All transcripts start from the point in the show where we head off into the meat and potatoes. They are the complete verbatim of Marcus and John’s discussion of the weekly plugins we have reviewed.
WordPress Plugins A to Z Podcast and Transcript for See complete show notes for Episode #446 here.
It’s Episode 446 and I’ve got plugins for Sliding, Reporting on Actions, Alerts and ClassicPress Options. It’s all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!
Episode #446
It’s Episode 446 and I’ve got plugins for Sliding, Reporting on Actions, Alerts and ClassicPress Options. It’s all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!
John: Okay, what do we got first off for ClassicPress news? ClassicPress this week, I don’t have a lot of news – or any news this week at all. I didn’t really find any. I did pick up one general article here and it’s from WPvivid xhost.com, and what they did is they did an article here on backing up on the WPvivid backup plugin for WordPress or ClassicPress. Now, these are supporting both WordPress and ClassicPress, and they’re talking about – I assume it’s their plugin here. It’s nice to see the people that are supporting both platforms for the time being, and I know that’s only going to happen for another year or two and then it’s going to be each one off in its own direction and people are going to have to make a choice. But at the moment, we can ride right down the centerline and reach over into whichever one we like. So go check this article out. It’s a really good article about backing up, using their plugin for backups, a really useful article.
And I do have a ClassicPress plugin. This one here is ClassicPress Widget Conditions and it is from Matthew Callaghan, and Matt has created a plugin here that is similar to the one I use in WordPress that you can determine what pages your widget appears on or doesn’t appear on. A very useful plugin when you’re using a theme with a single sidebar and you want to have plugins turned off on certain pages. Maybe you like to have a contact form in your sidebar but if they actually go to the contact page, you don’t want the contact form also in the sidebar; you need to turn it off there.
So this is a plugin to help you do that for ClassicPress. The plugin is built specifically for ClassicPress, so make sure you go check it out. And check out the links in the Show Notes for it. This looks to be a very fantastic plugin, so I went and gave it a 5-Dragon rating.
So go check out for the ClassicPress-specific plugins that are absolutely known. You can go over to classicpress.net and to the forum. There’s a link directly in the Show Notes that takes you to the current list of 49 plugins that are known to be ClassicPress-exclusive, so go check those out. They could help you out when you’re building out a ClassicPress website.
Plus there’s a few other places you might want to go wander around, you know, the ClassicPress Club, you might want to go check out CodePotent’s plugin directory, and all of those miscellaneous things that are happening for ClassicPress. It seems like it’s an on again, off again for ClassicPress what I have week by week, you know, and it’s kind of expected at this stage of ClassicPress’s growth that I will have some stuff one week and not so much the other week. It’d be nice like in the beginning I had a lot, but that’s because everyone was talking about it and now it’s kind of on an even keel. So make sure you go check that stuff all out.
All right, so let’s go on into WordPress plugins. What have I got for you this week for WordPress plugins? Well the first one I’ve got for you here is one that I may have reviewed many, many moons ago, and that’s Slider Revolution. I probably reviewed it when it was in Version 4 or early Version 5, but of course it’s in Version 6 now and I hadn’t used it for about half a year to a year. I built sliders and then I didn’t have to touch it, and I just left it. Yes, I updated it, but I never went in to redo the sliders because they were just a permanent fixture on websites. I didn’t have much to change them.
But I recently had to help a client rebuild some sliders, get rid of an old slider plugin that was junk, and replace it with Revolution Slider. Personally, I think it’s one of the best if not the best slider plugin out there, but I’m not overly impressed with Version 6. Version 6, they have taken it from what used to be a very intuitive plugin, intuitive menus, locations for intuitive for all of your settings. It was all very intuitive, easy to navigate. You could find stuff, you could figure it out, you could tweak it. It was a dream.
It took me a fair amount of time just to relearn their new interface. It was one of those “Oh my God, they upgraded my user experience and now I don’t know where anything is located.” And once I did get it figured out, it still works just as well. Great plugin, does a great job, the layering system, the animations – all the bits and pieces flowed the way they’re supposed to. But if you were used to the older version such as I was, it’s quite a jump in learning curve. So while it’s still a fantastic plugin, I can’t give it a 5-Dragon rating. I’ve got to ping this one right down to a 4 because of that.
Now, it is a premium plugin. The premium cost on it of course is $29, so make sure if you want it, it’s worth the $29. And if you buy it from Envato, it’s a one-time fee and you just keep getting updates for in perpetuity. If you actually need some help and support, then you’ve got to go pay the help and support fee. But go check it out, Revolution Slider. I give it a 4-Dragon rating.
Okay, the next plugin I’ve got for you is WP Client Reports. This one was sent into me by Jesse Sutherland and this one here is a plugin for those of you that manage client websites such as I do. And if you get the clients or the occasional client that wants to know everything you’re doing and all the stuff you’re doing, the updates, and other bits and pieces with it, this may be a perfect plugin for you. This is a report builder for you and once you install it into your WordPress website, what it does is it tracks everything you do to it and then it produces a report for you.
