Hopping in With The Best WordPress Plugins

It's Episode 556 and we have plugins for Author for Woo, Gift Hunting, Secret Slide Tune, Revolution-izing Sliders, Sliders Package, Removing Archives… and ClassicPress Options. It's all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!

Advanced Product Author For WooCommerce, Gift Hunt, Secret Image Slide and Tune, Slider Revolution, SlidersPack – Image Slider, Post Slider, ACF Gallery Slider, smart archive Page Remove……. and ClassicPress options on Episode 556.

John's Intro:

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…

Amber's Rant:

This is #16 of 52 episodes for 2022!
I hope that everyone is getting some decent sun! Here on the Wet Coast we have had a string of beautifully rainy days, a tad bit of wind trying to knock out our power – just the right kind of weather for our little island! That's not to say that we haven't had some really nice days over the past week though. We got a decent amount of sun for a few days in a row, though the wind was a little chilly.

Spring Storms are a great time to get yourself started on that Spring Cleaning – after all, you don't want to head out into that – and if the power goes out you have no excuse to stop! ‘Cause that's what everyone wants to do really… right?
Don't forget to drop the media for a while every week! It helps with sleep – I swear!

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:

WordPress Vulnerability Report – April 6, 2022 – There is quite the list today, so I am only going to name off the ones most easily recognizable. Be sure to give this a list a look over, and to keep an eye out for updates for these plugins that are currently set as ‘no known fix'.

ULeak Security & Monitoring, Nimble Page Builder, Clipr, Master Elements, Users Ultra, Testimonial Slider. There are a lot more, keep an eye out and remember to update!

WordPress.com increases Traffic and Storage Limits on new plans after overwhelmingly negative feedback on initial rollout – WordPress.com rolled out a pricing change on April 1, though they did not officially announce it until yesterday (April 5). The free plan's back storage and traffic limits were severely pared back, alarming and frustrating a lot of users who for years have considered WordPress.com their ‘go-to' platform for simple blogging. On April 1, the change to the plans was a switch from 5 options to 2, Free and Pro. In the Free plan, they initially capped traffic at 10k visits, 100k visits on Pro, and limited free users to 500MB of storage. This caused an uproar and a flooding in of negative feedback.
The change initiated yesterday has removed the traffic cap entirely from both Free and Pro, and have raised the free storage on the Free plan to 1GB.

WP Migrate DB has rebranded to WP Migrate – A very good thing to know if you are looking for this plugin, or if you use this plugin and wind up wondering what happened to the name. They did this name change in the most recent 2.3 release. In this release they have also added the ability to migrate from one multi-site to another, and a new interface with indicators showing theme and plugin version differences.

Gutenberg 12.9 adds Block Locking UI, Automatic Pattern Registration, and Full Theme Exports – This is being called a ‘beefy release', as they have packed a lot into it. There are a lot of additions in this release, but the most noticeable ones are: users can now choose from a suggest list of date formats, or even add a custom one for the Post Date block; themes can add blocks to a ‘no results' container block when a Query returns no posts; Tag Cloud block now has minimum and maximum size controls. There are a lot of things to be excited for in this newest release!

JetPack 10.8 introduces QR Code Post Sharing, adds Openverse Media Provider – Thanks to the uptick in QR code popularity these past couple of years, a lot of companies are adding QR codes to the melting pot. JetPack has added QR codes that users can download as a PNG image to share; Additionally, JetPack 10.8 is also introducing support for Openverse as a new media provider, allowing users to search through its collection of 600 million openly-licensed media directly in the media library.

WebMan Design launches Abs, Additional Styles for Native WordPress Blocks – Lots of stylized blocks are coming out these days, and this one has taken a different approach where instead of offering pre-made blocks, they give you the ability to register custom styles to enhance those packaged with core WordPress. This seems like a neat idea, I have a feeling that we will be seeing more of these coming up!

What senior developers DO and DO NOT want to see in your resume – This is an entertaining and very useful article. The writer explains how resumes he was required to go through wound up in the ‘death pile', how the resumes made it past the ‘death pile', and what caught his attention. Great read for anybody who is thinking it may be time to dust off their resume and start handing it out!

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

WordPress Product launches Roundup: APPExperts, WP Wallet, Block Styles, and Sock Control for WooCommerce – This article goes through in detail about the following: APPExperts Mobile Application Builder Plugin is now available in Beta; WP Wallet has organized a commercial Theme and Plugin licenses into a single dashboard; Block styles Plugin is now in Beta, with a lot of advanced styles being added to the block editor; Stock control for WooCommerces is making it much easier to manage Inventory. Read on to find out more!

