Why do I need this?

As mentioned above, themes or even other plugins (like my Field Editor) can add custom fields to WP Job Manager, and when these fields are added, they can potentially be optional fields (OR if you create/save from the admin area, regardless of whether they are optional or not).

If they are optional (or you enter no value from admin area), when WP Job Manager saves a listing it will save that meta value regardless of what the value is (even when it’s empty).  By using this plugin when the listing is saved or updated, it will automatically remove those empty meta values.

Supported Listing Types

• Job Listings
• Resumes (Resume Manager addon)
• Cariera Theme Companies
• Company Manager
• MAS Company Manager
• Techbrise/Astoundify Company Listings

Where can I get a copy?

You can find this for free on the WordPress plugin repository (just search from Plugins > Add New on your site), or at the link below:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/empty-meta-cleanup-for-wp-job-manager/

Empty Meta Cleanup for WP Job Manager

The entire codebase (besides existing cleanup) is open source, and you can report bugs or issues on the GitHub project:
https://github.com/tripflex/wp-job-manager-empty-meta-cleanup

How do I set it up?

There is pretty much no real setup required for this, besides activating it for whatever listing types you want to.

First step is to get a copy of the plugin as mentioned above, and after you activate the plugin you will see a new Meta tab in the associated settings area.

You can see an example of this in the screenshots below.  You can enable or disable the automatic removal for any associated listing type that you would like, and the plugin includes support for Resumes and Companies as well!

Enable/Disable in Job Settings Area

Enable/Disable in Company Settings Area

Enable/Disable in Resume Settings Area

What about existing meta?

If you have an active Field Editor license (version 1.12.2 or newer), there is custom integration included that will scan your entire database for any of these empty meta values, provide you with a list of found values, and then you can confirm to remove them if you wish.

When you have the Field Editor plugin active on your site (version 1.12.2 or newer), when visiting the Meta tab in the associated settings page (Job/Resume/Company), instead of seeing just a checkbox to enable/disable the meta cleaner on save/update, you will also see integration to scan the database for existing empty values.

YOU CAN ALSO ADD CUSTOM KEYS TO SEARCH … just manually enter in the key you want to search for, and then click on it in the dropdown to add to the list to scan for.

You can see an example of this in the screenshots below:

Existing Empty Meta Removal Scan

Empty Meta Removal Results

Requires Field Editor 1.12.2+
Support will be included in the next release of the Search and Filtering plugin as well (TBD)

What else can I do to speed up and optimize my WP Job Manager site?

Install the Index WP MySQL for Speed plugin!!  WordPress natively is not meant for the type of searching and handling required by some large (or even smaller) sites.  Use this plugin to help add indexes and speed up your site:

Index WP MySQL For Speed

As always before using this plugin PLEASE make sure you take a full site and database backup, and PLEASE test on a non-production site to make sure the plugin works the way you want!  

There are numerous filters available if you have specific meta keys you want to omit from the auto removal, check the github project for more details.

As many of you probably already know, I recently got married in July in Colorado to my beautiful wife Brooke.  Being as though we were living in Orlando, having an out-of-state wedding ended up being way more than we expected (not only in cost, but in time we would have to dedicate to it).  Even having a wedding planner, things just seemed to consistently come up left and right for issues that we would need to deal with.

After getting married, my wife was offered an awesome position in Atlanta for work, and we immediately had to start the process of moving to Atlanta.  As we owned a house in Orlando, our first step was getting all the issues around the house repaired and ready to put on the market.  That along with having well over 50+ showings meant that I constantly had to leave my office to setup at a friends house or coffee shop around the corner.

At that time, the housing market was for sure booming.  Within a week we had 15+ offers on the house, one of which was a cash offer above what the house would appraise for … with the understanding that we would have to be out in two weeks.  Living in this house for over 10+ years and being a hacker/maker/tinkerer you start to accumulate things along the way.  This meant I had to scramble to pack up and clean the entire house ASAP, not to mention the fact that we hadn’t even found a place to move to in Atlanta yet

Luckily for us we had friends who lived a little bit outside of Orlando that were willing to let us move in with them for a bit, until we could find a new location to move to.  This was the first location we moved into after selling the house, only to find out that the internet was spotty and could not support more than a few people using it at a time.  We had another service provider come out and install a new service for internet, which resolved that problem, but unfortunately that was just the start of the issues we would have.

