WordPress Plugins Hidden Gems

It's Episode 557 and we have plugins for Zero Gravity, Floating Pixels, Maintaining the Mode, Mass Reset, Everything PDF, Easy Merging… and ClassicPress Options. It's all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!

Gravity Forms Zero Spam, Sebastian, WP Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon, Mass Users Password Reset, WordPress to PDF, Download as PDF Document of Any WordPress Post Types, Download Post as PDF, PDF Viewer, PDF Block, View PDF on WordPress – Document Engine, EasyMerge……. and ClassicPress options on Episode 557.

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 #17 of 52 episodes for 2022!
I hope everyone is looking forward to Easter! I've always been interested in Ester, who I understand is the original Goddess of Easter. She is a very interesting character, and required a lot of worship – specifically from young men – and now we eat chocolate and eggs and go a-hunting for the multi coloured eggs!

I've called April the month of all seasons here on the Island for years 'cause we really never know what the next day will bring to us… but hopefully it turns out pretty and not snowing on Easter weekend for us! And may the sun shine and the North Wind calm itself for all our listeners out there as well!

As always, gotta remind everyone to put the media aside and spend some time with family and friends! This weekend is a perfect excuse to remove thyself and enjoy!

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:

Critical Vulnerability Fixed in Elementor Plugin Version 3.6.3 – The most recently released version of Elementor has a fix to a vulnerability that is allowing any authenticated user, regardless of their authorization, to change the site title, site logo, change the theme to Elementor's theme, and worst of all, upload arbitrary files to the site. This article goes through explaining how this vulnerability exists, how it works, and about the patch. They note a few times that they are still gathering information about this vulnerability.

WordPress Vulnerability Report – April 13, 2022 – There are a lot of plugins with issues to look at this week; most of the plugins on the list are Wbcom Designs Plugins – BuddyPress – Activity Social Share, Create Group Type, Ads, Search… It appears that Wbcom Designs Plugins has been working hard to fix some vulnerabilities. Be aware if you use Wbcom Designs Plugins – BuddyPress; some of the plugins are in the ‘fixed' list above, so be sure if you use these guys to check back every day to see what has been fixed and what has not – but do also keep an eye out for any other plugins you may be using.

WordPress performance team puts controversial WebP by Default Proposal on hold after critical feedback – The new feature WebP images on upload by default for new JPEG uploads has created some serious technical concerns in the WordPress Community. WordPress's Performance team proposed this update for the upcoming 6.0 release, but it has been put on hold for now. Many are calling the proposal ‘heavy handed', pushing for it to be an ‘opt-in' only, or introduced with a more user-friendly way to disable it. One of the main concerns is the amount of disk space used for images, as it would generate WebP thumbnails in addition to the JPEG sub sizes. You can check out the article to find out more on what people are saying about this proposal!

ACF 5.12.1 patches missing authorization vulnerability – Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) recently patched a vulnerability that was affecting all free and pro versions. It was allowing a remote authenticated attacker to ciew the information on the database without the correct access permissions – The National Vulnerability Database gives this particular vulnerability a 6.5 medium score. Read on to find out more!

WordPress Hacked? 7 Warning Signs to Watch – This is a great article talking in leymans terms on what you need to keep an eye out for to know whether or not your site has been hacked. Some of these people don't really think about, like a decrease in site traffic, or your site's performance has dropped. Good things to know!

New comment-related blocks arriving with WordPress 6.0 – This should be exciting! Comment output is returning to templates via the block system, meaning PHP filters are no longer required to move the layout around. And users can make modifications via the site editor. If you are interested in seeing some testing caught in pictures, this article will be a great one for you as the writer goes through while he is experimenting. Very cool!

WordPress Contributors host 6.0 walkthrough – For those who are curious about what is to come in 6.0, this ‘first-of-its-kind event' walkthrough goes through the major features coming in the next release. It was recorded this last week, and is now available on WordPress.tv. The ones leading the walk through go through the updates, bug fixes, demonstrate how the style switcher works, touch on additional templates coming (author, date, category, tag, taxonomy), and also the Webfonts API. Sounds like a pretty decent tour of what is to come!

3G is shutting down: here are the gadgets that still rely on it. Do you have one? – 3G is shutting down peeps! This means that a lot of our most essential tech may soon become unusable… Fortunately – there are steps you can take to safely transition from aging to future-proof tech! This article goes through explaining when carriers are planning on shutting down 3G, what will still work and what won't, and how a lot of tech like home security will be affected.

The extras –for even more extra news, check out ourFacebook, orTwitterpage!

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 atamber@wppro.ca

GIT security vulnerability announced – GitHub is not affected by the pair of vulnerabilities announced by the Git project – though you should be aware of them and upgrade your local installation of Git. One affects those who use multi-user machines, creating a .git directory in a shared location, and giving itself the ability to execute arbitrary commands. The other affects the Git for Windows uninstaller, giving itself the ability to place malicious .d11 files that are loaded when running the Git for Windows uninstaller. The article goes much more in depth on these two, so read on to find out more!

