ZATZ Lab Notes
It’s not the years. It’s the lines of code.
Working around PayPal breakage: the joys of being middleware
The problem with middleware is that your software is always caught in the middle. In the case of Seamless Donations, the plugin is fundamentally a piece of software that lives between WordPress and a payment gateway, which today is only the standard PayPal interface....
Why maintenance coding is a lot like remodeling a bathroom
As I look back at the changelog for 4.0.12, I'm kind of surprised at how large this week's update is. When you look across all the elements, you begin to see how the changes are related and that there is a pattern in the process. This is reflective of my fundamental...
Coding vs. yard work… and a swimming pool would be nice
“And a swimming pool would be nice.” That’s how a long conversation with my wife ended. It started with a discussion about the merits of software development compared to … yard work. Yes, yard work. I tended to favor software development, while my wife was all about...
Seamless Donations 4.0.8 fights back against spammers (plus GitHub)
Welcome to the 4.0.8 release of Seamless Donations. This release is pretty special because I've had the opportunity to partner with Mihai, creator of GoodBye Captcha. The experience turned out to be awesome. Let me give you some context. Seamless Donations displays a...
Seamless Donations 4.0.6 incorporates many under-the-hood improvements
From one perspective, Seamless Donations 4.0.6 is just a maintenance release. No (or at least very few) new features are added and much of the time has been spent fixing a few nasty bugs. But from another perspective -- in terms of how much improvement has been made...
Reengineering the Seamless Donations core payment gateway
This update has been almost six weeks in the works. Granted, much of that time has been spent doing my "day job" work, but it has still taken a much longer time than I wanted -- especially considering that it's a bug fix upgrade. During that time, I issued two public...
Seamless Donations 4.0.2 adds Spanish, French, and some form tweaks
This week, had the opportunity to add a few features and fix a few residual bugs from the 4.0 release. Special thanks go to David Chávez and Etienne Lombard for their Spanish and French translations. Here's a quick rundown of changes and tweaks. Additions Added an...
Seamless Donations 4.0.1 includes German translation and bug fixes
It's been a busy week. Fortunately, other than the initial naming problem found when updating the repository, bugs have been generally manageable. All exiting tags listed as bugs have been fixed. Here's the rundown. Had some reports about file problems, particularly...
Fixing Seamless Donations 4.0 update/activation problems
Despite all my efforts to guarantee you all a smooth upgrade from Seamless Donations 3.3 to 4.0, things didn't quite work out as planned. If you are experiencing upgrade problems, white screen of death, or hangs while trying to update the plugin, here's what you need...
Seamless Donations 4.0 Beta 1 is here: Please test!
Well, it's looking good. Seamless Donations 4.0 is now ready for testing. The final changes to the PayPal payment gateway are done (there's now only one form on the form page, not a mix of two forms competing with each other), and it seems to be working quite well. To...