It produces a report for how many times you updated it, it gives you some analytics reports, uptime, uptime reports, MailChimp, WooCommerce – a whole bunch of stuff – and then with a few clicks it turns it into an email, and you can email it to yourself or to your client. A great way to show what you’ve been doing. The other useful feature about it is because it tracks everything, if your client gets in there and changes stuff on you, you have a record also, so you’ll know if they’ve done that.
So yep, that’s what we’ve got. This is a really great plugin. I really liked how it’s working. I’m getting it set up on one of my own sites for managing before I spring for getting a pro license. They have a free version which has their branding on it. The pro version, you can put your own branding on it and make some other adjustments to it, but a great little plugin. Go check this one out called WP Client Reports and I give it a 5-Dragon rating.
Okay, and before I head on to the next plugin, we’ll circle back for a moment. Hemdien had a question for me and I assume that was for the Slider Revolution. He asked if that’s US dollars. Yes, it’s US dollars – all software is priced in US dollars except for the occasional piece I run into that’s priced in British pounds or Euros. I really hate the ones in British pounds because those ones are kind of painful. The Euros, eh, not so bad now. I mean, the Euro has been taking a pounding; it’s all the way down to $1.10 the last I heard, although the British pound not so bad. It’s somewhere around $1.30, which is better than it’s been for a very long time – and that’s Canadian dollars to those, not American dollars to them. I don’t compare American dollars, really. So at any rate, yeah, it’s US dollars.
Okay, the next plugin I’ve got for you – this one is called AlertMe! Automatic Post Update Notifications to Subscribers, and it was sent in by Chris Raymond, so thank you, Chris. I greatly appreciate you sending this in to me. And this one here, I didn’t get a chance to test it personally but just looking it over, it kind of reminds me of plugins I’ve used in the past. Really great ideas in theory and in practice I found that they really didn’t give much benefit to my site.
I mean, it looks to be a great plugin; it’ll do exactly what it says it does. In other words, it puts a link on a webpage. It’s like maybe you create a page that updates regularly, or you create news articles that’s in the process of being updated and you want people to click to email to get updates as the flow happens to it. Maybe, maybe not. You know, I found that when I used one of these, I didn’t get the kind of responses I was hoping for. Maybe it’s just that the people who visit my website aren’t that type of people. If you’re on a website that does have that kind of traffic or if people are subscribing to stuff just to get the updates, this could be of benefit to you, so it may be something for you to look at.
It’s a relatively new plugin, a really great little plugin. It collects the subscribers on your website and as soon as you publish an update to that particular post or page, it sends out an email notification to those who have subscribed to it. Yeah, I guess it kind of reminds me of the ones that I used for comments. You know, if someone commented on his site – I don’t remember the plugin; it’s been a long time since I’ve had it turned on because sometimes it just creates problems. But a great little plugin, something to go check out, something that could be of help to you and it is called Automatic Post Updates – Notifications to Subscribers and I give it a 4-Dragon rating.
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Absolutely, and if you’re looking at using CMS Commander, go check it out and get your 14-day free trial. Use the links in my Show Notes; I’d greatly appreciate it. They are affiliate links that make me a few extra bucks. Like I said, I’ve been using that plugin now for nine years and it’s more than a plugin, it is a good, major tool for managing multiple websites. I’ve managed as many as 75 and as few as 15. Right now, I’m currently somewhere in the middle, so it’s a really great tool to add to your arsenal when you’re working with client sites.
Okay, feedback! I do like my listener feedback. And I have a little bit this week, a couple of items I’ve pulled off Twitter after last week’s show. Now, the first one was of course from – I reviewed a plugin last week, the IP Address Approval, and I wasn’t overly good to those guys. Well, what else can I say? I gave them some points and some things about what I thought about, you know, all the tracking information but they had a few things they had to say.
They put it all in several tweets out to me, and this is what it is when I consolidate it all down. And of course it’s:
“Thanks for taking a look at, and sharing, our plugin! Sorry we missed the Live Stream!! We thought the missing audio on YouTube was an issue on our end.”
Well, I forgot to talk about the missing audio from last week’s show. That was at my end. I kind of messed up the audio really good for some reason. I wasn’t sending any audio from my program that consolidates all this stuff and sends it out to the YouTube stream. For some reason the audio was turned off. I blame that on the Windows update I did the day before. It changed every one of my settings for all of my Buddy sound drivers, and I just forgot to check that one program when I went live. At any rate, they go on to say:
“We’d like to address your concerns, and would have liked to be part of the discussion… so again our apologies!”
Hey, no problem. You want to be part of the discussions, guys? I would love to have you on for an interview and then you can give all of your side of the story and talk about it and convince me why it’s a good thing to have all the data tracking. But, you know, I know data tracking happens. Not all the time, but I give it where I think it’s necessary. But again – at any rate, they go on to say:
– Blog Owners Name (it’s nice to know who we are talking to, and supposed to be talking to)
– Username (helps us with verification)
– Email (verification and communication)
– Blog ID (a number that is specific to 1 site in your WP account)
That’s – yeah, that means you can track the specific website all the time. The Domain URL and Blog ID would go hand-in-hand, I would think.
