This update is a first step, and contains three pretty cool improvements:

Google Maps is responsive-capable

Maps was always responsive actually, you just needed to add some minor CSS rules to use percentages instead of fixed-pixel width and height dimensions.  We say ‘responsive-capable’ because it still isn’t responsive by default, because we haven’t changed the default formats for events and locations yet (that will follow). However, all you need to do now to make a map respnsive is use percentages in your placeholders or shortcodes, for exampls:

[locations_map width="100%" height="300px"] or #_LOCATIONMAP{100%,300px}

These two will create a global locations map or single location map which stretches as wide as possible. If you resize your browser window (or view it in a mobile), the map will be resized accordingly. You can also assign these dimensions in your Settings > Formatting > Maps area, which now contain default values in the event you don’t supply dimensions (currently 400px by 300px).

Better Taxonomy Filtering

We’ve standardized how you can search for both event tags and categories. Previously, you could only search by category IDs as well as negative IDs, yet with tags you could search with tag names or IDs, but no negatives. That was inconsistent, so we’ve now made both work the same way, with all the benefits.

You can now search by ID, names, use negatives and a mixture of all three! For example:

[events_list category="featured,1,2,-3,-hidden"]

Will search events with categories featured and ids 1 and 2, but will not include events containing the hidden or id 3 categories. Nice!

Automatic Custom Taxonomy Detection

Along with the above, we’ve also gone one step further to make things consistent. Whilst adding taxonomies to events and locations is really easy in WordPress, thanks to the custom taxonomy and post type systems, one drawback was that they didn’t incorporate into our shortcodes and other searching PHP functions. Well, that is now sorted too!

Any taxonomy associated with an Event or Location can now be searched for in your shortcode, for example:

[events_list custom_category_name="featured,1,2,-3,-hidden"]

We’ve written a tutorial on using custom taxonomies for Events and Locations, check it out for more info!

5.4.2 Changelog

• improved the handling of orphaned events and locations, they now show information and can be deleted front-end
• fixed deleting of drafts on front-end,
• fixed display/deleting of trashed events and locations on front-end
• changed status of trashed events and locations to -1 (old trashed events may still show up front-end)
• added escaping to search input field in front-end events admin,
• front-end events admin search form now works in all event statuses
• added draft/pending/publish as possible values to event/location status search attribute,
• took out unnecessary update of post_name in EM_Event::set_status()
• fixed untranslated dates when showing post meta
• updated German and Russian translations
• changed recurrence form to say ‘each event SPANS x days’ instead of LASTS
• changed SQL statement to use of EM_Event::set_status() in EM_Event::save()
• location shortcode and functions can now search status by text name (trash/pending/publish/draft)
• fixed em_bookings_get_tickets filter being applied in wrong function instead of em_bookings_get_available_tickets
• fixed email subjects showing escaped entities
• fixed events with members only tickets showing bookings closed to guests
• added option to show member-only tickets to guests
• modified booking form and tickets list templates to achieve the above two changes
• fixed invalid username characters such as + in emails causing registration errors
• fixed tickets admin JS where deleting default ticket prevents new ticket being added without page reload
• added #_BOOKINGSUMMARY placeholder
• added registration email templates to settings page
• added location and description format options to ical settings,
• added description of event to ical feed,
• merged single event ical template ical-event.php (now deprecated) with main ical.php feed
• fixed is_past conditional not considering if current events are set to be past events,
• added is_current conditional placeholder
• improved excerpt handling by balancing html tags when more tag is used
• added word limiting options to #_EVENTEXCERPT and #_LOCATIONEXCERPT,
• added formatting filters to excerpt (applicable when not using word limiting)
• improved/refined search form AJAX to include state/region/town lists if country is defined as well as omitting null values
• added month formatting option in settings page for calendars
• moved em_events_get_sql filter above/before count function executes sql
• added #_BOOKINGDATE #_BOOKINGTIME and #_BOOKINGDATETIME placeholders
• improved EM_Category object – now can be created with slug or name
• improved taxonomy search arguments, now capable of automatically searching any taxonomy registered with events or locations
• updated POT file and German language
• added EM_Walker_Category class and hierarchical category checkboxes in event admin MS Global subsites
• modified JS (minor) – checks EM.ui_css is set before loading jQuery UI CSS
• improved Google Maps – now capable of being responsive via placeholders, shortcode and settings page
• added excel ‘hack’ to support UTF-8 characters

In cases like this, rest assured that once we’re aware of the problem we don’t rest until there’s a fix, so late last night we released version 5.4.1.

