What it does
The aim of the plugin is to help people keep up to date with new wordpress version releases. (For more info see the original plugin announcement.)
How it works
The plugin takes a simple approach to get the users attention. Once activated it checks an XML-RPC webservice for update news displaying a message at the top of every page in the wordpress admin user-interface. It will check for an update to the message every 15 mins with an additional check being kicked off if the installed wordpress version changes so as to give instant feedback on upgrades.
Possible Changes/Known Issues
The following changes have been suggested for implementationbefore the plugin hits version 1.0:
When you’re using the latest version, just show a dim grey “up-to-date” line.- Version 0.80 does this as standard.
wp_version_check()Template Tag.- Optional email sent when new message detected to help track the many installs supported by some people for friends
- Version 0.90 has this functionality
- Hello Dolly incompatible – As this plugin uses the same piece of screen real estate as Hello Dolly you can’t run both at the same time.
- …. your suggestion here ….
The following bugs have been identified:
Hard to see the message when using the Tiger Admin UI Plugin.- In Version 0.80 Tiger Admin UI plugin is now detected and alternative css is delivered for the Tiger Admin.
- In Version 0.90 MarkJ’s improved css is delivered for the Tiger Admin.
Plugin contacts the service every 15mins when the blog is viewed rather than every 15mins when the admin pages are viewed.- Fixed in version 0.80 does this as standard.
XML-RPC Error codes are not reported properly- Fixed in version 0.91
Download
The latest version of the plugin may be downloaded here: pjw_wp_version_monitor.1.00.zip
Examples
To see examples of the plugin in use see the original plugin announcement.
@Dan: The error means that when the plugin trys to contact the webservice it is unable to open a socket
What versions of software is the server you are running on running?
Running WordPress 1.5, Apache 2.0.54, PHP 5.0.5. PHP was configured with xml enabled.
Dan as your running PHP5 you may be suffering the same issue as seen by marian above. Are you by any chance running on a Windows Server? If so it looks like the PHP bug detailed above is still not fixed.
Can you confirm whether or not you are running on a Windows machine?
I’m not on windoze, im on FC4.
Found the problem. The WP 1.5.2 has the 1.67 version of class-IXR.php and you need to upgrade to version 1.7. Popped in the new version and it works.
Thanks
Dan that is good to hear and very interesting.
As far as I know WordPress 1.5.2 ships with v1.62WP and the current WordPress trunk has v1.7 beta looking at the differences between the two the only major change that would affect the plugin is to add a default timeout which would only help it returning the error you were seeing quicker if your install was unable to contact the webservice.
But it works now and thats the main thing 🙂
Thankyou for this plugin.
Thanks for this plugin. It gave me the same error as Dan (above stated on Oct 21 @7:44). I replaced “class-IXR.php” which comes in WP 1.5.3 (class-IXR.php Version 1.62WP) with the 1.7 beta version(as Dan did) and VOILA! Instant working of Version Check. The previous “error” was also “instant” btw. FWIW
Maisy good to here it works for you with the updated class-IXR.php. I am begining to wonder if something is different in PHP5 and is causing this error – all my development and testing work has been done on PHP4.
I assume you are running PHP5 to?
My guess would be yes to the PHP 5 being the culprit I tested this plugin on a php4 server that I have, same basic config as my php 5 server and it worked without having to change the class-IXR.php to 1.7.