Changelogger Plugin// Changelogs for everyone

Changelogger on wordpress.org Download v1.3.3

The 20th of June 2009 was the day when changelogs found their way into readme.txt files of plugins in the WordPress plugin repository. Thanks to Peter Westwood und Mdawaffe a new version of the readme.txt example file was available online that had an example of the changelog in action.

For many many people a changelog is a very important thing; it is all about justifying to your users why they should upgrade to the latest version of a plugin. That's why I created the little plugin called Changelogger. It shows the latest changelog right on the plugin listing page, whenever there's a plugin ready to be updated.

The plugin requires WordPress 2.7+

  1. Download the plugin and unzip it.
  2. Upload the folder changelogger/ to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder.
  3. Activate the plugin from your WordPress admin panel.
  4. Installation finished.

  1. Deactivate the plugin from your WordPress admin panel.
  2. Upload the folder changelogger/ to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder and overwrite the existing file.
  3. Activate the plugin from your WordPress admin panel.

Note
The changelog on a plugin update is being shown if the plugin author added a changelog section based on the new readme.txt example file to their plugin.

Screenshots

49 Responses

  1. Reply
    Josh CookJune 23, 2009 at 2:51 am

    I love the plugin, although it appears that the changelog needs to be from the newest version to the oldest, is there a way to have the plugin parse the correct readme file?

    • Reply
      OliverJune 23, 2009 at 11:31 am

      Hey Josh,

      the ‘correct’ example readme file suggests listing changelogs from the newest version to the oldest, so that is how my plugin’s trying to parse the readme.

    • Reply
      OliverJuly 5, 2009 at 5:17 pm

      Hey Will,

      no bug. It’s just that the plugin author added a changelog section to his plugin’s readme.txt file, but did not fill it properly: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/changelog/ He just added a link which my plugin can’t parse.

      Well, I will try to add validation in the upcoming version, checking if the readme.txt changelog section can be parsed (and is not just a plain link 🙂 ).

  3. Reply
    RobertJuly 7, 2009 at 6:18 pm

    Hi Oliver,

    I just installed the plugin, sounds very useful. I have one suggestion: Could you add a link to the plugin’s revision log in the WordPress Plugin Trac? This would be useful especially for plugins without changelog, but also interesting for plugins which have a changelog. If you have the plugin’s slug, you can easily compose the URL like this: “http://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/$slug/trunk”. Would be great if you could add that.

    Best regards,
    Robert

    • Reply
      OliverJuly 11, 2009 at 5:26 pm

      I added a link to the plugin’s Revision Log in the update notification message. Thanks for your suggestion! 🙂

  6. Reply
    scribuNovember 30, 2009 at 1:55 am

    Hello,

    First of all, great plugin – I use it on all my sites.

    I noticed something today: I had a plugin at version 1.4. The newest version was 1.5.1, but it also had a 1.5 version in between.

    The problem is that Changelogger only displayed the changes for 1.5.1 and didn’t include the ones for 1.5.

    Do you think you can correct this?

    Thanks!

    • Reply
      OliverNovember 30, 2009 at 9:46 pm

      Hey scribu,

      the problem with displaying every version note between the currently installed plugin version and the latest available is that it would definately be too much of information.

      I got several inquiries on the same issue as yours, and working on a space-saving solution already. 🙂

  7. Reply
    scribuDecember 7, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    Just downloaded the new version. Interesting solution to the screen space problem.

    Only trouble is that you have to wait a while each time you click the navigation. Wouldn’t it be possible to load the entire readme upfront, instead of getting bits through AJAX?

    Also, I noticed that when you click back, an AJAX request is made again, instead of caching the results.

    Either way, thanks for the updated version 🙂

    • Reply
      OliverDecember 7, 2009 at 8:01 pm

      Hey scribu,

      well, I’ll see if i’ll provide an alternative way of displaying the changelog, but as for me the AJAX’y way of displaying changelogs is a valid way of handling the huge amount of changelog data along with other plugin-specific data on the plugin page.

      But let’s see. I’ll see and wair what other users are saying. 🙂

  8. Reply
    DanielDecember 18, 2009 at 7:41 pm

    Hi,
    Recently Changelog stopped working – it says that changelog section exists but is not readable. Could you fix this?

    BTW, Thanks for this great plugin 🙂

  9. Reply
    RajDecember 31, 2009 at 4:01 am

    The current version (1.2.6) throws the following error while trying to activate:

    “Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error.

    Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /home/mysite/public_html/blog/wp-content/plugins/changelogger/changelogger.php on line 65”

    Please check.

    • Reply
      OliverDecember 31, 2009 at 2:06 pm

      Hey Raj,

      thanks for letting me know. I guess you’re running on PHP4? I fixed the error with version 1.2.7 that should be available in a few minutes.

  11. Reply
    Adam DempseyJanuary 1, 2010 at 11:27 pm

    Great plugin, one of the first I install 🙂

    Would it be possible to add support for when bulk updating plugins from /wp-admin/update-core.php ?

    • Reply
      Oliver SchlöbeJanuary 2, 2010 at 3:30 pm

      Hey Adam,

      good idea, unfortunately there are no hooks provided for the plugin updates list at /wp-admin/update-core.php. I’ll keep my eyes open for when they add hooks in future versions of WP. 🙂

  12. Reply
    MoyoJanuary 22, 2010 at 10:10 pm

    Solid plugin, however after one recent update, I notice that all the “v”s in the changelog message for each plugin on the “Plugins” page is omitted. Has anyone else experienced this?

    For example, the word “very” shows up as “ery”, and so on

  13. Reply
    xdreamwalkerJuly 2, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    I’ve updated to WordPress 3.0 and Changelogger no longer is showing on the Plugins page. I’m not sure if it is a conflict with another plugin or not.

  14. Reply
    RichardJuly 27, 2010 at 4:09 pm

    Hi!

    Changelogger doesn’t work for me anymore. I can send you a screenshot and more details (plugins installed, etc) if you want, send me an email!

  15. Reply
    benJune 11, 2012 at 7:38 pm

    The changelog plug in worked fine for me, after following all these questions and answers, thanks to all of you.

      • Reply
        PerJune 21, 2012 at 11:32 pm

        Ah, so when an update are available for a plugin then will your plugin show the content of it. Ok lets wait and see when this occurs,

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