Pressing The Best Plugins

John's Intro:

It's Episode 604 and we have plugins for  Finipose accounting Woo, PDFing with embedding… and WordPress News. It's all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!

– ‘good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you happen to be hiding out there on the globe today! Coming to you LIVE from …'

Amber's Rant:

Welcome to Episode 604 – Pressing The Best Plugins – We've got a couple of great in-depth plugins to cover for you, some recent news in both the WordPress World and the Tech World in general, and some awesome WordPress Tips!

We've had a bit of a smoke problem in our area due to a large fire that's been going on for a bit kinda near by – but BC does tend to catch fire every summer. Hoping everyone out there who's dealing with the smoke is keeping healthy!

Some reminders before we start the show today….

Reminders:

• Remember that the show starts at 12:30 PM Pacific Time, with a pre-stream starting around 12:15 PM Pacific Time. Pre-stream is where we twiddle with the dials and knobs and really just warm up our voices, so join in for some entertainment value!
• Our show notes for each episode can be found at wppluginsatoz.com – the newest show notes will be up within 24 hours and on our front page!
• Don't forget that this is a value for value show, and that you are a big part of it's creation! You are our producers, and we need you to help us produce! Get out there and hit some like buttons, share an episode or two, and let people know that you help to produce the longest running WordPress Plugins podcast!

That's it for reminders, don't forget to stick around until the end of the show for some possibly life altering advice!

...When you see this in the notes, it means we didn't read this on the show. The only way to find this information out is to read our Show Notes!

…You can send any questions/suggestions or notes saying ‘hi' over to me at amber@wppro.ca, or hit up our site wpppluginsatoz.com/contact – Be creative with the title so that the spammer eater doesn't eat your note though!

Let's start the show with this weeks Featured Artist:

Artist: 

Jsaliba

This is such an awesome picture of an old school press – imagine the ingenuity that had to go into the creation of such a machine!!

Going through the Art Vaults is awesome, but we would love some new art! You can send it into us at https://wppluginsatoz.com/artwork/. You can also check out the art vaults yourself there too!

…We can NEVER have too much art!

Breaking News in the WordPress World at large!! 

…If I missed something, shoot me a link at amber@wppro.ca – it may show up on the next show!

News this week:

WordPress Vulnerability Report – June 21, 2023 (https://ithemes.com/blog/wordpress-vulnerability-report-june-21-2023/) – There's a decent list of plugins that HAVE been patched, and a 55 plugin list of unpatched plugins. the ones I most easily recognize are: Flo Forms, Form Builder, Recent Posts Slider, WP Backup Manager, and WP View. Be sure to check this list out, you will find the link in our show notes.

BlockNotes App runs WordPress natively on IOS, now in public beta (https://wptavern.com/blocknotes-app-runs-wordpress-natively-on-ios-now-in-public-beta) – What this means is that BlockNotes is running an experiment and it's currently being tested. The goal is to prove that the WordPress ecosystem can run anywhere – desktop, mobile, web, even fenced ecosystems. So far it seems to be working out pretty well!

Gutenberg 16.0 introduces page management in the site editor (https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-16-0-introduces-page-management-in-the-site-editor) – This is the first step towards a unified experience of editing both content and design. This is a very exciting thing for Gutenberg users and hopefully they will continue down this path!

WordPress.org enables commercial and community filters on plugin and theme directories (https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-enables-commercial-and-community-filters-on-plugin-and-theme-directories) – During the ‘State of the Word' in 2022 Matt Mullenweg announced that he would be adding ‘community' and ‘commercial' taxonomies for the theme and plugin directories, which would help users to more quickly ascertain the purpose of the extensions they are considering. After opening it up to the creators to place themselves where they belong, the new filters are now published and doing their job! Anything with a pro version should be under commercial, and anything totally free should be under community.

