ConFab

ConFab transforms your conference website with professional session scheduling capabilities. Display your conference sessions in beautiful, responsive table or grid layouts that work perfectly on all devices.

Key Features

• Modern Block Editor – Gutenberg-native block with live preview and intuitive controls
• 12 Color Schemes – Choose from Light, Dark, Earthtones, Jeweltones, Pastels, Ocean, and Forest (each with dark variant)
• 3 Table Styles – Bordered (traditional), Borderless (minimal), or Rounded (modern card-style)
• Grid Layout Option – Modern card-based display with automatic global session detection
• Multi-Day Tab Navigation – Client-side tab switching with keyboard support for multi-day conferences
• Smart Empty States – Professional branded display when no sessions scheduled
• Responsive Layouts – Table and grid views that adapt perfectly to mobile devices
• Security Hardened – Built with WordPress.org coding standards and comprehensive security validation
• Accessibility Ready – WCAG compliant with proper ARIA labels and keyboard navigation
• Translation Ready – Full internationalization support for global conferences
• Custom Post Types – Dedicated session management with tracks and locations
• Professional Templates – Clean, modern design that works with any theme

Display Options

• Multiple Layouts – Table (traditional time-based grid) or Grid (modern card-based display with time slot grouping)
• Multi-Day Schedules – Automatic tabbed navigation for conferences spanning multiple days
• Extensive Theming – 26 color schemes × 3 table styles = 36 unique combinations
• Session Types – Normal, Featured, and Alternate for semantic scheduling
• Track Filtering – Display specific tracks or all sessions
• Session Linking – Permalink, anchor, or no-link options
• Content Control – Show titles only, excerpts, or full content
• Mobile Optimized – Sessions reorganize beautifully on smaller screens

Technical Excellence

ConFab is built from the ground up with modern WordPress development practices:

• WordPress.org coding standards compliant
• Comprehensive input sanitization and output escaping
• Modern REST API integration for block editor
• No external dependencies or bloatware
• Professional PHPDoc documentation throughout

Attribution

ConFab 2.0 represents a complete modernization and security overhaul of the original WP Conference Schedule plugin. We acknowledge and thank the original contributors who built the foundation:

Original WP Conference Schedule (versions 1.0.0 – 1.1.1):
* Road Warrior Creative – Original plugin architecture and design
* alh0319 – Core development contributions
* stevejonesdev – Development and feature implementation

The 2.0 rewrite maintains the core functionality users loved while implementing modern WordPress standards, security best practices, and accessibility compliance. All original code has been reviewed, secured, and modernized for current WordPress development standards.

1. Upload the ConFab plugin to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. Navigate to Appearance > Confab to configure your preferences
4. Create sessions via the new ‘Sessions’ post type in the main admin area.
5. Add a date, start time and stop time for your session. Select a track.
6. Add the Conference Schedule (Confab) block to any page or post and select the date for the conference schedule.

1. 

   ConFab block in the WordPress editor with live preview and settings panel

2. 

   Professional table layout displaying conference sessions with tracks and times

3. 

   Modern grid layout with card-based design and automatic time slot grouping

4. 

   Mobile view demonstrating responsive design and touch-friendly interface

5. 

   Session management interface for easy content creation and editing

6. 

   Extensive shortcode capabilities

7. 

   Multi-day tab navigation showing date switching for multi-day conferences

8. 

   Settings page is available from "Appearance" in the admin left sidebar

2.1.1

• Fixed: Critical timezone handling bug affecting sites not configured for UTC – session times now correctly stored as UTC and displayed in site’s local timezone
• Enhanced: Location now displays along with speaker(s) in both table and grid layouts.
• Enhanced: Track ordering now uses alphabetical sorting by slug, allowing custom ordering via numeric slug prefixes
• Enhanced: Table layout typography now matches grid layout for consistent display across both views
• Improved: Table time column width fixed at 105px for better proportion with session content
• Improved: Reduced table cell padding for more compact, professional appearance
• Improved: Empty table cells now properly inherit row alternation colors and hover states
• Developer: Session metadata now uses wp_date() throughout for proper timezone conversion
• Developer: Track retrieval uses uasort() to maintain term_id keys while sorting by slug

2.1.0

• Enhanced: Expanded color scheme options from 2 to 12 themes (light, dark, earthtones, jeweltones, pastels, ocean, forest – each with dark variant)
• New: Three table style options – Bordered (traditional), Borderless (minimal), and Rounded (modern card-style)
• New: Grid layout system with card-based display and automatic global session detection
• New: Multi-day tab navigation with client-side switching and keyboard support
• New: Professional empty state display when no sessions scheduled for selected date
• New: Configurable excerpt length setting (50-500 characters) with paragraph-aware behavior
• New: Semantic session type system – Normal, Featured, and Alternate replace legacy type names
• New: Automatic session type migration from previous versions on plugin activation
• New: Paragraph-aware excerpt generation that respects natural paragraph boundaries
• New: Review and donation request system with smart threshold detection
• Enhanced: Color scheme inheritance for multi-day tab navigation
• Enhanced: Empty state inherits color scheme for consistent theming
• Improved: All session types now properly respect session link settings (permalink/anchor/none)
• Improved: Rounded table style now correctly alternates row colors and applies hover states to all cell types
• Improved: Table style clarification – applies only to table layout, not grid layout
• Improved: Modernized admin interface with accordion-style settings organization
• Fixed: Removed arbitrary link restrictions that prevented certain session types from linking
• Fixed: Session type CSS classes now consistently use new semantic naming throughout
• Developer: Added REST API endpoint for block editor preview (/wp/v2/confab-preview)
• Developer: JavaScript-based tab switching for instant multi-day navigation
• Developer: Grid layout uses flexbox and CSS Grid for optimal responsiveness
• Developer: Removed all legacy session type backward compatibility code for cleaner codebase

2.0.0

• Complete rewrite and modernization of the plugin codebase
• Security hardening with comprehensive input validation and output escaping
• Modern Gutenberg block built with React hooks and current WordPress APIs
• Removed all external dependencies and third-party analytics
• Added comprehensive accessibility features and WCAG compliance
• Implemented WordPress.org Plugin Check standards throughout
• Enhanced mobile responsiveness and touch interface optimization
• Added professional template system with proper security validation
• Introduced translation-ready infrastructure with proper text domains
• Updated to require WordPress 6.0+ and PHP 7.4+ for modern functionality
• Note: This is a breaking change from 1.x versions due to security improvements

Previous Versions (1.0.0 – 1.1.1)

Original development and maintenance by Road Warrior Creative team.
See legacy changelog in earlier versions for historical development notes.