is only x
It would cost me WAY more to make my own, and the feature stands above competition.
win/win for both of us, good value.
The product standalone was great and free, I dont feel like im being ripped off/have any ill feelings towards wp plugin seller because the developer does something good for the community and seems like a good guy.Making everybody happy but getting paid just a little for your tireless work is a hard beast to master but i think you can do it!
Good Luck!!
-
-
sc0ttkclark
I put Pods up on Ohloh this week, they analyzed all of our code from 1.x and 2.x and it’s pretty crazy to see the estimated cost of what it’s taken to make Pods what it is today.
-
sc0ttkclark
Working a lot lately on structuring and funding plans for 2.0 and beyond, really good stuff I’ve come up with that I think everyone will thoroughly enjoy!
-
sc0ttkclark
Subscribing to the Dev Blog via RSS
It’s pretty easy, it’s how I keep up to date when this site isn’t open in one of my browser tabs
Here’s the two URLs you’ll want to watch:
New Posts: http://dev.podscms.org/feed/
New Comments: http://dev.podscms.org/comments/feed/You might also want to subscribe to our Twitter updates if you don’t have us in your direct view through your Twitter dashboard of choice.
@podscms Twitter Feed: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/34624383.rss
bjornet is discussing. 
anditko and 
jeremy, 
vingogly are discussing. 
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.