v1.0.1

Vincula 1.0.1

Release date: 2026-10-19

A bug-fix release. Friend link cards no longer appear unstyled the first time the
Blogroll page is opened on themes that navigate without a full page reload.

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Fixed

Friend link cards rendered unstyled on the first visit.

On themes that use PJAX / AJAX navigation — Argon, for example, enables it by
default — clicking a menu link does not load a complete document. The theme
fetches the target page and swaps only its own content containers
(#primary, #rightbar, …) into the current one.

Vincula printed its card CSS from a wp_footer callback registered by the
shortcode. Page footers are not part of those containers, so the <style> block
was thrown away during the swap: the card markup arrived, but none of its rules
did. A manual refresh loaded a full document and everything looked correct,
which is why the bug only showed up on the first visit.

The styles now live in assets/vincula.css and are enqueued on
wp_enqueue_scripts, so they are part of the document head and present from the
very first byte — including when only a fragment of the page is replaced.

Side benefit: this also removes the flash of unstyled cards (FOUC) that the
footer-injected CSS caused on slow first loads.

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What changed

File	Change
assets/vincula.css	New. Card grid styles moved out of the inline footer block.
includes/class-vincula-public.php	Enqueues the stylesheet on wp_enqueue_scripts; the ~76-line wp_footer style callback was removed.
vincula.php	Version bumped to 1.0.1 (header and VINCULA_VERSION constant, so the ?ver= cache-buster changes too).
README.md	Documents the new stylesheet location, three/four column customization, and the 1.0.1 change log entry.
.gitignore	Ignores local-only files: old/ and *.code-workspace.

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Upgrade notes

• Drop-in replacement. Upload the new vincula folder over the old one and
  the fix is active. No settings to migrate, no database changes.
• No markup or selector changes. Every class name (.vincula-grid,
  .vincula-item, .vincula-link, .vincula-icon, .vincula-name,
  .vincula-desc) and both shortcodes ([vincula] and the legacy
  [friend_cards]) are unchanged, so existing custom CSS keeps working.
• Clear your cache once. If a page cache or a CDN sits in front of the site,
  purge it after updating; the old HTML may still reference the inline styles.
• If your site is on a version control deploy, make sure assets/vincula.css is
  uploaded — the plugin's only new file.

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Compatibility

Item	Requirement
WordPress	5.0 or later
PHP	7.0 or later
Browsers	Any modern browser (CSS Flexbox + -webkit-line-clamp)

Unchanged from 1.0.0: custom post type vinculum, meta keys _vincula_url,
_vincula_logo, _vincula_order, and the one-time legacy migration from the
earlier Blogroll-FriendLinks release.

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Known limitations

• Themes that wrap every <img> in a lightbox. If a theme rewrites content
  images into clickable lightbox wrappers (Argon does this when
  argon_enable_zoomify is false and fancybox is on), card logos can open a
  lightbox instead of following the link. Add data-fancybox="false" to the
  icon, or disable that theme option.
• No custom logo, no Google access. Logos fall back to
  google.com/s2/favicons, which is fetched by the visitor's browser and is
  unreachable in some regions. Upload a logo for those entries instead.

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Full changelog

1.0.1

• Moved the card styles from an inline wp_footer block into assets/vincula.css, enqueued on wp_enqueue_scripts. Fixes cards rendering unstyled on the first visit with themes that navigate via PJAX/AJAX and only swap the content container.

1.0.0

• Initial release as Vincula, formerly Blogroll-FriendLinks.
• vinculum custom post type and meta boxes (URL / Logo / Priority).
• [vincula] shortcode rendering a responsive card grid; [friend_cards] kept as an alias.
• Favicon fallback for links without a logo.
• CSV import and export on the Vincula → Import / Export screen.
• Inline quick edit for URL, logo, priority and description on the link list screen.
• One-time automatic migration of entries created by the earlier Blogroll-FriendLinks release (post type friend_card, meta keys _friend_card_*).

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v1.0.0

Vincula v1.0.0

Release date: 2026-10-18

First public release of Vincula, a dependency-free WordPress plugin for managing
blogroll friend links. Curate entries in the admin and render them anywhere with a single
shortcode. It ships as plain PHP and inline CSS — no build step, no Composer or npm
packages.