After a few days we started to realize that this situation probably wasn’t going to work out for us.  Having to drive to Atlanta to view houses, then come back and deal with OCD the person we were living with, and then our animals … it resulted in the stress causing my wife to cry almost daily dealing with everything.  We have an older lab who has live in Florida his entire life (so he has no idea what stairs are), and two cats.  The couple we were staying with we found out were allergic to cats (would have been nice to know at first), so the cats had to stay in one bedroom, and our dog had to stay downstairs (before he would sleep with us every night).

At this point I realized this situation wasn’t going to work for us and I had to figure something out.  After about a week of searching, I was able to find an airbnb in Atlanta that wasn’t $8000 a month, and had a master on the main level that would work for our dog.  We immediately booked it and then had to pack up everything from the house we were staying in, and then drive the animals and all our stuff up here in a few different trips.

This is the current situation were in, still looking for places to rent or buy but at least for now we have something that is comfortable, has internet, and I can finally get back into the routine of work and not having to deal with everything else coming up.

The unfortunate part about all of this is how much of my time it has taken up, ultimately causing extensive delays in support responses and plugin updates.

Then to add to everything else, it seems that the database for this site got corrupted for a few days, which I didn’t notice while all this was going on, and had to do an incremental restoration (for pages, products, etc — all orders and subscriptions did not have issues).  Fun stuff

I sincerely apologize if you were a client that has been affected by this, and I promise to do everything I can moving forward to make this right and catch back up.  I really do appreciate your understanding and patience while i’m going through these very stressful and difficult times, and will do everything I can to make sure that this does not happen again.

Thank you again for supporting my plugins and your patience!

UPDATE 10/8/2021:
We submitted an offer on a house that was accepted, inspection was today and went great, we’re hoping to close before the end of the month, so things are looking on the up and up!  I’ve already caught back up with all tickets and am working on needed updates to be released.  Keep an eye out as there will be updates coming out shortly for almost every plugin.  ‘

I really do appreciate everyone’s kind words and patience during this process, I was not expecting the kindness and understanding from everyone in their tickets, you guys are amazing and i’m excited to get back to business and start releasing some of these new features i’ve been working on for the past 6+ months!

This plugin functions pretty much the same as the Job Alerts addon plugin (from wpjobmanager.com), but specifically for Resumes.  There has been numerous requests from clients for this plugin, I hope you guys enjoy it and can’t wait to see what you’re able to build with it!

You can get a copy of the plugin at the link below:

https://plugins.smyl.es/wp-job-manager-resume-alerts/

https://plugins.smyl.es/wp-job-manager-search-and-filtering

It’s hard to believe, but this plugin has been in development for almost 2 years now, and as some of you probably already know if you’re using my plugins, i’m very detailed and picky about having amazing features, that work correctly. I am very happy to say is probably one of the ones i’m most excited about!

Over the past 7 years of developing and supporting both WP Job Manager (core plugin), and my WP Job Manager addon plugins, i’ve helped over 20,000 users to build out their own site using WP Job Manager and/or my addons, and I used that experience to build out one of my best plugins yet.

If there’s one thing i’ve learned from those users, and those who have provided me with feedback — getting your site setup for the first time, can be a daunting and sometimes challenge task. 

As such, I put extra effort and time into building a plugin that is easy to setup, configure, and change, right after installation.  Frontend editing is the future of websites, and having a drag and drop UI interface for this plugin was a must.  A lot of time was spent working with theme developers and working on compatibility to make sure compatibility was available right out the gate.

I want to thank both the Cariera and WorkScout developers as they worked with me for well over a month to add updates and compatibility changes specifically for the Search and Filtering plugin.

