Popping Good WordPress Plugins

It's Episode 548 and we have plugins for Extended Search, Private Writings, No More Comments, Zilla Gate, Sticky Everything, Dyno Sects… and ClassicPress Options. It's all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!

WP Extended Search, WP Private Content Plus, Disable Comment Url, Zilla Payment Gateway, All-in-One WP Sticky Anything, Dyno Sections……. and ClassicPress options on Episode 548.

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…

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/

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

Amber's Rant:

This is #8 of 52 episodes for 2022! This last week I have rediscovered a game called Ingress – It's one of those phone games that uses data, though not much. Its a pretty fun game where you go around and catch portals for your ‘team' – I have rediscovered it in order get my kids and I interested in getting out to know our new area we just moved to. it works pretty well! We found a park and a shop with goodies.

Tech can be used for good sometimes – use whatever works to get yourself and your kids (if you have kidlets) outdoors and exploring! Sometimes getting out to explore an area where you have lived for a while all over again can be just as exciting as exploring a new to you area. Perhaps there is a small road you have never walked down before and you will find a pocket park!

Exploring is always something worth doing with family and friends – mostly dropping the tech is the best idea, but sometimes we all need a better reason than just health to get outside. Especially when the weather isn't nice yet. When using tech to help you get out though, I recommend something like Ingress that doesn't constantly require your attention – that way you aren't glued to the screen and are instead talking and spending some quality time with friends and family on the walk!

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 – February 16, 2022 – This week is a report on Themes! Unfortunately, there is quite the list of themes with no known fix to issues they are having, and they have all been recommended to be deactivated. To name a few: Wallstreet, StartKit, Rambo, HoneyPress, ElitePress, CloudPress, EventPress, Cactus – There is a total of 34 themes in this deactivation list. Be sure to check them out to make sure your current theme is not on there.

Block Editor Sidebar Panels are the new Admin Notices – This article explains how over the last few months, this idea for making the editor sidebar panel into an ad for the user – WordPress seems to be interested in shoving these ads into your editor sidepanel lately. You are able to turn it off, though it takes a bit of work. Great article!

WordPress now has a Photo Moderation Team – The team is now in full swing! They are calling themselves WordPress Photo Directory Make Team. They will be working on the site https://make.wordpress.org/photos where they will be creating a public handbook, and a private handbook containing outlines of the processes for moderators handling topics like curation and inappropriate content. This is a volunteer group, and I hope it does not get out of hand on us.

Gutenburg is moving into more advanced Template Creation – ‘The design contributors are exploring how the template creation UI can be updated to expand the types of templates that users can create using the Site Editor.' – really, I couldn't have said it better. They will be working on Front page, Single, Page, Archive, Search, 404, and Index. To find out more check out the article!

Mixed reactions to Clarity Ad Blocker for WordPress – Currently, this plugin simply blocks all ads, with no settings. the creator is working on fixing this, as his initial goal was to simply remove the banners from the site that are put there by places like Twitter and Facebook; the changes he is working on include the option of which ads to remove. Some people are calling this entire plugin ‘damaging', ‘unethical', as ads are a fact of life. It will be interesting to see if this plugin is banned later on…

Gravity Forms enhanced user interface not working popup – Gravity Forms is having an issue with their new user interface; if you are needing a fix for this issue, there is some code in this article that you can copy and paste to fix the issue.

Firefox and Chrome 100 could break parts of the internet, Mozilla warns – Mozilla is giving website developers that the upcoming three-digit versions of the popular internet browsers Firefox and Chrome might cause some websites to break. This is an important article to check out whether you are a site owner or site developer. There are links within the article that have step by step instructions on how to test the new version of the browsers with your site.

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

2 new proposals for Plugin Dependencies Discussion – For those unaware, plugin dependencies are plugins that require one or more others to operate. This is regular practice in the developer world, but so far WordPress has ended every ticket over the past 1- years with ‘wontfix' label, essentially shutting the tickets down citing that WordPress was created for users, not developers. I am interested to see if these two tickets will go anywhere this time.

What do we call these new WordPress Themes? – The official consensus is that we shall call the new Themes ‘Block Themes', and refer to the older themes as ‘Classic Themes'. This article goes on to define in depth the difference, which I found to be useful.

You need a social media cleanse – This is a great article talking about cleansing yourself from Social Media, and gives you a great walk through on how to do just that!

You really shouldn't scan random QR codes – This is something that everyone should really be aware of – random QR codes are not your friend! There is a reason they did not immediately take off in the 90's!

Canada's major banks go offline in mysterious hours-long outage – This was yesterday, and it was interesting. It worked in the morning, than while using my online banking, it just stopped until late afternoon. This is thought to be due to the Emergencies Act enacted, though investigation is still ongoing. Be aware of these outages for your businesses! If this is due to the Emergencies Act, this will not stop happening until it has been removed.

Hackers slip into Microsoft Teams chats to distribute malware – If this is something that you and your team use, or just something common in your household, be aware of this! Don't click on links offered in chat rooms unless you 1: know the person in person, 2: requested the link, 3: know where that link will be taking you.