• Plugin slug: vincula
• Version: 1.0.0
• Requires: WordPress 5.0+, PHP 7.0+
• License: MIT

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Highlights

• Dedicated link management — registers the vinculum custom post type with its own
  admin menu, so friend links stay separate from posts and pages.
• Shortcode rendering — drop [vincula] into any shortcode-aware area to output a
  responsive card grid.
• Custom logos with favicon fallback — paste a logo URL or pick one from the media
  library; entries without a logo fall back to the target site's favicon.
• Priority ordering — assign each link a numeric weight; lower numbers appear first.
• At-a-glance admin list — extra Priority, URL and Logo columns on the link list
  screen.
• Quick edit — change URL, logo, priority and description inline, without opening the
  editor.
• CSV import / export — move the whole list in and out of the site from a single
  screen, with a sample file included.
• One-time migration — entries and meta keys created by the earlier
  Blogroll-FriendLinks plugin are renamed automatically.
• Responsive by default — two columns on desktop, a single column at 600px and below.

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Requirements

Item	Requirement
WordPress	5.0 or later
PHP	7.0 or later
Browser	Any modern browser with CSS Flexbox and -webkit-line-clamp support
Tooling	None — the plugin ships as source, no build or dependency install required

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Installation

Via the admin dashboard

1. Download the release archive, or zip the plugin folder yourself, making sure the archive
   contains a single top-level folder named vincula.
2. In your site admin, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the archive and
   install it.
3. Click Activate Plugin.

Manually via FTP / file manager

1. Extract the archive and rename the folder to vincula if necessary.
2. Upload it to wp-content/plugins/ so that the entry point sits at
   wp-content/plugins/vincula/vincula.php.
3. Activate Vincula in the Plugins screen.

Rewrite rules are flushed on both activation and deactivation.

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Usage

[vincula]

A common setup is a "Friends" page containing only the shortcode, added to your
navigation menu. The shortcode accepts no attributes; the legacy [friend_cards] alias is
still registered for pages created before the rename.

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Data model

Data	Storage	Key
Friend link entry	Post type	vinculum
Site name	Post title	—
Site description	Post content	—
Link URL	Post meta	_vincula_url
Logo URL	Post meta	_vincula_logo
Priority	Post meta	_vincula_order

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Upgrading from Blogroll-FriendLinks

Every internal identifier was renamed in this release. If you are upgrading, existing data
is migrated automatically and at most once — on activation, or on the next request if the
plugin was already active:

• Posts stored as friend_card are rewritten to vinculum.
• Meta keys _friend_card_url, _friend_card_logo and _friend_card_order are renamed to
  their _vincula_* equivalents.
• The option vincula_legacy_migrated records that the migration has run.

No new database tables are created; all data stays in the standard wp_posts and
wp_postmeta tables.

Deactivate the old plugin and back up the database before upgrading. Do not keep both
versions active at the same time.

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Known limitations

• Entries need the _vincula_order meta key to appear. The front-end query sorts by
  _vincula_order, so an entry created without that key is not returned. Save the entry
  once in the editor, or import it through CSV, to write the key.
• No pagination or shortcode attributes. [vincula] renders every published entry in
  one pass, and the shortcode accepts no arguments.
• Grid density is fixed in code. Two columns are the default; switching to three or four
  means editing the inline stylesheet in
  includes/class-vincula-public.php, not a setting.
• English-only interface. Strings are hard-coded and no translation files are loaded,
  so language packs will not apply.
• Favicon fallback depends on a third party. Without a custom logo, icons are requested
  from google.com/s2/favicons by the visitor's browser, which may fail or be slow in some
  regions.
• No uninstall cleanup. Deactivating or deleting the plugin leaves vinculum entries,
  their meta and the vincula_legacy_migrated option in the database.
• Empty state is a plain paragraph. When no entry matches, the shortcode outputs
  <p>No friend links available.</p>.
• Styles are printed per shortcode call. A page containing two [vincula] instances
  gets the inline <style> block twice. It is harmless but not deduplicated.

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Links

• Documentation: README
• Sample import file:
  samples/friend-links-sample.csv
• License: MIT
• Full changelog: https://github.com/VictorCartesius/WP-Vincula/commits/main