This plugin came completely out of the requests and feedback I received from clients, asking about this handling in the Field Editor plugin, and also requesting custom work for specific customizations.  The reason this was not something built into the Field Editor plugin, was because doing so would not bring justice to the Search and Filtering fields.  Had I tried to implement a feature for this in the field editor plugin, it would have resulted in a sub-par feature set, and essentially very limited capabilities and tons of issues.

Thankfully I did not go that route, as after getting in deep with development I realized how much work would be involved with this (5x what I expected).  The benefit of doing this as well, is all the amazing features i’m able to bring to you guys in this plugin.  My goal with building plugins now is to make it is easy as possible on the end user (you) to build your WP Job Manager site, with limited to no knowledge of WordPress or WP Job Manager.  Everybody starts somewhere, right?

One of the benefits of how I built out this plugin as well, is how I used a modern frontend JavaScript framework for the majority of the heavy lifting.  This allows me to add new field types, and features with very limited development work, that can be easily integrated into the plugin.  While that is great for me, and you (because features get released quicker), that’s not the best part!

The BEST part about this, is that I have set this up so the plugin ONLY loads the javascript files needed for your site, based on your setup/configuration, and the fields that you’re using! Yes, you read that right, this plugin will dynamically load the required javascript files, based on the fields you’re using!  You would assume this would be standard practice, but for WordPress it is not.  The majority of sites that take very long to load or are excessive in size, is because of the amount of unused code that is being loaded on the site, because the developer of that theme/plugin has to write their code to support all features, and all possible use case situations.

For example, if you’re not using the Range Slider field type, that javascript code will not be loaded on your site.  If it is being used, the javascript file will be “lazy” loaded (meaning loaded after the page initially shows) using a method called “chunking”.  While this may not seem like a big deal, when you add up every single field type, and every bit of added functionality, it can decrease the size of the page by over 80%!  This is how i’m able to make it so the initial page load for Search and Filtering, is only 180kb.  That’s smaller than most images!  Had every field type, and functionality been included, it would be almost 1mb in size!

Same with when you’re in editing mode, because a lot of extra functionality is required, that functionality is only loaded for admins when they have permission to edit the sections.  The end result is faster loading times for your site, and happier end users.  This took a while to get working correctly with WordPress, but it was well worth it.

I’m so excited about this release, and can’t wait to see what kind of amazing things you guys come up with!

The initial release of the plugin comes with a ton of field types, including Standard Text Field, Locate Me (Geolocation) Text Field, Checkbox, Single Select Dropdown (Select2 or Element UI), Multi-Select Dropdown (Select2 or Element UI), Radio Buttons, Slider, Range Slider, Checklist, Button, Custom HTML Content, Spacer Grid Field, and WordPress Tag Cloud!

Some other field types in development right now, soon to be released, include:

• Google Map (with placement markers) – Estimated Release Jan 16-31, 2021
  – This can be used to show a map with listing locations (if theme does not already support one)
• Google Places Auto Complete/Suggest – Estimated Release Jan 9-16, 2021
• Hidden Field Type – Estimated Release Jan 9-16, 2021
• Date Picker (Range & Single) – Estimated Release Jan/Feb 2021
• Time Picker (Range & Single) – Estimated Release Jan/Feb 2021
• Star/Rating – Estimated Release Jan/Feb 2021
• Switch – Estimated Release Jan 9-16, 2021

After being heavily tested during the beta period, i’m also happy to say that this new frontend editing UI from Search and Filtering plugin, is also being built into the Field Editor v2 (to be released this year)!

I won’t go into all the details in this blog post, but head on over to the product page and check it out!

https://plugins.smyl.es/wp-job-manager-search-and-filtering

1. You should NOT be testing this on a live production site!  This should ONLY be used on development environments!
2. There is currently no way to “Import” or “Convert” existing listings/companies to be used in the new plugin. I am however working on this feature, and need YOUR feedback to let me know how your existing “Companies” are setup!

Finally, by joining the program you agree to the Beta Terms and Conditions

Specifically — after 90 days the beta version will deactivate itself, so you must keep the plugin updated for it to keep working!

Please also join the chat server at https://chat.smyl.es to discuss issues and problems and provide feedback on the beta plugin!

