FC's Loan Calculator

FC's Loan Calculator Plugin is a general purpose loan calculator that solves for a monthly loan payment and creates a detailed amortization schedule with date based payments. Additionally, your visitors can view a set of charts so they can visualize the cost of a loan. Your visitors can also select their own currency and date convention used in the loan schedule. This is ideal if site attracts visitors from around the globe. Select from one of four predefined sizes or modify CSS file to customize size and colors. Supports touch and a responsive designed website. The plugin is based on and uses the code from my very popular Loan Calculator. Rebranding with your site's brand name is supported and encouraged. The plugin may be used (a) in a post or page's content area via a shortcode; or (b) used in a sidebar widget area; or (c) called from any template file. See usage under installation for details. Installation Either (a) upload the fc-loan-calculator folder with all its files to the /wp-content/plugins/ folder or (b) unzip the plugin's zip file in the /wp-content/plugins/ folder. Activate the plugin through the Plugins -> Installed Plugins menu in WordPress Usage There are 3 mutually exclusive ways you can deploy the calculator to an individual page (though you can use all three methods on different pages within a site):

1. If you are using widgets, just add the plugin to the sidebar through the Appearance -> Widgets menu in WordPress. Be sure to click Save.
2. Add the following code <?php show_fcloan_plugin(); ?> to your template where you want the calculator to appear. See below for options.
3. Add the shortcode [fcloanplugin] in the content area of your page or post and configure shortcode parameters.

Shortcode parameters

• sc_size= tiny | small | medium | large
• sc_custom_style= No | Yes
• sc_add_link= No | Yes
• sc_brand_name=
• sc_hide_resize= No | Yes
• sc_loan_amt=
• sc_n_months=
• sc_rate=
• sc_currency=
• sc_date_mask=

Examples (1st includes all options): [fcloanplugin sc_size="tiny" sc_custom_style="No" sc_add_link="Yes" sc_brand_name="Best's Auto" sc_hide_resize="Yes" sc_loan_amt="30000" sc_n_months="60" sc_rate="5.5" sc_currency="83" sc_date_mask="2"] [fcloanplugin sc_size="small" sc_custom_style="Yes" sc_hide_resize="Yes" sc_currency="83" sc_date_mask="2"] [fcloanplugin sc_custom_style="No" sc_add_link="Yes" sc_brand_name="Friendly Mortgage" sc_hide_resize="Yes" sc_loan_amt="30000" sc_n_months="60" sc_rate="5.5"] Optional array parameter passed to show_fcloan_plugin() Valid values for options are the same as the shortcode above. "medium", 'op_custom_style' => "No", 'op_add_link' => "Yes", 'op_brand_name' => "Karl's", 'op_hide_resize' => "No", 'op_loan_amt' => "32500.0", 'op_n_months' => "48", 'op_rate' => "5.5", 'op_currency' => "999", 'op_date_mask' => "999" )); ?> Notes:

1. If you want to add your brand to the calculator, the *_add_link option must be set to "Yes" (i.e. create a subtle follow link to financial-calculators.com).
2. When branding, the brand name will be added before "Loan Calculator".
3. If _custom_style is set to "Yes", the plugin will load fin-calc-widgets-custom.css located in the plugin's CSS folder. If you set the option to "Yes" without making any changes, the calculator will change to a horrendous red which indicates the custom css is being used.
4. The plugin is built and tested on HTML5/CSS3 pages.
5. size (max-width): large: 440px, medium: 340px, small: 290px, tiny: 150px
6. The modal dialog that allows users to select a default currency and date format is NOT compatible with some other dialogs. If you have a modeal on the webpage you want to install this calculator on, either your modal or the calculator's modal may not work.
7. Website developers can set a default currency sign and preferred date format by setting _currency and _date_mask respectively. Set one or both to an integer value. For the list of integers to support 90 plus currency symbols and 6 date format options, see the file currency_and_date_conventions.txt in the plugin's root folder. (example: India, Indian Rupee: ₹1,23,45,678.99 = 83)

