John’s Intro:

It’s Episode 625 and we have plugins for ATUM-ing and Crowdfunding… and WordPress News. It’s all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!

– ‘good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you happen to be hiding out there on the globe today! Coming to you LIVE from …’

Amber’s Rant:

Welcome to Episode 625 – You Can Hear The Plugins A-Coming – 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!

The weather in our area is at that point where it can’t decide what it’s gonna be – it’s nice and sunny during the day, but the nights are freaking cold! No more dropping down to 0, but really, 18 for the day and only 3 for the night? This transition time is the most confusing for the bodies – probably why so many people get sick. Don’t forget to keep up on any and all supplements to keep yourself healthy!

A few reminders before we start the show today….

Reminders:

• Reminder that our show is now every other week, and that it starts at 12:30 PM Pacific Time, with a pre-stream starting around 12:15 PM Pacific Time. Pre-stream is where we twiddle with the dials and knobs and really just warm up our voices, so join in for some entertainment value!
• Our show notes for each episode can be found at wppluginsatoz.com – the newest show notes will be up within 24 hours and on our front page!
• Don’t forget that this is a value for value show, and that you are a big part of it’s creation! You are our producers, and we need you to help us produce! Get out there and hit some like buttons, share an episode or two, and let people know that you help to produce the longest running WordPress Plugins podcast!

That’s it for reminders, don’t forget to stick around until the end of the show for some possibly life altering advice!

...When you see this in the notes, it means we didn’t read this on the show. The only way to find this information out is to read our Show Notes!

…You can send any questions/suggestions or notes saying ‘hi’ over to me at amber@wppro.ca, or hit up our site wpppluginsatoz.com/contact – Be creative with the title so that the spammer eater doesn’t eat your note though!

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

Artist: 

Sir Rogue of the Tavern – Barron of the Cowichan Valley
https://theroguesoasis.com/

I really love trains! This looks like an older locomotive that is coal powered – the newer trains just don’t have the same kind of artistic look to them in my opinion.

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!

…If I missed something, shoot me a link at amber@wppro.ca – it may show up on the next show!

News this week:

WordPress Vulnerability Report – April 10, 2024
(https://solidwp.com/blog/wordpress-vulnerability-report-april-10-2024/) – In this report there are 200 vulnerabilities, though there are so far 182 patches made for the plugins.
WordPress Core has patched the Sensitive Data Exposure issue – although they did so for 6.5 – 6.5 was a pretty big update, I would be very careful when updating to that.
The 18 plugins needing patching are up at the top, and the ones I most easily recognize are: User Activity Log, WooCommerce, and Essential Addons for Elementor – Best Elementor Templates, Widgets, Kits & WooCommerce Builders.

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. At the time of writing this the most recent issue was with ‘WordPress Fatal Error Notify Plugin’ – their 1.5.2 is vulnerable to Broken Access Control. Once you get used to these guys site layout, they are super useful!

Just a quick note – it appears that WP Tavern has taken the last month off of writing? If you would like the most recent information from WP Tavern, you can check out our recorded show we released on April 1st – nothing new has been written for the past month by these guys. Wonder what they are up to?

WordPress Security Release
(https://wordpress.org/news/2024/04/wordpress-6-5-2-maintenance-and-security-release/) – Be aware that there is no 6.5.1 – there is ONLY 6.5.2 – this is due to an issue with the initial package. This release features 2 bug fixes on core, 12 bug fixes for the block editor, and 1 security fix.
Be careful when updating – backup to the max!! Sometimes it’s better to have a slightly out of date site and keep your site, rather then try to keep updated and lose your site. Often it takes 2-3 minor releases before it’s safe to update after a huge change like what just happened in 6.5.

Who is WordPress for?
(https://thewpminute.com/who-is-wordpress-for/) – This is an interesting article that is more so a question rather then an explanation about anything – who is WordPress for? Matt Medeiros goes through explaining the various debates that tend to come round on WordPress over and over throughout the years – but then states that WordPress no longer questions whether it is a page builder or a website builder – its seems to have set itself squarely in the ‘website builder’ camp. But now other debates are popping up – like who is it for?
There are other really awesome links in the bottom of this article that are definitely worth a look through.

Do developers still need to learn programming languages in the age of AI?
(https://thenextweb.com/news/developers-learn-programming-languages-age-of-ai) – Personally, I think yes – absolutely! Knowing the basic HTML and CSS has made it possible to do any developing at all for me, and I am slowly learning other languages so that I can be better at what I do.
This article goes through and talks about how ‘…AI can produce code from a few plain-speaking prompts, has learning programming languages become redundant?’
This seems to be a theme that is popping up, different companies and writers talking about how in the near future, nobody will need to learn code because the AI will be able to do it all for them – but what a lot of people seem to keep forgetting, is that while AI will be able to do a lot, it won’t have the human’s ability to just ‘know’ there is something off and go searching for it, that insane curiosity driving us to figure out what is really wrong, find it and fix it.
Developers I think will always need to know languages in my opinion. This article is worth giving a read, helps to get you thinking for sure!

The Extras – check out our Facebook, or Twitter page for even more!