To join the beta program, sign up here:

https://plugins.smyl.es/wp-company-manager

Overview Video:

1. You should NOT be testing this on a live production site!  This should ONLY be used on development environments!
2. If you are using the Capstone theme (version 1.7.2 or OLDER), there are some required file modifications until the theme developer makes changes to his theme to use the native WP Job Manager get_job_manager_template_part function instead of just get_template_part.Instructions on how you can do this yourself, can be found here:
   https://plugins.smyl.es/docs-kb/capstone-theme-changes-for-search-and-filtering-compatibility/
3. Automatic installation of default search and filtering fields is not included in the beta plugin yet, you MUST download the Default JSON Import Files ZIP and then import the JSON file for your theme (or just the default one if there is no specific one for the theme you’re using).
   Search_and_Filtering_Default_JSON_Files

Finally, by joining the program you agree to the Beta Terms and Conditions

Specifically — after 90 days the beta version will deactivate itself, so you must keep the plugin updated for it to keep working!

Please also join the chat server at https://chat.smyl.es to discuss issues and problems and provide feedback on the Search and Filtering beta!

To join the beta program, sign up here:

https://plugins.smyl.es/wp-job-manager-search-and-filtering

Overview Video:

Importing JSON Files:

Building Default Search/Filters Form:

Overview Video

Signup

If you would like to join the beta program and be notified when it is available, you can do so at the link below:

Search and Filtering Beta Signup

WP Job Manager 1.32.0+ Support

As many of you should already know, as of WP Job Manager 1.32.0+ the core handling for multiselect fields has changed from using Chosen.JS library, to Select2  library.  The last blog post I created described in extensive detail why this caused such an issue for the Field Editor plugin, and included instructions on how to downgrade to prior version.

With the release of version 1.8.9, you no longer will need to downgrade to an older version of WP Job Manager!

Temporary Chosen.JS Compatibility

While version 1.32.0+ of WP Job Manager does switch to using Select2 natively, it does still include the Chosen.JS library for compatibility with themes/plugins that require it.  For this release of the Field Editor plugin, the easiest way to handle compatibility while I finish up Select2 integration, was to have WP Job Manager multiselect fields to fallback to using Chosen.JS.

This means you will not need to worry about upgrading to the latest version of WP Job Manager, and having issues with conditional logic, dynamic child taxonomies, or multiselect specific field configurations like max selected, and more.

This release also adds and updates support for mobile devices, and all the features included with the Field Editor plugin, as that was one of the main reasons behind the core switch from Chosen.JS to Select2.  See the “Mobile Device Support” section below for more details.

This does not cause any issues with fields like searching for user in admin area that uses Select2.

If you want to read more specifics on the details of how this was done, see this documentation article.

HTML5 Required Validation

WP Job Manager Field Editor HTML5 Required Validation Scroll To

Enabling HTML5 Required validation allows users to be instantly notified about required fields, instead of having to wait for the page to reload showing the error at the top.

Unfortunately due to numerous compatibility issues with browsers and devices, as well as the fields themselves (wp editor, taxonomy dropdown), the required validation only worked in previous versions on a couple of fields.  With this release I have added numerous lines of code and specific handling to support all the included field types with this plugin.

I’ve also added code to automagically scroll the browser window, centering the invalid field to make it easy for the user to know what field needs to be updated.  See the screenshot on the top/left for an example of this new feature.

iPhone Fill Out Field

iPhone Select an Item

This also includes support for mobile devices, which allows the native browser to direct the user to what field is required and needs to be filled out.

As you can see in the screenshots on the right, iPhone natively does this as well.

These examples include standard text fields, as well as all the other fields, including dropdowns, multiselect, and even WP Editor (which is unheard of!)

iPhone will prompt the user to select an item, fill out a field, and makes the user experience much better in regards to required fields!

This also means no page reloads required just to see invalid fields!

WP Job Manager Field Editor HTML5 Required Validation WP Editor

As mentioned above, this release also includes integration with the WP Editor field type for required fields as well.  This did take some time to figure out, and work to integrate (as there’s nothing online I could find about anybody else doing this)

In order to do this, I had to add the wp-editor-field.php template file to the Field Editor plugin, adding customizations to handle this.