WordPress contributors discuss renaming command center tool (https://wptavern.com/wordpress-contributors-discuss-renaming-command-center-tool) – This new feature was first introduced in Gutenberg 15.6, and is on track to come out in the next Gutenberg release.  Although it may come out under a different name. There is a lively discussion going on about what to name it, ‘Wayfinder' seems to be the favourite right now – personally I think central command center works since it can be shortened into ccc, or triple c, and I think that's just cool. You can find out more by going into our show notes and following the link!

A new metaverse network plots an escape from Meta's ‘walled gardens' (https://thenextweb.com/news/improbable-metaverse-network-m2-connected-virtual-worlds-outside-metas-walled-gardens) – The metaverse company Improbable wants to open borders between virtual worlds alongside a few others, but other companies are not interested. The debate going on over the fence of division is quite interesting! I personally think that bringing down the borders would be most likely to turn out a world where nobody was ever offline and always wanting to get back into the virtual world. I think that keeping the walls up is the best option – although if they made it so that you could go from world to world like how we can go from site to site online, that might be cool.

The Extras – check out our Facebook, or Twitter page for even more!

WordCampers demand changes to the Q&A format – https://wptavern.com/wordcampers-demand-changes-to-qa-format

WordPress confirms 8 pilot events to launch the next generation of WordCamps in 2023 – https://wptavern.com/wordpress-confirms-8-pilot-events-to-launch-the-next-generation-of-wordcamps-in-2023

WordPress.com makes monetization features available for free – https://wptavern.com/wordpress-com-makes-monetization-features-available-for-free

WordPress pattern directory updated to show curated patterns by default – https://wptavern.com/wordpress-pattern-directory-updated-to-show-curated-patterns-by-default

Really Simple SSL Plugin adds free vulnerability detection – https://wptavern.com/really-simple-ssl-plugin-adds-free-vulnerability-detection

Inside Google's ‘deepmind' approach to AI safety – https://thenextweb.com/news/inside-google-deepmind-ai-safety-strategy-lila-ibrahim

A DDOS attack made Diablow IV and WarCraft unplayable this morning – https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/25/23773298/a-ddos-attack-made-diablo-iv-and-world-of-warcraft-unplayable-this-morning

Elon Musk thinks his fight with Mark Zuckerberg ‘might actually happen' – https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/25/23773027/elon-musk-thinks-his-fight-with-mark-zuckerberg-might-actually-happen

Decentralized twitter alternative Bluesky has published a moderation manifesto – https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/25/23773130/decentralized-twitter-alternative-bluesky-has-published-a-moderation-manifesto

NASA's electric plane project has been grounded – https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/25/23773109/nasas-electric-plane-project-has-been-grounded

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Dragon Rating Time!

John's Plugin

Finpose – Accounting for WooCommerce

https://wordpress.org/plugins/fin-accounting-for-woocommerce/

The Lowdown:

If you start a WooCommerce store you will eventually have to  deal with your sales and taxes reports and well the default way WooCommerce handles it is a real pain in the A**. This plugin makes that task of tracking all your sales and taxes easy.

You can now fulfill all your WooCommerce needs without any hassle. With Finpose, you can manage tax, spending, orders and accounts with just one plugin.

Be more productive by spending less time on mundane financial tasks. Finpose helps you manage taxes, expenses and orders with just one click – saving you hours of work every day.

The Free version includes

8 Modules Included

• Spendings
  Add expenses and costs under custom categories. Findout top spending categories. Export spendings data to handover to accountant.
• Tax
  In addition to sales tax, tax receivables from your spendings are automatically calculated. Tax balance for each month automatically calculated.
• Orders
  Filter all orders by payment method, status and amount. Customer data along with payment breakdowns are provided. Results are exportable.
• Accounts
  Monitor every action from your accounts (bank account, cards, payment gateways) regarding your business.
• Inventory (PRO)
  Integrated with WooCommerce stock numbers. By adding unit costs, you can track cost of goods sold (COGS) and profit margins for each product.
• Reporting (PRO)
  Annual Profit Loss report with monthly breakdown is provided instantly. You can compare changes over time to see how your store is performing.
• Vendors (PRO)
  Manage vendor accounts, see balances for each of them, add payments and track upcoming payments.
• Dashboard (PRO)
  All financial data regarding your store operation is given on a single page. Valuable data unique to Finpose, such as Spendings per Order, Profit per Day..etc. is provided.

