No Monkeying Around With WordPress Plugins

It's Episode 559 and we have plugins for Monkey Editing, Monkey Proposing, Dino Gaming, Floaty Buttons, Ice Creaming Elementor, Updating Foots… and ClassicPress Options. It's all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!

Snow Monkey Editor, CODE MONKEYS PROPOSALS – Easily create client proposals from your WordPress admin dashboard, Dinosaur Game, Click to Contact – Float Buttons, IceCream Elementor Addon, Update Your Footer WP……. and ClassicPress options on Episode 559.

John's Intro:

This is a value for value show and I look forward to everyone providing some value back.

Before I get started, you will want to hang around to the end of the show for our Q & A segment with Amber…. and to those listening on the podcast, you may want to check out the YouTube version which has some great discussions before the show starts…

Amber's Rant:

This is #19 of 52 episodes for 2022! Hope everyone got their taxes done – I know it's not fun, but it's needed. And remember, once your finished adulting, head out and get yourself a treat for doing so well at playing adult! Chores done, go play.

Do this with a friend and it makes the whole experience way more fun! Ice cream, or cookies, or fruit and yogurt, or a mocha thingy – any kind of awesome treat, and be sure to remove the socials and the media from the entire experience. It adds to the fun. Enjoy!

Rinse and repeat as often as needed.

We have some news from the world of WordPress for you today as well as some great plugins.

News this week:

WordPress Vulnerability Report – April 27, 2022 – This weeks plugins to look at are a few, the more popular ones being: Social Stickers, Advanced Uploader, Custom Tiny MCW Shortcode Button, th23 Social, WPC Smart Wishlist for WooCommerce.

There is also one theme that has since been patched, though be sure to update shortly! Fusion Builder.

MemberPress Plugin is locking users out after support license expires – MemberPress is a popular membership plugin for WordPress, though they have started locking users out of the plugins admin if they do not renew their subscriptions. WordPress subreddit lit up this last week with reports about it. This plugin does not have a free version that you can ‘scale down' to, and although the membership only costs $179 per year for one site, the fact that it now locks you out is kind of an issue for a lot of people, as cutting off access to the plugin's admin screens leaves users without the ability to manage the membership functions of their sites if their subscriptions lapse – so they can't get refunds, add new members, manage memberships, site activations, or do any other actions one can only do through the admin screen.

A pared back web font API may land in WordPress 6.0 … Or not… – The web font API was originally set to come in with WordPress 5.9, then it was shunted down to 6.0, and it is starting to look like it is going to be shunted yet again. Another feature that appears to have been shunted down the line, is ‘Post Author Name Block'. The Beta 1 is out, so you can go and play around with it to see for yourself how the features are doing.

WordCamp US trials new program connecting underrepresented speakers with sponsors for travel and lodging costs – WordCamp US, going on in September from the 9th to the 11th in San Diego, is trialing a new program that would connect speakers from the underrepresented groups with companies that agree to sponsor their travel and lodging. This sounds like it could be great, since people who have amazing things to say and teach may get a chance to stand up on stage and share what knowledge they have!

Munir Kamal updates and overhauls the Block Slider Plugin – The original plugin allowed users to insert a slider block and create the slides directly from the post or page editor. The new approach is similar, though end-users can only edit it from a new ‘Block Slider' post type. For those already using this plugin, be aware that the new version breaks compatibility with your old galleries. Be sure to make a back up to revert to if necessary. There are a lot of benefits to the updated approach, though due to the changes creating the incompatibility issues, it may be a bit of a hassle.

Local launches Atlas add-on for Sandboxing Headless WordPress Sites – Local is a popular WordPress development tool maintained by WP Engine; it has launched a new add-on for quickly spinning up headless WordPress sites on its new Atlas platform. This could be a very useful addition to those who need to test this out for a site!

Coming in Gutenberg 13.2: Users' editor preferences will be stored in the database, improving persistence across sessions – This will help to keep that initial ‘Welcome to the Block Editor!' notice stay gone, keep your preferences for your API's, and a few other things as well.

