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Transcript of Episode 460 WP Plugins A to Z

It's Episode 460 with plugins for What the Future Holds, Sanitizing SVGs, Sticky Headers, lots of Colour, Displaying Posts and Images and ClassicPress Options. It's all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-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 Angel and John’s discussion of this weeks plugins that have been reviewed.

WordPress Plugins A to Z Podcast and Transcript for See complete show notes for Episode #460 here.


It’s Episode 460 with plugins for What the Future Holds, Sanitizing SVGs, Sticky Headers, lots of Colour, Displaying Posts and Images and ClassicPress Options. It’s all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!


Episode #460

John: All right, so first up, we talk about the ClassicPress Options. Lately, I haven’t had much because I haven’t had time to do the research for ClassicPress. I haven’t had anyone submit me anything for ClassicPress unfortunately. So again, ClassicPress is light this week. No new plugins to talk about and the usual stuff, the ClassicPress club, the ClassicPress.net websites. And then, of course, you can go check out CodePotent’s website where he’s got a lot of free plugins for ClassicPress, and I believe is on the Leadership Committee for ClassicPress. And if you want to find out more about them, I’ve interviewed a fair number of people from ClassicPress last year, really great interviews. You might want to check them out.

Okay, well, this takes us into the fun and games of the show, and this is where first off, Angel, you get to start off with your first plugin. And which one is it going to be? Did I lose you again? I think I did. Hello? There you are. You’re dropping in and out.

Angel: I don’t know why it’s dropping. Maybe it’s because I’m in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, hm?

John: Could be, could be. Where are you at again? I didn’t actually mention where you were located when I introduced you.

Angel: I’m in Oahu, Hawaii, the primary island where we have Waikiki and Honolulu. And I live on the windward side, so we get lots of rain.

John: Good I guess that’s a good spot to get. And rain means nice, lush, and green too.

Angel: Oh yeah, very green.

John: All right, so let’s go. Let’s start with your first plugin here. What have you got for us, Angel?

Angel: Let’s do the Central Color Palette.

John: Okay.

Angel: So this plugin allows you to manage a site-wide color palette. That way you can have one central point of accessing all your colors. And what you do is if you’re using a page builder, you go into the settings and you turn off the default color settings there. And then, through the Central Color Palette plugin, you tell it that you’re going to take over for, let’s say, each builder, whether it’s Beaver Builder or Elementor, and also for the theme that you have installed. It’s a nice way to make sure that you are using one color palette.
And sometimes, you know, in the past, before I became more knowledgeable, I got confused because I had color palettes in Elementor, and then, color palette to the theme. And it got confusing because things didn’t really were coordinated. So this is a really useful plugin if you’re using a builder, and of course, the theme which has its own color palette. I give this one five stars. It’s been really, really helpful.

John: Excellent.

John: Nothing like a 5-Dragon plugin right off the bat. That sounds like a pretty useful plugin. I didn’t even realize what it was when I was putting this information into the show notes today. I just sort of skimmed it and went yeah, it looks interesting, but I like that. And it’s compatible with different theme builders according to their site, too.

Angel: Yeah. One of the nice things is that when you select the colors and you put them in through the color menu, you can also name them, so you can name the color however you want to name it. It’s useful that way, the way things are familiar to your own nomenclature.

John: Excellent. I like that one. All right. Well, that’s one for you folks to check out, and I think it’s – I’m actually working on a project right now where I have to change the complete color palette of the site because they didn’t like my color choices. So this could be useful for me and save me some time.

All right, first plugin I’ve got for you here today, this one here is Display Posts – Easy lists, navigation and more. So what this one is really great for — and I got this one because I was working on a project where this was already installed, and I had to do some adjustments to it. And I like it because it’s a shortcode-driven plugin, which allows you to display your posts and other information.

Using a short code, you can separate it out by categories, comment counts, other miscellaneous things throughout the site. And you can use it anywhere, you can use shortcodes. So if you need to display some posts in say a sidebar or a secondary block somewhere if you’re using a block builder, this is a great tool to help you do that. And it builds out a grid and it does have different types of grids available. So it’s one you’ll want to check out if you’re looking for something that works via short code. So go check it out, Display Posts, and I give it a 4-Dragon rating.

Okay, what have we got for you next, Angel?

Angel: This one is called Sticky Header Effects for Elementor. So if you’re using Elementor, it has several options. But the one that I really, really like that is not native to Elementor right now, is let’s say, you have a transparent menu and you want it to be sticky. Well, if you start scrolling down the page, whatever is in the background, it’s going to affect the visibility because your menu is transparent.