Everyone's favorite media player abused to launch malware – VLC Media Player is being used to distribute malware and do some spying! Cybersecurity researchers are warning that the threat actor is called Cicada, also known as Stone Panda and APT10. Current targets are organizations in the governments, legal, and NGO sectors, as well as some engaged in ‘religious activities'. Read on to find out more!

New Borat remote access malware is no laughing matter – A new remote access trojan (RAT) named Borat has appeared on darknet markets! Borat is offering easy-to-use features to conduct DDoS attacks, UAC bypass, and ransomware deployment. More, this malware lets its operators choose their compilation options to create small payloads that feature precisely what they need for a highly tailored attack. Worth checking this article out!

Newly found Android malware records audio, tracks your location – A previously unknown Android malware is using the same shared-hosting infrastructure that was previously seen used by the Russian APT group known as Turla, though they can't be blamed for this one. So far, it is not clear how the spyware is distributed, though once installed, Process Manager attempts to hide on an Android device using a gear-shaped icon, pretending to be a system component. If you want to learn more, check the article out!

Hackers breach MailChimp's internal tools to target crypto customers – Sunday morning (April 3), MailChimp disclosed that they had been hit by hackers who gained access to internal customer support and account management tools in order to steal audience data and conduct phishing attacks. Read on to find out more and to see what happened to Trezor because of this!

Scientists think solar storms will knock out Internet and Electrical systems – This article goes through the history of the Carrington Event, and talks about how we are able to take readings here on the planet in certain areas to read the the extent of past geoelectrical storms, and how we are using these readings combined with readings from satellites to try and predict when geoelectrical storms that could damage our Internet and Electrical systems will happen. Unfortunately, we have not been able to predict with great success yet, though we are getting closer.

Reading on a smartphone promotes overactivity in the prefrontal cortex and lowers reading comprehension, study finds – Interesting study that was done shows how our brains are mainly responding to the amount of time we tend to spend reading on our phones these days – and how it could be negatively effecting you, and likely your children as well. If nothing else, great reason to get your kids off the phones!

WhatsApp voice message phishing emails push info-stealing malware – There is a new WhatsApp phishing campaign impersonating WhatsApp's voice message feature that has been discovered; this thing is trying to spread information-stealing malware to at least 27,655 email addresses. The article goes on to explain how this works, and what it is doing. Read on me hearties!

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

Support the show

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

To Submit Artwork go here https://wppluginsatoz.com/artwork/

Check out all the art work at https://wppluginsatoz.com/show-art-submitted/

This week's Executive Producer/'s are:

Nobody this week – maybe next week!!

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:

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,
To Submit Artwork go here https://wppluginsatoz.com/artwork/

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 we just don't have the time to add reviews on ClassicPress myself. We are always open to reviews sent in by listeners, though unless there is a review sent into us on ClassicPress, we am not going to do more than mention that ClassicPress is a thing. Here are some resources, we hope some listeners out there find this information useful!

One thing we are 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. We do believe it has a future, we just don't have the time to help them in getting it out there right now.

ClassicPress News:

No new updates this week – though we have a Tutorial!

If you're looking to learn how to use ClassicPress check out the tutorials on their site.
https://www.classicpress.net/category/tutorials/

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

You can check out the ClassicPress repository here https://directory.classicpress.net/plugins They now have 84 plugins (and counting!) available.

ClassicPress Information – The information that will keep, and help you on your way to understanding and using ClassicPress!

Find out more about ClassicPress 1.4.0 rc2 https://forums.classicpress.net/t/classicpress-1-4-0-rc2-release-notes/3785?fbclid=IwAR3wGK5IW8ssJ-XC4k7IiZMBtSjUTVN2pexk6ATCRvuMN-Fn-McOy-XJJv8

WordPress Plugins

Are you looking for some great newly released plugins? Check out this link:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/new/

——————————–

John's Plugin

Advanced Product Author For WooCommerce

https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-product-author-for-woocommeerce/

The lowdown:

This plugin allows store owners to change the authorship of the WooCommerce products based on the current users & user roles.

WooCommerce has no option for changing product ownership. This plugin will help you if you want to change WooCommerce author for WooCommerce products.

Rating 4 Dragons

——————————–

Amber's Plugin

Slider Revolution

https://www.sliderrevolution.com/

The Lowdown:

You won't find this plugin in the WordPress Plugin Repository, you have to go to the site itself in order to get this. There is no Free Version, only the Paid (Pro) Version.