The Pro version offers even more including inventory, vendors, profit loss statement, balance sheet and more…

Rating 4 Dragons

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WordPress Tips

We would love to hear some tid bit tips from some of our producers out there – what did you figure out by breaking something? Or what did you need to learn in order to help someone? You can send these tid bits into me at amber@wppro.ca

Making Sites

If you are using something like Elementor that has the option to add universal colour's to your site's palette, do so! When I first started I was forever sampling the colour's I needed, saving them into notepad – then I realized that I can set specific colour's as ‘global' colour's in Elementor, and use them for any area I like – title or font colour, button colour, anything that has the option to change the colour.

If you are using WordPress it has the ‘global palette' available, though I found it was not quite as intuitive as Elementor, especially as a person newer to the scene.

Although if you don't have the option for the global colour palette like in Elementor, creating a notepad document with the colours for each item, labelled for the site you are working on – that is a great way to go as well. This way you won't have to sample, or try and remember which shade of that red goes for which font.

Beginners Tips

So you got a client, and they are super excited about building a site with you! Only problem – they want you to figure out everything for them.

Instead of beating your head against a brick wall trying to figure out what they like and don't like and finding yourself asking them a million and one questions, just ask them the following:

What are you wanting to do with your site? Teach, talk, sell, or a combination of things? If combination, list them off for me.

Do you have a logo setup?

Do you see any sites you like that you would like to base your site off of for the way it looks?

The first question will help you to figure out which way you need to go for setting it up, which plugins, so on and so forth. The second question will give you your colour palette. The third question will tell you what they like the look of, and what style to aim for.

Simple is hard, but learning to do simple = working smarter not harder.

…Some random entertainment in the World of WordPress!

…Matt's Famous Quotes
https://www.idrlabs.com/quotes/matt-mullenweg.php

…The hall of shame via Automattic:
transparency.automattic.com/tag/hall-of-shame/

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Amber's Plugin

PDF Embedder

https://wordpress.org/plugins/pdf-embedder/

The Lowdown:

I used this plugin a while ago when I was first starting, and this plugin is still the best option I have been able to find for clients who have something they want to be able to put up on their site like a colouring page or a letter.

Once installed and activated, you will see the settings option under ‘settings' in your left hand menu, then ‘pdf embedder'.

This is a Freemium Plugin, though the free version gives you a scrolling bar, the option to choose whether or not the scroll bar stays visible or is only visible when hovering over. You are able to right click to save picture as, so as long as the users are aware of the right click trick they can save whatever you are showing.

You are also able to size the PDF file via pixels (like a photo sizing), and you are able to choose whether the scrolling bar is available on the top, bottom, or both. They also give you an option to display ‘powered by wp-pdf.com‘ which if you are using their free version, why not?

If you are not sure what size you want, you can look up the best sizes for various items in WordPress, or you can simply dive in and make it up as you go until you figure out the right sizing on your own.

For premium versions, there are three:

For one site
For 2-5 sites
Unlimited sites

and these prices are actually affordable! 20, 30, and 50. Not too bad! The choices you get are:

• Download Button Provide PDF download button on toolbar
• External Links Open links in a new browser tab/window
• Track Views/Downloads Count number of views and downloads
• Continuous Page Scrolling Allow user to scroll up/down between all pages in the PDF

Having seen this in action a few times now, I would highly recommend getting a premium version. Their prices are decent, and so long as you have something you want to share with the world be it a picture, a letter, or a colouring page, this plugin works really well!

PDF Embedder does work with Gutenberg, and it works with Elementor. I have yet to see something this plugin does not work with, and it definitely plays nice with others so far as I have seen.