So what this one allows you to do is to select a color so that once the visitor starts scrolling, it changes the menu background from transparent to any color you want. It also allows you to change the size so that you have a minimized menu, so there are a lot of nice little tweaks. That is a nice option if you want to have a transparent menu, let’s say, on the home page, and then have it change. Really, really useful.

John: Absolutely. And what are you rating this one?

Angel: Oh this one is a 5-stars because it’s free.

John: Yeah, absolutely.

John: All right, and I do recognize this one now that you’ve started talking about it. I think you brought it to my attention several months back. And I ended up using it in a project I was working on for a movie studio down in California, and we needed to do exactly that. They started with a transparent header and that every time you scrolled down, you couldn’t read it. And so I had to have it switched to a gray or black color, and this worked beautifully for that. Yeah, I fully agree with you there. It’s a great plugin. And if you’re dealing with that particular problem, make sure you go check out the Sticky Header Effects for Elementor.

Okay, the next one I’ve got, it’s another Elementor plugin, and I may or may not have brought this one to folks’ attention. It seems familiar, but I didn’t dig back in my other show notes to find out. But it’s Ultimate Carousel for Elementor, and it’s one I had to use a couple of weeks ago as I was building out a site in Elementor and needed a decent carousel to display some stuff. None of the other ones were quite fitting what I needed it to do. And this one worked quite nicely for building out a carousel of images on the site. And because it integrates into the Elementor, it made it a bit easier to use than some of the other carousel plugins that are available. And there’re dozens of them available. You could spend all day just trying to figure out which one to go to. So it’s a pretty decent one. Go check it out. I give it a 4-Dragon rating, and it is the Ultimate Carousel for Elementor.

So what have we got up next for you there, Angel? I think the Pacific Ocean is really not enjoying us today. Maybe they cut the cable between Canada and the Pacific.

Angel: Hello John.

John: There you are. Are you – be able to hear me when I’m talking?

Angel: Yes.

John: Oh okay, we actually have the cable ship that manages the cables for the Pacific Ocean. The one that goes and fixes the cable is harbored here in Victoria. Actually –

Angel: Yes, messing with the cable, right?

John: Yeah maybe a whale’s down there chewing on it thinking it’s a piece of licorice. All right, so tell us what we’ve got next from you there, Angel?

Angel: This one is called Safe SVG. A SVG file is basically a text graphic file. It’s basically code, but it’s a type of file that allows you to go from very small to very large. Obviously, if you have a JPEG or PNG, you know, you’re going to have resolution problems if you go up with pixelation. But in the SVG file, you can make it as big as you want and it’s great for like the logo on the homepage or any other type of graphic that you can manipulate. So what this allows you to do is it allows you to import it into your media library because, by default, WordPress doesn’t let you upload SVG files because of the inherent potential problem with malware stuck into the code.

This is a really useful plugin, and it works really simple. You install it, and then you can just drag an SVG file into it. And for folks that haven’t worked with SVG files, the easiest way if you have Adobe Illustrator, you can basically go in there and Save It As and then you have the option to save it as an SVG. This one I gave 5 stars because it really does a great job and it’s very, very simple to use.

John: Excellent.

John: Yeah, SVG is nice and they’re trying to push the internet towards SVG files, and as you mentioned, as being text files they are subject to possible infections. But they do make for very lightweight graphics. And SVG is something I used years and years ago with graphics when I actually did graphics, but not these days. Don’t do many of those anymore, but yeah, it’s a great one.

Okay, so the final one I’ve got for you here is Tarot Card Oracle. And if you like tarot cards – and I’ve played with them from time to time over the years. I’ve got an online tarot card reading plugin – not plugin, but a program half converted to a plugin on one of my very old personal websites. I can’t remember the name; Thorn and Oak, that’s it, thornandoak.com.

But this one here is one that allows you – if you like tarot cards or maybe you might offer a service or maybe you offer Swami services or something along that line and you want to give online tarot card readings, you can set this plugin up. It allows you to create the spread — build out the spread for your tarot cards — and set up the readings, define the meanings and the different positions for the card, and define the cards and a whole lot of stuff. And if you’re really into tarot cards, you’ll understand that. I only half understand it because I understand just enough about tarot cards to be dangerous.

But it is a really interesting plugin. It’s brand-new. So it’s only been out, you know, possibly a week. It’s got less than 10 active installations as of this show. But it could be something of interest to people out there. And it looked like something that took them quite a while to develop. So anyway, go check this one out. Currently, I give it a 4-Dragon rating. Go check out Tarot Card Oracle.

Okay, here we go. We still got you?

Angel: Yes.