I’ve also added a filter to disable HTML5 required on WP Editor fields (while retaining support for other fields), in the instance that you have issues with this specific WP Editor required integration.  Contact me if you need help with this.

WP Job Manager Field Editor HTML5 Required Setting

Enabling or Disabling the HTML5 required feature is very easy to do, just head over to the Field Editor Settings page, and under the Fields tab, you will see the setting (which can also be seen in the screenshot on the right).

Support was also added in this version for the WP Editor, Taxonomy Select, Taxonomy Multiselect, Flatpickr Date & Time, Multiselect, and Select field types.

Please make sure to test your form if you are using HTML5 required as this is a major update for the handling!

If you are using the Dynamic Taxonomy feature, the HTML5 required handling is required on those specific fields and even if this setting is disabled, it will still be used on only the dynamic taxonomy fields (this is required for this feature).

Multiple Auto Output Locations

WP Job Manager Field Editor Multiple Auto Output Locations

This release also adds a new feature requested frequently by clients, which is the ability to select multiple auto output locations for a single meta key/field.

After upgrading, under the Output tab you will now see another field Additional Output where you can select any additional auto output locations you would like the field to be output at.

I am working on an advanced version of this feature, allowing you to specify custom configuration for each auto output, but in the meantime I went ahead and included this in the latest release until I can finish that feature up.

Sortable Image/File Upload Fields

WP Job Manager Field Editor Sortable File/Image Uploads

This feature is actually thanks for a couple of my clients that provided methods they used to handle this, which made it very easy to integrate into the plugin.

Originally this was only slated to be included for Jobify and Listify theme, but it should work any theme as long as it uses the standard WP Job Manager file upload template.

When using this feature, specifically with the Listify theme, it allows your users to re-order the gallery images after uploading them.

It should also work with any other themes that use multiple file uploads and rely on the ordering of those images/files for output.

WP Job Manager Field Editor Sortable File/Image Uploads Setting

To enable this feature head on over to the Field Editor Settings page, and under the Fields tab you will see a new setting.

By default this is disabled, so you will have to enable this if you want to have this feature on your site.

After enabling the feature and saving, any AJAX file upload fields should now be sortable using drag and drop.

Mobile Device Compatibility

WP Job Manager iPhone Native Select Handling

As mentioned above, the major driving reason behind the core WP Job Manager switch to Select2 from Chosen.JS was for mobile device support.  Chosen.JS natively does not support mobile devices, and relies on the device itself to provide things like multi-select and dropdown selection.

As you can see in the screenshot on the left, iPhone already does a good job of this by providing the select handling natively through the device.  Android also does the same/similar thing regarding select and multiselect fields.  I won’t go into all the details, but there also were numerous issues that had to be dealt with regarding these different mobile devices.

As of version 1.8.9, mobile support has been extended to work with the conditional logic, dynamic child taxonomies, and other features in the field editor plugin, until these features can be moved to Select2.

In this latest release, I spent a bit of time testing and fixing issues with mobile devices, for those who which to stick with Chosen.JS (or older versions of WP Job Manager), until the next major release of the Field Editor which will specifically target and support Select2.

Other Changes

Please see the Changelog for full details on this latest update

WP Job Manager Field Editor 1.8.9 has been released which  is fully compatible with WP Job Manager 1.32.0+

While this blog post specifically related to WP Job Manager Field Editor, chances are the update for 1.32.0 will also break and cause issues with themes and other addon plugins that rely on Chosen.JS, so PLEASE be careful before upgrading to this version even after an update for Field Editor has been released,  and make sure to thoroughly TEST your site to make sure it does not break other parts of your site (separate from my plugins).

The tutorial below for downgrading to WP Job Manager 1.31.3 is not specific to any plugin or theme.  If your theme developer or plugin developer has sent you to this page, you can disregard the references to the Field Editor plugin.

Backup Backup Backup

First and foremost, before you upgrade or downgrade ANYTHING on your site, you should ALWAYS create a backup!   Which you did before you upgraded WP Job Manager to version 1.32.0, right?  right?  If you did not, it’s not too late!!   You should ALWAYS get in the habit of creating backups before upgrading core WordPress, Themes, or any plugins!  The day that you upgrade and have issues and realize the backup just saved you days of work, you will thank me!