– Domain URL (Must match via API, this way no one can use your code on their site**yes it was happening, and was showing up as referral spam in the Site Visitor Log**)
Yeah, I could believe that was happening, that somebody would sign up for one website and I’d probably be guilty of that myself. Sign up one website and put it on all of my websites, because it’s just a real pain to multiple websites sometimes.
– Current Theme Name (troubleshooting)
Well, I could sort of see that for troubleshooting, but yeah, it’s something.
– WordPress Version (troubleshooting)
Oh, absolutely, if you’re troubleshooting.
– Plugin Version (troubleshooting)
Well, that’s your plugin version. You should always know that. So many plugins call home now and it’s hard to know which ones aren’t calling home. I’ve kind of accepted that.
That said, you should be able to see why these things are important to us.
I can see why they’re important to you and they are useful.
It’s also easier to see those details that the Site Owner might not have a clue how to find, or it at least saves us the trouble of having to ask just so we can troubleshoot a possible conflict or issue.
Oh, I can understand that.
As for the API… We do provide a service,
Hey, I have no grudge against your service and I feel you’re worth every penny you charge for it – absolutely.
Everyone needs to be reimbursed for their time in some way, and I know the service would come to you at a cost. It’s just like I said, there’s other ways of doing it for those that don’t want a service.
a service that comes at a cost to us.
Good news is, that we are usually running at 99.99% up-time
Which is most of the internet these days.
(I can only see the last 90 days) and that 0.01% is probably an error on their end based on 1 min. pings.
Well, most likely true. Downtime on the internet these days is very, very minimal thankfully. I do remember the days when downtime was such a common occurrence it wasn’t funny.
On that note; User questions (thus far) are almost nonexistent because we like to be thorough. We make sure that we are satisfied, so you are too. Sometimes it may not be so apparent, but we’ve been here before and like to make things as easy as possible for all involved.
Absolutely. Well, thank you very much, guys. I really appreciate your feedback on it and again, I would love to get you for an interview on the show. Reach out to me. You can go to the WP Plugins A-Z site, click on the link in the menu bar to book an interview. You can book it at your time. I have specific times set aside for doing interviews, so you book whatever one works for you.
All right, and from the Gutenberg Times. They just put:
“Thanks for the shout out. Appreciate it.
John”
Well, thank you, Gutenberg Times. I’m glad for shouting out to you. I tried to give more and more shout-outs, doing better than I used to. I used to be really piss-poor at acknowledging all the sources I got, and I’m getting much better at that because I realized I need to acknowledge my sources way more than I do.
Okay, contests. The contests are powered by the Simple Giveaways plugin, who have kindly provided me with the premium version for my contests. Congratulations for the last month’s contests go out to Martin for winning the $25 Amazon gift card. I hope you got the card okay, Martin. Please let me know. Amazon should’ve sent it right off to you.
And the next contest is going to be coming up for next week’s show. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a key for a plugin to give away. I’ve just got to track it down in my emails and figure out what I did with it. That’s why I don’t have it this week aside from not always having the time to get everything prepared this last week.
All right, so all you’ve got to do to follow up on contests, just go to wppluginsatoz.com/contests to find out what the latest contest is.
Okay, closing out this episode, I covered up the following plugins: the Slider Revolution Responsive – Revolution Slider, as I call it, because I just don’t like the way they termed it. But the Slider Revolution, which I gave a 4 to; the WP Client Reports, which I gave a 5 to; the AlertMe! Automatic Post Update Notifications to Subscribers, to a 4 to; and then the ClassicPress Widget Conditions plugin, which I gave a 5 to.
A couple of quick reminders. The next WordPress Meetup in Victoria is on February 25, 2020 and it will be on assessing your website host. You will learn how to assess your website host. Is your hosting company and hosting package really meeting your needs? Learn how to compare hosting companies and their packages. Decide what services you need and don’t need, and how to know how much space you really need, etc. There’s going to be a lot I’m going to cover in this, and it should be an interesting thing.
For those of you that can’t make it, it will be broadcast live here on the YouTube channel. But for more information, just go to wppluginsatoz.com/meetup for all the details on what’s happening there.
Okay, and there are the interviews that will be coming down the pike real soon, so keep your ear out for those.
If you want to find out more about me and my personal life, well, follow me on The Rogue’s Journey at theroguestavern.com. You can check out my adventures into the wild, searching for gold, hiking, camping, out on the gun range, and more. These are all the things I do with what spare time I’ve been carving out in my life. I went for too many years without spare time and now I’m done. It’s time to give myself more and more time, and I thought it might be interesting to record it and put it up on my YouTube channel and see if anyone finds it interesting besides me.
All right, so that’s pretty much it. If you would like to support the show in ways, well go listen back at the beginning where I talk all about it. That’s pretty much everything I’ve got. If you want to hang around and ask me questions after this, please feel free to fire them into the YouTube chat channel, but I’m gonna let my girl take us on out of here.
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John can be reached at his website, JohnOverall.com, or email him directly at john@wppro.ca. Thanks for joining us and have a great day.
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