WordPress Plugins A-Z #273 User Managers, Scratch & win cards

It's Episode 273 and we've got plugins for Custom Logins, Captcha , User Managers, Scratch & win cards, Staff and Team Displays and A new Multi-Column layout for Gravity Forms. It's all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!

Don’t forget you can get the show notes at:

WordPress Plugins A-Z Podcast can be found on Stitcher Radio Click here to Download app or listen online Now.

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Thanks to Benjamin who donated $50 no message though.

$50 donation Thanks to Jez at JezWeb Pty Ltd https://www.jezweb.com.au/ on behalf of Jezweb client AllPride Signs and Marketing at http://www.allpride.com.au a signwriter company based in Newcastle, Australia.

You can now donate though Patreon at http://patreon.com/wppluginsatoz where you can donate on a monthly basis. As an incentive if you donate $40 a month you will gain access to the exclusive plugin tutorial videos on how to setup and use the plugins we review and use.

There will be a bit of a rant at this place so if you feel the need to jump ahead to the meat and potatoes please do so now.

As you know Marcus sent out a letter last week with his thoughts on support for the show and while I might not have been as blunt (ok maybe I would have been as any longtime listener would know I can get on a high horse) Marcus did have a point and it was a bit of an eye opener for me as to how the community supports things. I know I send money to and support devs when I can.

What surprised me was the sudden number of unsubscribes to the email list almost like people did not like being called out for not giving value for value.

Was it offensive that depends on how easily you are offended, did it hit home Pretty sure it did.

And to those that sent emails saying “I was thinking of donating but won't now” I say yea well you might have been thinking but you took no action and if you are still listening then you still think this show has value and you should donate

Here is the thing I think most people do not think about for the 20 to 30 min show that we create every week, I have to invest a min of 3 hrs. into it. I often spend more on it. In the beginning it was not so bad but about this time last year I realized that my business had grown to the point where I needed to make some choices and do a better job of managing my time and justifying the time spent on the show.

In that light I had attempted to do a kickstarter to make this show a full time business but was only able to raise 10% of the needed funds. That told me 2 things one the audience while big enough to support the show, only 10% cared the other is that the 10% might support it enough to allow me to dedicate one day a week to the show and website and start down the road of improvements.

And it has (sort of), since we started asking you our listeners for donations 7 months ago, we have raised only $1100, $460 from Jezweb and the rest from smaller donations. We have also raised $800 from advertisers on the show.  So what has been done with that money? New recording software, microphone, and mixer to improve the sound, software to start doing screen casts again, transcripts of the show which are starting to appear on the site now. Allowing me to justify one day a week to work on the show and its website.

I am not sure people think about how much work goes into producing a podcast, if you do not believe they are hard just look at how many abandoned shows there are in iTunes, where you will see many people had started a podcast and abandoned it only to find out they require time and money to keep them alive. We are the oldest active WordPress Podcast by time, the second oldest is Website engineer and the reason he has more shows is for a few months I was inconsistent with getting shows out. Yes my first show went live about 2 months before his. My first show was Oct 18. 2010, his was Dec 3, 2010

The show is not going away anytime soon and I will continue with the show as long as there are supporters of it. But keep in mind while this has mostly been a labour of love over the past 6 years, and it has been of benefit to me and has brought me some of my best clients. The show has to evolve, it needs to get to the point of being self sufficient. This is rapidly becoming a value for value item, meaning that if you get value out of it please provide some value back and donate to the show.

Some #WPDrama this week https://purposethemes.com/367913/everything-to-know-about-headway-themes-crisis/

Headway themes seems to be having some issues, too bad they make a pretty good theme and were one of the pioneers in the theme business.

Moving a single site to Multisite https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/moving-wordpress-site-into-multisite/

A tongue in cheek article on how to make your WordPress site slow https://wpgeodirectory.com/making-your-wordpress-site-slow/

Remember you can leave us a Speakpipe message and you can submit their own recorded review.

• Version: 3.2.5
• Author: Austin Passy
• Last Updated: 5 months ago
• Requires WordPress Version: 4.0 or higher
• Compatible up to: 4.5.4
• Active Installs: 90,000+
• WordPress.org Plugin Page »
• Plugin Homepage »

Login No Captcha reCAPTCHA

• Version: 1.1.7
• Author: Robert Peake
• Last Updated: 6 months ago
• Requires WordPress Version: 3.0.0 or higher
• Compatible up to: 4.5.4
• Active Installs: 6,000+
• WordPress.org Plugin Page »
• Plugin Homepage »

Cimy User Manager

• Version: 1.5.0
• Author: Marco Cimmino
• Last Updated: 7 months ago
• Requires WordPress Version: 4.3.1 or higher
• Compatible up to: 4.4.5
• Active Installs: 4,000+
• WordPress.org Plugin Page »
• Plugin Homepage »

Reward users who sign up to your campaign with a hidden scratchcard prize. Easy setup. No coding & No design skills required. Free for 10 entries.

Users fill out a form and accept contest t&c. They can then scratch away the top image with their cursor to reveal their prize. This plugin is a fun way to increase engagement, get Leads and win Customers!

AWSM Team is the most versatile and lite-weight WordPress plugin available to create and manage a team showcase. The lite version comes with 3 presets and a number of style options. You can create a great looking team section on your WordPress site in a few minutes after installing the plugin.

This plugin allows modification of Gravity Forms by splitting a form into columns. Columns are specified by creating ‘starting' and ‘closing' Section elements that surround other elements in the form. Each opening and closing set of Sections define a column.

John’s Plugins: Custom Login  – 4, Login No Captcha reCAPTCHA  – 5, Cimy User Manager – 5

Marcus’ Plugins: Scratch & win giveaways for Website & Facebook  – 4, AWSM Team – 4, GravityForms Multi Column – 4

The Membership Coach program is your go-to resource for all the Training, Advice, and Support needed to Develop and Grow a Profitable Membership Site. Be sure to head over to MembershipCoach.com and get on the waiting list for the first sessions, launching soon. You can join for as low as $67 a month with a full money back guarantee. You can also follow @membershipcoach on twitter to get the latest release dates and news.

Just some reminders:

John can be contacted at:

• on my website @ http://www.johnoverall.com/  

• WordPress Emergency Support http://wppro.ca/wpemergency

• email: john@wppro.ca

Marcus can be contacted at:

• Marcus Couch can be contacted at his website at marcuscouch.com  

• Twitter  @marcuscouch
  and remember to follow the show on twitter @wppluginsatoz