BeyondWords is the AI voice platform that brings frictionless audio publishing to newsrooms, writers, and businesses. Automatically create audio versions of WordPress posts and pages and embed via a customizable player. Lifelike neural voices and customizable text-to-speech algorithms deliver realistic speech that keeps listeners coming back for more.
5.2.2
Release date: 10th December 2024
Fixes
- 423 Optimise WordPress HTTP calls to BeyondWords REST API.
- Increase the WordPress default
timeout
param from 5
to 30
. This is to address a reported issue where REST API calls are sometimes timing out in WordPress/PHP before the REST API is able to respond.
- Also removed the
sslverify
param for API calls. This is no longer recommended.
5.2.1
Release date: 28th November 2024
Fixes
- #421 Update WordPress GET voice queries to use scopes.
- Fixes the issue where multilingual voices were not being shown in voices dropdown menus.
- #417 Improve handling of failed REST API requests when syncing settings.
- Add HTTP status code into failed API credentials validation message to improve debugging for empty response body.
- Fix the undefined index errors that are logged when REST API responses do not contain the expected structure.
- Replace transients with object cache to reduce db writes.
- Add Query Monitor plugin to wp-env local dev config to help with debugging.
5.2.0
Release date: 22nd November 2024
Enhancements
- #414 Tested up to WordPress 6.7.
- #409 Support the recommended inline script tag method to embed players.
- This opt-in feature is experimental and may change, or be removed, in the near future.
- Opt-in to the inline
<script>
tag method of auto-embedding audio players by defining the constant BEYONDWORDS_PLAYER_INLINE_SCRIPT_TAG
as true
in your wp-config.php
.
- This was added because the recent removal of the deprecated
beyondwords_content_id
filter caused problems for a publisher who had been using it to display an audio player from another post on their homepage.
- After opting-in, audio players that are auto-prepended to the post body should now use the
beyondwords_content_id
and beyondwords_project_id
from the associated post being queried within The Loop.
- A known-issue is the current implementation is currently incompatible with both the BeyondWords shortcode and the BeyondWords player block. Compatibility will be ensured before this experimental opt-in feature is shipped to all users. In the meantime players added using either the shortcode or player block are unlikely to appear when the
BEYONDWORDS_PLAYER_INLINE_SCRIPT_TAG
is true
.
Fixes
- #413 Refactor API calls to prevent "invalid creds" messages
- Since upgrading to version 5 a few publishers have reported problems with their valid API credentials being flagged as invalid, so the checks we had in place to validate the API Key and Project ID have been updated.
- API calls to create/update BeyondWords content can now be made with potentially invalid credentials. If this happens (e.g. if your API Key has been revoked) the 401 Unauthorized error code and error message will be stored for your requests and visible in WordPress admin.
5.1.0
Release date: 30th October 2024
Fixes
- #404 Bring auto-publish setting into WordPress to fix auto-publishing.
- In some cases WordPress was publishing audio regardless of the auto-publish setting in the dashboard.
- After this update any content created with the WordPress plugin will need to be published in the BeyondWords dashboard.
- #407 Regenerate audio for all post statuses
- If a post has a content ID for audio then we now always make PUT requests to the BeyondWords REST API when the post is updated.
- This fixes an issue where the
published
property of audio was not set to false
when WordPress posts were moved back to draft
status.
- #408 Generate Audio checkbox in Classic Editor doesn't reflect the "Preselect" setting
- A change in the
v5.0
update meant the "Preselect generate audio" JS script was no longer being enqueued. This should now be fixed.
5.0.0
Release date: 15th October 2024
Enhancements
- #385 Extend plugin settings using a tabbed interface.
- The plugin settings screen has been expanded to include settings from the BeyondWords dashboard, allowing you to set various BeyondWords settings without leaving WordPress.
- Changes made in WordPress will be immediately copied over to the BeyondWords dashboard when "Save settings" is pressed.
- Changes made in the BeyondWords dashboard will be copied over to WordPress when you visit the relevant plugin settings tab.
Breaking changes
- Legacy audio player support has been removed.
- The legacy BeyondWords player is no longer natively supported in the WordPress plugin.
- The standard BeyondWords Player is now the only built-in option for the audio player.
- Remove built-in Elementor compatibility.
- Basic support for audio generation and auto-player embeds should still work for posts that are created with Elementor, although you will be unable to see a BeyondWords player in the Elementor post edit screens. To view our player in WordPress admin you can temporarily switch to the Block or Classic editors.
- Refer to our WordPress filters docs and the Elementor hooks docs if you wish to add Elementor support to your site.
- Stop saving the legacy
beyondwords_podcast_id
param.
- This change means that posts generated with versions
v5.0.0
and later will not play audio if the plugin is downgraded to v3.x
or below.
- If you need to downgrade to
v3.x
after using v5.x
please contact us for support.
- Remove deprecated filters.
- A number of deprecated filters have now been removed from the source code.
- Refer to our WordPress Filters documentation to view the current filters we provide.
See the previous changelogs here.