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NiftyGridZPro – new feature in next version

No release date yet planned

In the next version there’s a new option for controlling the titling of products displayed in your grid. This one lets you include only product names in titles, like shown here.

It makes for a much cleaner design – useful only when your grid is showing a mix of products.

The default is that this option is switched off. To switch it on use use_only_product_names_in_titles=1

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Here’s the shortcode used for it:

[niftygridzpro title_font_size="14px" title_alignment="center" cell_max_width="140px" description_font_size="13px" description_alignment="center" description_length="0" include_price_line=1 search_term="legal" page_size="12" allow_interaction=1 show_visitor_search_form=0 tracking_code="ngrdz_blg_usng_ngp" use_only_product_names_in_titles=1]

Note that presently, it only works 100% for Zazzle-added product type names. Where a designer has added a product name, the plugin uses the last two words of the designer’s title. That seems to work 99.99% of the time.

It won’t work when a designer uses a product name in the middle of their title AND Zazzle’s system spotted that and so didn’t add a product type name. In this rare-ish case, the last two words are still used – so it’s a bit pot luck.

How to: Halloween Party Invitations for Kids

So, Halloween is almost upon us! Now is the time to think about all those kids’ parties being organized right now!

So the question answered for this post is “how do I make a product grid containing just invitations for kids’ halloween parties?”

It’s so easy to do with NiftyGridZPro just use the shortcode builder over on our sister site.

Here’s the grid I created with it and you’ll see that they’re all invitations for halloween parties for kids. Perfect, just what we want. Keep reading to see how I set it up.

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Search for:
How many to get (max 120):


…and here’s the shortcode for the grid

[niftygridzpro title_font_size="14px" title_alignment="center" cell_max_width="260px" cell_border_color="#aaaaaa" cell_background_color="#ffffff" cell_font_color="#333333" cell_vlink_color="#666666" description_font_size="12px" description_alignment="center" description_length="0" include_product_names_in_titles=1 include_by_line=1 include_tags_line=0 include_price_line=0 allow_interaction=1 product_grid_nav_font_size="20px" show_visitor_search_form=1 show_grid_navigation=1 fallback_filename="default-fallback-grid.html" grid_sort_method="pulledorder" grid_sort_direction="highlow" associate_id="238582202591969585" search_term="halloween kids" sort_type="popularity" sort_direction="desc" page_size="4" page_number="1" department_id="252145500430512226" product_background_color="ffffff" tracking_code="ngrdzwp_hlwn"]

I had to use the Zazzle Department finder, linked to under the More options->Advanced options in Step 1

screenshot showing the shortcode builder being used
Giving a search term and getting the department number for invites

I chose the display options I wanted and set a few other bits and bobs, copied the code it gave me and pasted it into my post. Done deal! 🙂

That was easy, wasn’t it? See the exact setup I used for it by following this link to the shortcode builder

Removed dependency on YQL – Yahoo Query Language

On Thursday July 24th the YQL facility for pulling from RSS feeds went down. NiftyGridZPro was using it to get the data from Zazzle to build its grids and it started to work only intermittently as a result.

Many of you noticed right away, as did we. We were working on an enhancement at the time and testing suddenly started returning no results. Once we identified it was YQL at fault, we immediately got to work writing our own feed-pulling and manipulation code.

New plugin zip files for NiftyGridZPro were sent out to everyone as we progressed, so making sure your sites were partially fixed as soon as possible.

We finished everything by the 30th with a final, fully functional and tested replacement sent out to everyone.

Enhancements were also included:

  • Default grid fallback file is now called default-fallback-grid.html and is included in the fallback folder
  • There’s been some slight changes to testing fallback grids. All you need do now is use mimic_zazzle_down=1 without using a search_term and that’ll force your specified fallback_filename to be displayed. Remember to remove mimic_zazzle_down after you’re done testing.
  • We’ve fixed the product_background_color so you can now use a # in front, making it consistent with all other color settings. It’ll work both with and without, so there’s no need to change anything in previous posts / pages

Enjoy 🙂

Expired licenses – old posts now keep your rf id

Update: the premium NiftyGridZ Pro is now a forever license – it never expires.

As was

Following feedback received, we’ve changed what happens when a premium licenses expires.

It used to be that once a license expired, links would stop using your associate id (aka referral id) and use ours – until you purchased a new license. At that point all previous and new product grids would once again use yours.

Now…

Now when a license expires, all existing product grids continue to use your associate id – only new ones created after license expiry will use ours.

If you get a new premium license, all product grids you created in between times will automatically start using yours instead of ours, as will the new product grids you create.

Also..

We were asked to provide a way to change the size of the font used for the product grid navigation elements. These are the ones that show by default when you allow visitor interaction.

We’ve done that by providing a new shortcode option: product_grid_nav_font_size
By default it’s set to 20px, so there’s no need to do anything if you’re happy with that size.

We’ve updated the FAQ with the details and also provided for it in the shortcode builder on our sister site.

So thank you for the feedback!

We love listening to our customers and making improvements when we can. Do you have any suggestions?