For the curious, this problem only occurred for users that had booking taxes set to 0% (i.e. disabled) and also had a booking present that was worth $0 (i.e. free).  One line of code changed and balance was restored!

As we mentioned in the link above, a huge amount of testing time went into the last update due to the important nature of booking price calculations and implications. However, given the endless amount of configuration possibilities, Sod’s law came into effect and a combination we DIDN’T test turned out to be the culprit!

We apologize for any inconvenience caused, and look forward to continuing improving the plugin.

There’s still a few pending fixes that we did not manage to get to in this update (which were identified in 5.3.9, unrelated to this update) , however the plan is to release another update later this week which patches up some other issues we are already aware of. Stay tuned!

5.4 Changelog

• fixed drag/drop in bookings admin not always recognizing the change
• improved location search and reset ui logic
• fixed precision of long/lat values in database
• fixed taxonomy filtering bug in admin area
• added possibility to override timthumb via wp-content/em-timthumb-config.php
• fixed some php warnings
• updated French, Russian, Czech translations and POT file
• changed templates/tables/events.php to use $EM_Event instead of $event
• fixed #_BOOKINGBUTTON JS jumps when clicked
• revamped pricing calculations to account for taxes applied at time of booking (see http://em.cm/v5-4)
• added a standardized discounts system pre/post tax
• fixed EM overridden pages showing despite password-protection
• fixed some settings typos
• fixed month scope filter skipping last day of month events in admin events list area

Pro 2.3.5 Changelog

• revamp of coupons system, uses v5.4 discount system
• coupons now support Multiple Bookings Mode
• coupons can now be added pre/post tax
• delayed transactions table init() so BP doesn’t trigger a _doing_it_wrong function
• moved MB stuff out of emp-admin.php and into multiple-bookings-admin.php
• added option for redirection to checkout page for multiple bookings whenever making a single booking
• updated MB mode and PayPal gateway to use new v5.4 pricing functions
• fixed some php warnings
• updated Russian language file
• improved retrieval of booking name in MB mode, e.g. single event booking = event name, multiple booking = ‘Multiple Events’

We will be releasing version 5.4 which will include these new changes on Monday, along with some other improvements specifically to the new Multiple Bookings feature in our Pro add-on.

This feature will probably (and should!) go unnoticed by the majority of users, but due to the importance of this specific aspect of the plugin, and certain changes to our code, we felt it was important to explain the changes and implications in detail.

Warning - This will be a long, and somewhat geeky read…. sorry!

Whilst working on various aspects of the plugin, we’ve noticed that the way booking price totals are handled needed a serious revamp. We’ll explain the specifics of what and why these changes are happening, but first we’ll start with the good stuff, which puts it all into perspective…. the benefits of this change.

Improvements and benefits

Overall, these changes make the way pricing is calculated more ‘sensible’, robust and simple for developers to use when extending Events Manager in whichever way they need.

Fixed tax rates per booking - Regardless of whether you change the tax rate on your site, or eventually within an event, that booking will remember the tax rate paid at the time.

Modify tax rates per booking - When editing a booking, along with being able to edit ticket spaces, custom fields, status and other details you can now also change the tax rate of any specific booking, irrespective of the global tax rate on your site.

Opens door to future per-event tax rates - With this new approach, we can eventually look at allowing per-event tax rates with minor modifications to the booking code. Future-proof!