FBI warms of BEC attackers impersonating CEO's in virtual meetings – The FBI has warned today that US organizations and individuals are increasingly targets in BEC (Business Email Compromise) attacks – specifically in virtual meetings. The end goal is to redirect payments to their own bank accounts. If you are a host, make sure you are adding who you think you are adding to the meeting.

Red Cross: State hackers breached our network using Zoho bug – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had their servers hacked by what appears to be a stat-backed hacking group. This is an interesting find, if you are interested in learning more, check out the article!

Your brain might be a quantum computer that hallucinates math – I found this to be an interesting article!

How the Dutch use big data and rea-time analytics to keep their country afloat – For those who are interested in how big data is used, this is a really interesting article! They do a decently deep dive into how these analytics are used.

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

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.

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

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.

WordPress Plugins

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

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John's Plugin

WP Extended Search

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-extended-search/

The Lowdown:

Use this plugin to customize your search settings. You can create custom searches for categories, tags, ect. You can create custom search forms to be placed on the page and more.

rating 4 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

Zilla Payment Gateway

https://wordpress.org/plugins/zilla-payment-gateway/

The Lowdown:

This plugin was created for e-commerce sites to give their customers the option of paying for their items later at a 1% cost. I think this is great idea, and it will probably get you more customers. It seems to be a plug and play as I wasn't able to find anywhere to change up the options. I also wasn't able to fully test it out, though in the parts that I did test it works well, smooth and easy!

I would love to hear back from our listeners who might want to give this a try!

Rating 4 Dragons

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John's Plugin

WP Private Content Plus

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-private-content-plus/

The Lowdown:

This plugin simplifies the process for protecting your important WordPress site content from: guests, members, specific user roles, or a group of selected users. This plugin supports content restrictions on posts, pages, custom post types, navigation menus, widgets, and post attachments. Also the plugin allows you to hide specific content within posts and pages using a shortcode.

Rating 4 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

All-in-One WP Sticky Anything

https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-wp-sticky-anything/

The Lowdown:

This is an awesome little plugin – it has the ability to stick literally anywhere, even into Elementor pages. All you need to do is pick a CSS class name, cladd id, or CSS selector.

Small drawback though, unless you put in the specific CSS selector, it does not stick anywhere. I was hoping without adding any CSS, it would simply stick to the dashboard – unfortunately not the case.

Though it is useful for when you are working with a team! You are able to pick and choose who will see it, and whomever does see the sticky is able to add to it. OR, they can create their own without having to remove what is already there.

So long as you are able and willing to add in the CSS, this is a REALLY useful plugin!

Rating 5 Dragons

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John's Plugin

Disable Comment Url

https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-comment-url/

The Lowdown:

This plugin helps to eliminate the spam in your comments. What it does, is it automatically removes any URL placed in comments. Simple and easy.

Rating 4 dragons

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Amber's Plugin

Dyno Sections

https://wordpress.org/plugins/dyno-sections-dynamic-sections-based-on-get-or-post-parameters/

The Lowdown:

This is a plugin created by and for developers who know the basics in coding. I can see it being very useful – though unless you have a little background in coding, you may find yourself completely lost since in order to use this plugin you need to be able to use the coding given, and wrap your text within it.

The plugin was designed to create Dynamic Sections in your pages or posts, though you can use it on any content based area.

With the free version you are able to use this endlessly, creating however many of Dynamic posts or pages; It is based in GET or POST parameter processing on any page or URL, and there seems to be decent support!

In the Pro version you are also able to send emails based on GET or POST parameters using dynamic sections, send data to any third party script or web service URL, and apparently the support is better for those who have PRO.

I can see this being very useful for developers, and I can also see it being a useful learning tool for people who have no history in coding, or who are just starting out!

Rating 4 Dragons

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Random links for plugins

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

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.

A BIG Thank You to Steve Goodtime & Brant Matthews who have created our Awesome jingle for the contests!

A BIG Thank You to Charlie for coming to the aid of the show and getting our contests all organized!

We also want to give a BIG Thank You to all the Developers for supporting our show with their plugin donations! Please be sure to check them out!

Short note about participating in the contests folks – we go to great efforts to get these licenses. We would LOVE to see a bit more participation from you, The Producers.

For all developers who would like to support the show: You can donate a premium license to be used in a future contests. Please go to:WPPluginsAtoZ.com/PluginContest

The plugins we covered were:

John’s Plugins: WP Extended Search – 4, WP Private Content Plus – 4, Disable Comment Url – 4

Amber's Plugins: Zilla Payment Gateway – 4, All-in-One WP Sticky Anything – 5, Dyno Sections – 4

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

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!

• When looking at pictures on computers, why is it that on larger higher definition screens the pictures will have the top and bottom cropped, but they don't blur? It seems like the picture should blur a little once it is made so much bigger that it needs to auto crop on you.

• What is easier in the long run – rebuilding a few separate pages within a site, or rebuilding the site all over?

• When rebuilding a single page within a website, how do you make sure that your new shiny page is properly linked to the rest of the site?

Closing out this Episode

Just some reminders:

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How to Contact Us:

John can be contacted at:

• on my website @ http://www.johnoverall.com/
• WordPress Emergency Support http://wppro.ca/wpemergency
• email: john@wppro.ca

Amber can be contacted at:

• email: amber@wppro.ca