Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you happen to be hiding out there on the globe today! Coming to you LIVE from . . .

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!

Welcome to another lovely show day! The rain is beautiful and coming down only slightly side like as is appropriate for Islander spring rain!

Moving into May we are already sewing some seeds out there, what about everyone else out there?

A few reminders before we start the show today….

Reminders:

• Every Monday at 12:30pm Pacific Time brings you a show from both John and I, or just John as he does interviews and solo shows in alteration with this one!
  Join in a little earlier to catch the pre-stream on both shows!
• Show notes are added to wppluginsatoz.com within 24 hours of the show airing; you can find them either on the home page, or in the Podcast Vaults!
• This is a value for value show dear listeners, help us get some loven’ by hitting some like buttons, sharing an episode or two, or just turn our show on really loudly. We will catch somebodies attention!

If you stick around until the end, you will have a chance to hear some good questions – sometimes meant for the greenies, sometimes meant for the very experienced – and sometimes the questions are just completely random. Stick around and have a listen, might help! Or at least entertain!

(Don’t feel shy about sending in a message just to say hi! Send along suggestions, questions, recommendations, news, art – we always love to hear from our listeners!)

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

Artist: 

Who is our artist today?!?

Today is….

Firefly! https://firefly.adobe.com/?media=featured

We would love some new art from our Producers out there! If you are so inclined, you can send it into us at https://wppluginsatoz.com/artwork/. If you need some inspiration, you can always go to our site wppluginsatoz.com and check out our Art Vaults – you will find the link for it on the left hand side.

…We can NEVER have too much art!

Breaking News in the WordPress World at large!! 

If you have anything you think should be added please send it into me at amber@wppro.ca!

News this week:

WordPress Vulnerability Report
(https://solidwp.com/blog/wordpress-vulnerability-report-april-23-2025/) – In this report there are 304 vulnerabilities. 279 are plugins this week, with 25 Themes.
Plugins: 153 Patched / 126 Unpatched
Themes: 9 Patched / 16 Unpatched

WordPress Vulnerability Report from PatchStack
(https://patchstack.com/database/) – These guys always have the latest information on what is going on regarding the latest in vulnerabilities.

WooCommerce admins targeted by fake security patches that hijack sites
(https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/woocommerce-admins-targeted-by-fake-security-patches-that-hijack-sites/) – A large-scale phishing campaign targeting WooCommerce users with fake security alert urging them to download a “critical patch” that adds a WordPress backdoor to the site. Those who do wind up installing a plugin that throws a hidden admin account in their website, and downloading web shell payloads, maintaining persistent access.
Be aware of this, think about ways you can inform your clients of a foolproof way that they can tell this email is not legit – like how banks send out notifications citing how they will never ask for your full bank account number or ask you to download anything.

Developers Guide to Building Modern WordPress Themes
(https://cheewebdevelopment.com/developers-guide-to-building-modern-wordpress-themes/) – This is a fantastic guide to help you figure out either how to initially build, or offer up some new and fresh ideas for your brain meats to incorporate into your next site design!

3 examples of great login screen designs
(https://blog.logrocket.com/ux-design/login-screen-design-examples/) – These appear like your typical login, although when you take a closer look you will probably notice that they are really quite well made for security as well as aesthetics. Have a glance through, especially if you have never actually made a login before – which I remember trying to figure out how to do this when I first started!

Python Game Code: The Ultimate Pygame Guide
(https://techbeamers.com/python-game-code-in-pygame/) – This is super cool! This guide teaches you how to write a unique and engaging Python game code – called Neon Racer. For those who are interested in learning this, this is a fantastic tool for that learning!

(Go visit https://wpshout.com/comics/ for a fantastic brain break!!)

Some Extras – check out our Facebook or Twitter!

You’re not a programmer until…
(https://dev.to/canro91/youre-not-a-programmer-until-58i)

Essential tips for evaluating genAI content quality in search applications
(https://www.algolia.com/blog/ai/essential-tips-for-evaluating-genai-content-quality)

Meet the companies racing to build quantum chips
(https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/28/meet-the-companies-racing-to-build-quantum-chips/)

Rogue’s Corner News and Extras

Be sure to go and check out the new and unique plugins now available from WPProAtoz.com!

