Paving The Wilderness of WordPress Plugins
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It's Episode 523 – We have plugins for WooCommerce Rewards, Creating Notes, Stop Fullscreen, Plugins Checks, Moderate Comments, Sales Funnels … and ClassicPress Options. It's all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!
Points and Rewards for WooCommerce, Funnel Builder by CartFlows – Create High Converting Sales Funnels For WordPress, Disable WordPress Block Editor Fullscreen Mode, Vendi Abandoned Plugin Check, Comment Moderation Role, Slippy ……. and ClassicPress options on Episode 521.
John's Intro:
The new magik number is 66, July 1 is the new majik day. Trust the plan.
With great appreciation for the No Agenda Show for their inspiration of ideas and the occasional stolen sound clip.
This is a value for value show and I look forward to everyone providing some value back.
Before I get started, you will want to hang around to the end of the show for our Q & A segment with Amber…. and to those listening on the podcast, you may want to check out the YouTube version which has some great discussions before the show starts…
Producer Credits:
Executive producer:
Nobody this week. Maybe next week!
Show Art:
Greg's Graphics (Greg Holdsworth) — https://gregsgraphics.com
All the show notes can be found at: WPPluginsAtoZ.com
Check out all the art work at https://wppluginsatoz.com/show-art-submitted/
Ambers' Rant:
This is #30 of 52 episodes for 2021. Its Episode 523! We are getting up there for the episodes this year! Hopefully everyone is still enjoying our weekly rantings on plugins and news. I try and bring some interesting stuff as well as helpful stuff, if anyone out there would be willing to offer up some feedback I would greatly appreciate it! I would love to hear about where you get your tech news from, and if you like to hear it on here shoot me a link!
Away from tech though, remember to get out there and enjoy some of this sunshine while it lasts! I know here on the Island we tend to start getting rain about September, and it keeps going until around June. Sometimes until the start of June, sometimes until the end of June. So be sure to get out there and soak in that sunshine while it lasts! And while you're at it, turn off that media, whether it be social or professional for an hour or so. Try to just experience the moment as it happens; see if maybe you can spot any dragonflies or bumblebees or something! Doing this about once a week will totally help the brain-meats feel better capable of dealing with the day to day.
Rinse and repeat as often as needed.
We have some news from the world of WordPress for you today as well as some great plugins.
News this week:
Sent in by a listener
Ransomware: These are the two most common ways hackers get inside your network – https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/technology/ransomware-these-are-the-two-most-common-ways-hackers-get-inside-your-network/ar-AAMHDid?ocid=mailsignout&li=AAggFp5
Full page patterns are still missing from Word Press theme development – Word Press is working hard to incorporate everything they can into their theme development in the form of blocks – and full page patterns (rather than the label template) are in the works and there are basic versions of Page Patterns already in block form.
Tips Tuesday with MayAnna – This week includes SEO testing and agency bot crawls, similarities between cPanel and Interworx, FLoC Testing phase 1 completed, and more!
Google Lighthouse – Now introducing the ability to run this directly from SmarCrawl's dashboard! There is a great beginners guide if this is the first you are hearing of this in this link, and a great explanation on why this is big news for Google.
Elementor 3.3 is out! – And they are introducing Full Website Kits, Kits Library, Colour Sampler, and Radical Performance Improvements. There are a few other things tucked away in this newest release that are exciting as well – like the ability to only load what you actually use! Pretty nifty!
DuckDuckGo readies feature to strip trackers from email – This seems like an intriguing idea – you create an @duck.com email, and emails are sent to that, where they are stripped of trackers, then forwarded onto your regular email. Neat!
The extras – for even more extra news, check out our Facebook, or Twitter page!
This is the extra news stuff that someone out there might find interesting. To read more, you can head on over to the show notes or newsletter and check it out! If you find something to add for next show, send me a link at amber@wppro.ca
US, NATO accuses China of massive Microsoft Hack – A bit of a change from accusing Russia, but it seems to be a similar kind of accusation. We shall see where this one goes….
SolarWinds Hackers still targeting Microsoft, focus on support staff – This kind of hack is rather common as far as I am aware; attack the little guys, get into the system through them and slowly worm your way deeper into the system until you can do some damage. I almost feel bad for Microsoft, they seem to be being attacked from multiple directions these days….
