I'm pleased to announce the release of version 1.6 of stripShow... this is mainly a bug-fix release, with only a couple of new features.

• Improved XHTML 1.0 Strict compatiblity
• Fixed bug where comment link was not shown on index page
• Fixed bug where same blog entries were shown on every page when linked from index page
• Current comic now has alt text encoded as HTML entities for validation
• Overhauled storyline code to only do one MySQL query and to speed up operations. Previously, things got seriously bogged down the more stories and strips you had in your archive.

The main new feature is a set of additional parameters to the navigation links -- now there is a second parameter, called always -- normally, links won't show if it's not appropriate -- for instance, there is usually no reason to have a "previous comic" link if you're viewing the first comic. The always parameter, if set to TRUE, will show the link regardless. It will merely take you to the page you're already looking at. The last_comic tag also has a new parameter to give a link to an absolute URL instead of the index page.

Also, navigation links now accept a parameter to show a tooltip (by way of the <img> tag's TITLE attribute) when the comic is moused over. 

And that's pretty much it. This plugin has been tested and seems to work well with WordPress 2.5.1, and actually appears to be pretty compatible with ComicPress 2.5-based themes as well.  

The next release (barring unforseen bug fixes) of stripShow will be version 2.0 and will include major overhaul to the theme... expect a complete modernization of the theme, with copious comments to aid in customization. No more table-based navigation bars. Complete WordPress widgetization.  Built-in links for social bookmarking sites. Etc. No ETA yet on 2.0, it'll be done when it's done.  

As always, you can download the new version of stripShow from the Downloads page, and always, I'm always interested in hearing about your stripShow experience in the forum.