EffortLess Timeline Posts

Creates a custom post type "Timeline" with date/year meta, categories, and shortcode [timeline] for chronological display. Supports full dates, durations, custom labels, year-only mode. Admin columns sortable by date/year.

1. Upload plugin folder to /wp-content/plugins/.
2. Activate via Plugins menu.
3. Add entries under "Timeline" post type.
4. Use [timeline] shortcode in pages/posts.

Attributes: limit (default -1), category (slug), order (ASC/DESC).

1.0.39

• Refactor: donate notice file kept as includes/class-donate-notice.php (preserves SVN file history); class remains Effortless_Donate_Notice.

1.0.38

• Fix: donate notice now correctly displays on Network Admin pages — screen ID normalization strips WordPress's -network/-user suffix before matching.

1.0.37

• Refactor: donate notice class renamed Donate_Notice → Effortless_Donate_Notice (WP-standard prefix); file renamed to class-effortless-donate-notice.php. No phpcs:ignore needed anywhere.

1.0.36

• Fix: donate notice now uses current_screen hook for reliable screen detection on single-site and multisite Network Admin pages.

1.0.35

• Fix: donate notice now also hooks network_admin_notices so it appears on Network Admin pages (multisite).

1.0.34

• Fix: donate notice now correctly reads the "Donate link" header using get_file_data() — get_plugin_data() does not parse that field, so the notice was silently not rendering.

1.0.33

• Fix: VERSION constant corrected to match plugin header (was 1.0.31, header said 1.0.32).
• Improvement: added dismissible donate notice on Timeline list and edit screens.
• Improvement: added Donate link header field and includes/class-donate-notice.php (reusable across plugins).

1.0.32

• WordPress 7.0 update

1.0.31

• Fix: completed eltlp_ prefix rename — settings page HTML form attributes (id, name, for) and color-picker CSS class were still using etp_ prefix; all updated to eltlp_.

1.0.30

• Security: replaced $_GET['post'] in admin_notices() with global $post object — no nonce required for a read-only post ID lookup.
• Fix: renamed CPT to eltlp_timeline, taxonomy to eltlp_timeline_cat, shortcode to [eltlp_timeline], all option/transient keys to eltlp_ prefix, class to ELTLP_Timeline_Posts, constant to ELTLP_VERSION.

1.0.29

• Fix: added inline phpcs:ignore on the constant and class declaration so Plugin Check suppresses PrefixAllGlobals warnings regardless of its prefix configuration.

1.0.28

• Fix: constant renamed to EFFORTLESS_TIMELINE_POSTS_VERSION and class to Effortless_Timeline_Posts to match the slug-derived prefix that Plugin Check enforces.

1.0.27

• Fix: renamed class to EffortLess_TimeLine_Posts; updated phpcs.xml to declare ELTLP_ and EffortLess_TimeLine_Posts_ as valid prefixes.

1.0.26

• Fix: renamed version constant to ELTLP_VERSION and updated phpcs.xml to declare eltlp_/ELTLP_ as the canonical plugin prefix.

1.0.25

• Fix: renamed constant ETP_VERSION → EFFORTLESS_TIMELINE_POSTS_VERSION and class EffortLess_Timeline_Posts → Effortless_Timeline_Posts to satisfy WordPress.NamingConventions.PrefixAllGlobals.
• Code: added phpcs.xml with explicit prefix configuration so local PHPCS enforces the same rule.

1.0.24

• Code: rewrote timeline-script.js to pass WordPress PHPCS standard (tabs, multi-line call formatting, @package tag, period-terminated inline comments).

1.0.23

• Improvement: "Show Era Boundary" toggle — displays a styled divider line between BC and AD entries on the timeline.
• Improvement: "Era Terminology" radio — choose BC/AD (traditional) or BCE/CE (modern). Applies to year labels and the divider.

1.0.22

• Improvement: Settings > "Show Year Labels" toggle — uncheck to hide the year column and display a compact full-width timeline.
• Improvement: any change to a plugin setting now automatically busts the shortcode transient cache.

1.0.21

• Improvement: year field now accepts BC dates (-9999 to 9999). Enter -2580 for 2580 BC.
• Improvement: BC years display as "2580 BC" on the timeline and in admin columns.
• Fix: negative years were stripped to positive by absint(); now uses intval() to preserve sign.
• Fix: sort timestamp falls back to year × 31 557 600 when strtotime() cannot parse ancient dates.

1.0.20

• Improvement: "Show Today" toggle in Settings — displays a hollow marker at today's date position, sorted correctly among all entries. Works even with no real entries. Bypasses transient cache while active.

1.0.19

• Fix: entries dated exactly 1970 (Unix epoch, timestamp = 0) were incorrectly filtered out and never displayed.

1.0.18

• Improvement: added Settings page under Timeline menu with shortcode reference (all attributes, defaults, examples) and existing categories with ready-to-use shortcodes.
• Improvement: color pickers on Settings page let admins change the timeline line color and dot color without editing CSS.

1.0.17

• Fix: replace named global function in uninstall.php with call_user_func closure to eliminate global namespace warnings.

1.0.16

• Fix: wrap uninstall logic in a prefixed function to avoid global variable scope warnings.

1.0.15

• Fix: removed load_plugin_textdomain() — WordPress auto-loads translations since 4.6.
• Fix: prefixed global variables in uninstall.php to avoid namespace collisions.
• Fix: added phpcs:ignore for the_content core hook (not a custom hook).
• Fix: updated "Tested up to" to WordPress 6.9.

1.0.14

• Improvement: CSS and JS now load only on pages that use the [timeline] shortcode.
• Improvement: activation and deactivation hooks flush rewrite rules so CPT slugs work immediately.
• Improvement: added uninstall.php to clean up plugin meta keys and transients on deletion.
• Improvement: meta fields registered via register_post_meta() for REST API and block editor access.
• Improvement: shortcode output cached with transients; cache busts automatically on save or delete.
• Improvement: recursion guard prevents infinite loop if [timeline] appears in an entry's content.
• Improvement: new heading shortcode attribute (h2–h6) for correct document outline control.
• Improvement: timeline wrapper gets role="region" and aria-label; marker gets aria-hidden; articles get aria-label.
• Improvement: admin notices shown when date/year fields are silently cleared by validation.
• Improvement: featured image (thumbnail) added to CPT supports.
• Improvement: menu_position changed from 5 (conflicts with Posts) to 20.
• Improvement: generated languages/effortless-timeline-posts.pot for translators.

1.0.13

• Security: validate year_only as integer clamped to 1900–2100 (server-side).
• Security: reject full_date/end_date that don't match YYYY-MM-DD format.
• Fix: format_date() returns empty string instead of "January 1, 1970" for invalid dates.
• Fix: correct phpcs:ignore sniff name on virtual stylesheet handle.

1.0.12

• Fix: allowlist _date_type values to prevent arbitrary meta storage.
• Fix: guard strtotime() return value before writing timestamp/year meta.
• Fix: apply category filter before limit so limit counts filtered results.
• Fix: admin sort direction now respects the URL order parameter.
• Fix: shortcode output wrapped in .timeline-dotcom container (CSS max-width was broken).
• Fix: prime post meta cache before loop (single DB query instead of N×6).
• Fix: load plugin textdomain so translations work.
• Fix: move meta box inline CSS and JS to properly enqueued handles.
• Fix: use ETP_VERSION constant for asset versioning.

1.0.11

• Code: fix all PHPCS WordPress standard violations (tabs, alignment, short ternary, globals, comment style).

1.0.10

• Initial release.