John: Okay. And where we are right now? We are at the point of this show is currently sponsored by…

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John: Absolutely, as I’ve mentioned dozens of times, about time I figure out something different for this, but CMS Commander, great tool. I’ve been using it now for about nine years.

And if you do sign up, please use the link in the Show Notes or just go to wppluginsatoz.com/cmscommander. That way I get a little bit of kickback from it because it is an affiliate link.

They don’t actually pay for the ad. It would be nice though.

Okay, we have a little bit of listener feedback and questions this week, a couple of things. First off, I’ve got from you.

Hello John,
your podcasts are great and well-formatted. Question: I enjoy coding text-only websites. May I directly code everything HTML/CSS into WordPress? Thanks. Sincerely, Richard Hopp.

Well, thanks, Richard. Yeah, you could. I don’t know why you would, but you could. It just seems like overkill to get in there. The CSS, yes, you can code the entire theme. You can build out your entire theme in HTML and do that, but you really wouldn’t want to. You might want to start with a theme, and then, you go into the CSS and customize the CMS to your heart’s content. I see that a lot, especially when I’m taking over an old project that has been kicking around for three or five years and the developer’s long since left it and it’s been landed in my lap. I’ve been working on one recently that’s had this exact problem.

So you can. I’m not sure why you would, but if you really enjoy your coding that much, I would suggest learning how to write a theme – and write a theme and use that for everything you do. That way you don’t have to duplicate your work every time you do it. Any suggestions there, Angel?

Angel: That sounds like a lot of work, but if you like coding, that may be the best option.

John: Yeah. And this one here, this is a repeat a bit from last show, and it’s mainly because there was a bit of confusion as to what happened. We got a lot of feedback on Twitter on this, people asking me if I needed a developer. That wasn’t exactly what we were trying to get out there. And of course, I get busy, and I can be narrowly focused at times, lose track of things with the work I do, and my other side projects. So if you can help us out here with this, please send some feedback to me. Put it on the YouTube channel. Go hit the Contact Page, send it back to me. It would be great to get this information back out to Marv. So the question was – and of course, he made mention, it’s been a while that he contacted the show.

He was looking for a plugin for a client. So he is looking for a plugin already made, not looking for a developer to develop the plugin. He is looking for an out-of-the-box package. And as I mentioned, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it, but I just don’t remember when and where. And what he wanted to do was be able to get a quote from the WordPress for some product or should I say WooCommerce. Probably WooCommerce is what he meant. A quote from using WooCommerce, get a quote for products and services, have the client be able to log in to WordPress as the client who asked for the quoter services and approve the questions and pay for the quote.

And I’ve seen something like this, but I just can’t recall it, and it’s just been a while. And this is something that does exist in WooCommerce I’m sure. And if you know of it, please let us know. So that’s what I was trying to clarify out for this one. How about you, Angel? Have you seen anything like that?

Angel: You know what? I’ve only done a couple of sites, but that sounds like a very useful tool that I’m not aware of it. It sounds like it would probably exist out there.

John: Well, I know it exists because I saw it once, and it wasn’t something I needed. And that was probably two or three years ago. So it’s just there and I don’t know what to look for.

All right, that wraps all of that, and please, more questions, comments, feedback. Please keep it coming. Show me that you’re listening to the show. Show me that you want to help participate, make the show better. Make me actually work a little, you know, use my brain. Sometimes I will. I’ll try and do the research if I’m not buried down in work. I’m surprised at what happened. The Rona hit and it turned out I was going kind of slow and steady, and all of a sudden, I had a spike in work. Not that I’m complaining, mind you because I could always use the money, especially with many people not getting it. You’ll have to excuse me a moment, I have a buzzer at my door.

All right, somebody showed up early. Okay, so got to love this lifestyle where I can just get up and walk away. Leave some dead air. I should have told you to keep talking there, Angel.

Angel: I wasn’t sure.

John: Oh, well, you know, we had dead air, that’s all right. Okay, so we’re at the bend here and hang on half a second. Here we go. Crickets! Oh, that’s what we had. Okay, so that was fun. So where we’re at right now in the show is that we are now at the point of the contest. And we do have a contest this week. This is a repeat with many thanks going back to Martin who had won the contest last time and realized he had no projects he could use the Event Espresso license for. So it has been recycled back into the show. So thank you very much, Martin, for giving us back the license to give it out again.

So this time, folks, the contest is live and running, running through till June 10th. I know I said June 5th the last week, but I pushed it an extra week because again, I got busy and I forgot to turn the contest on properly, so I wondered how many people tried to enter the context that wasn’t set up.

