Written by

Kristen Wright
on

March 17, 2020

Last Updated On March 17, 2020

Every month Nathan Ingram looks over the last 30 days on the WordPress Plugin Directory and makes a list of his favorite new additions. Here are his favorite plugins, his WooCommerce recommendation and his good/bad idea WordPress plugins.

Nathan told us last month that he was concerned about some of the ways Code Canyon is handling updates to certain plugins. This is an ongoing issue that we need to be aware of with at least one plugin. It isn’t typical of Code Canyon to allow developers to limit automatic updates, but at least in this circumstance it is happening and it may be an issue in the future with other WordPress plugins.

1. WP Health

Quickly checks WordPress installation and shows a snapshot of the site showing if it is up to date, secure and healthy. See the snapshot through the tools in the admin bar. Premium features include broken image monitor, page speed graph, broken link monitoring.

Nathan’s Notes

• Formerly My WP Health Check
• Plugin is about the same in the free version, but premium features are easily put into a care plan.
• Premium features are dynamic and include areas that can add value to your client relationships.
• An accessibility monitor, in Beta, but watch for this feature.

2. Contextual Related Posts

With this plugin you can easily add related posts to your WordPress site. It comes with caching, short-codes, widgets and custom post types. You can even choose which types of content will show up as “related” for your site.

Nathan’s Notes

• One of the best related posts plugins I’ve seen in a while.
• Lots of options to customize its behavior, including with thumbnails and without.
• Available free add-on restrict related posts to the same category or tag.
• Out of the box,

[…]

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This article was written by Kristen Wright and originally published on WordPress News and Updates from iThemes – iThemes.

Each month, we recap the best WordPress plugins that were added or updated within the last 30 days on the WordPress Plugin Directory. Here’s a list of our favorite new or recently-updated plugins for February 2020.

A Notice for Those Who Use CodeCanyon Plugins

• For some time, plugin purchases on CodeCanyon have supplied automatic updates in the standard WordPress update process.
• At least one plugin recently has begun to restrict this to only those with an active support subscription.
• CodeCanyon promises access to updates but not automatic updates.
• It is not clear on plugin pages which ones will require you to have an active support license for updates and which will not.

1. Disable Login

Disable Login

An advanced maintenance mode tool that will prevent all users (except you, the developer) from logging into the WordPress backend. Your users will see a nice message just below the WordPress logo informing them that you are in the process of fixing their website.

Nathan’s Notes:

• Handy tool to keep clients away from a website you’re currently working on.
• Does not automatically log out users who are currently logged in (feature request for the author).
• Be careful you don’t accidentally lock yourself out (it defaults to the first user ID alphabetically in the pick list).

2. Mihdan: No External Links

Mihdan: No External Links

No External Links converts external links to internal links. Featuring Full Page or Targeted Content Filtering, Custom Redirect Page/Message, Encoded Masks, External Link Click Logging, Individual Link Exclusion, Post/Page Specific Exclusion, and many more.

Nathan’s Notes:

• Nice plugin to track external links on your website.
• Integrates with bit.ly and a few other link shorteners.
• Can display a customizable redirect message.

3. WooCommerce Cart This Month’s Featured WooCommerce Add-on #1

WooCommerce Cart

Side Cart WooCommerce adds a site wide basket icon that displays the number of products in the cart. Customer can see all the cart items directly from the side cart & also remove items. Plugin has ajax add to cart feature on single product pages too.

Nathan’s Notes:

• A pretty slick cart add-on that positions an off-canvas cart on your site.
• Ajax powered cart feels very app like.
• Lots of settings to customize the look and behavior of the cart.
• Pro Version adds a lot of valuable features,

[…]

Keep Reading »

This article was written by Kristen Wright and originally published on WordPress News and Updates from iThemes – iThemes.

Each month, we recap the best WordPress plugins that were added or updated within the last 30 days on the WordPress Plugin Directory. Here’s a list of our favorite new or recently-updated plugins for September 2020.

In This Month’s Plugin Roundup

1. Unsplash

With Unsplash for WordPress, searching the internet’s largest library of freely usable images for your posts and pages is easier than ever. Right from the WordPress editor, you can access millions of HD photos for free, with no strings attached.

Nathan’s Notes:

• Brings the huge library of free-to-use images from Unsplash into WordPress in an easy-to-use way.
• Access Unsplash from the Add Media, Media Block, or Featured Image functions
• Unsplash brings in a linked attribution caption by default, but it is not necessary to keep this in place.

2. Newsletter Glue (This Month’s Plugin to Watch)

Email blog posts to your subscribers without leaving WordPress. Create newsletters using the Gutenberg editor. Connect to Mailchimp, MailerLite, Sendinblue (more soon …)

Nathan’s Notes:

• Allows you to create email newsletters using WordPress posts.
• Quick integration via API with 3 major email newsletter services
• Doesn’t preserve layouts from Gutenberg or page builders, or styles from buttons,etc. (although it does have a custom CSS area where these things can be defined)
• Could be a quick way to send basic email newsletters from WordPress, but I could also see some “accidental sends” as well.

3. Compare Plugins with Latest Version

Plugin Description: There are several cases wherein the users do not wish to upgrade the respective plugins as there is uncertainty about the loss after making an update. With the all-new WordPress plugin, users can make use of the revolutionary feature of comparing the current files with the new versions.

Nathan’s Notes:

• Adds “Compare files with new version” link on the update notice on the plugins page
• Opens old plugin file and new side by side and highlights what changed
• Could be helpful in troubleshooting updates if something breaks

4. Invisible reCaptcha Add-on for Gravity Forms (This Month’s Gravity Forms Add-on)

TikTok Video Downloader enables downloading videos from any TikTok URLs. Simply find the video’s

[…]

Keep Reading »

This article was written by Kristen Wright and originally published on WordPress News and Updates from iThemes – iThemes.