Rating: 5 Dragons

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Onto Our Producer Know How and Donations Segment!

Earn yourself a Producership Credit!

We have 3 levels of Producers that help to keep the show's larders stocked to bursting – Free-Lance Producers, Back-Room Producers, and War-Room Producers. There are special perks for Back-Room and War-Room Producers that you can learn about on our site wppluginsatoz.com. Click on Time, Treasure, or Talent Donations in our main menu to learn all the nitty gritty details on how you can add your 2 cents!

Free-Lance Producers:

… Free-Lance Producers always show up when least expected, and often times when most needed! No donation required to become a Free-Lance Producer – you just are one if you're here!

… If you have listened to even 10 minutes of this show, or shown up a single time to one of our live shows on YouTube, you are one of our many Free-Lance Producers! Although you guys are always popping in and out at unexpected times, we appreciate your support and periodic help with one thing or another – thank you!

Back Room Producers:

… Back Room Producers always seem to be about the place helping with our contests, artwork, site organization, notes, questions, suggestions, and even more! While they tend to hang out a lot in the back lounge and consume massive amounts of coffee and doughnuts, it's well earned through both hard work and their donations – never above $50 dollars and absolutely equal to their Time and Talent donations!

… Back Room Producers, if you ever notice something that needs some work feel free to reach out to us and let us know – you can offer to take it up yourself, or just let us know and we will add it to our list. We always appreciate your help in organizing and changing of the coffee – thank you!

War Room Producers:

… War Room Producers receive a few extra perks with their donations of $50 or more – an official A to Z Handle of their choice, a spotlight in that weeks show for a short speech, and an official Executive Producership Credit! These credits are real and can be used in the real world to your advantage! Only draw back is that they sometimes gotta make fresh coffee when the Back Room Producers emptied the pot…

**If you prefer to stay anonymous, please let us know at the beginning of your note to us regarding your donation! We are more than happy to keep you anonymous from the world – nobody is ever forced out of the tender embrace of the shadows on this show!**

… Official A to Z Handle means you will receive a specialized login to our site. We are working to update our site where we will have a Members Only section, and you will have access to a variety of things through your personalized handle for our site! To receive your Official A to Z Handle, think up an original name, and send it in to us along with the show number and the show name.

… Your spotlight can be an elevator pitch for your business, a note, or you can just skip it – just be sure to let us know your choice and we will adhere appropriately.

… The Producership Credit we offer is REAL! When you send your donation in to us of $50 or more, please be sure to note down the number and title of the show your donation appeared on, and we will back up your right to claim Producership!

… You don't ACTUALLY have to make the Back Room Producers coffee, but you might want to make yourself a fresh one. 😉 Especially if you are planning on pointing out things going wrong on the site… we got a long list and will likely try and convince you to help us out a little!

… War Room Producers, same as for the Back Room Producers, reach out to us if you notice something that needs work! Whether you are wanting to take up the job yourself or just inform us and leave it, we will add it to our ever-growing list!

Join in and be part of your own production and support the show at the same time!

There are loads of ways to use us as your tool to get on out there like getting an interview, leaving a review for a plugin or donating your own plugin review, or your own plugin license! I recommend you give it a go and see how it helps – you can check out our show notes in this section to see all the ways to be part of your own production!

…Reach out to John and get yourself Interviewed – use us as your tool to get out there!

… Looking for a way to get your name and work out there? Use us as a stepping stone! Hit us up at https://wppluginsatoz.com/interview

…Send in your Plugin Reviews, or suggestions for a Plugin reviews!

… Have a plugin you love? Or one you really think people should avoid? Reach out to us and get your words and opinion out into the world by hitting us up at https://wppluginsatoz.com/submit-plugin-review/

…Send in your own Plugin License and add it to the contest – this is a great way to get your name and your work out there!