Stargates, invisibility cloaks, and nuking the moon: The US military's wildest tech research – Really and truly, they are working on an invisibility cloak! They have been working on it since 2009, though I still don't have my Harry Potter cloak…

And Stargates! There has been optimistic work done on this since 2010, though scientists are still flabbergasted on how to get it to work.

And of course, exploding the moon – the reason for this idea is to try and get to the center of the moon to try and find its gravitational well.

The extras – for even more extra news, check out our Facebook, or Twitter page!

This is the extra news stuff that someone out there might find interesting. To read more, you can head on over to the show notes or newsletter and check it out! If you find something to add for next show, send me a link at amber@wppro.ca

Windows malware can steal social media credentials, banking logins and more – This article talks about the various ways that cyber criminals steal your information and use it to spread malware, and how you can work on avoiding this.

Why Brave and Duck Duck Go are cracking down on Google's AMP – This is something that has been coming up a lot over this past week. AMP was a point of discussion in a 2020 anticompetitive lawsuit with the plaintiff arguing the tech makes it harder for publishers to participate in ad auctions on non-google platforms, and then last year Google issued an update to its page ranking algorithm saying AMP pages won't get preferential treatment – or so they say. The whole reason AMP was created was because they said it makes the page loading faster, though there are simpler ways like tuning your website to serve up pages more quickly without resorting to a whole new protocol. Brave and Duck Duck Go and their DeAmping is certainly the talk of the WordPress world.

Exercises you can do at your desk – I tend to spend between 10-12 hours a day actually sitting at my desk since I am still learning, and I wind up falling down rabbit holes all the time which takes time out of my ability to get up and move around. SO, I started looking for exorcises that I can do while AT my desk, and I came across these! These are pretty easy, good for you exorcises that you don't have to leave your desk for. I hope they help out others!

Scammers used AI-generated faces to pose as a Boston law firm – This is something to be aware of, the AI generated faces being used out there to fool people. It's not just happening in businesses like this law firm, it is also happening in other things that are based online – which is what a lot of the world is now a days.

What is Ethereum merge and how could it make crypto greener? – Firstly, Ethereum merge is aiming to make the Ethereum blockchain more efficient by switching from a proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism to a proof-of-stake (PoS) system. PoW, which was pioneered by Bitcoin, is secured by crypto miners solving complex, but pointless, mathematical puzzles – a process that consumes vast amounts of energy. PoS is maintained by users staking crypto to process transactions. Ethereum currently runs both mechanisms, and the merge will combine the two layers into a single proof-of-stake-based chain. All the Ether cryptocurrency on the network will be unaffected by the switch.

US Cybersecurity Agency lists 2021's top 15 most exploited software vulnerabilities – Log4Shell, ProxyShell, ProxyLogon, ZeroLogon, and flaws in Zoho ManageEnging AD SelfService Plus, Atlassian Confluence, and VMware vSphere Client emerged as some of the top exploited security vulnerabilities in 2021. This is a rather comprehensive list, and a great source for those that are interested in these kind of things.

CloudFlare thwards record DDoS attack peaking at 15 million requests per second – On Wednesday Cloudflar disclosed that it acted to mitigate a 15.3 million request-per-second (RPS) distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The web infrastructure and website security company called it one of the ‘largest HTTPS DDoS attacks on record'. The article goes through what happened and how it was repelled.

QNAP advises to mitigate remote hacking flaws until patches are available – Network-attached storage (NAS) appliance maker QNAP on Wednesday said it's working on updating its QTS and QuTS operationg systems after Netatalk last month released patches to contain seven security flaws in its software. This article goes through the flaws and how they were patched.

Google's new safety section shows what data Android apps collect about users – Google has officially begun to roll out a new ‘data safety' section for Android apps on the Play Store to highlight the type of data being collected and shared with third-parties. Great article to teach yourself a little but on what's going on.

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/

This show won't work without YOU the Producers as this is a Value for Value kind of show!

If you find value in our show, toss some value back! Help keep the show going so we can keep on plugging!

