YouTube icon
tl;dr;

  • YouTube will turn off their old API on April 20, 2015. Make sure to upgrade to at least TubePress 4.1.0 or your site may break.
  • TubePress is leaving the wordpress.org plugin directory. Get updates exclusively from tubepress.com.

On April 20, 2015, YouTube will officially shut down version 2 of their API in favor of version 3. TubePress 4.1.0 is the first version that supports version 3 of their API. This means that anyone running any older version of TubePress and showing YouTube galleries on their site will experience a severely broken TubePress installation. Vimeo users are OK for now, although Vimeo is also undergoing a massive upgrade to their API.

We aren’t giving you as much notice as we would’ve liked, and for that we sincerely apologize. Version 3 of the YouTube API was, for quite some time, not nearly as reliable as version 2 and it has been undergoing constant change. Even in some areas of the documentation of version 3, Google still refers to it as an “experimental API.” So we waited and waited for things to settle down and they never really did. Couple that with the fact that the new API isn’t as well suited for TubePress’s purposes, and hopefully you can understand why we waited as long as we did to update our code.

Most users shouldn’t see any major surprises when upgrading to TubePress. But just in case, here’s an abbreviated list of what you can expect if you are upgrading from the TubePress 3.x.x series:

  • TubePress 4.x.x will run 10 – 20 times faster than TubePress 3.x.x.
  • The free trial version of TubePress is limited to 3 videos per gallery. TubePress Pro doesn’t have this limitation.
  • Many YouTube-based galleries can’t be sorted nearly as finely. This is a limitation of the new YouTube API.

wordpress.org-plugin-directory

This date will also mark a significant turning point in how we distribute the downloadable packages of TubePress. Since its inception eight years ago, TubePress has been available as a plugin from the wordpress.org plugin directory. This has offered huge advantages for us including great visibility and automatic upgrades for our users. However, over the years TubePress has evolved from a WordPress hobby into an enterprise with multiple products, platforms, and customers that rely on us to provide stable software and timely support. Maintaining a “parallel” distribution page on wordpress.org has become an unfortunate drain on our resources and distraction from our goal of proving excellent products and services. From here on out, you can download the latest versions of TubePress directly from tubepress.com. We will be updating our page on wordpress.org to reflect this change.

We are enthusiastic about a bright future ahead and look forward to serving you for years to come!

You can download the free trial version of TubePress from here, and TubePress Pro users can upgrade here.