Standard price discounts methodology - We now have a standardized way of applying a discounts on per-booking basis, which can be added before or after tax, and is what our own Pro coupons feature now hooks into as well. Developers can now easily hook in and add their own discounts to bookings without creating elaborate hooks into how prices get calculated.

Opens door to standard extra-charges - Much in the same way we’ve standardized discounting, we’ll be taking a very similar approach to adding extra charges to bookings, and this too will be made available to the free portion of the plugin.

Now that we’ve described the goal of these changes, let’s explain the underlying problem.

The underlying problem

Currently, bookings are saved without any information regarding the tax rate that was applied to the booking at the time of booking. When previous bookings are viewed taxes, and therefore the final price, are calculated on the fly by using the tax rate in your settings page (see screenshot below).

Whilst most users will usually never change the tax rate, the fact that you can makes it potentially confusing for previous bookings. Given the current economic climate (especially in Europe!), tax rates do change, and this makes this problem more obvious.

The second problem which is also related to the above, is how booked (not actual) ticket prices are stored within a booking. If you have chosen to add taxes to your ticket prices, you will see all ticket prices with the tax mark-up on the booking forms, and these will also consequently be stored in your bookings tables with taxes added. If you have chosen not to, ticket prices do not include taxes, and they are added on afterwards to the booking totals. Again, not a big deal if you never change the above, but if you do it will throw off price calculations.

What has changed

As mentioned in the benefits of this new update, tax rates are now saved along with the booking, so regardless of what you set or change in the settings, the tax applied to the booking will be the tax rate at the time of booking. You still have the option of changing this rate within each booking.

The tax rate for each booking will be saved in a new field called booking_tax_rate in your wp_em_bookings database table.

Additionally, ALL prices for tickets/spaces booked are saved WITHOUT tax, regardless of whether ticket prices display tax rates, and admins will see breakdowns of ticket prices plus tax added. This option to include tax in ticket prices will only be for display purposes.

How it affects previous bookings

When you upgrade to 5.4 (or the dev version), the current tax rate in your settings page will be saved along with the option whether to add taxes to ticket prices. These values will be stored as dbem_legacy_bookings_tax and dbem_legacy_bookings_tax_auto_add in your wp_options database table.

Modifications to tax settings on your settings page will now only apply to new bookings you make after making the change.

Previous Tax Rates

Any booking made before this upgrade will reference these archived tax settings, which will not change even if you update these values your settings page. Essentially, because the booking was not saved with a tax rate (if you look at the database, booking_tax_rate will be NULL), it will be assumed as an ‘old’ booking and reference this old tax rate.

Adding tax to ticket prices

If you never chose to add tax to ticket prices, this really won’t make any difference to you, skip this.

If you did, when retrieving older booking prices, Events Manager will assume that any older bookings without an specifically applied tax rate stored ticket prices with tax included, and so will deduct taxes from ticket prices when providing you with information about the booking, and re-add the tax during price breakdowns. Booking price totals shouldn’t be affected, this is just the way price breakdowns are displayed/calculated.

If you individually modify/resave a booking, the new way of saving booking info will be used, and a fixed tax rate would be applied to that booking, taking it out of ‘legacy’ mode.

Conclusion

Now that we’re done with this lengthy modification and improvement, it’s time to move forward!

We hope for those that wanted to know more, this was enlightening. We’re excited about getting this update out to you and even more about shifting our efforts to adding new features to Events Manager!

The most important fix is within Events Manager 5.3.9 which consists of closing a potential XSS vulnerability in the event search forms. Therefore, if you are using template files, we strongly suggest you take a look at the html change in the search box itself and move those over to your modifications.

The Pro version update is for a bug that cropped up in one of the recent updates due to the introduction of our Multiple Bookings beta feature, concerning the Form Editor and being able to switch between custom-created forms.