Show Producers

This is where we like to take the time to thank everyone who supports the show!

This weeks show Artwork is by:

Greg's Graphics (Greg Holdsworth) — https://gregsgraphics.com

You can Submit Artwork yourself by going to https://wppluginsatoz.com/artwork/

You can also check out all the art work yourself by going to https://wppluginsatoz.com/show-art-submitted/

Show Executive Producer/'s up on the stage this week:

Nobody this week, maybe next week!

Executive Producers are the ones coming in with $50.00 or more in donations. You can also send along a note that will be read out live on the show! You can just say hi, or you can send in your elevator speech and get a little self promotion while donating to a good cause!

Back Room Producers hanging-out in the Lounge:

Back Room Producers play a big part in keeping this show going! Some of these producers are the anonymous benefactors coming in with donations under $50.00.

Our best known Back Room Producers are those who help us out with our contests, artwork, and site organization!

Some of our Back Room Producers help out the show by sending us in notes, questions, plugin suggestions, and plugin reviews.

Other Back Room Producers help out the show by sending in licenses for the contests.

Our least visible Back Room Producers help out the show by hiring us! This is as good as donating, plus we get the added bonus of more experience to bring to our listeners here on the show!

A big thank you to all the Producers out there, we couldn't do this show without you!

Support the show with your Time, Talent, or Treasure:

Time Support:

Subscribe to our newsletter!

Spread the word about WP Plugins A to Z through your social media, YouTube – wherever you find yourself! Get on out there to round them up and rope them all in, then belly up to the bar and enjoy with your catch of the day while we do our best to bring you the latest and greatest of plugins and news with a laugh!

You can also catch us live on our YouTube Channel every Thursday at 11 AM PDT – show up by 10:45 AM PDT to catch our pre-stream! Really quite entertaining most days as we fiddle with the dials and knobs to chase away the gremlins that have moved in since the week before.

Send us in articles, news, or general WordPress information to share either here on the show or on the WP Plugins A to Z site. You can do this anonymously, or have your name attached – just let us know in the email. Articles and General WordPress information will land on the site, while News may land either here on the show, or on the site – or both!

Send us in plugin suggestions or reviews for the show. This can be a plugin you love or hate, your own write up, or just a recommendation for a plugin to review!

Random tasks that need doing. See a task that you'd like to take on? Shoot us an email and we can talk about it!

Talent Support:

Submit Artwork into WP Plugins Art Generator. LOVE seeing the creativity of all the artists out there! Submit your artwork to https://wppluginsatoz.com/artwork/

See somewhere that could use your talent? Shoot us an email and we can talk about it!

Treasure Support:

Donations to the show! Over $50.00 donations will earn you an Executive Producership where you can have your note read out on the show! Under $50.00 donations will earn you a place in our Back Room Producers Lounge!

Patreon! – Yes, Patreon is still a thing that exists and works – and you can even watch our show there!

Something we haven't listed here? Shoot us an email and we can talk!

Want to send something in to us through Snail Mail? You can find us at:

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

Off we go into the meat and potatoes, Into the depths of plugin depravity…..

ClassicPress Options

ClassicPress DOES have a future – we just don't have the time to help ClassicPress get themselves out there right now.

As the ClassicPress World expands the number of ClassicPress specific plugins in their own repository we see them growing. There are a few plugins specifically for ClassicPress currently, and all the plugins for WordPress 4.9.9 work well.

If anyone out there is using ClassicPress and would like to send in some reviews or news, we will gladly add it into this section! You can do so anonymously or let the world know your name – we will respect your choice!

ClassicPress News:

No new updates this week

Check out the new ‘chats' in the forum
https://forums.classicpress.net/

WordPress does have a section devoted to plugins that are compatible with ClassicPress, check it out!
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/classicpress/

If you're looking to learn how to use ClassicPress check out the tutorials on their site.
https://www.classicpress.net/category/tutorials/

For some up to date news on ClassicPress check out the ClassicPress Blog.