Why is my internet so slow? – This is a great article going through and explaining not only the reasons why your internet may be slow, but also how the internet travels and how it works in and of itself. The article talks about where the slow down may be coming from, and why just switching to a different provider may or may not be the answer.

The digital engineering revolution is here – could Python be the key to upskilling? – This is an interesting article talking about how the industry has advanced and how much it is expected to continue advancing – along with the the advantages of digital engineering, the dilemma of upskilling, and how Python could indeed be the key skill for future digital engineers.

Muting your mic doesn't stop big tech from recording your audio – This article goes through how the recording via big tech actually works, why double muting techniques can help you, and a whole lot more on big tech, recordings, data, and other stuff. Enjoy!

Don't assume your user data in the cloud is safe – No, one should NEVER assume data in the cloud is safe! And this article does a deep dive into why that is, and the research being done in this field.

Your digital footprints could help hackers infiltrate computer networks – This is an interesting article that goes into what your digital footprints are, how they are made, how they are followed, and what to do about it. Very good information to have!

Operation TOURNIQUET: Authorities shut down dark web marketplace RaidForums – This article talks about the Operation TOURNIQUET, and how they managed to take down the dark web marketplace RaidForums. They managed to shut it down and seize its infrastructure. The article goes into how they managed to do this, and who was caught, how they were caught, and where this was done from.

Researchers warn of FFDroider and Lightning info-stealers targeting users in the wild – There are two different information-stealing malware named FFDroider, and Lightning Stealer; and they are both capable of siphoning data and launching further attacks. This article goes on to explain how they work, what they do, how they do it, when they appeared, and they talk about 3 other info-stealers that have emerged into the wild.

Credential-stealing malware disguises itself as Telegram, targets social media users – There is a credential-stealing Windows-based malware, spyware.FFDroider. This version showed itself as a spyware offered on download sites pretending to be installers for freeware and cracked versions of paid software. The article goes more in depth on how this one works, what it has done, and it's various functions.

New Android banking malware remotely takes control of your device – New Android malware named Octo has appeared in the wile, featuring remote access capabilities that allow malicious operators to perform on-decide fraud. This article goes into how it works, what it does, and how it gets onto your phone in the first place.

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

Our show will not work without YOU the Producers as this is a Value for Value model kind of show!

Meaning: if you feel like you are getting any value out of this show, please give some value back and help the show out so that we can keep the show going for you!

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Catch us live every Thursday at 11am PST on our YouTube Channel – Show up by 10:45am PST to catch our pre-stream! Really quite entertaining most days as we fiddle with the dials and knobs to chase away the gremlins that have moved in since the week before.

Show Producers

This is where we take the time to thank and acknowledge everyone who has supported the show over the last week!

There are a lot of ways you can support the show yourself, through Time, Talent, or Treasure!

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!

Executive Producers are the ones who come in with $50.00 or more donations – plus you get a couple of extra quirks!

For instance, you can send in a note with your donation and have us read it out live on the show!

Your note can just be a simple hello, or you can send us in your elevator speech and have it read out, thus getting a little self promotion alongside of donating to a great cause!

This week's Show Producer/'s are:

Show Producers are the ones who come in under $50.00 with donations.

Sometimes this is to remain anonymous (Which we will fully respect), though often it's just 'cause you all know that this helps the show out too!

A big thank you to all the Producers out there! Every little bit helps us out in a big way!

Back Room Producers:

This is where we thank the invisible supporters who are a big part of keeping the show going!

A big thank you to everyone who has hired me because of the show – that's another kind of show production support!

A big thank you to everyone who has made the effort to send in questions and notes – that helps to keep the show interesting!

A big thank you to all the creators who have taken a chance and sent in your plugins for review – that helps to keep us on our game for plugin knowledge!

A big thank you to those who have donated licenses for our contests – we couldn't do it without you!

YOU can Support the Show by:

Time:

Submit articles news and information to us! News and Information goes right into the show! You can stay anonymous as ‘a listener', or you can claim credit – just let us know in the email! Articles we would be more than happy to put up on the web site!

Send in Donations to Support The Show! Anything over $50.00 will earn you an Executive Producer Credit and you can have your note read out! Anything $49.99 or less and you will be anonymously thanked in our ‘Show Producer' section!

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Something we haven't listed here? Let us know – or just go for it!!!

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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

Check out the new ‘chats' in the forum
https://forums.classicpress.net/

WordPress does have a section devoted to plugins that are compatible with ClassicPress, check it out!
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/classicpress/

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/

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John's Plugin

Gravity Forms Zero Spam

https://wordpress.org/plugins/gravity-forms-zero-spam/

The Lowdown:

This Gravity Forms add-on blocks spam using a non-obtrusive anti-spam measure. There are no settings or configuration needed: all you need to do is activate the plugin! The choose the block on each form you want to use this on.

