Episode 451 WP Plugins A to Z

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 #451 here.

Episode #451

All right, so we’ll start off with the ClassicPress Options. ClassicPress, of course, that fast-growing WordPress fork.

I’m seeing more and more mentions of it in Twitter and other places out there, so I believe it’s starting to pick up some notice and it’s going to be really interesting with what happens with it over the next year. They’ll be approach- — I guess they’re just over a year and a half old now, so not bad for a year and a half old.

So what do we got? We’ve got a little bit of general information this week. This is a tweet I picked out from Twitter and it came from Sandia Mesa Animation Studios, where they made mention about switching to ClassicPress wherever you can. Also, feel free to check out the Simple 19 theme that they had created. They created a Simple 19 theme to replace the WordPress 2017 theme, and you can go download it through the links in the Show Notes, and this designed for ClassicPress. So go check this out if you’re moving to ClassicPress and you want to start checking out themes. This will be one of the few themes I’ve seen so far that is ClassicPress-specific, so there’s going to be more and more items coming up.

Now we do also have a ClassicPress plugin and this one here I picked out from a tweet I saw from CodePotent and it is a release candidate version one of Shortcodes Everywhere for ClassicPress. Now, this one here allows you to quickly enable and disable shortcodes from running in posts, pages, excerpts, widgets, category, and tag descriptions – and in your comments. It’s a really nice plugin. I don’t know how they’ve got it; it’s probably a fork of something or it might be something rewritten.

And of course, eventually you’re going to want shortcodes in places that it doesn’t run automatically. This is a problem I had in WordPress regularly is that I would want to run a shortcode over in a widget and I had to go enable it with a plugin or create my own code. The plugin is much simpler and faster, and that’s what this one does for you for ClassicPress. This is a specific ClassicPress plugin. Now, it is a release candidate plugin but I’m willing to bet it works well, so go check this one out. It’s called Shortcodes Everywhere and it’s for ClassicPress and I give it a 4-Dragon rating.

Okay, and a quick note for the ClassicPress listeners. Please send me info to help keep the ClassicPress section full. I can use all the help I can get there, because it’s not my primary area right now. I’m there only part-time and I’m still working with WordPress in much of my time, but I try to bring as much ClassicPress as I can. For other up-to-date information, check out the ClassicPress Club website where they put up tidbits and news and information about what’s happening in the ClassicPress world. You can also go check out – you can go check out the must-have plugin list over at the ClassicPress Forum and then there is also the ClassicPress-specific plugin list that is being maintained by CodePotent. I’ve heard rumors that they’re working on their own directory, so hopefully that will make its appearance before too long. It’ll make it real easy to find ClassicPress plugins.

Okay, so let’s move along to WordPress plugins and what we have this week. Okay, the first one I’ve got for you, this is another interesting plugin and it was something I was hoping to be able to use in my current project I’m working on, and this is one to deal with uploading some files to the website that aren’t in the normal directory and they have a very specific use for the client. I wanted to make sure that they’re locked down for that client’s use and for what they want to do with it. I was looking for something that’ll help me lock it down.

This plugin here helps you lock down files on your website to prevent anyone from finding them or reading them, but it’s a very – it’s tied specifically to the media library. And what it does for you is once you’ve installed and activated it, they’ve got a free and premium version. The free version allows you to use it enough to find out if it’s going to do the job for you, and then their premium version gives you all the rest of it. Their premium version is quite affordable, about $18, so it’s worth the money if this is what you need.

But what it does is it locks down PDFs, PNGs, document files, MP3s, MP4s, JPGs. It locks down everything that’s in the media file and prevents someone from accessing it directly, meaning they must have the scrambled URL that this plugin provides, otherwise they get a 404 error. This will work well in another project I’m working on where it’s a membership site and they have to upload documents to it that only the members can see. This will actually lock those documents and allow – if you get the premium version, you can set the membership level that can access those documents, which is another useful tool for it.

So all in all, it looks to be a really great plugin and of course because it’s a freemium plugin and there’s nothing super special about the free version, I give this one a 4-Dragon rating. Go check it out. This is the premium Prevent Direct Access plugin.

