It’s been a while since any activity has happened with prettyPhoto and WP-prettyPhoto. I was waiting for some changes to the prettyPhoto code to release a new version, and Stéphane Caron has released version 2.3 of his prettyPhoto jQuery plugin recently, so it was time to roll out a new WP-prettyPhoto version, 1.2, with all the changes and features that have been suggested since the last release. To skip the blah blah and go straight to downloading, head over to WordPress Extend.

What’s new in this version? There’s quite a lot! First off, let’s talk of the changes made by Stéphane to prettyPhoto:

• Video and flash support has been reinstated! prettyPhoto can now handle prettifying links to MOV (Apple QuickTime) and SWF (Shockwave Flash/Small Web Format). There is a specific format you need to respect when linking to those media types. More information can be obtained on the prettyPhoto project page (near the bottom)
• Code has been optimized and design tweaked
• More information on the 2.3 release of prettyPhoto can be obtained on the project page.

As for WP-prettyPhoto, I have obviously integrated the changes from prettyPhoto inside this release, that means:

• Video and flash support for links pointing to .mov and .swf media files. Again, be aware there’s a specific format to respect if you want your movies and animations to be hooked correctly. More info on this on the prettyPhoto project page.
• Added an option to toggle media hooks (disabling it will disable WP-prettyPhoto prettifying your video and animations)

There’s also a few new features that will improve usability and user-friendliness such as…

• There’s now an option to disable jQuery substitution. prettyPhoto relies on version 2.3.1 of jQuery. WordPress bundles a jQuery version that was inadequate to use with prettyPhoto, so to solve that problem, WP-prettyPhoto removes the JavaScript library that is shipped with WordPress and substitutes it for an adequate version that’s shipped with WP-prettyPhoto, namely 2.3.1. More info on how to do that here, should you find yourself wondering. Thanks to Stéphane Caron for suggesting this feature.
• There’s a new feature to exclude prettyPhoto hooking on certain links. In order to do so, all you need to do is set the link of your image, flash animation or QuickTime video to a new window (target=”_blank”) and WP-prettyPhoto will skip prettifying it. Thanks to Tommy Jones for suggesting this feature.
• Upgraded bundled jQuery from 1.3.1 to 1.3.2. Not really something that’s necessary for the plugin, but I figured that since I substitute it, it might as well be the version that users might want, namely the most current at the time of the release. You can always disable substitution and include the version you desire by some other means.
• Switched prettyPhoto version type from uncompressed (17.5kb) to compressed (11.5kb), more fitting to production environments. Should you want to hack it up, there’s an uncompressed version over at the prettyPhoto project.
• Obviously with the new changes, English and French localizations have been updated.
• Fixed a bug where DD_belatedPNG (PNG transparency hack for IE6) would be included even if the selected theme wasn’t dark, which made it useless.

That’s enough for now, isn’t it? As always, if you have feature suggestions do not hesitate to contact me, they might make it to the next release! Now that you’re educated as to what and how, feel free to head over to WordPress Extend to download this new version. Enjoy!

Note: Version 1.2 pretty much hit a wall.. I made the mistake not to add jQuery 1.3.2 in the package.. so yeah.. nothing worked. It’s fixed in 1.2.0.1. Sorry about that.