The last couple of months have been pretty hectic. Soon after I released Rapid Niche Websites V-2, WordPress released WP2.3. And with this update came a host of conversion issues.

As mentioned in my previous post, the main concern was the scrapping of the Categories table in preference to a more flexible, but more complex Terms taxonomy - which allows more flexibility for further WordPress expansion and enhancements. So with the maturing of WordPress came some temporary pain.

What makes it more complex with such an upgrade is that this affected both plugins and themes. Also, not all hosts upgrade at the same time, and also my customers don’t always update / upgrade all their sites at once, so the ‘fix’ to the Rapid Niche Websites System had to cater for either Version 2.2 or Version 2.3. The coding isn’t too complex to do this - just finicky in that you have to make sure that you apply the fix to each and every plugin and template page affected. It’s so easy to skip a section, but fortunately that has all been accomplished - although not without some grey hairs being added - to both me and my customers … .

So how come we’re now at Vsn 2.2 already?

Well - I’ve been busy …

Based on my own use of the RNW System, plus customer feedback, I’ve added a few enhancements. Three that might be of interest are :

• Embed Points : I have adding in the ability to insert custom code embed in various parts of the template. What does this mean? Well - quite simply customers are now able to insert custom PHP, Javascript, or HTML code into each theme page by using one or more of the many available embed points. What this means is that they can define custom code to be inserted in an embed point, and then they can try out different layout options without their custom code being overwritten by the specific PHP code required for each layout selected.
• New Theme - 2RH sidebars : This theme has been requested for quite some time - but I struggled to get IE6 to behave while still allowing the use of the source-ordered template that I use as the base template for the various layout options provided for in RapidFormatter. After multiple tries I eventually managed to find a web page the provided the one snippet of information that I needed to banish the irritating IE6 problem. So - now my customers can select either a fixed-width, or variable-width 2RH sidebar option as one of the 8 layout permutations offered within RapidFormatter.
• Google Search Widget: As part of my focus on increasing the monetization options within the Rapid Niche Websites System, I have added the Google search widget to the list of available widgets that can be included. You can add this both within RapidFormatter when first designing your site, or at a later stage when you decide to refine your site and/or test alternative monetization options.

It’s a huge relief that two big issues have been addressed - the WP2.3 upgrade, and the inclusion of a popular theme format. I am now able to start addressing a number of additional enhancements that I have wanted to include for the past few months.