So at any rate, we have the contest running for Event Espresso 4, and it is a license for everything or an Event Espresso Developer License. This license is worth $300, and it is a very good plugin. I used it late last year to build out a conference website. And it just worked fantastic for all the multiple levels of things in the conference they needed to buy their dinners, to buy a dinner with tickets, to go for a tour, to buy the tour and dinner and all. They could piece it together and it just works great, did the job fantastic. So it’s something you’ll want to check out, and if it’s something you’re looking, enter the contest. You might be the winner of this full-blown license that you can use.

And if you want to find out more information about Event Espresso, go check out my interview with Seth Shoults from Event Espresso, which I did a few months back. And it was really great to speak with him. I talked with him – I’ve done two interviews with him, one recently and one about six or seven years back when Event Espresso first started out. So go check out the contest at wppluginsatoz.com/contests.

Okay, and that’s it, closing out this episode. Do you want to tell the folks what plugins you covered up there, Angel?

Angel: Yes, we covered Central Color Palette, Sticky Header Effects for Elementor, and Safe SVG –

John: Try it again. For some reason, you broke up.

Angel: Okay, here we go, Central Color Palette, Sticky Header Effects for Elementor, and Safe SVG.

John: Perfect. Well, thank you very much. And I covered up Display Posts – Easy lists, grids, Ultimate Carousel for Elementor, and Tarot Card Oracle, which all of them I gave a 4 to, and Angel gave a 5 to all of his. So thank you very much on all that.

And real briefly, just a couple of quick reminders, the next WordPress Meetup is scheduled for next week. And at the moment, it’s looking like it’s going to be a go-ahead, but stay tuned to our social media channels because it may or may not happen. I’ve been tough at coming with a topic for it, and I’ve been trying to get out of town a little earlier than usual. So this may get pushed aside because well, we can’t meet in person and I have to do it all virtual anyway.

Any suggestions for topics folks would like, please send them my way. I will happily entertain them. I do have a couple of new interviews that are coming out. Those will be out shortly.

And if you would like to be in an interview show, simply connect with me at wppluginsatoz.com/interview. And if you want more or know more about what I’m doing with my spare time, go check out The Rouges Tavern, where I’ve actually uploaded three videos in the last week getting caught up to date on my adventures in the urban garden – urban forest that I’m building right now. And I’ll have more stuff coming soon with me at the range and my 30-30. All right, that’s pretty much all I’ve got. Any last bits from you there, Angel?

Angel: Well first of all, thank you for the honor of being on the show and allowing me to contribute and participate. Again, thank you for everything you’ve done with plugins. You know, WordPress is nothing without the plugins, so your show has been invaluable to me, as I’m sure to many. The last thing I want to say to everybody listening, if you’re having problems with your website, please, let John help you. He’s helped me several times with some of my projects, and the last one was my wife’s website. She is a university professor and the website basically was down. I couldn’t even get into it, and John was very helpful. You kept me out of the doghouse, John. Thank you so much. So use John for website troubleshooting.

John: Excellent. Well, thanks, Angel. I greatly appreciate that and make sure you check out Angel at – I can’t remember your website name, angellemus.com, no? What’s your website again there, Angel? Hello? Yeah, we’re having some troubles with the Pacific Ocean today . Not my usual show. What’s your website again there, Angel?

Angel: It is koadigital.com.

John: There we go. Make sure you go check that out, folks. And he does some really great graphic designs, so check him out. All right, that’s everything I’ve got. And I’m going to let my girl take us on out of here. Don’t take off on me, Angel. We’ll chat a little bit after. Off we go.

Reminders for the show: All show notes can be found at wppluginsatoz.com, and while you’re there, subscribe to the newsletter for more useful information delivered directly to your inbox. WP Plugins A-Z is a show that offers honest and unbiased reviews of plugins created by developers because you support the show. Help keep the show honest and unbiased by going to wppluginsatoz.com/donate and set the donation level that fits your budget.

Help us to make the show better for you by subscribing and reviewing the show at Stitcher Radio, Google Play, and in the iTunes Store. You can also leave us a review on our Facebook page using wppluginsatoz.com/facebook. You can also watch the show live on YouTube, check out the screencasts and training videos, and remember to subscribe and hit the bell to get notifications of all new videos. Follow the show on Twitter @wppluginsatoz.

John can also be reached at his website, JohnOverall.com, or email him directly at john@wppro.ca. Thanks for joining us and have a great day.

Thanks for listening to the show. This show is copyright by JohnOverall.com. So until next time, have yourselves a good morning, a good afternoon, or a good evening, wherever you happen to be out there on the globe today.

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