Okay, the next item I’ve got for you here is called Timed Page Display. Now, what this one here is – at first, I thought it was one for showing and non-showing content, but it’s a little different than that. What it does for you is it redirects one page to another page during specific times. And as they describe in it, what it can be used for is say you’re running a support line and you’re only open from 9:00 to 5:00 and if people arrive on the support page outside of those hours, you don’t want them to have the page where they can try to contact you. You want them to have a page that says, “Yes, we’re closed right now. Our ours of operation are ____. Come back then and then you can access the content to reach out and contact us.” So this is something that could be quite useful for you.
So if you’re running that kind of thing, it seems like a really great plugin. It seems to work very well, and it allows you to set up the times for this to occur. So go check this out. It’s called Timed Page Display and I give it a 4-Dragon rating. And of course, I forgot to mention that it was sent in to me by Chris Raymond, so thank you very much, Chris. Much appreciated, so go check this plugin out.

Okay, the next one I’ve got for you is called Smarter Menu. Now, this one was sent in to me by Angel Lemus of Koa Digital, so thanks, Angel. You’re really helping support the show in multiple ways. You’re giving me artwork, plugins – all kinds of useful things I can use.

All right, so I didn’t actually dig into reviewing this myself and checking the plugin out, but I did check out their website and checked out what the plugin does, and I’m going to go with what Angel says on this one here and I’m going to drop in what my rating on it based upon everything I’ve done. It goes:

John, I found this to be one of the most useful Plug ins to fix the mess that is the collapsing responsive menu. It is an Elementor plugin and I love it.

This guy has a great YouTube channel and he has some really good and smart tutorials. This is a plugin he created, and it is very affordable, he has some others too on his page. The link is in the show notes.

I installed it on this website, and it works perfect. You basically go into your Header navigation widget and turn off turn off the MOBILE DROPDOWN Breakpoint and put it in “NONE” mode. Then go to the STYLE tab and you will see Ohhboi Smarter Menu and click the ENABLE button. That is it. There are customization options like Menu label padding, margins, fonts options etc…

Now, what this does for you is you can see up here is it takes a menu that may be running out over and across and then automatically keeps it on one line and drops the others into a dropdown at the end, and that works whether you shrink and move the menu or move the screen sizes, so it’s great for mobile to help the mobile stuff work but a lot smoother. So this is a really interesting plugin. If you’re using Elementor, this is a plugin you should check out. I did check out their pricing. He’s got them priced at $5-10 – really cheap for the plugin, so quite affordable for the plugins. I don’t know how much money the guy is making, but it’s still quite a good deal.

So go check it out, a really great looking plugin, and I give it a 4-Dragon rating.

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Okay, and if you do use it, please use the links in the Show Notes. They are affiliate links. Those guys don’t pay me for the add; I’m just using them for my best affiliate performance out there at the moment.

All right, well what else do we got? We don’t really have a heck of a lot. I have no real listener feedback lately. I’ve had no notes, no SpeakPipes, no nothing from anybody. Please, if you want to get your say in here whether the show is going good, going bad, what you like, what you’d like to see – anything about the show – please send it to me. I will get it into this segment here for listener feedback. I do like listener feedback. I used to get tons, but I guess all those people have vanished into the ether or nobody just has anything to say. So please get in there and say something.

And our contests, I’m still working on getting the contest set up and running. It seems that my marketing manager was ill for a week and a half and unable to get anything really accomplished, and that’s the way life goes sometimes. So it will happen. It eventually well. I always bring a contest out sooner or later.

Okay, and closing out this episode, I would like to say I covered up the following plugins: the Prevent Direct Access – Protect WordPress Files, which I gave a 4 to; the Timed Page Display, which I gave a 4 to; the Smarter Menu, which I gave a 4 to; and the ClassicPress Shortcodes Everywhere, which I gave a 4 to.

A couple of quick reminders, the WordPress Meetup in Victoria will be March 26th in Victoria. The topic to be announced is yet to be announced. It’s coming and it will be broadcast live on the YouTube channel. For location information, check out wppluginsatoz.com/meetup.

And if you would like to be on an interview show, simply connect at wppluginsatoz.com/interview.

If you want to find out a little bit more about me, go check out theroguestavern.com.

That’s pretty much everything I’ve got for you today, so I’m going to get this roll out of here and let my girl take us on out of the show.

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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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