Want to keep getting Windows 10 updates next year? Here’s what it will cost (https://www.zdnet.com/article/want-to-keep-getting-windows-10-updates-next-year-heres-what-it-will-cost/) – Worth reading! prices are upping and changing around! AND, you are losing the support very soon.

WordPress 6.5 “Regina” (In case you also are wondering why it is being renamed at a point version rather then a major version….)(https://wordpress.org/news/2024/04/regina/)

How WordPress is creating a faster web (https://wordpress.org/news/2024/04/how-wordpress-is-creating-a-faster-web/)

Platforms VS Creators: Who should profit? (https://thewpminute.com/platforms-vs-creators-who-should-profit/)

The brittle WordPress business (https://thewpminute.com/the-brittle-wordpress-business/) – this is sort of a continuation on something we brought up last show – it was a recorded show, but this is another view on what we were talking about. If you’re not sure what I mean, go have a listen to our last show from April 1st, and then read this article.

Amazon ditches ‘just walk out’ checkouts at its grocery store (https://gizmodo.com/amazon-reportedly-ditches-just-walk-out-grocery-stores-1851381116)

Who is responsible for WordPress Marketing? (https://thewpminute.com/who-is-responsible-for-wordpress-marketing/)

Could WordPress use a new logo? (https://thewpminute.com/could-wordpress-use-a-new-logo/)

WordPress vs Webflow (https://thewpminute.com/wordpress-vs-webflow/) – this is an interesting one with a great conversation

The new tech trends set to shape the smart cities of tomorrow (https://thenextweb.com/news/new-tech-trends-smart-cities-of-tomorrow)

Speeding e bikes are a new menage. Amsterdam wants to remote-control them (https://thenextweb.com/news/speeding-ebikes-tech-amsterdam-remote-control)

FabricNano’s cell-free biotech could make microplastics a thing of the past (https://thenextweb.com/news/fabricnano-cell-free-biotech-startup-microplastics)

‘British DARPA’ to build AI gatekeepers for ‘quantitative safety guarantees’ (https://thenextweb.com/news/british-darpa-aria-plans-ai-safety-gatekeepers)

The state of open source in Europe (https://thenextweb.com/news/state-open-source-europe)

Dragon Rating Time!

John’s Plugin

ATUM WooCommerce Inventory Management and Stock Tracking

https://wordpress.org/plugins/atum-stock-manager-for-woocommerce/

The Lowdown:
If your looking for an inventory management for Woo-commerce this may the plugin for you. It offer many ways to help manage your inventory. This plugin gives you multiple ways to manage your inventory with a great clean interface that is understandable. It will allow you to use purchase orders. Create Inventory log to help track issues and more.

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

Making Sites

Don’t be afraid to ask for more clarification and/or more explanation from anyone you are working with; although you may find yourself giving a lot of explanations as to what kind of information you are actually wanting from them – such as explaining what you mean by what colour scheme are you wanting, giving MANY examples of different sites to explain what kind of site you two are talking about.

I have found it is useful to keep your list of sites in groups together – shops, blogs, fancy, simple – separate them into groups and this way you can easily find the kind of sites for examples you need to send along to prospective clients, or clients who are looking for a site build or change.

Beginners Tips

If you feel like something new to you that you are trying to learn is just defeating you, that you aren’t learning anything new at all, realize that you have probably already learned a lot and that you are just feeling like you are having a super hard go of it because learning anything new is like learning a new language.

Every single thing that you have learned this far did not come easily to you, it just feels easier to keep with what you have already learned then go learn something new. The learning of new things will eventually become as easy as all the other things you do, it will just take time.

…Some random entertainment in the World of WordPress!

…Matt’s Famous Quotes
https://www.idrlabs.com/quotes/matt-mullenweg.php

…The hall of shame via Automattic:
transparency.automattic.com/tag/hall-of-shame/

Finishing Our Dragon Rating!

Amber’s Plugin

IgnitionDeck Crowdfunding Platform

https://wordpress.org/plugins/ignitiondeck/

The Lowdown:

This is a neat plugin that was sent into us by Alex Vasquez, one of the partners of this plugin. The plugin has been around for a while now, though it’s not too well known – the plugin was designed to be used for CrowdFunding – think ‘GiveWP’ style; however, Alex told me that most of their customers tend to use this plugin for their own CrowdFunding Platforms like KickStarter. I will be reviewing the free version this week.

After I got the plugin downloaded and activated, I went to settings – you can find this both on the left hand side in your main menu under ‘IgnitionDeck’ – there’s a little symbol of a rocket too! – or you can click on ‘settings’ under the plugin itself on the plugin dashboard.

Unfortunately, I needed to download two additional plugins in order to run this plugin – now it could have been really annoying where I had to go and search out the plugins myself – but instead there was an easy peasy link there for me to click on. Both were downloaded for me, and I was able to move forward in setting this up.

First screen that pops up is the option to register with ignitiondeck.com – this will get offers, updates, and announcements sent to your inbox, and it will give you access to downloadable modules. You can skip this if you are not interested – which I think is awesome. Some places don’t give you the option to skip – always seriously annoying to me.