WordPress Items:

Reports coming in about WP 6.8 and its a mixed bag of minor errors

A new feature added in WP 6.8 but not fully supported yet Speculative Loading
https://presswizards.com/speculative-loading-in-wordpress-6-8/

Use Speculative Loading link in article to a plugin to use.
https://kinsta.com/blog/speculative-loading/

The usage info
https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/03/06/speculative-loading-in-6-8/

The BIG Jubilee not for everyone…. .
https://wordpress.org/news/2025/04/jubilee/ means nothing

Managing motivation as a solo
https://mbuffett.com/posts/maintaining-motivation/

Last minute warning about a piece of malware
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2025/04/interesting-wordpress-malware-disguised-as-legitimate-anti-malware-plugin/

Coding Tips

Why documentation is important
https://exceptionalfrontend.substack.com/p/why-developers-hate-documentation

Tip of the day

Talk about https://influencewp.com/ and the benefits of it for WP devs

Check out The Repo at https://therepo.org/ an alternative to the regular plugin repo.

List of 100 articles for developers
https://www.piglei.com/articles/en-programmer-reading-list-part-one/

Some great tips your go-to hub for practical tips, helpful tutorials, and reviews
https://b4start.com/

The Weeks WordPress Problem and solution

Pet Peeve this week is to talk about plugins that start out free, then take things away and charge for them.. If you going to make it free keep it free otherwise make it limited to start and then we know it will cost if we need it.

Dragon Rating Time with John!

John’s Plugin

WP-Autoplugin

https://github.com/WP-Autoplugin/wp-autoplugin/
The Lowdown:

WP-Autoplugin is a free WordPress plugin that uses AI to assist in generating, fixing, and extending plugins on-demand. It enables users to quickly create functional plugins from simple descriptions, addressing specific needs without unnecessary bloat.

• Generate plugins using AI
• Fix and extend existing plugins
• Full control over the generation process
• Support for multiple AI models, and any OpenAI-compatible custom API
• View the list of generated plugins for easy management

Rating 5 Dragons

PLUGIN #2!

WProAtoZ Snake

https://github.com/Ahkonsu/wpproatoz-snakeThe Lowdown:

The WPProAtoZ Snake plugin brings the nostalgic Snake game to your WordPress site. Forked from Camil Staps’ original plugin, this updated version adds modern WordPress compatibility, Elementor support, and bug fixes for a seamless gaming experience. Simply add the [snake] shortcode to any post or page, and let your visitors enjoy a customizable game of Snake.

test it here https://wpprosandbox.com/snake/

Rating: 5 Dragons

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

My tip to you today…

Microsoft does not do auto save unless you are saving to the cloud now. We are back to the dinosaur ages with documentation saving people! There is NO saving unless you tell it to!

However, you can continuously hit CTRL and S. CTRL+S works in most programs, and will save whatever you are working in, so that will hopefully help!

Dragon Rating Time with John!

Amber’s Plugin

WriteText.ai

https://wordpress.org/plugins/writetext-ai/

The Lowdown:

This plugin was sent in by Charlie who works with 1902 Software.com – I have to apologize Charlie, it appears my email was hungry and gobbled this up and only just recently spat it back out – so I am a little on the tardy side of doing a proper review for you guys!

Now Charlie sent in this fantastic, rather in depth overview of the plugin when the plugin itself was sent in, but because I tend to be a little wordy myself and don’t want to make this write up so long you will go cross-eyed – I am only throwing down his first overall general explanation which is pretty awesome:

Conceived by 1902 Software, WriteText.ai is a cutting-edge AI-driven tool that streamlines content creation and bolsters SEO for WooCommerce. It automates the crafting of vital content components like meta titles, meta descriptions, product descriptions, category descriptions, Open Graph text, and image alt text, tackling content bottlenecks with comprehensive automation.

(Disclaimer: WriteText.ai is an independent tool developed to work with WooCommerce. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by WooCommerce.)

So before you download and activate this, make sure that your WooCommerce is active – I had deactivated mine for testing reasons. If there is no WooCommerce awake and ready to go, you won’t see anything when you activate this!

Once both Woo and this plugin are alive and had their coffee to wake up, you will see ‘WriteText.ai’ on the left-hand menu. Clicking on this will bring you to a really easy to use setup guide. They did a really good job with this!

Step 1 is logging in, step 2 is choosing your SEO plugin if you do not have one. It appears you cannot proceed without doing this, which is a little annoying for me just because I was working on a DEV site, so didn’t really want anything doing SEO on it.
HOWEVER! This plugin helps with your SEO by generating meta descriptions, titles, and open graph texts as well. You can choose not to have this, though this could help if you are working in a long standing site that has never had any SEO work done before – I know I can think of a few off the top of my head!