Termly Acquires GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent Banner, Turns Free Plugin Into a Commercial SaaS Product – The pattern continues! And now people are noticing and making a point to make an issue about this. If anyone out there is dealing with the recent acquisition of this cookie consent banner, my condolences.
Wordcamp USA will be held on Oct. 21, pending decision on in person meet-ups – Once they have made a final decision we the mass will know whether or not this will be an in person or an online.
Most hated programming languages around – Or so these guys say. In order from the most hated and below they list: COBOL, VBA, Matlab, Objective-C, and Groovy. Honestly, I don't think I've even heard of these before… but I'm not a coder. I would love to hear some feedback from any coder's out there – what do you think?
New volume record for ransomware attempts in the first half of 2021 – This is attempted ransomware volume record, not actual successful attacks, but it is still a little unnerving to see. There have been more than 300 million for the first half of 2021.
Amazon fined $887 million for GDPR Privacy Violations – This is an interesting read. it's not often the giants get fined an amount that actually has an effect upon them, nor is it often that the giant does something – at least it seems like they have done something here….
The hall of shame via Automattic:
transparency.automattic.com/tag/hall-of-shame/
Matt's Famous Quotes
https://www.idrlabs.com/quotes/matt-mullenweg.php
Donor Support
This Show will not work without you, the producers, as it is a Value for Value model, meaning if you're getting any value out of it then give some value back and help the show out.
Start by subscribing to the newsletter for additional information and get out there round them up and rope them all in, belly up to the bar and enjoy. Spread the word about WP Plugins A to Z and catch it live every Thursday at noon PST on our YouTube Channel.
Show Producers
We'd like to acknowledge all the producers who have supported the show in the various ways over the last week.
This weeks show Art Work comes from:
Greg's Graphics (Greg Holdsworth) — https://gregsgraphics.com
This week's Executive Producer/'s are:
A big thank you to all the Producers who came in under $50 and to those who have set up weekly subscriptions they will remain anonymous and I thank you very much.
All these small subscriptions really help the show out.
A big thank you to those who have hired me because of the Podcast, thank you that is as good as donating to the show.
You can Support the Show by:
Yes, I am pimping out my daughter here, if you want to see her very pretty mug in the live stream it is now up to a $500 donation and until it happens that price will continue to go up… At the rate it is going she will never be live. Someone may want to start a Go Fund Me to make her mug live.
Donating money to help the show Donations of $50 and over are credited with an Executive Producer Credit in the Show Notes, and their note is read out on the show.
Submitting art work at the WP Plugins Art generator,
Submit articles news and information
Submit plugin suggestions for reviews
You can also create a monthly donation at Patreon
Or something I may not have thought of.
If you would like to send something to WP Plugins A to Z you can send to the following address:
WP Plugins A to Z
C/O John Overall
20-754 E Fairview Rd.
Victoria, BC V9A 5T9
Canada
Off we go into the meat and potatoes, Into the depths of plugin depravity…..
ClassicPress Options
ClassicPress is growing really well, but I just don't have the time to add reviews on ClassicPress myself. I am always open to reviews sent in by listeners; though unless there is a review sent into me on ClassicPress, I am not going to do more than mention that ClassicPress is a thing, and here are some resources. I hope some listeners out there find this information useful!
One thing I am looking forward to in the ClassicPress World is the expansion of the number of ClassicPress specific plugins and their own repository. There are a few plugins specifically for ClassicPress and all plugins for WordPress 4.9.9 work well on it. I do believe it has a future, I just have not time to help them in getting it out there.
ClassicPress News:
A post from a new ClassicPress user who migrated from WordPress 5.7 to 5.8 and then to ClassicPress
A users personal experience of going through the migration, an interesting read.
https://www.classicpress.net/blog/migrate-wordpress-5-8-website-to-classicpress/
The First Release Candidate for ClassicPress 1.3.0 is available!
For more information about what's included, and how to help, checkout https://forums.classicpress.net/…/classicpress-1-3…/3356
Happy Testing!
For some up to date news on ClassicPress check out the ClassicPress Blog.