Enhanced Internationalization New: Support for over 90 currency signs (using appropriate nummber formatting conventions) and 6 date formats (mm/dd/yyyy, dd/mm/yyyy, yyyy.mm.dd etc.). If neither the website developer or the user makes a selection, the calculator will read the browser's default currency and date options and automatically use them. Without doing anything, a website visitor from Japan visiting a website hosted in France will initially see a floating yen sign. The website developer can easily override this default behavior by setting either shortcodes or function options. The user (if the website designer keeps the feature enabled) can override both and select a currency and date format. To summarize, the plugin determines what currency symbol (and date format) to use by applying the following rules:

1. If a website allows a user to select a symbol, and the user makes a selection, the plugin uses the visitor's choice first.
2. Otherwise, if a user has not made a selection, and the website owner has set a default currency (i.e., currency does not equal 999), the calculator uses the website's selection.
3. Otherwise, the calculator plugin will attempt to read the browser's currency default and pick a currency symbol.
4. Otherwise, the plugin defaults to using the '$' symbol.

Roadmap:

1. Redesign that allows multiple calculators to work on the same web page - completed v.1.2.0.
2. Allow website owner to select a default currency and date format - completed v.1.4.0
3. Give website owners the ability to not let their visitors change the default date format or currency - completed v.1.3.0

Contact me if you would like to help test any of these new features. Other Calculators As of this writing, financial-calculators.com has seven plugins listed in the WordPress Plugin Directory with several more available on the website. All plugins have the same general feature set and are consistent in their styling and the way they work. This means you can install all these plugins and maintain a consistent look and feel across your website or blog. If you blog about money, you are encouraged to install all the plugins on your site. It's simple. The more pages, the more opportunity. Below links take you to the indicated WordPress Plugin Directory page.

1. Auto Loan Calculator - solves for several unknowns and creates a payment schedule.
2. Mortgage Calculator - optionally incorporates points and insurance and creates a payment schedule
3. Retirement Age Calculator - answers, at what age will I be able to retire given my investment plan?
4. Retirement Nest Egg Calculator - answers, what will be the value of my retirement fund when I retire?
5. Retirement Savings Calculator - how much do I have to invest periodically to reach my retirement goal?
6. Savings Calculator - calculates the results of regular savings and investing

1.4.4

• Fixed a style which made the calculator way too tall on some themes (specifically Neve Theme by Themeisle).
• Fixed a calculation error in the chart. Not all prior values were cleared.

1.4.3

• Fixed a display bug that only impacted some sites if they installed plugin via a sidebar.
• Tweaked styling to make it cleaner.

1.4.2

• Fixed a bug that prevented your website users from selecting a currency of their choice in some situations.
• Added support for Nigeria's Naira currency symbol

1.4.1

• Internal change. Never released.

1.4.0

• Added currency sign support for 80 plus additional currencies.
• Added three additional date styles.
• Now the first time a visitor tries the calculator, the calculator will detect their browser's currency symbol and date style and use them.
• Website owner has the ability to set a preferred currency sign and date format for all first time visitors.
• Website owner can give the visitor an option to select their preferred currency symbol and date format.
• IMPROVEMENT: on mobile devices calculator opens numeric keyboard by default.
• UPDATE: some layout and style settings
• BUG FIX: Fixed an input issue on Android devices that required a long press to input numbers for some Android users.

1.3

• Slight style changes
• Tweaks to work better with WordPress 5.0
• Switched from Bootstrap v3 to Bootstrap v4 utilities. If your site is built using Bootstrap 3, this may cause conflicts. Test on a dev machine.
• Since there are no user enhancements, I would only upgrade if you have experienced a style issue.

1.2.0

• Multiple fc calculators can now be used on a single web page.
• On a few sites, the text in the dropdowns was cut off - fixed.
• Previously, if site had opted to allow backlinks, 2 had been inserted. Now one is inserted.

1.1.2

• Updated the CSS so as to resolve a few reported compatibility issues with some sites.
• Improved layout of international date and currency selection dialogue.

1.1.1

• Fixed - some installations the currency / date dialog was not accessible because the background overlay was on top of the dialog.
• Fixed - some installations the Help text was visible on the main page and not just when the Help button was clicked
• Fixed - missing "+" "-" signs for the optional resizing feature

1.1

• Improved styling
• Converted project to use a single file CSS regardless of calculator size selected. Single file will be compatible across all financial-calculator.com plugins so site owners can modify style once and copy to all other plugins.

1.0.2

• Fixed readme.txt, 2 errant commas in source and optional copyright backlinks.

1.0

• First release