The next screen is where you will find out about the two dependencies needed to get this particular plugin working – here you click the checkmark to download; you will be taken to the plugin dashboard so you can activate them, and then will have to navigate back to the settings dashboard.

Next screen is the upgrade screen – just skip this for the free.

Next we have the theme – free version only gives you one option and there is no option to skip this; however, it does not activate the theme automatically.

Next we have the ‘IgnitionDeck Quick Setup’ screen. You have to manually check off all the items if you want them, although you CAN just click ‘next’ with none of them checked off.

Next we have the ‘connect’ screen – here you can choose whether or not to buy their services to help out with all of this.

After that you will need to go to the other dashboards to finish setting things up – we have next down in the left-hand menu ‘Project Settings’.

Here you will see the option of your project to a particular page or post. You can automatically insert project or not, depending on whether you click off the checkmark. the other two tabs here are Deck Builder and Orders.

‘Deck Builder’ is where you create the project, make the title, choose the skin, figure out what kind of project it is, and you can add your affiliate links here. You will also see this option in the lefthand menu under ‘Project Settings’.

‘Orders’ shows all of your projects. You will also see this in the left-hand menu under ‘Deck Builder’.

I definitely like the organization here, and I like the ease with which you can set this up! I also like that although there are requirements, there is A LOT of freedom here. They create premade options, but allow you control over them still. I really respect that.

Another thing to be aware of, is the need to set up ‘IDC’ in your left-hand menu, this is one of the dependencies mentioned earlier. This is for setting up your product settings, download settings, currency settings, receipt settings, and dashboard settings. These are important things to set up, and worth taking a bit to do it right.

There is also ‘projects’, though this seems to be a list of your projects like what you see in the ‘orders’ tab.

This is absolutely a plugin worth checking out!

Rating: 5 Dragon

**Additional item I just realized when messing about with it a little later: there is an option ‘Which Edition is Right For me?’ that you will see in the plugin dashboard – it’s pretty awesome. They give you an honest low down on the different levels and what you get, there is a place for developers to have a look at as well!! This was really well done. Also, love the ‘Valet Service’ option. ;) You guys are just awesome! I can see the sense of humor coming through and that just makes it all the better!

Join in and be part of your own production and support the show at the same time!

Earn yourself a Producership Credit!

There are a lot of ways that you as our Producers can utilize us as your tool to help yourself out, and help us at the same time – get a producership credit, do an interview, donate some time to get your name up here, all kinds of things! You can look further into the Producership credits options by going to our site wppluginsatoz.com and clicking on Time, Talent, or Treasure in our main menu.

Miscellaneous Announcements from us and Producers:

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, Bizkaia, Spain – April 20-21, 2024

WordCamp Leipzig – April 20, 2024

WordCamp Buffalo, NY, USA – May 4-5, 2024

WordCamp Sylhet, Bangladesh – May 10-11, 2024

WordCamp Porto, Portugal – May 17-18, 2024

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/
For those that live in Victoria, unfortunately the YYJ WordPress Meetup group has been cancelled and no longer exists.

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

And remember, the show notes found at wppluginsatoz.com have a whole lot of extra information to grab up that we don’t read on air so be sure to check them out!

How to reach us:

We have a real brick and mortar address where you can send in art and/or notes – you can find the address in our show notes!

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

We also have virtual addresses too!

John:

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

Amber:

• email: amber@wppro.ca

Today’s Plugins we covered were:

John’s Plugin:

ATUM WooCommerce Inventory Management and Stock Tracking By Stock Management Labs™

• ATUM ground-breaking Stock Control system.
• All WooCommerce products on one screen with a smooth mouse wheel or touchpad scrolling.
• Image thumbnails for easier identification of your WooCommerce Inventory.

Rating: 5 Dragons

Amber’s Plugin: 

IgnitionDeck Crowdfunding Platform By IgnitionDeck

• Easy Setup
• Use on site for CrowdFunding
• Works with just about any theme out there!

Rating: 5 Dragons

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 at Amber@WPPro.ca – let’s see if we can stump my dad!

• Do plugins count as space eaters in sites, or can you add however many plugins you like without ever having to worry about using up all the space offered by the hosting provider?
• What happens if you have a lot of themes downloaded that you don’t use? Does it take up space, or is it an issue in any other way?

Questions asked after closing credits:

• Why are child themes so important?
  • What happens when you activate a child theme?

• Is it better to make your own child theme, or to use the one offered by the theme company you are going with – example: Elementors Hello Theme offers their own pre-made child theme, although you could just make your own. which option is better and why?

Commercial / Promotions:

Just some reminders:

Join my at the monthly ClassicPress / WordPress Meetup Classicpress / WordPress Meetup

Rate us on iTunes, blubrry.com, ViaWay.com, Stitcher Radio and any place else you find us.

Interact with your Hosts

John can be contacted at:
Website: https://www.johnoverall.com/
WordPress Emergency Support: https://wppro.ca/wpemergency
Email: john@wppro.ca

Amber can be contacted at:
Email: amber@wppro.ca