Transcript of Episode 534 WP Plugins A to Z

All transcripts start from the point in the show where we head off into the meat and potatoes. This is complete verbatim of John’s discussion on the weekly plugins that have been reviewed.

WordPress Plugins A to Z Podcast and Transcript for See complete show notes for Episode #534 here.

Episode #534

John:              Alright, off we go. What have I got this time around for plugins? Well ClassicPress options, I’ve been informed that we have some interesting ClassicPress news this week. It looks like ClassicPress has released a couple of versions 1.3.1 with a bug fix and they’re preparing for a larger 1.4.0 release, so they’re moving along quite nicely it looks like it’s good, they’ve removed an expire let’s Encrypt certificate and void notices, download receipts, they got a whole bunch of things it looks like they’re doing, but the fact that they’re moving into a 1.4.0 release means that they’re about to make a major jump, the biggest jump over you when ClassicPress hits 2.0. I think when ClassicPress hits 2.0 that is when they’re going to be self-defining everything and they’re going to be separating themselves significantly from their WordPress roots. We got a ClassicPress usage report for September 2021. Alright, so as of August, there were 5000, active ClassicPress websites. Okay, and that’s not too bad for their beginnings and so they’re just analyzing the sites and this is something you might want to go check through and in May of 2019, they had 1500, so they haven’t had that big of an increase that isn’t an increase, 1500 since made 5000, so they are increasing, not exponentially yet but I imagine soon enough, they will be because they will have some stuff that will happen, which will allow them to move forward exponentially. Alright, let’s get into what you’re all here for and that is the WordPress plugins.

Alright, the WordPress plugins I’ve got for you this week. The first one I’ve got for you here is Halloween WooCommerce. Now this one here is an interesting plugin, I was working with it trying to get it to work, I didn’t get it fully set up, which is why, but what it does for you is, once you get it configured, you get a coupon configured, then you connect it all up and then you determine for people to go hunt down different icons and the icons, you could choose for skulls and bats and other things in the icon to get randomly placed through your website and then once everyone found all the icons by clicking on the icons, then what would happen is a coupon would pop up on the web page for them to get a discount on what you’re selling. Kind of an interesting way to get people to search their way through your site, maybe discover a few things that they wouldn’t have found otherwise. I think it’s a neat interesting way to help gamify stuff on your website and it’s something if I have a little more time I would experiment with a little further. I’m hoping by this time next year that I’ve got more stuff in place and I will be able to use this and get it promoted out to my email list and other things to get people to come in and collect something maybe I could give them like a 50% discount or a $10 coupon or something you know, but give them a reason to actually go through the effort to search for it. So some of you might want to look into if you’re running a WooCommerce website, this could be an interesting plugin for you to check out. If not for this year for next year, I can’t remember all the different icons that were available in there and if there’s a way to go in and recode it maybe you could recode some icons for Christmas time or for Easter or other, you know, big holidays time of year kind of a useful one. At any rate, it seemed to be useful enough and I rate this at four dragons, go check it out the Halloween WooCommerce plugin.

Okay, the next one I have for you here is Simple Halloween Decoration Page. This one here is kind of cute. It’s really kind of fun. If you drop over to the roguestavern.com and wait a few moments the screen starts flowing with bugs. It starts flowing with flies and spiders. Kind of a creepy all by itself but it’s a good Halloween creepy also and it’s just a fun plugin, has no other point than to add a little bit of difference to your website and make it a little bit creepy. So anyway, I thought it was kind of cute, useful, and it works quite nicely. Go check it out, it’s the Simple Halloween Decoration For Your Page and I give it a five dragon rating.