5.3.9 Changelog

• fixed XSS vulnerability in search form field
• fixed php warnings in events-list.php
• ‘mail sent’ messages not shown if no mails actually sent without errors, changed wording of ‘mail’ to ‘email’
• updated French and German languages
• added links to category page on #_EVENTCATEGORYIMAGES images
• reordered search form template variable definitions for future splitting up of fields into individual reusable templates
• changed htmlspecialchars to esc_attr, added esc_attr to various input fields
• improved sanitization of front-end form title submission to prevent entity conversion in db records
• fixed missing EM js variables on public edit/submit events page

Pro 2.3.4 Changelog

• fixed bug when trying to switch booking forms in form editor
• fixed localization typo
• added sanitation to various input textboxes in admin area

• fixed timthumb issues due to new local fetching modification and bad file inclusion path
• fixed time/date separators in settings page not being used
• added yarpp support to post types
• fixed some tag and category warnings when using assigned tags/categories pages
• fixed various PHP warnings
• updated French

Pro 2.3.3 Changelog

• fixed coupon final price miscalculations when tax is automatically included in ticket price
• fixed customer user gateway fields not being passed on correctly when in no-user mode
• fixed password user field problems in MB mode
• improved pro update notifier and key checking consistency
• added option for MB bookings submit button
• fixed form regex rules still being required if value is blank and form field not required
• fixed user profile page failed validation still resulting in update notice along with errors

• See it in action
• Read the documentation for more information

The new beta now allows you to enable Multiple Bookings directly from your settings area, no changes needed to wp-config.php

Here’s the changelog to Pro in this latest update:

• added Finnish
• updated German
• fixed various PHP warnings
• fixed user bookings link pointing to admin area from front-end bookings admin
• removed some redundant code from paypal gateway
• added ‘empty cart’ button to ‘view cart’ page
• fixed custom user fields not being saved properly in MB mode
• fixed manual bookings for MB mode
• Multiple Bookings now beta, no flag required in wp-config.php file

Notable Additions

Assign theme templates to Event & Location pages

Previously, you needed to create specific files (you’ll see us mentioning single-event.php and single-location.php in the forums) within your themes to change the layout of your event and location pages, such as removing/adding sidebars, using different sidebars, etc. Now you have the option to use templates supplied by your theme, just like you would when creating pages.

Note that in many cases you may also need to add additional classes to parts of your event/location pages, in order for your theme to correctly use the right CSS and display your template
correctly. We’ve written a small tutorial explaining how this is done in the TwentyTwelve theme.

Goodbye default Events and Locations!

Previously, Events Manager automatically added three sample events and corresponding locations. This was quite a cool way to get people set up with sample events and get a gist of how things work. However, we’ve decided to remove this for a few reasons:

• This is annoying if you are using MultiSite, each new site creates the same three events and locations each time (not to mention it creates some confusion)
• Many people quite rightly don’t want new random content published to their blog when installing Events Manager
• We’re littering the internet, if you try searching for some of these locations or events, you’ll find results from blogs that installed our plugin, yet didn’t delete these events.

So, we bid farewell to the good old ‘Orality in James Joyce Conference’, ‘Traditional music session’ and ’6 Nations, Italy VS Ireland’ events… good times! We start with a clean slate from now on.

#_CATEGORYNEXTEVENT and #_TAGNEXTEVENT custom formats

Whilst we already had the #_CATEGORYNEXTEVENT placeholder, there was no corresponding option to specifically format this placeholder. Well, now there is!

This is also related to our following addition, Tag archive pages.

Tags has an archive page now too

By default, Events Manager will now also install a new page as a child of the ‘Events’ page called ‘Tags’. This works exactly like the categories page, where you can list all your tags using custom formats to modify the look and feel. You’ll find these new options in the respective Tag sections within the Pages and Formatting tabs of your Events Manager settings page.

If you’re upgrading and you do use the single tag pages along with our ‘override with formats’, it’s strongly advised you create and assign a tags page, because this helps improve compatability with other themes and plugins (including Yoast WordPress SEO – Breadcrumbs module).

