This was meant to be a 1.5.5 release, but I ended up sending out the 1.5.5 release unofficially to all of my users two Sundays ago and of course they ended up finding a few bugs and areas of improvement (I wasn't able to get all of them in, but the biggies all made it in). But since I had already tagged the 1.5.5 release that means any new additions meant a new version too, so here we go with version 1.5.6!

Quick Release Note: The 1.5.6 version's ZIP file contains a customized router.php file which can be used to overwrite DOCman's default router.php file. My version adds some new capabilities that allows my query reduction improvements to be taken advantage of even when SEF URLs have been enabled (unfortunately I couldn't fix this within the plugin as it's an issue with DOCman itself, hence the customized router.php file).

New version 1.5.6 Features!

  • Added support for my preload() method within the DocmanRouterHelper class (so if you copy over my custom router.php file into components/com_docman then the number of queries needed when SEF is enabled should be greatly reduced).
  • Added canUpdate() method to DOCmanListHelper class.
  • Added the canUpdate() text into the layouts.
  • Added some additional language keys into the language file.
  • Added some additional configuration options for the menu buttons (now you can turn on/off each of the Downloads Home, Search Documents and Submit Files buttons as well as use a custom URL for the Downloads Home link).
  • Added some additional text that gets displayed when you install the plugin to make sure and inform users that they should go and Enable the plugin if they are installing it for the first time.
  • Added ability for custom height/width to be used for the table layout with preview Layout Option.
  • Fixed issue Wes was running into by creating a modified copy of the getDocsByUserAccess() method to the DOCmanListHelper class.
  • Fixed issue that loaded all documents when the preloadDocumentsGroupedByCategory() method was called with an empty value for $catIds.
  • Note: Still need to fix PDF focusing issue reported by Remco in the table layout with preview layout.
  • Note: Need to add in modal layout option.

Version 1.5.5 Additions:

  • Moved Default Table Layout into its own file (Corresponding key: useTableLayout)
  • Added New List Layout (Corresponding key: useListLayout)
  • Added New Table with Preview Layout (Corresponding key: useTableLayoutWithPreview)
  • Completely reworked the data retrieval portion of the plugin to preload data in chunks, rather than load records one by one.
  • Added Category Primary Field Ordering Capability (Corresponding keys: categoryOrderByName, categoryOrderByParentId, categoryOrderById, categoryOrderByOrdering along with categoryOrderAscending, categoryOrderDescending)
  • Added Category Secondary Field Ordering Capability (Corresponding keys: categoryOrderByNone2, categoryOrderByName2, categoryOrderByParentId2, categoryOrderById2, categoryOrderByOrdering2 along with categoryOrderAscending2, categoryOrderDescending2)
  • Made some additional CSS improvements

So why did it take me a little bit longer to release this version?

That's a great question! I guess there are a couple of things, but the main reason was that I went on  October 15 to get a LASIK consultation with the wonderful Dr. Angela Nahl of La Jolla, California, to see if I would be a good candidate for laser eye surgery.

You see, I've been wearing glasses since I was eight years old and over the years my eyesight had decreased pretty steadily to the point where I was close to -8.00 diopters (or about 20/1200) and I had just gotten to the point where I really didn't want to wear my glasses anymore and didn't want to bother with contacts either (which i had been wearing on and off over the years).

So I went in and met Dr. Nahl and everything checked out for me as a candidate so I signed the paperwork and then came back the following Friday, October 22, to get my eyes fixed.

Even though I look pretty serious in the picture below, I wanted to share the fact that I'm so into Joomla that I went ahead and wore my recently acquired shirt from the San Jose Joomla!Day to my procedure :-).


(I swear I don't look this serious all of the time!)

So I've been trying to keep my eyes rested the past few weeks (prior to the surgery and then afterwards), but I still wanted to put some work into fixing the issues that have cropped in the last two weeks after I sent out that email about version 1.5.5.

If there is anybody out there that is in a similar situation with their eyes, I would definitely recommend Dr. Nahl (she had the fastest laser after all, haha...about twice as fast according to her as the one at UCSD's Shiley Eye Center) and the procedure in general. I know it's different person-to-person, but for me there was only a mild scratchiness immediately after the procedure which went away after a few hours and unlike some I didn't have watery eyes or anything afterwards. When I went back in this past Tuesday for a follow-up I was able to see all the way to the 20/15 line on Snellen Chart so I felt pretty good about that :-).

Thank you very much for your patience everyone and thank you to everyone that wished me luck on my procedure!

Want to see what other features DOCman List has? Check out the Features page! Want to see the plugin in action? Check out the DOCman List Plugin's Example page on our Demo Site!

DOCman File Listing Plugin