Transcript of Episode 469 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 John and Amber’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 #469 here.

Episode #469

John: Okay, so here we go. This week, ClassicPress Options. I don’t have a lot for ClassicPress Options. I didn’t get any plugins researched for it, so again, ClassicPress is kind of peripheral at the moment because virtually all – 90 percent plus of all my work right now is in WordPress, so ClassicPress has taken a backseat just because I’ve got to work where the money’s at. I am trying to keep ClassicPress promoted because ClassicPress is a great CMS system. It is of course based off of WordPress 4.9 and doesn’t have all the Gutenberg hoopla in it, so it makes it a little different. Those two are getting ready to hit dividing lines and head down separate paths. It’ll probably happen next year for sure, and that’s just the way it is.

But ClassicPress will still have a place.

Now, there are a couple of things in here: the usual ClassicPress resources over at ClassicPress Club, the classicpress.net forums, the stuff from CodePotent, and on and on. So all those links are in the Show Notes. Go check that information out.

Okay, it is time now for the main event! And what we’re going to be talking about here is the WordPress plugins and which ones I’ve got and of course, which ones Amber has brought to the table today, so this should be loads of fun for everyone.

So let’s start off. The first one I’ve got for you here is called Social Feed Gallery. Now, this plugin here is a really great plugin that I discovered. Now, it was partly a need for me, but also a client of mine needed a replacement for their Instagram Feed plugin that was built into their theme. And what happened was Instagram recently changed their APIs, thereby breaking everybody’s plugins out there, so the authors had to go in and rewrite them. Well, some authors opted to say, “To hell with this. I’m done,” and they abandoned it, which is what happened with my client. The developer of that theme with that plugin said, “Yeah, we’re done. We’re not gonna update that plugin. Go find yourself something else.”

So I had to do research on a few of them and I found this one here. And what I was looking for in particular, a lot of the Instagram feed plugins I found wanted to either give you single images at a time or a block of images, either 3 x 3 or 4 x 4 or 2 x 2. You know, they didn’t just do a single row, and that’s what I was needing because that’s what her site needed in particular was to lay a single row of Instagram images down, and also have a very easy way to connect to Instagram. That was also key.

So when I got into it and I found this one, this one allows you to create either the blocks or the mason galleries or the carousel or the rows, and that was one key. The other was connecting it to Instagram was as simple as installing it, going in, hitting a couple of buttons, logging into the Instagram account, allowing it access – boom it was done – created the tokens, and you are all set to go. So it was a really great, simple, easy one to use.

Now of course, normally something like that would get a 5-Dragon rating but in this case here, I have to knock it back to a 4 because this is the free version and there’s a premium version that I didn’t test out. So automatically if it’s got a premium version, I knock it back by one point because I can’t give it a full rating. So at any rate, I recommend this one out, Social Feed Gallery. I give it a 4-Dragon rating.

Amber: My first plugin is Forminator. It’s actually a pretty cool plugin. I found it for a client’s site. They were interested in doing quizzes, and this plugin allows you to do quizzes as well as forms or polls. It’s really easy and a lot of fun to work with, I’ve found. The only real issue I had with it was the integrations part, but I’m kind of unfamiliar with integrations in general, so that is mostly due to me.

Although I did manage to get MailChimp to work pretty easily, even though I was kind of at a loss for how. I did figure it out really, really well. I’d rate this at 5 Dragons.

John: Uh-oh!

John: There we go. We’re slipping. The brain shifted. Well, that’s actually a pretty interesting plugin. I haven’t touched Forminator myself. I left that all to her because it was something I really didn’t want to dig into. But quizzes are big, people. You can create quizzes, collect email address, and sell them all kinds of wonderful stuff. Go check this one out.

Okay, next up for you, I have Change User Group for Asgaros Forum. Now, the Asgaros Forum I reviewed back in Episode 468, which would have been last episode. A really great forum plugin. I described how useful it is and I discovered that there’s a lot of tools for the Asgaros Forum that are available with this free plugin. This is one of them.

The site I was setting the forum up on had a membership section running through WooCommerce and with different levels of members. And this plugin allows you to set up different levels of access to the forums based upon their membership level, based upon their WooCommerce purchase receipts, etc. A really great tool, something to go check out. I give this one a

4-Dragon rating.

Amber: The next plugin that I reviewed was Responsive Light Box. I was looking for this for a site that I’m working on. It’s an art gallery site, so I’m trying to find a way to make all of the pictures and everything look pretty, and this one is pretty cool. I managed to figure it out after only a little bit of playing around with it. It’s nice because you can actually load up a lot of pictures at once and you get to figure out how big or small or even if you want to have frames around there, what color the frames are, and you can change how many rows there, how the rows show up. And you can change it so that it looks haphazard or in nice, neat rows. It’s really nice, actually.

I rate this at 5-Dragons.

John: Oh, another winner!

Amber: Yep.

John: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! We’ve got another winner. All right, well again, I don’t know much about this plugin here, but definitely go check that one out.

