[Plugin: Magazine Columns] This plugin needs a fix… and here it is!

This plugin is pretty good at what it does, but there are massive errors in the code which will break lots of peoples blogs…. but here is a fix…

In the “magazine-columns.php” file, in the “add_columns” function (at the top) the function uses echo at certain stages once it has processed some of the content…. this is what breaks peoples blogs!

The Fix:
Find if(stristr($content, '<!--column-->') && is_singular()) { at the start of the function (line 13 for me). Add a line after it that is something like $retval = "";.

Now go through the function and find any line that starts with echo (there should be four instances of this around lines 48, 62, 65, and 73). Change echo for $retval .=.

Go to the end of the function and just above the } else { add in return $retval;

This should make the function behave as WordPress intended e.g. edit the content then pass it back so that other functions can also make amends if required.

Summary:
These changes NEED to be added to a future release of this plugin, otherwise people will keep having confusing errors on their blogs.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/magazine-columns/