… Is your plugin worth its salt in Dragons? If so, send it on into us and add it to the contests! You can do this by hitting us up at https://wppluginsatoz.com/plugincontest/

…Send in questions and/or comments – we always love hearing from our Producers!

… Have a thought to share? Send it in! You can stay anonymous or belt your name out in all caps! Stitcher Radio, Google Play, or the iTunes Store. Doing this will also help you in producing the show for your own benefit too!

…You can support the show by Subscribing to our Newsletter, Donating, or reviewing us on Stitcher Radio, Google Play, or the iTunes Store. Doing this will also help you in producing the show for your own benefit too!

…You can check us out on Facebook, or our YouTube Channel! Be sure to hit the ‘like' button and share share share!

… YouTube Channel and joining us live every Monday at 12:15 PM PDT is a FANTASTIC show of support – and since you're already on the net's, might as well check out the Facebook page and hit that ‘like' button and share it out!

… Just showing up to our YouTube Channel and joining us live every Monday at 12:15 PM PDT is a FANTASTIC show of support – and since you're already on the net's, might as well check out the Facebook page and hit that ‘like' button and share it out!

… Don't forget – if you leave a review of us on any platform, that will help the show get noticed too; and if you happen to add your name to the show via questions or that awesome spotlight offered with a War Room Producership, that will get YOUR name out there too!

Questions, Notes, and Feedback from our Producers out there:

You can send in your 2 cents and have it read out here on the show!

… No such thing as a stupid question people! I was new not too long ago, and I know how overwhelming it can be stepping into this world at this stage – I know for a fact that questions you have are the same questions others out there have!

Reach out through email to amber@wppro.ca, or through the site at wppluginsatoz.com/contact/!

Miscellaneous Announcements from us and Producers:

Have an announcement like a meetup, or to announce you'll be on stage at a WordCamp? Let us know and we will add it here and help get your news out to the world!

If you are interested in finding a WordPress Meetup somewhere around the world you can go check out the places here: https://www.meetup.com/pro/wordpress/
Next WordPress Victoria Meetup will be on July 1st – this meetup aims to happen every month on the first so go and check out the link here in our show notes to see which one you might be interested in joining! https://www.meetup.com/yyjwordpress/

There's only 1 WordCamp happening in July, and it's in the Philippines on July 8! To find out more you can check out the link here in our show notes https://central.wordcamp.org/

Keep checking back every week to find out what else is going on!

And remember, the show notes found at wppluginsatoz.com has a whole lot of extra information to grab up that we don't read on air so be sure to check them out!

How to reach us:

We have a real brick and mortar address where you can send in art and/or notes – you can find the address in our show notes!

WP Plugins A to Z
C/O John Overall 
20-754 E Fairview Rd. 
Victoria, BC  V9A 5T9  
Canada

We also have virtual addresses too!

John:

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

Amber:

• email: amber@wppro.ca

Today's Plugins we covered were:

John’s Plugin:

Finpose – Accounting for WooCommerce  By Finpose

• Be more productive by spending less time on mundane financial tasks
• Manage vendor accounts, see balances for each of them, add payments and track upcoming payments.
• Monitor every action from your accounts (bank account, cards, payment gateways) regarding your business.

Rating: 4 Dragons

Amber's Plugin: 

PDF Embedder By WP PDF Embedder Team

• Embed any PDF you want
• Ability for users to save PDF in free version
• Premium version has many options including ‘download here' button

Rating: 5 Dragons

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 – let's see if we can stump my dad!

• For those who are facing updating their site for the PHP update, and have realized that their sites aren't actually working out the way they thought they would, is closing it down a good idea?
• If they close down the site, should they keep a copy of it for themselves?

Questions asked after closing credits:

• If they close down their site, and their term isn't up, should they be asking for a refund?
• Would you recommend to them that they retain their domain, or toss it since they closed the site down?
  • Can you get a refund for the rest of the year when you get rid of a domain name?
  • Can you sell your domain name? Is that something that is worth looking into?