There are numerous free and paid WordPress backup plugins, which you can find the free (or freemium) ones on the WordPress plugin repository (or through searching from your WordPress installation).

BackupBuddy

My favorite is Backup Buddy, but that is also a paid plugin, and it is WELL WORTH THE COST!

Existing clients can temporarily get a free promotional copy of BackupBuddy, here: https://plugins.smyl.es/backupbuddy-field-editor-promotion/ (you must be an existing client and logged into your account)

If you like the BackupBuddy plugin, I strongly recommend purchasing a license for it, as this supports the developers and further development of the plugin.   Some hosting companies may have issues with the plugin, if you have issues, I recommend trying different settings from the Advanced tab in settings, or contacting your hosting provider and asking them what to set to get BackupBuddy to work with them.  If they do not help, ask them what you should use for backups, as they should give you some kind of legitimate answer as to how to backup your WordPress site, and if not … you may need to think about choosing another provider.  95% of the time most BackupBuddy works out of the box without changing any settings.

Another free option that I like and works well, is the Duplicator plugin

Now that you have a full backup of your site, let’s proceed to downgrading WP  Job Manager to version 1.31.3

This is not absolutely necessary, as we’re just downgrading to an older version of WP Job Manager, and there should be no issues, but I want you guys to get in the habit of creating backups so it becomes a routine when upgrading your site, plugins, or themes!

WP Rollback (easy)

The easiest way to rollback to version 1.31.3 on your site is using the WP Rollback plugin by installing it directly from your WordPress installation.

WP Rollback Plugin

Goto your WordPress admin area, and under Plugins click “Add New”, and then search for rollback as you can see in the screenshot on the left.

Once you see the WP Rollback plugin, install and activate it on your site.  This will allow you to rollback any plugins you have installed, to different versions available from the WordPress repository.

WP Job Manager Rollback

After you have installed and activated the plugin, goto the Plugins page (which lists all installed/activated plugins, and you will now see a new link menu item that says Rollback as you can see in the screenshot on the right.

Click on the Rollback link and it will bring you to another page to select the version to rollback to.

WP Job Manager Rollback 1.31.3

On this next screen you will want to select the latest version prior to 1.32.0 which would be 1.31.3

Select that version, and then click on the Rollback button.  It will prompt you to test on a staging site, and create a backup … which you should already have a backup of your  site, and if you DO NOT, you should make a backup NOW before doing anything else (read above)!

After you click Rollback this will install the 1.31.3 version of WP Job Manager, and will show you a page to Activate the plugin.

That’s it!  You’ve now downgraded to version 1.31.3 of WP Job Manager!  If you want more details about why it is taking so long to update the field editor to support this new version, please see the bottom of this page.

WordPress Plugin Repository (advanced)

Another way to downgrade to version 1.31.3 is to download the ZIP of that version of the plugin, directly from the WordPress plugin repository:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-job-manager/advanced/

WP Job Manager WordPress Repository

Browse to the link above, and towards the bottom of the page you should see something that looks like the screenshot to the left.

Select version 1.31.3 from the dropdown, and click Download

This will download the ZIP file for WP Job Manager version 1.31.3.

WP Job Manager Delete Data on Uninstall

Next we will need to check the settings in WP Job Manager to make sure you DO NOT have the setting enabled to delete data on uninstall.

From your WordPress admin area, goto the Settings sub-menu item from the Job Listings main menu item.  Under the General tab, you should see a setting exactly like the one in the screenshot on the right.

Make sure this is NOT CHECKED, if it is, uncheck it and click Save.   Failure to uncheck this setting will result in data being removed in the next step!

Now that you’ve made sure data will not be removed on uninstall, goto your WordPress admin area, click on Plugins and scroll down to the WP Job Manager plugin.

WP Job Manager Deactivate

Click on Deactivate to deactivate the plugin on your site.

The page should reload.

