tuftsceeo / smartpost

SmartPost is a dynamic templating and authoring tool that brings a lot of the features of the WordPress dashboard to the front end.
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=== SmartPost Templates === Contributors: rafdizzle86 Donate link: http://rafilabs.com/ Tags: templates, forms, front end editor, video, ffmpeg, picture gallery, media, uploader Stable tag: 2.4.0 Requires at least: 3.8 Tested up to: 4.5.2 License: GPLv2 or later License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

SmartPost builds beautiful form templates that makes it quick and easy to generate posts on the front-end of your WordPress site.

== Description ==

= What is SmartPost? =

It is a template builder and authoring tool that is user centered. No programming or coding knowledge required.

= Why use SmartPost? =

= How does SmartPost Work? =

Build Templates to be used on the front-end of your WordPress site:

SmartPost enhances WordPress categories by applying templates to them. Users can create new category templates and build them up by dragging and dropping components into the template builder. Once category templates have been setup, users can utilize them on the front end to create new posts. SmartPost also allows you to copy existing templates into new ones.

Authors use pre-defined templates to build rich posts on the front-end of WordPress:

No more going back and forth between the dashboard. Build rich posts one component at a time with immediate feedback on how your post will look like once published. SmartPost utilizes intuitive actions such as dragging and dropping to add pictures and videos to your post.

Note: SmartPost is still in the Beta stage, check out the "Beta Testing" tab for more info!

For more information, check out the plugin site here.

== Installation ==

  1. Download the plugin in zip format.
  2. Uncompress the smartpost.zip file.
  3. Move the smartpost directory under the /wp-content/plugins/ directory in your WordPress instance.
  4. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
  5. Go to the SmartPost admin page and create a new template (or use the default SP QuickPost template)
  6. Add the [sp-quickpost] shortcode to a page or add the "SP QuickPost" widget to a widget area
  7. Go to the front end of your site and create beautiful, clean looking posts with instant feedback

== Frequently Asked Questions ==

= How do I create posts on the front-end like the plugin says it does? =

The easiest way to start using the templates is to embed the [sp-quickpost] shortcode in a post, page, or some place that is able to parse WordPress shortcodes. The shortcode looks something like [sp-quickpost template_ids="1"] or [sp-quickpost template_ids="1,2,3"]. The template_ids attribute allows the shortcode to know which template form should be used. In the SmartPost admin page, the shortcode for each template is provided with the template's associated ID, however, you can allow your users to pick from a selection of templates by providing the shortcode with multiple template ids separated by commas as it is shown in the example above. The IDs in the shortcode have to be associated with SmartPost templates, otherwise the shortcode will not render properly.

The second way to start create posts on the front end is by adding the "SP QuickPost" widget to one of your widget areas / sidebars. The widget works better if you have a "category header" widget area where you can place the SP QuickPost widget. If your theme doesn't have a "category header" widget area, then generating new posts on the front-end may look broken as the form itself is squeezed into narrow sidebars.

However, it's fairly easy to create a category widget-area for you to place your SP QuickPost widget in:

  1. Create a sidebar-category.php file in your theme file.
  2. Once you created this file, read up on how to register a new sidebar area here.
  3. In your category.php file, place the sidebar somewhere under the category title, right before the post loop.

= How do I get HTML5 video encoding to work? =

Note: SmartPost only supports video encoding on Linux servers! We are hoping to extend support for Windows servers soon.

FFmpeg is required for video encoding to work! The server that your WordPress instance resides on needs to have ffmpeg and ffprobe executables present in the same directory. If ffmpeg is already installed, these executables usually reside in /usr/local/bin/, but sometimes not. To find the full path of where ffmpeg lives, you can use the shell command command -v ffmpeg.

Once you've found the full path, then in the WordPress dashboard go to SmartPost -> Settings and click on the "Video" link on the right hand side. Copy and paste the full path of where the ffmpeg executable resides in the text input (make sure there is a trailing "/" at the end of the path). Click on the "Test" button to see if SmartPost is able to properly invoke the ffmpeg executable. Note: PHP needs to be configured to allow SmartPost to use the shell_exec(), exec(), and system() commands for this work!

If you're not confident in installing ffmpeg on your server, the easiest thing to do is to download static builds from the ffmpeg website. In order to download the right build, you will need to know the type of operating system of the server your WordPress site is hosted on. If it's a Linux server (in most cases it is), then you will need to know the appropriate kernel version. There are various ways to look up the kernal version, the easiest being via the shell command "uname -r". You can also look it up via phpinfo() or use the php_uname() command.

Once you've downloaded the appropriate static builds, un-compress them, and upload them to a directory where the "apache" user has permisions to execute them. A good place might be inside the SmartPost folder under wp-content/plugins/smartpost-templates/components/video/ffmpeg/ (you would have to create the ffmpeg folder).

= How do I uninstall SmartPost? =

We are currently working on putting in place an uninstall script! If you want to completely purge your WordPress instance of SmartPost, then you will have to delete the following:

  1. The tables 'sp_postComponents', 'sp_catComponents', 'sp_compTypes'
  2. The options: 'sp_categories', 'sp_db_version', 'sp_defaultCat', 'sp_cat_icons', 'sp_responseCats', 'sp_cat_save_error' from the wp_options table.

== Screenshots ==

  1. Build category templates across your taxonomy - each category can have its own template. Posts created using the "SP QuickPost" widget will follow the structure of the template.
  2. SmartPost comes with a wide variety of useful widgets that makes post management easier on the front-end of WordPress.
  3. Drag and drop images, videos, and files from your desktop to create rich posts with videos and picture galleries with immediate feedback. No more jumping back and forth between the dashboard and the front-end of your site.
  4. How a post looks after submitting it via a SmartPost template.

== Changelog == = 2.4.0 =

= 2.3.9 =

= 2.3.8 =

= 2.3.7 =

= 2.3.6 =

= 2.3.5 =

= 2.3.4 =

= 2.3.3 =

= 2.3.2 =

= 2.3.1 =

= 2.3 =

= 2.2 =

== Upgrade Notice == = 2.3.9 =

= 2.3.8 =

= 2.3.7 =

= 2.3.6 =

= 2.3.5 =

= 2.3.4 =

= 2.3.3 =

= 2.3.2 =

= 2.3.1 =

= 2.3 = Users should update to 2.3 due to a few major bugs that were fixed:

= 2.2 =

== Beta testing ==

The SmartPost plugin is still in a "beta" stage. There are still a few kinks to work out and we are looking for people to provide us with feedback! We apologize for any "unstable-ness" you may experience throughout the use of this plugin, and we encourage you to continually back-up your WordPress database and any content you may generate through the use of this plugin!

If you are a developer and are interested in helping out with the development on this plugin, check out the github repository and feel free to contact the developer. Also, check out the plugin site while you're at it.

Thanks!