However, this is a truly amazing plugin for sliders – and it is not just a slider plugin! You are able to create full pages, media content, sections, or simply use this throughout your entire site!

Everything made in this plugin is responsive, and you are able to choose the way it responds –
Classic, Linear Resizing – Layers resize in a linear fashion, so you only need to configure one screen size.
Intelligent Inheriting – Four custom device sizes are activated, position is auto calculated from desktop size.
Manual Custom Sizes – Four custom device sizes are activated, needing things to be manually adjusted for each device size.

The set up of this plugin reminds me a bit of photo shop from when I was a kid, things are easy to understand, and you are literally able to change and modify anything on your creation!

Really and truly, I think this is my absolute favourite plugin I have come across for building anything for your site! It requires a bit of a learning curve, though not an extreme one – I am no good at photoshop, but I was able to understand, catch on, and manipulate the tools in this within 30 minutes of getting into this.

It's rare, but though there is not even a free version of this plugin, it still gets full marks!

Slider Revolution – go and check it out!

Rating 5 Dragons

——————————–

John's Plugin

Gift Hunt

https://wordpress.org/plugins/gift-hunt/

The Lowdown:

This is a fun plugin that may help you collect more emails for your list. You can give away most anything you like but coupons might be best. You can determine if they see the gift after time or number of pages visited. This is a pretty great little plugin.

Rating 5 Dragons

——————————–

Amber's Plugin

SlidersPack – Image Slider, Post Slider, ACF Gallery Slider

https://wordpress.org/plugins/sliderspack-all-in-one-image-sliders/

The Lowdown:

This is an interesting plugin; it does not just have one style of a slider builder, but instead comes with 10 different styles all rolled up into one convenient plugin! And a few of these have Gallery options as well!

Each style of slider and/or Gallery is a version of pre-made templates, each one a different style for you to choose from! All are responsive and work well if you are looking to insert content and let it loose!

You will find limitations on the free templates within each style as there is a Pro version – though the free templates are pretty! Very professional looking, and worth having a look through.

SlidersPack – Image Slider, Post Slider, ACF Gallery

Rating 4 Dragons

——————————–

John's Plugin

Secret Image Slide and Tune

https://wordpress.org/plugins/secret-image-slide-and-tune/

The Lowdown:

Ok this one is just fun. You can set this up as an easter egg on your site with any image and sound file you like.

Trigger an image to slide across your browser screen to your desired tune by entering the correct secret code on your keyboard.

You could keep this easter egg a secret and let users find out about this hidden gem on their own, or you could prank someone’s computer by turning their volume all the way up and ask them to enter in the code.

Rating 5 Dragons.

——————————–

Amber's Plugin

Smart Archive Page Remove

https://wordpress.org/plugins/smart-archive-page-remove/

The Lowdown:

This plugin is designed to remove the WordPress auto-generated archive pages (Tags, Category, Author, etc) from your site – once installed and activated, you will find a list of the different archive pages under ‘Archive Pages' in your ‘Settings'. Once you switch the toggle to ‘on' to remove your archive pages, whenever a person searched they will instead get a ‘404 error' rather than the auto-generated archives page.

While this plugin removes the archive pages for you, it does not offer you the ability to replace it with anything. Once the archive page has been set to be removed, there is no replacing it – however you are able to restore the page at any time by simply switching the option to ‘off' in the settings.

I personally see this as half useful – though I was searching for a way to both deactivate and replace the archive pages. This plugin is totally free, and it works very well!

Smart Archive Page Remove! Worth checking out!

Rating 4 Dragons

——————————–

Random links for plugins

WordPress plugins crafted from love and experience
https://codeat.co/

Listener Feedback / Audio Clips

Remember: Feel Free sending in your thoughts to us – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly – we'll take them all!

Listener Questions

I have a domain name as well as others to use in conjunction with my main domain. They would be for different purposes but still have to do with my main domain. When I build the site and use these other domains, am I better off to have them (the other domains) open in a new tab or just go to that domain? Are there any downfalls to doing a combination of the two? Can I make each domain a page within my site?

Thanks for the advice. Your show has been very helpful to me, keep up the great work!

Still Learning

Remember, there's no such thing as a stupid question! Send your questions to us via email, Facebook, or our website!

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!!!

CONGRATULATIONS Jason L on winning the license!!! Be sure to check your email to get your license!

 

Jason, you have won the Lifetime Single Domain License with Interactive Geo Maps, Valued at $49.99!

 

 

 

This contest is over, but we will have another one soon enough – as soon as our worker bees bring it in from the wild!

 

Remember to share these contests with friends to earn extra entries to the contest.