Changelog

Here’s a full list of fixes and changes, also found in the readme.txt file:

• fixed extra paragraphs being added to #_EVENTNOTES
• fixed location ‘no events’ message format not using header/footer formats
• updated Finnish, German and POT files
• added customizable event and location page templates
• improved em_options_select() now can create optgroup groups if an array value is supplied
• fixed clashes with JetPack Tiled Galleries
• fixed timthumb thumbnails issues with MultiSite and virtual links
• fixed multisite global problems when fetching and saving main blog events previously saved with NULL blog_id
• fixed bug with categories search attribute not working if any spaces exist such as “1, 2″
• improved offset calculations in ical for some servers
• improved ical generation to avoid memory limit problems with very large numbers of events
• fixed RSS feed pubdate format
• improved generation of RSS feed to avoid memory_limit errors on very large feeds
• changed em_rss_pubdate wp_option to em_last_modified which is now a timestamp
• improved em_get_wp_users() function to fix overload caused by http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/23609
• changed default events aren’t created anymore
• changed public events admin table template to allow viewing of draft events (duplicates) and modified view linking formats
• changed duplicates so they now become drafts by default not published
• improved settings page tab/section loading UX
• added event archives scope
• improved MultiSite Global so unnecessary tables aren’t created for every blog
• fixed outdated group tip on event form (you can detach group events)
• added #_CONTACTURL
• fixed tags not being added to recurrences if no categories assigned too
• fixed datepicker problem on search pages when scope not defined and switching pages
• fixed wp_em_events post_content not being updated if description is removed
• added wp_title filter to widgets
• fixed incorrect number of events per day shown in full calendar according to settings
• fixed the_title usage to check the post id supplied in second parameter
• changed/fixed action where rules are rewritten on settings changes causing 404s for CPTs created in theme functions.php file
• fixed bug with W3TC repeating first no-user booking name for all others in admin table views
• fixed ‘email exists’ errors in no-user bookings mode
• added option for no-user registration with registered emails
• added #_CATEGORYNEXTEVENT, added formatting options for location/category next event placeholders
• improved event, location and category timthumb thumbnails so they accept 0 as a width/height to prevent cropping
• added ical scope option
• fixed category placeholders not being replaced in alphabetical order (so #_CATEGORYNEXTEVENT cannot overwrite #_CATEGORYNEXTEVENTS)
• added #_TAGNEXTEVENT and formatting options
• fixed problem with pagination not highlighting first page number when doing searches
• changed maps js to close other infowindows for locations map when marker is clicked
• added locations search attribute
• fixed autoembed and embed shortcode support for event/category/location placeholders for descriptions
• fixed duplicates triggering ‘published’ actions on duplications such as tweeting via WP to Twitter
• fixed author not being changed on quick edit
• fixed conflicts with various plugins which add custom registration validation (e.g. SI Captcha, Theme My Login, etc.)
• fixed bug where #_LATT fields not appearing in public location editor if event attributes aren’t enabled
• added booking links to edit event booking stats meta box even if no bookings made
• added em_bookings_filtered and em_locations_autocomplete_selected jQuery events
• fixed links pointing to admin on public booking admin tables after pagination clicks or multiple ajax calls
• updated German translation
• added em_calendar_get_args filter
• improved EM_Category::has() – now also checks category name too
• removed redundant functions in EM_Category
• improved default ordering of events in categories page applied to EM_Category::get_default_search() rather than just category pages,
• improved category taxonomy when overriding with formats when using an assigned categories page (particularly breadcrumbs)
• added specific tweaks for Yoast WP SEO plugin for breadcrumbs when using an assigned categories page
• added a tags page and template
• created EM_Tags class – very similar to EM_Categories
• fixed lack of pagination on tag placeholders showing related events
• fixed private locations turned public not appearing in public listings
• fixed today/tomorrow scope not working properly in wp-admin
• fixed pagination variables overriding shortcodes with fixed page attribute
• improved – minor adjustment to location autocomplete ui tip text behaviour
• added em_map_loaded js trigger for location admin map
• updated German

If you’re interested, please read the job description and apply!