WP Job Manager Delete

Scroll back down to the WP Job Manager plugin, and you should now see Delete.

Click Delete to remove the newer version of WP Job Manager from your site.

WordPress Plugins Add New

After you have deleted the WP Job Manager plugin from your site, go back to the Plugins page.

In the top left corner of the page you should see the Add New button.  Click on it.

WordPress Plugins Upload

This will bring you to another page, where in that same area the Add New button was.

You should now see one that says Upload Plugin, click on that button.

WordPress Plugins Select File

A new area should now appear similar to the screenshot on the left, you will want to click on Choose File and select that ZIP file you downloaded from above.

Click on Install Now and this will install that version of WP Job Manager that you downloaded.

These instructions above are standard for installing any kind of WordPress plugin

Why doesn’t Field Editor support 1.32.0+ yet?  1.8.9+ Does!

A few clients have asked my why Field Editor isn’t wasn’t ready for WP Job Manager 1.32.0+, and i’ll go into this a bit below to explain the issues, updates, and what is going on.

WP Job Manager Field Editor 1.8.9+ supports WP Job Manager 1.32.0+

Why Chosen.JS or Select2 Libraries?

WP Job Manager Job Category Chosen.JS

So to explain a bit if you’re not aware, or do not know what Chosen.JS or Select2 is … they are both open source libraries for creating the dropdown boxes everyone is familiar with and are used for the Multiselect field types (both Taxonomy and non-taxonomy).

The screenshot to the left should probably be familiar to you. This is an example of the Job Category field using Chosen.JS on a single select taxonomy dropdown.

WP Job Manager Job Tags Multiselect Chosen.JS

Another common use for the library is for multiselect fields, which you can see an example of this, on the right.

The example on the right is for the Job Tags field which was changed to a multiselect using my Field Editor plugin.  Looks nice, right?  Unfortunately this isn’t something that is just “native” to your web browser, and without Chosen.JS or Select2, it would actually look like this:

Job Tags Default Multiselect

I’m sure we can all agree that the default multiselect, is just ugly, and not user intuitive (meaning it’s hard for basic users to know how to even use it).  That is why the core WP Job Manager plugin, up until today, has been using the Chosen.JS library … to make multiselect boxes look much nicer, and easier to use.

Why switch from Chosen.JS to Select2?

While the Chosen.JS library is very nice and easy to use, and has been around for a while … it also lacks in numerous areas where features are needed, isn’t updated as frequently as Select2, and Select2 is the framework used by popular plugins like WooCommerce and others.

Some issues include things like the required attribute ( https://github.com/harvesthq/chosen/issues/515 ) which you can see at the bottom I actually provided a solution, but since the issue was opened in 2012, nothing had been done about it.

There’s also the controversial issue surrounding mobile support ( https://github.com/harvesthq/chosen/pull/1388 ), as Chosen.JS does not support mobile devices, and relies on the user’s device for handling it.

There have been numerous issues opened on the WP Job Manager github repository regarding this:

https://github.com/Automattic/WP-Job-Manager/issues/1202

And essentially the WP Job Manager team decided to switch to using Select2 instead of Chosen.JS ( https://github.com/Automattic/WP-Job-Manager/pull/1645 ), which adds numerous new features that allow for added functionality in the WP Job Manager plugin (like searching for users when editing from admin area).

How does this affect WP Job Manager Field Editor?

This actually has a HUGE impact on the field editor plugin, as each library (Chosen.JS and Select2), has completely different ways of handling configurations, events, and triggers that happen when a value is changed, updated, selected, etc.

If you’re using my field editor plugin, chances are you have created a custom multiselect field, and maybe using a feature like setting the max number of selected options.  The field editor plugin has specific code in it to initialize those multiselect fields, setting the max selected configuration, but this is done completely different in Chosen.JS than it is in Select2.

The issue above is actually something very easy to fix, the major issue here is related to the Conditional Logic, and Dynamic Taxonomy features that were recently added.  Just the conditional logic javascript has over has almost 1,800 lines of code, with most of that specifically targeting the way that Chosen.JS initializes the fields, waiting for them to be initialized, as well as handling when a value is added, removed, or changed.  That doesn’t include the 1,300 lines of PHP code, half of which is specific to Chosen.JS as well.