Step 3 is global configuration – here you choose the AI style you want – whether you want blunt or conversational or selling style wording – there are a total of 12 different types, and a ‘select all’ option, so go nuts!

You get to choose if your AI will be classical, modern, corporate or internet-speak, what kind of audiences based on generation (they offer years to help you), gender, or all of the above! I’ve never seen that before and think it is actually a really good idea. After all I use slang my kids are confused by, and they do the same to me!

You also choose the default product attributes – image, price, weight, stock status – or all of them!

And you choose how many words the target length will be for the product description, short description, and category description.

And that is everything in the free version! There is loads more stuff in the premium version, though I will have to come back with another separate review for that because it is worth a review all on its own – this is just focusing on the free version!

So once you click on the ‘let’s go’ button, you will see your products page pop up, and ‘pending analysis’ under the target keywords.

In order to get this going, you need to click on your first choice – doing more then one product at a time is reserved for the premium version – and this will bring you to the product page where you can work the magic of the AI!

Make sure you have a good look at everything checked off – you don’t want to choose to have the AI write something you don’t need. Once you know the proper ones are checked off, click on ‘generate selected’, and you get to watch it do the writing – it doesn’t take too long either, and really the writing is pretty good!

I chose ‘witty’ for one of my experiments – and it’s awesome! I highly recommend using this in conjunction with any or all of the other options – makes for actual entertainment and it’s great!

For a Freemium this is really fantastic, gives you everything you need to get going and you can even get 110 extra credits by signing up with them!

I highly recommend checking these guys out, they really have gone above and beyond with this, it is working beautifully!

I did not find that it slowed anything down, and I did not find that it caused any issues what so ever – the writing is great with no serious issues we have come to expect from AI writings, and I really do like how you can choose the age group you are aiming for. I am starting to think that perhaps we should have that sort of option on more things when working online these days.

Definitely check these guys out, and I will be back with a review of the Premium aspects of this plugin as well!

Rating: 4 Dragon

Miscellaneous Announcements from all:

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!

WordCamp Bilbao 2025 – May 9-11

WordCamp Lisboa, Portugal – May 16-17

WordCamp Johor Bahru – May 17

WordCamp Leipzig, Germany – May 17

WordCamp Logroño – May 23-24

To see the entire list you can follow the link here in the show notes, then click on ‘More WordCamps’ right below the list of the next 5. https://central.wordcamp.org/

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/

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

Donations from across the galaxy!

Producership Credits are a thing that do actually exist – we offer them up to those who donate through Time, Talent or Treasure. You can use these credits to boost up your resume, add to your LinkedIn file, so on and so forth!

Even if you are not interested in receiving a Producership Credit, check out how you can use us as your own stepping ladder in the world of the internets – get yourself an interview, get us to make your announcement for you, let the world know you have something to say or a company worth checking out!
Have a look through our site wppluginsatoz.com. Check out the Time, Talent and Treasure pages.

Today’s Plugins we covered were:

John’s Plugin:

WP-Autoplugin by Autoplugin

• Generates plugins using AI
• Helps to fix and extend existing plugins
• Support for multiple AI models, and any OpenAI-compatible custom API

Rating: 5 Dragons

AND

WPPro AtoZ Snake by WPPro AtoZ

• Easy to use, can place pretty well anywhere
• Fantastic waste of time when you are waiting for something like laundry (or paint to dry)
• Free and fun!

Rating: 5 Dragons

Amber’s Plugin: 

WriteText.ai By writetextai

• • AI-driven descriptions, short descriptions, and SEO things such as keywords for WooCommerce
  • customise-able with fantastic and logical options
  • Makes setting up SEO and Descriptions in your WooCommerce so much easier!

Rating: 5 Dragon

How to reach us:

Feel like sending us something through the snail mail system? You can do that thanks to our brick and mortar address that we provide for you!
You can also reach us the more common way of the internets – have both of our internets available down below for ya!

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

John:

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

Amber:

• email: amber@wppro.ca

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 atAmber@WPPro.ca – we may never stump my dad, but we can get some good conversation out of him at least!

• How can you help your clients tell when something is from you vs when it is a scam artist so they don’t fall for the scammers?

• What is the scariest and best scam email you have seen over the years?

Questions asked after closing credits:

• What is the best way to help keep your site from becoming a scam artists dream?

• What would you recommend for those starting out to do in order to make their site less attractive to the scammers out there?