FAVIROLL – FAVIcons for blogROLL Plugin

This plugin convert the favicon.ico from the blogroll sites into PNG images and save this in a local cache file. The conversion process works just on the admin-page, visitors don’t have to waste time to wait for favicons from remote websites. If a blogroll entry was added or modified this single Link will be updated.

All cached icons can conveniently be assigned to any of the bookmarks, just a mouse click.

The plugin fallback to a default icon, if on the remote websites cannot be detected a valid favicon. The default icon can be configured like any other bookmark.

1. install & activate the plugin.
2. initialize plugin with by clicking the ‘Click here to start’ button.
3. the favicon cache will be created.
4. play.

1. 

   two blogrolls examples with Favicons

2. 

   where you find the control panel in the backend

3. 

   faviroll backend panel with favicon cache

4. 

   manage-links panel have favicons decoration also

5. 

   caution messages if something is wrong

What’s about favicons of https (SSL) Websites?

The plugin is 100% written in PHP. In PHP it isn’t possible to decode SSL sites, so the plugin try to fallback to “curl“.
If this is not available on your webserver, the favicon will not displayed.

Where does the plugin come from?

see: http://www.andurban.de/tag/faviroll

Can I save my custom favicons before install an update?

No, sorry.
The cache directory is currently a subdirectory in the plugin directory, I designed this to hold all together.
The wordpress update installer remove the whole old plugin directory before install the update, so all cached icons will removed, too.

Explanation:

• FEA = Implemented feature
• FIX = Bugfix
• OPT = Optimization
• CLN = Cleanup/Refactoring
• OTH = Other

0.6

• CLN: Code maintenance for WP 4.2

0.5.2.1

• OPT: Preventive examination whether url_fopen is possible. If not you will got feedback.
• CLN: Code maintenance.

0.5.2

• OPT: Favion detection optimized. Deprecated PHP Code updated. THX for reporting the issues to faina09.

0.5.1.4

• OTH: Maintenance Compatibility Check for WordPress 3.8. Faviroll still works fine 😉

0.5.1.3 – Codename: Mystique conflict

• FIX: Naming conflict of some stylesheet definitions. Now all styles take the “faviroll” prefix. Thanks Alexandre.

0.5.1.2

• OPT: Favicons will now displayed in the manage links admin panel also

0.5.1.1

• FIX: Resolved an javascript/ajax problem. images were not updated correctly.

0.5.1

• OPT: The favicon from own site is now the default icon for bookmarks without a favicon.
• OPT: Countdown box while refeshing favicons from foreign sites for better feedback.

0.5

• FEA: Complete redesign of the backend-panel with many customizing options and usability improvements
• FEA: No submit button any change is saved immediately via ajax technology.
• FEA: Possibility to assign any image for “custom icons”, workaround to use an icon with a better quality.
• OPT: Full Code maintenance.

0.4.8.2

• OPT: Code maintenance for WP 3.x

0.4.8.1

• FIX: Ooops, I’ve overlooked a little error in my code, made one test too less, “mea cupla”. 😉

0.4.8 – Codename: “Dixie’s fix”

• CLN: Code Refactoring: Code structure completely rewritten, a lot of bugfixes and runtime optimation.
• FEA: Implementation of Windows BMP processing. Some site using this image format which can’t process by PHPs GD-Library.
  Until now these proprietary formats was (non optimal) passed by Faviroll.
• FIX: Some Sites deliver Favions larger 16×16 pixels and proprietary formats wasn’t shrinked to 16×16.
  (Issue Request from Dixie. Thanks for feedback, “Dix”).
  I’ve found http://phpthumb.sourceforge.net/ to solve the issue.
  This superb library is able to convert Windows BMP icons up to 32 Bit to GD image which Faviroll needs.
  Conclusion: Favicon handling is more complex I thought at the beginning, but I don’t give up.

0.4.7

• FEA: Options has a new checkbox for disabling faviroll/style.css (Request from Dixie)

0.4.6

• FIX: Icon Color “irritation” is fixed now.
  Many thanks to: http://www.tom-reitz.com/2009/02/17/php-ico-to-png-conversion/
• OPT: Users asked for WordPress MU support….Here it is.
• OTH: Revisit default days changed from 14 to 180 days (1/2 year should be enough)

0.4.5.1

• CLN: Code “polish”
• OPT: Try to enable/disable the availability with https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-render-blogroll-links/

0.4.5

• FIX: Parser has not recognized Blogroll-Links with additional attributes like title=”…”, rel=”…”, etc.
  Many many thanks for patient debugging support of: http://www.heiniger-net.ch/daniel
• prepared for the new version of https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-render-blogroll-links/
• Unfortunately this plugin needs a little patch. See Screenshot-4.

0.4.4

• CLN: Settings panel now you can find under “Links”.
• OPT: Image type recognition. Just the ICO image is converted into PNG.
  All other image formats are bypass direct into the local cache.
  This will maximize the usage of the foreign favicons.

0.4.3

• CLN: complete (re)design cache file handling, fallback strategies and -finally- the integration into wordpress.
• OPT: Added style.css to easily edit the faviroll css classes.

0.4.2

• CLN: little code correction

0.4.1

• FIX: in cache directory creation fixed

0.4

• FIX: unable to create cache directory.
  Some user feeback reports the plugin is unable to create cache directory which anchors in plugin folder because of missing write permissions.
  Now I use wordpress core function wp_upload_dir() to create the (persistent) cache into the “uploads” note.

0.3.2

• OTH: same like version 0.3

0.3

• OTH: internal “fight” with subversion. No code changes.

0.2

• CLN: added screenshots
• OPT: switching the transparency automatically rebuild the icon cache
• FIX: increase execution time to max. 5 minutes at (re)building all icons to avoid Fatal error: Maximum execution time of xxx seconds exceeded

0.1

• Initial version