Rating 5 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

Mass Users Password Reset

https://wordpress.org/plugins/mass-users-password-reset/

The creators KrishaWeb send this in to us themselves, and here's what they have to say about the plugin:

Mass Users Password Reset is a WordPress Plugin that lets you resets the password of all users.

It can group the users according to their role and resets the password of that group. It sends a notification email to users about their new randomly generated password.

The pro version comes with the multiple methods to reset the password and customized email templates with the new password information.

It supports multiple languages and compatible with the WooCommerce, BuddyPress and Dokan – Multivendor Marketplace.

It has the best user interface in the latest version that support some advanced features like custom field filter, test mode and WP CLI support too.

 

My take on this plugin:

Krishaweb was kind enough to send us a copy of the plugin file directly! Thanks you guys!

Once this handy dandy plugin is uploaded, you will find the option ‘Mass Users Password Reset' added to your ‘Users' on the left hand menu. In this area you will be able to choose your users by role or simply all of them, and send them a password reset!

Make sure you really want to change the passwords on this page before clicking ‘Reset Password' though, because all users who are showing on this page will have their passwords changed automatically as soon as you click on the big blue button saying “Reset Password”. Unfortunately you can't set the parameters of the password reset, though it seems like a decent password generator from the email I got.

In the Pro version there is an option to schedule password resets, and you can also get a password reset log – which could come in very useful when you have a large user base!

The free version will do the job for you, though you will need to go pro with this plugin if you are wanting the reminders and the logs.

Rating 4 Dragons

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John's Plugin

Sebastian

https://wordpress.org/plugins/sebastian/

The Lowdown:

This plugin had such promise but was mildly let down. Once activated and setup, a random dot from 1 px to 5 pix starts moving across the screen and if you mouse over it either creates a popup message or sends people to the website of your choice.

Rating 4 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

WordPress to PDF, Download as PDF document of any WordPress Post Types, Download Post as PDF, PDF Viewer, PDF Block, View PDF on WordPress – Document Engine

https://wordpress.org/plugins/document-engine/

The Lowdown:

Now this may have a very long title name, but in your installed plugins area you will only see it as ‘Document Engine'. Once activated you will find the option ‘Documents' on the left hand side, which is where you will set everything up!

Once I started digging into this, I found it to be a rather interesting design. You set up the button, choose post, page, attachment, e-landing-page, elementor_library, or igmap to connect this to.

From there, you can personalize the set up of the PDF version of that post/page/other that will show up as a PDF that can be either downloaded or opened into a new window.

I can see this being very useful for those who have a lot of tables, charts, pictures, etc that they want to have fully available to their users.

This is a fully free plugin, and though it is a bit of a learning curve to figure out and use, it seems to work very well for what it was designed for!

Rating 4 Dragons

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John's Plugin

WP Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-maintenance-mode/

The Lowdown:

Add a simple maintenance page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance, or add a coming soon page for a new website. User with admin rights gets full access to the blog including the front end.

Rating 5 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

EasyMerge

https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-merge/

The Lowdown:

This plugin was designed for developers everywhere who work in development and production sites.

The way it works is you install it on the production site, activate it with license key – which is thankfully able to be generated directly through the plugin – clone the production site to the development site, then begin syncing with the production site!

This plugin appears to play well with WordPress clone/migration plugins in general, no issues found as of yet. The main thing is that you need to have the plugin loaded up and activated in the site you will be cloning BEFORE you clone the site!

From that point on, you will be able to sync the development site to the live site easy peasy!

This is a newer plugin with fewer than 10 installs, though I can certainly see this plugin becoming rather popular with the ease of use. Currently Free, I would give it a go and see if it does what you need!

Rating 5 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 sending in your thoughts to us – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly – we'll take them all!

Listener Questions

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

 

There is no contest right now – we are just waiting on the worker bees to return with our next contest! Be sure to stay tuned to find out what will be available next!

If anyone out there would like to help our current worker bees, contact us. Many hands make light work and more contests!

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 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.

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: Gravity Forms Zero Spam – 5, Sebastian – 4, WP Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon – 5

Amber's Plugins: Mass Users Password Reset – 4, WordPress to PDF, Download as PDF document of any WordPress Post Types, Download Post as PDF, PDF Viewer, PDF Block, View PDF on WordPress – Document Engine – 4, EasyMerge – 5

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

Reminders / Commercial / Promotions:

Next Week:

Meetup Has Been Planned For June 25th!! Keep tabs on the date at: https://wppluginsatoz.com/meetup – keep an eye to make sure that the date doesn't change on you for any reason (like zombies or wet ninja cats being herded through catnip fields flooding the valley or anything..)

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!

• What's the difference between Intranet Sites and Corporate Sites?

• What's different about setting up an Intranet Site from a Corporate Site?

• What is the hardest site you have ever built and what made it so hard?
  • What's the easiest site you have ever built and what made it so easy?

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 Supporthttp://wppro.ca/wpemergency
• email:john@wppro.ca

Amber can be contacted at:

• email: amber@wppro.ca