ClassicPress Resources:
“Must Have” Plugins List
https://forums.classicpress.net/t/must-have-plugins-list/1163
It seems ClassicPress now has it own repository you can check it here https://directory.classicpress.net/plugins they now have 72 plugins available.
CodePotent's plugin directory
https://codepotent.com/classicpress/plugins/
WordPress Plugins
Are you looking for some great newly released plugins check this link
https://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/new/
John's Plugin
Disable WordPress Block Editor Fullscreen Mode
https://wordpress.org/plugins/we-disable-fs/
The Lowdown:
This one has been covered before, but I thought it should be brought back as it does not yet have enough installations. This is a great plugin to make using the latest versions of WordPress easier – unless of course you like the full screen mode of editing. I personally find it distracting. This is a simple plugin, just install and activate and the full screen mode is gone.
On another note it seems the search in WordPress wants to hide this plugin a bit, because even when you use the exact title to searching it does not appear at the top of the list.
Rating 5 Dragons
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Amber's Plugin
Slippy
https://wordpress.org/plugins/slippy/
The Lowdown:
Admittedly I was searching for a different plugin, but this caught my eye because of the name.
This is designed to have the ability to take notes within WordPress in the style of Slipbox or Zettelkasten. I honestly don't know what either of those are, but I am sure someone out there uses these and wishes they could do the same thing within WordPress – and now you can!!
Once you install it, it's quite the nice set-up! Just go to ‘Slip Notes' on the left hand menu, and add a note! It looks just like a typical WordPress layout kind of page for the note area. You can change the view from default to full, create categories, tags, and filters.
If you are looking for an easy to use Note Taker for WordPress, look no further!
Bonus, it's totally free!
Rating 5 Dragons
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John's plugin
Funnel Builder by CartFlows – Create High Converting Sales Funnels For WordPress
https://wordpress.org/plugins/cartflows/
The Lowdown:
If you have an e-commerce store and are looking to improve sales you will want to look at using funnels. This plugin is one that can help you begin to get your funnels built up and start making more sales. This plugin comes with a lot of great stuff in its free version to get you started on making great sales funnels. With the free version you can build up to 3 funnels and if you need more you can always go pro.
Rating 4 Dragons
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Amber's plugin
Comment Moderation Role
https://wordpress.org/plugins/comment-moderation-role/
The Lowdown:
SUPER easy plugin to use, fantastic for those who are just getting the hang of all this! You plug it in, head on over to the ‘Users' menu option, select your user, and change their ‘Role' to ‘WPB Comment Moderator'. Unlike other Comment Moderator plugins, this one does not require you to have ‘Edit' within the list of capabilities, thus securing the rest of your site.
Once the user logs in, they should only be able to access the comments so as to moderate them.
There are filters available, and WPBeginner puts out the most common ones right there on the page on the info page.
Nothing to set up, nothing to do really except choose the correct ‘Role' for your user! And it seems that it is totally free, with no adverts – at least I didn't see any.
Worth checking out if this is something you are in the market for!
Rating 5 Dragons
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John's plugin
Points and Rewards for WooCommerce
https://wordpress.org/plugins/points-and-rewards-for-woocommerce/
The Lowdown:
Looking for a way to gamify your e-commerce store by offering points and rewards for your users and customers? This may be a great plugin for you! It's a freemium plugin that lets you get started with a points system using the free version of the plugin.
You can offer points on signups, referrals, and sales that your clients can then use on check-out for special deals and discounts.
Rating 4 Dragons
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Amber's plugin
Vendi Abandoned Plugin Check
https://wordpress.org/plugins/vendi-abandoned-plugin-check/
The Lowdown:
This is a neat idea for a plugin, I think our regular listener Hemdian might have mentioned this during one of our shows. If not him then another listener.
What this plugin does: it reaches out to the WordPress.org servers as a background task to figure out the last time the SVN was updated. There is NO interface, nothing to set up, just plug it in and let her rip! One downside though – it counts in days. This can make 2 months seem like a much bigger deal since you read it as 60 days…
Once I plugged this in, within a few minutes I had ‘Christmas Tree' writing all down my plugins page!!
Red = BAD, as it has been a VERY long time since the plugin's SVN was updated by the author.