ClassicPress Resources:

“Must Have” Plugins List
https://forums.classicpress.net/t/must-have-plugins-list/1163

You can check out the ClassicPress repository here https://directory.classicpress.net/plugins They now have 84 plugins (and counting!) available.

ClassicPress Information – The information that will keep, and help you on your way to understanding and using ClassicPress!

Find out more about ClassicPress 1.4.0 rc2 https://forums.classicpress.net/t/classicpress-1-4-0-rc2-release-notes/3785?fbclid=IwAR3wGK5IW8ssJ-XC4k7IiZMBtSjUTVN2pexk6ATCRvuMN-Fn-McOy-XJJv8

WordPress Plugins

Are you looking for some great newly released plugins? Check out this link:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/new/

——————————–

John's Plugin

Snow Monkey Editor

https://wordpress.org/plugins/snow-monkey-editor/

The Lowdown:

The Snow Monkey Editor is a plugin that extends the block editor.
Click Snow Monkey button in the toolbar.

Extensions

You can adjust settings in inspector.

Hide on smartphone size or tablet size or PC size. (Using media query)
Hide by user roles. (Using render_block filter hook. If it does not pass this filter, it is ignored)
Scroll animation
Publish date time settings
Unpublish date time settings
Edit lock by user roles. (Only administrators can set it)

Block styles

They can be used in paragraph blocks, group blocks, image blocks, etc.

Alert
Alert (Remarks)
Alert (Success)
Alert (Warning)
Fluid shapes
Post-it
Post-it (Narrow)
Shadowed
Speech
List (Arrow)
List (Check)
List (Remarks)
List (Times)
Ordered list (Circle)
Ordered list (Square)

Filter hooks (JavaScript)

Rating 4 Dragons

——————————–

Amber's Plugin

Click to Contact – Float Buttons

https://wordpress.org/plugins/ctc-flatbuttons/

The Lowdown:

This is a nice looking plugin. Once installed and activated, you will find the settings for ‘click to contact' under your ‘Settings' menu option on the left hand side.

In the settings, you have the option of adding your links to just about everything from Reddit to Twitter to Instagram. Once your link is placed, there will be a button automatically created for you. You can choose to have the buttons appear on the left hand side, or leave it as default on the right.

Completely free, beautifully done, very nice plugin! And, I like the way that the buttons go larger when you hover over them as well – though the lack of personalization for colours and look and feel of the buttons makes it a little less than what I was hoping for.

Rating 4 Dragons

——————————–

John's Plugin

CODE MONKEYS PROPOSALS – Easily create client proposals from your WordPress admin dashboard

https://wordpress.org/plugins/code-monkeys-proposals/

The Lowdown:

This is a plugin that will allow you to create your own proposals right in your website. This is a way to help simplify your proposal making for your web business.

Rating 4 Dragons

——————————–

Amber's Plugin

IceCream Elementor Addon

https://wordpress.org/plugins/icecream-elementor-addon/

The Lowdown:

Gotta admit, the name is what caught my attention! I was imagining something about ice cream being added – but that is not what you get through this. Instead, you get 4 widgets added into your elementor:

Fancy Button,
Image Gallery,
Image Hover,
and Menu Image.

The Image Gallery is my favourite, it fits all of your images into a beautifully done mason tile style.

The Fancy Button is really just a button, though you can personalize it any way you want – you can even make it dual colour!

The Image Hover Image… well, it looks like it just sort of shifts upwards when the mouse goes over it. Useful if that is what you are looking for, though I didn't find it overly useful for myself.

Lastly, the Menu Image – this is a really cool design! You throw in a picture, and a menu will appear on the left hand side when you mouse over it! The initial set up is actually quite pretty! You can personalize the menu and set up whatever links you desire.

All in all, I think that this is a great free plugin, a lot of thought seems to have gone into the designs of these 4 widgets, and they work really well.

Rating 5 Dragons

——————————–

John's Plugin

Dinosaur Game

https://wordpress.org/plugins/dinosaur-game/

The Lowdown:

This plugin lets you add the dinosaur game from Google Chrome onto your WordPress site
.
To use it, install the plugin, and use the [dinosaur-game] shortcode wherever you’d like the game to appear.