A couple of the specific details are that Chosen.JS triggers an event on change, passing selected and deselected values, whereas Select2 does not.  PHP code was implemented to pass data of what fields are Chosen.JS and handles modification of the field and configurations, to make sure they are initialized correctly using that specific meta key’s configuration.

This means that the majority of this codebase for conditional logic has to be rewritten, and thoroughly tested to make sure it’s compatible with Select2 (basically meaning I have to start over again, and redesign the flow of how conditional logic is handled).

The other major issue as mentioned above, is the recently released dynamic taxonomy feature.  This was also entirely based on Chosen.JS, and is around 1,000 lines of JavaScript code that also has to be rewritten/refactored, and tested to make sure it’s compatible with Select2.

These are just some of the features directly effected in WP Job Manager Field Editor by the switch to Select2.  That doesn’t include the numerous lines of PHP and JavaScript code added over the years to make new fields compatible, have added features, and more.

I have been actively working on, and testing updated codebase for Select2 support over the past month+, and hope to have something to release very soon.

With that said, I also want to point out that this requires a very extensive amount of testing, and debugging, due to the infinite possibilities/configurations/implementations there are in the conditional logic, and dynamic taxonomy child dropdown features.

As most of you may already know, I take pride in all the code that I write, and would never release something that has known issues (::cough: microsoft ::cough::), as I do care about my clients and their sites, and want to make sure that once they upgrade, they don’t have to worry about it breaking something.  This is why I posted this tutorial of how to downgrade, so you can still have a full functioning site until I can be 99.999% sure that the update for field editor, will not break or cause issues for you.

I also have to spend the time writing compatibility code for those users who will be using an older version of WP Job Manager (older than 1.32.0), which essentially means my plugin will have to support BOTH Select2 and Chosen.JS, until the next major release version (2.x.x) where Chosen.JS support will be removed.

I will be releasing I have released an update for the Field Editor plugin here in the next couple days, version 1.8.9, which will be the last release of the Field Editor 1.8.x versions, as this release will fix a couple minor bugs and issues for those who want to remain on an older version of WP Job Manager, or do not want to use Select2.

Thank you for your understanding and patience while I am working on this, as this is not an easy task to add support for, and will require numerous long days and nights to finish up everything.

WP Job Manager Field Editor Dynamic Taxonomy Child Dropdowns Demo

Dynamic Taxonomy Child Dropdowns

Please see the documentation page (which includes tutorial video) for Dynamic Taxonomy Child Dropdowns, here:

Dynamic Taxonomy Child Dropdowns

I appreciate everyone’s patience while I worked on getting this new feature released.  Unfortunately it was not an easy task, and ended up running into all kinds of issues with compatibility, and functionality … and instead of shipping a broken version of the plugin, I spent many sleepless nights testing, updating, and working on this latest release.

Template Updates

Both the term-select-field.php and term-multiselect-field.php templates have been updated in this release, if you’re using your own custom template overrides, please make sure you update them to match the new versions, to support the dynamic child dropdowns.

Previous versions of Field Editor did not include the term-select-field.php so please make sure you check any template overrides.

Other Updates

Included with this update are a few other features (a couple listed below), you can find the full list on the changelog.

Advanced Field Configuration Tab

Exclude Terms

Under the advanced tab you will now also see a text box where you can enter in TERM ID values to omit from showing in the dropdown.  To specify multiple terms, separate them with a comma.

Output CSV

For multiple field types you will also now see an “Output CSV” option.  Enable this to output multiple values as Comma Separated Values (instead of linebreak, or wrapping with value wrapper)

Final Thoughts

I hope you guys are as excited to use these new features, as I am to release them.  This release adds over 2,200 lines of new code base, and has been in the works for numerous months, testing, debugging, and working on compatibility.

I have tested standard functionality in Jobify, Listify, Listable, Listee, WorkScout, and all standard WP Job Manager templates without any issues.  If you do come across a problem, please be sure to open a support ticket and let me know, so I can work on a fix for it.