Okay, the final one I’ve got for you today is another Asgaros Forum plugin. This is called Toolbox for Asgaros Forum. Now, with most things you’re always needing to add a few tools here and there to make your life a little more easy, a little more difficult; it depends on what kinds of tools you add to it. Well, what this one does for you is it adds some entries into the site to allow you to do custom menu entries for the Asgaros Forum. It also allows you to integrate more shortcodes into the forum profile and into the ultimate member profile. And this one here also creates a custom tab for the ultimate member profile for the forum history.

Now, this goes with if you’re using Ultimate Member as your tool for managing the membership of the site. Ultimate Member is a really great plugin; I used it on a couple of websites for membership stuff. But you’ll want to go check this one out, see if it’s a tool you can use if you’re using the Asgaros Forum. If you’re still looking for a forum, go check out the Asgaros Forum. Check out the review I did for that for Episode 468.

And I give this one a 4-Dragon rating.

Amber: And the last one I have is Elementor Essential Addons. I specifically plugged this in for the gallery options, but once it was up and going, I realized that the lightbox option, it’s only there if you upgrade. That kind of sucked because I was hoping to be able to fiddle around with that.

Although I did notice that there was at least 38 extra widgets that you get once you load this in, and it’s got some pretty neat ones. There’s one called a filterable gallery, which it seems okay, although not as good as the other one but it’s all right. The other options that it gives you for just adding it in are pretty good and useful. The problem that I found with it is that you need to upgrade in order to get the really good ones like Lightbox, MailChimp, Google Interactive. I really didn’t like that, so I’m going to bring it down to I guess 4, because the widgets that you do get, they’re actually pretty decent if you’re looking for those.

John: It’s not a bad plugin. This one here I have used, and they do have a premium version of this plugin available also, which gives you even more widgets. I have also used this one on a couple of Elementor sites to add in a couple of their very specific widgets. They have some very specific widgets; I don’t recall them at the moment that you really just can’t find anywhere else. So if you’re building in Elementor, this is a plugin you do want to look into, and it could be worthwhile getting the premium version. I think I might have a license for the premium version; I’m not sure. I have so many licenses these days that it’s hard to keep track. But at any rate, definitely go check out the Elementor Essential Addons plugin. It’s well worth your time.

And of course, links for all these plugins are in the Show Notes, so make sure you go check out the Show Notes over at wppluginsatoz.com.

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John: Absolutely. As I’ve said, I’ve been using CMS Commander for about eight years now since it was brand new. A great plugin. Please use the wppluginsatoz.com/cmscommander link in the Show Notes. It is an affiliate link that is an affiliate ad. They don’t actually pay me for that ad but if you ever want to pay for that ad spot, feel free to reach out to me. I’ll happily get you in there for a small fee.

Okay, so this is where we’re going to go on to talk about the contests. Well, we don’t have one yet. We do have a couple lined up. We have a couple of people lined up to give us some premium plugin keys. We’ve just got to get all that together and make sure it’s pulled together and set up for contests. I’m hoping by next week we will have that set up and running for you.

Now, for all of you developers who want to support the show, you can donate a premium license to be used in the future contests. Just go to wppluginsatoz.com/plugin-contest to submit all the pertinent details.

Now closing out this episode, here is the plugins that I covered up. I covered up the Social Feed Gallery, which I gave a 4 to; the Change User Group – Asgaros Forum, which I gave a 4 to; and the Toolbox for Asgaros Forum, which I gave a 4 to.

Amber: And I covered the Forminator, which I gave a 5 to; Responsive Lightbox, which I also gave a 5 to; and the Elementor Essential Addons, which I gave a 4 to.

John: Okay, and just a couple of quick reminders. Everyone, you know, remember to send in a comment, say hi to Amber. You know, welcome her to the show. She’s going to be around for a while, I think. And for those of you who are listening to the podcast later, you’re going to have to jump over to the YouTube because after the show closes out, I’m going to have a little chat with her off the recording that goes out into the main feed. So if you want that, you’re going to have to go catch the YouTube channel at the very end of the show.

Now, I’m also still looking for a meetup in August. I haven’t decided on a date yet, so I may still have a meetup in August. It’ll be an afternoon on a Sunday, somewhere up mid-island of Vancouver Island and outdoors, you know, in a nice outdoor setting, so I’ll let folks know once I’ve decided on that.

Another good thing, there is a new interview with a developer, Christian from ShoutWorks. I had a great interview with him yesterday and we’re getting that all edited up and getting it published. We’ll have it published up for next week, so make sure you check that out. It was really interesting learning about ShoutWorks, so make sure you catch that interview when it comes out next week.

Now, if you’d like to be on an interview show, simply connect with me at wppluginsatoz.com/interview. You can go book a time slot. I have time slots specifically set aside for interviews, so check them all out.

If you want to know more about me and my lunacy, go check me out at theroguestavern.com, where I’ve got adventures into the wild, searching for gold, hiking, camping, out on the gun range, building my oasis, and more.

And that’s pretty much all I’ve got, so I’m going to let my girl take us out of here. And remember, stick around after the show.

Reminders for the show: All the show notes can be found at wppluginsatoz.com, and while you’re there, subscribe to the newsletter for more useful information 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.

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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.

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