The main reason for this focus is because we’ve been working on a pretty exciting Pro feature – Multiple Bookings – which is now in the form of a working alpha (meaning not ‘officially’ a pro feature yet) and is available for use in the latest Pro update (you need to update to EM 5.3.6 as well). You can see some preliminary documentation to help you activate this new feature as well as a working demo to see it in action.

We’re already starting work on the next update, which will be dedicated to polishing off this new feature, tying up some more loose ends as well as taking some time to improve some aspects of integration with MultiSite (mostly revolving around allowing/restricting certain settings available to blog admins).

We look forward to the coming weeks and the exciting things they have in store whilst we move onto the next update!

Events Manager 5.3.6 Changelog

• added is_free, is_free_now, not_free and not_free_now conditional placeholders
• modified EM_Event::is_free() so it can also check if event is free at that moment,
• added do_shortcode filter to dbem_notes so shortcode is parsed outside single event pages
• fixed category filtering when using negative/positive combinations
• fixed category filtering in MS Global mode
• fixed missing menus items for normal blog admins in MS without plugin caps
• updated italian and swedish
• added finish countries translations
• added sorting for countries lists (previously sorted by country code)
• updated POT file
• updated French, updated German (unfuzzied loads of strings, may need some corrections)
• booking meta now uses maybe_unserialize on instantiation
• separated booking validation from save function
• moved user registration logic during bookings into a reusable function
• cleaned up the email admin setting panels for submissions and booking templates
• booking email messages array now generated in separate function
• added em_get_location and em_get_event filters for event/location object retrieval functions
• added em_get_booking getter function with corresponding filter and changed all used of new EM_Booking()
• added em_bookings_admin_page action at start of booking admin pages
• added taxes functions to booking and object classes
• added get_admin_url function for booking object
• added get_price_taxes function to booking object
• added bookings filter condition to exclude bookings with event_id of 0 by default (for Pro Multi-Bookings)
• added data response as second argument to jQuery em_maps_locations_hook event
• fixed bookings form showing on password-protected events
• fixed MS Global blog switching issues when saving
• fixed $EM_Booking->get_tickets() returning all tickets rather than tickets in specific booking
• fixed hidden BP groups not showing to admins
• fixed some German translation file inconsistencies
• fixed blank datepickers if date format is left blank in settings
• fixed tags filter searching multiple tags returning no events
• fixed some MultiSite PHP warnings when adding/deleting sites
• fixed booking button not showing cancel if event is fully booked
• changed booking button so only one booking can be made
• fixed attributes not showing on event submission forms if categories are disabled (option name typo)
• added editable form, so no-user bookings user data can also be edited
• changed booking form JS enqueueing by moving it into EM_Bookings object as a function
• changed booking JS to use on() event delegation for more AJAX compatibility
• fixed some booking form CSS field styling inconsistencies
• fixed issues with locations on sub-blogs when in MultiSite Global mode with locations restricted to main blog
• fixed duplicate confirmations/warnings on MultiSite location admin pages
• changed (improved) EM_Object::can_manage method to avoid extra calls and potential warnings
• changed csv export of single event so the file name = the event name

Events Manager 2.3 Changelog

• fixed newly created user during booking not being deleted on bad card info via authorize.net
• updated Swedish translation
• fixed php warning
• fixed permission problems in MS preventing form editor and other admin screens from showing to admins without plugin rights
• updated Swedish
• fixed newly created users not being deleted in MultiSite if bad A.net card info is supplied
• added Multiple Bookings feature
• fixed MultiSite PHP warning on blog creation when visiting blog first time round
• added hooks to edit no-user booking personal information and custom user fields (requires EM 5.3.5.3 or higher)
• better template/class renaming, adjusted AJAX loading methods to account for caching plugins
• moved email reminders out of beta
• fixed checkboxes, radios and multiselect custom fields in booking form not being editable by admin
• fixed checkboxes, radios and multiselect attendee fields not being correctly editable by admin
• fixed some attendee form display and CSS issues
• fixed tips not appearing for core user fields