WordPress.org

Why do I have to edit .htaccess manually?

There's two reasons for this:

1. Allowing WordPress to write to .htaccess as it does when you change the permalink structure would break many of my WordPress installations. Since I wrote this plugin first and foremost for my own use I would have never benefitted from this functionality.
2. I actually had the plugin update .htaccess automatically. But then I blocked myself from my test site... Blocking an IP address through .htaccess is quite a harsh measure. It doesn't only prevent bots at that IP from posting comments, it prevents users who happen to use that same IP from accessing the blog. – I intend to automatically write to .htaccess in a future release, with a few security mechanisms added...

Will the plugin work with older versions of WordPress?

It might. But I don't support it!

I have written the plugin for and tested it with blogs running the 2.8 version of WordPress. It should probably work fine with any 2.7 version. With 2.6 the admin page looks odd and checking/unchecking all table rows is not working.