How to play

• Jump to start a game.
• The object of the game is to run as far as possible. Enemies and obstacles will try to block your path.
• Use the space bar or up key on your keyboard to jump over them. The down key lets you crouch. On mobile, tap on the game area to jump.

Rating 5 Dragons

——————————–

Amber's Plugin

Update Your Footer WP

https://wordpress.org/plugins/update-your-footer-wp/

The Lowdown:

This is a really useful plugin, especially for those who often forget to do things like update their copyright notice in their footer.

With this plugin, all you need to do is place the short code [uyf_wp] into your footer, and it will automatically update your copyright year for you.

May seem to be a rather small thing, but really it's the small things that break us down.

Rating 5 Dragons

——————————–

Random links for plugins

WordPress plugins crafted from love and experience
https://codeat.co/

Listener Feedback / Audio Clips

Feel Free sending in your thoughts to us – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly – we'll take them all!

Listener Questions

There's no such thing as a stupid question! Send your questions to us via email, Facebook, or our website!

There is no contest right now – we are just waiting on the worker bees to return with our next contest!

Be sure to stay tuned to find out what will be available next! If anyone out there would like to help our current worker bees, contact us. Many hands make light work and more contests!

Contests Powered by Simple Giveaways who kindly provides us with the premium version for our contests.

A BIG Thank You to Steve Goodtime & Brant Matthews who have created our Awesome jingle for the contests!

A BIG Thank You to Steve Goodtime & Brant Matthews who have created our Awesome jingle for the contests!

A BIG Thank You to Charlie for coming to the aid of the show and getting our contests all organized!

We also want to give a BIG Thank You to all the Developers for supporting our show with their plugin donations! Please be sure to check them out!

Short note about participating in the contests folks – we go to great efforts to get these licenses. We would LOVE to see a bit more participation from you, The Producers.

Visit http://WPPluginsAtoZ.com/contests for more info.

For all developers who would like to support the show. You can donate a premium license to be used in a future contest please go to WPPluginsAtoZ.com/PluginContest

The plugins we covered were:

John’s Plugins: Snow Monkey Editor – 4, CODE MONKEYS PROPOSALS – Easily create client proposals from your WordPress admin dashboard – 4, Dinosaur Game – 5

Amber's Plugins: Click to Contact – Float Buttons – 4, IceCream Elementor Addon – 5, Update Your Footer WP – 5

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

Reminders / Commercial / Promotions:

Next Week:

Meetup Has Been Planned For June 25th!! Keep tabs on the date at: https://wppluginsatoz.com/meetup – keep an eye to make sure that the date doesn't change on you for any reason (like zombies or wet ninja cats being herded through catnip fields flooding the valley or anything..)

Would you like to be on an interview show? Simply connect at https://wppluginsatoz.com/interview

If you have suggestions on plugins you would like to have reviewed please submit them on the website at https://wppluginsatoz.com/submit-plugin-review/

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 and we will answer to the best of our ability!

• Let me know if you have ever seen this with a plugin:
  Deactivation goes fine, tell it to delete and it takes about 5 minutes of ‘thinking', then it says deleted. But when you refresh, it's still there.
  Any idea what's going on there?

• How do you delete something off your WordPress site when the delete button won't work for you?

• When building sites, have you found one style type over another works better in general, or are there style types that you would recommend to the client based on what they are building their site for?

Closing out this Episode

Just some reminders:

Be sure and subscribe to our Newsletter.

You can support the show at wppluginsatoz.com/donate

All the show notes can be found at: WPPluginsAtoZ.com

You can find and review us at:

Stitcher Radio, Google Play and in the iTunes Store

Follow the show on Twitter @wppluginsatoz

Join Us on Our Facebook Page

Subscribe and Check out our Training Videos, Screencasts and Watch us Live on YouTube every Thursday at Noon PDT

Subscribe to our Newsletter

How to Contact Us:

John can be contacted at:

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

Amber can be contacted at:

• email: amber@wppro.ca