Right. And the final one I have for you today is a Halloween Countdown Widget for those of you like me that really like Halloween, you want to make sure you’re counting it down to the days and I didn’t get this installed on my site properly, but it is a very straightforward plugin. You just install it, activate it, drag the widget over to a sidebar wherever you want that widget to appear on your site and it gives the countdown till Halloween with a funky looking back character. Little vampire bat countdown on your sidebar, you could also stick it in your head or if you don’t have sidebars like most themes, websites don’t use sidebars per se now, you know, they got split. They often have spots in their headers or their footer that they can use this best place I think has been sticking in the header. At any rate, another one that’s just fun, cute, easy to use, and straightforward, adds a little bit of Halloween stuff to your decoration that seems like, you know, WordPress is missing that. I recall many more Halloweenie plugins be in there but they don’t seem to be as many anymore. At any rate, go check this one out Halloween Countdown Widget and I give it five dragons.

Alright, now the final one we got, we got one that Amber left behind since she’s not here today. She’s off moving and doing other things that she has to get done but she did leave us a plugin that she reviewed and so I’ll read out what she did and the plugin and it is for Halloween Panda and she goes on now. Now she reviewed this plugin in Episode 481, but honestly, she didn’t feel like she truly did this plugin justice. So here she is again with a more thorough review that I get to read out. Alright, she goes a hands down the best Halloween Plugin she’s come across thus far on WordPress, and honestly makes her a little sad that a week before Halloween, they have not updated it for this beautiful holiday for a year. First, you get three tabs of options, Sticky/non sticky display for top or bottom of pumpkins, carrots, why carrots? Yeah, okay, pumpkins, carrots, ghosts, Halloween creatures or haunted church house. Then you have monster fall, which is like snowfall, except with pumpkins, ghosts, and bats, totally awesome. Last, you get to choose between 16 Different popups that can show up on either left or right bottom corner. Her personal favorite is the witch which can be bribed with chocolate. You can have one or all three options going at once on your site or just none, totally free, really awesome, and still working like a dream. I really hope that Pixolette keeps this plugin going. Alright, well it does sound like its kind of fun. See, he’s got instructions there you don’t have a demo page, so I don’t have a demo page to go and see how this but they got some pictures here. Let’s see what we’ve got in the screenshots. There we go, there’s the screenshots of bats, pumpkins piling up on the bottom, big giant pumpkin inside, pop-ups with Halloween quotes. Where’s the panda? Why they call it Halloween Panda when there is no panda? Oh, there’s a panda in the corner, okay, alright. At any rate, Amber rates this at five dragons.

Alright, there are all the plugins I’ve got for this show here and the ones that Amber brought in. Alright, so we don’t have a contest right now, as we’ve talked about the contests are on hiatus probably till the New Year, we’re going to give it to the New Year so we can accumulate some stuff, get it all organized, get our lives back in order. Many of our lives have been turned upside down in turmoil, not just for the last two years, but also for the last, you know, six months, several of our lives have been turned sideways, particularly in the last three months, so we’re going to  stay on hiatus for a little while. Plugins I covered on this episode was the Halloween WooCommerce, which I gave a four to, the Simple Halloween Decorations For Your Page, which I gave a five, and the Halloween Countdown Widget which I gave a five, and then Amber covered up the Halloween Panda, which she gave a five to. Now we don’t have a Q&A segment this week, so we’ll be just closing out the show a bit earlier than usual and that’s just the way it works. I may chat for a couple of minutes after I close it out for everyone out here listening on the podcast. You got to remember if you’ve listened this far into the show, folks, hey, you’ve gotten some value out of this show. Don’t forget to kick some value back, you can do it with your time, talent, treasure and treasure is one of the big ones we need, you know, that would really help encourage the show to get going and moving further forward and expanding

Reminders, I don’t have any reminders or no promotions or anything else at the moment, you know no meetups. I’ve been offering out my interview shows I may just pull that down for a while too. I basically got to pull back and reorganize a lot of things. The show will continue and keep going week after week and it’s going to get better and better. We’ve got some refinements coming your way on it. It is off after all year 12 and — you know, do something for 12 years and eventually you’ve got to change a few things. So at any rate, I think that’s where I’m going to call it a wrap for today and call it a show, so thanks everyone for showing up. I greatly appreciate it and play out some Days of Thunder and call it a day. Oh, no, I need to also close it out let my girl take us out with the credits. Let’s do that.

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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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