Green = ACCEPTABLE. Seems to stay green so long as the author has updated within the last… 400? days.
I was still in the green on a plugin with 348 days since last update, but I was in the red with 460 days. So… somewhere between those two numbers appears to be the cut off.
Very useful for those that like to know when a plugin was last updated via author, and I think it could possibly be a great yellow canary kinda thing regarding removal of a plugin – but be aware that age does not always mean the plugin is no good. I've learned that old code will still work just fine if it was done well in the first place.
Rating 5 Dragons
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Random links for plugins
WordPress plugins crafted from love and experience
https://codeat.co/
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Listener Feedback / Audio Clips
Feel free to send in your thoughts to us – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly – we'll take them all!
Listener Questions
If you have any you would like to have asked, please feel free to send them in! Remember, there's no such thing as a stupid question!
Enter The Contest to Win!!
Contests Powered by Simple Giveaways who kindly provides us with the premium version for our contests.
Steve Goodtime & Brant Matthews created a new jingle for us for contests.
I do want to thank Charlie for coming to the aid of the show and getting our contests all organized. I also want to thank all the developers again for supporting our show with their plugin donations! Please check them out.
Short note about participating in the contests folks. Remember we go to great efforts to get these licenses and look for more participation from you the producers.
Our newest contest is for
Advanced Database Cleaner Pro
Starter Lifetime Licence valued at $39
https://sigmaplugin.com/downloads/wordpress-advanced-database-cleaner/
Do you know that even after deleting a plugin/theme from your WordPress website, some of its leftovers may remain in your database? Such as orphan options, orphan tables, and orphan cron tasks. As you may know, not all plugins/themes care about the housekeeping of your WordPress database. Let Advanced Database Cleaner Pro clean up the leftovers and improve efficiency when accessing tables. In addition, your backup files will be quicker and smaller.
Enter for your chance to win a Starter Lifetime Licence valued at $39 for Advanced Database Cleaner Pro! Speed up your website by cleaning up your database. (https://wppluginsatoz.com/giveaway/advanced-database-cleaner-pro-starter-lifetime-license-giveaway/)
Let your friends know about the giveaway!
WP Plugins A to Z Giveaway to Starter Lifetime Licence for Advanced Database Cleaner Pro. https://wppluginsatoz.com/giveaway/advanced-database-cleaner-pro-starter-lifetime-license-giveaway @sigmaplugin #sigmaplugin #WordPress… Click To Tweet
Check out our contest page for all the details and to enter for your chance to win!!
Visit http://WPPluginsAtoZ.com/contests for more info.
For all developers who would like to support the show. You can donate a premium license to be used in a future contest, please go to WPPluginsAtoZ.com/PluginContest
The plugins we covered were:
John’s Plugins: Points and Rewards for WooCommerce – 4, Funnel Builder by CartFlows – Create High Converting Sales Funnels For WordPress – 4, Disable WordPress Block Editor Fullscreen Mode – 5
Amber's Plugins: Slippy – 5, Comment Moderation Role – 5, Vendi Abandoned Plugin Check -5
Matt's Famous Quotes
https://www.idrlabs.com/quotes/matt-mullenweg.php
Reminders / Commercial / Promotions:
Next Week:
No meetup planned at the moment but you can keep tabs on this at https://wppluginsatoz.com/meetup
If you're not getting enough of us, you can join us for the new Podcast and Live Stream of The Rogues Tavern **Shooting the Shit at The Rogues Tavern** Tuesday evening's at 8 pm PDT, check us out there TheRoguesTavern.com/live
Would you like to be on an interview show? Simply connect at https://wppluginsatoz.com/interview
If you have suggestions on plugins you would like to have reviewed please submit them on the website at https://wppluginsatoz.com/submit-plugin-review/
Q & A Time with Amber ——– Catch this info on our YouTube Channel
If you have questions you would like to have asked on the show, send them in to me at Amber@WPPro.ca and we will answer to the best of our ability!
- How do you know when and how a site has been compromised?
- What are the different methods you can use to know?
- How much would you say a person has to know about cyber security in order to keep their sites safe?
- What would be the first thing you would suggest a person learn about if they are wanting to do upkeep on their own site?
Closing out this Episode
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Amber can be contacted at:
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