SPServices v0.7.1ALPHA13 Available for Testing

I’ve been working hard on this next release of SPServices. I’ve been lucky to have some down time between projects to do it. Yes, I’m happy to have the gap so that I can do more and do it better; I’ve been able to make even more significant improvements because I’ve has the focused time. It’s a great feeling to look at my old code and know that I can do a lot better now. This version of SPServices is going to be leaner and faster than ever before. As I tweeted the other day:

Developing, documenting & maintaining open source software is a hell of a good way to become a better developer.

— Marc D Anderson (@sympmarc) January 18, 2012

Alpha13, which I just posted is, I think, a good one to think of as RC1. Before I get too busy again with client work, I want to get it out there for some of you to test. If you are an SPServices user and can do some testing, especially regression testing, I’d really appreciate it.

There’s also some new stuff that I’ve built into the last few alphas:

• Better error messages for SPCascadeDropdowns, SPDisplayRelatedInfo, and SPFilterDropdown. If you have debug mode on and the listName is incorrect, you’ll get a clearer message.
• Improvements to the new SPXmlToJson function. All of the documented options now work as advertised and I’ve optimized the code quite a bit.
• SPCascadeDropdowns and SPDisplayRelatedInfo now have a matchOnId option. If matchOnId is set to true, the ID of the Lookup column is used rather than the text value. This can be handy where the same text value means different things, like the place-name of Springfield, which can be found in 34 of the US States. By default the behavior of the function remains the same, of course.
• New operations: Lists.ApplyContentTypeToList, Lists.CreateContentType, Lists.DeleteContentType, Lists.GetListItemChanges, Lists.UndoCheckOut, Lists.UpdateContentType, SiteData.GetWeb
• Numerous (and I do mean numerous) improvements for efficiency.

Enjoy, and let me know if you have a chance to try it out.