You should listen to it, especially if you’re a plugin developer.

If you would rather download it directly you can do that too, or subscribe to this show via RSS or on iTunes. If you would prefer a written summary, you can also read that just after the jump.

Deactivating and uninstalling a plugin are not the same thing

Let’s talk about plugin options. Specifically, what I expect as a user when I deactivate a plugin, versus uninstall one. WordPress has some hooks built in that help enable plugin others to do things, namely register_activation_hook, register_deactivation_hook, and register_uninstall_hook. The deactivation hook and uninstall hook are great places to trigger certain things. Unfortunately, too many plugin authors unset options in the wrong one.

When I deactivate a plugin, I’m not really trying to totally remove the plugin from my site, but rather just turn it off. So when a plugin author deletes all of the options I’ve selected on a plugins’ settings screen on the deactivation hook, it makes me angry that I have to go and reset them when I turn it back on. So angry that I might just find another solution for what your plugin is doing.

What they should be doing instead, is removing these options, and everything else, with the uninstall hook. When i uninstall a plugin completely, it is safe to assume I am finished with it, and it is the appropriate place to take such action. But when I simply deactivate, in all likelihood I’m just debugging something in my theme or another plugin, or maybe backing up or upgrading something.

So consider this a friendly message to plugin developers, and future plugin developers – remove options on the uninstall hook, and not the deactivation hook.

In this episode of Pressbits I discuss the hesitance I sometimes see in folks to release their code as WordPress plugins. Listen, I dare you:

If you would rather download it directly you can do that too, or subscribe to this show via RSS or on iTunes. If you would prefer a transcript, you can also read that just after the jump.

Mine your work for plugins that you can release

Sometimes I get the sense that someone is shying away from releasing any of their work as a plugin. They will say things like “this isn’t that complex” or “this isn’t worthwhile or unique”. But the thing is, we (the community) need more plugins that are small, simple, and compact.

Dig into your functions file, your functionality plugins, or even stray code that you have within your theme files. Be watchful for what could become a general public plugin. If not for your own sake — some aren’t interested in maintaining plugins on WordPress.org, which I get — then release them for me. I want to see your awesome ideas, the ways you have solved your own problems, and whether they might be useful for myself or others. Some of my favorite plugins are not big and powerful, but small and very specific.

One thing I’ve learned by being a part of the WordPress community (or is it communities?) is that code you keep to yourself can end up stale and weak. Sharing code, on the other hand, using WordPress.org or Github (my two favorites) means that others can add to and improve on your code. It also helps to bring you further into the community and makes others aware of you and your ideas.

Personally I try to turn as many of my site’s features into plugins as possible (internally). They instantly become easier to manage and seem generally more organized than as scattered functions in a file or two. Now I just need to take my own advice and release a slew of my own tiny, purpose-specific plugins.

Are you sitting on any code (read: solutions to problems) that you could take a few minutes to release as a plugin?

This morning Collis Ta’eed announced on the Envato Notes blog that their price adjustment tool, previously available to Envato Elite authors on their marketplaces that reached $75,000 in sales, is no longer available. Normally prices on the Envato marketplaces are set by Envato during the product review process, and not by the author of the product. The price adjustment tool, announced last year, allowed certain authors to test out different prices for their products beyond what the marketplace would set for them.

The change, Ta’eed said, comes to prepare for the next major change to Envato’s pricing strategy. The introduction of variable pricing for certain elite authors was Envato’s first step toward dynamic pricing. “While it has had some success,” he said, “it’s become clear to us that it’s not the long-term solution.” The updated pricing solution — while what it is isn’t exactly clear yet — is slated for release “later this year”.

With the pricing tool removed, any marketplace products with modified prices will be left at the last price their author left them at. This affects 160 current authors who have already reached the $75,000 Elite level.

As a replacement for the price adjustment ability, which was the main draw at the $75,000 Envato Elite level, authors will be given an Elite badge on their products and the ability to give themselves a custom forum title. Each author will also 12 months of Envato’s Tuts+ Premium membership.

Ta’eed recognized in his post that this news could disappoint authors. He said:

In the meantime I wanted to give a personal apology for the inconvenience of not having access to the price adjustment tool. I know many existing and new Elite authors were warming up to the tool and increasingly using it. And I realize that in those cases, our new additions will likely not make up for the removal.

Responses to the announcement in the ThemeForest forum are mixed, though some are disappointed at the change and, sometimes, lack of communication. Orman Clark, who has quite a sales record on ThemeForest, responded in disappointment at the news:

As someone that operates their entire business through ThemeForest, and has managed to grow a small team around it, substituting one for the other is not going to wash. And while everyone can always learn something new, 12 months access to Tuts+ is hardly a worthy replacement or incentive based on the assumption that Elite authors have already got some skills to pay the bills.

Ta’eed did join the discussion in that forum thread, answering questions and responding to suggestions. It’s an interesting discussion if you’re interested in some of the dynamics and thought process behind the largest WordPress theme marketplace in the world.

In this, episode 30 of the WPCandy Podcast, we officially adopt a new format for the official show. In short, the goal is for the WPCandy Podcast to deliver a higher awesome per minute ratio, and be the “if you only listen to one WordPress podcast, listen to this one” podcast.

But that’s not all. In this episode Brian and I recap on 2011 at WPCandy, and I sit down to interview Andy Skelton and Joen Asmussen from Automattic about the WordPress.com/Jetpack year-end reports (example).

You can listen to the podcast here:

This week’s episode is just over 41 minutes long. If you want to jump ahead:

• 00:50 Ryan and Brian reminisce on 2011
• 14:55 Interview with Andy Skelton and Joen Asmussen

Subscribe to the show on iTunes, or directly to the RSS feed. As always you can send any emails you would like to have included on the show to podcast@wpcandy.com. The download link is just after the jump.

If you would like to download the podcast in MP3 format directly, you can do so here.

E-commerce is becoming more of a hot topic within the WordPress community. Given this realization, we’ve seen plugins like WooCommerce be released free of charge, among other great e-commerce plugins.

Envato, the company behind ThemeForest and CodeCanyon (just to name of a few of their properties), put up a bounty to plugin developers. They see a need for more e-commerce plugins to be available in their marketplace and they’re willing to pay to get those plugins up there.

Here are the details about the bounty.

• Date Posted: January 11, 2012
• Prizes: 20 winning files will get a share of $2,000 of prizes! 20 x $100 “cash” (payable via either PayPal or Moneybookers).
• Maximum Prizes per Author: 3
• Closing Date: February 11, 2012
• Files We’re Looking For: WordPress e-Commerce Plugins built for the following plugins:
• WP e-Commerce
• WooCommerce
• Jigoshop
• Cart66
• An item created and converted to another sub category is allowed! So for example, a Cart66 plugin converted to Jigoshop and WooCommerce has the potential to win $300 (presuming they are all one of the first 20 items submitted/approved of course).
• “Standalone” and “Other” plugins are NOT eligible for this contest.
• Envato Staff are NOT allowed to enter Envato’s Most Wanted. Volunteer Community Moderators ARE allowed to participate.
• Where Files Should be Submitted: http://codecanyon.net/category/plugins/wordpress/e-commerce within the appropriate sub category.

You still have another week to get your plugins in and capture up to $300 of that bounty.

Ed: Tripawds is, in all honesty, a very touching site. It is a community of bloggers and users supporting canine amputees. The site is run by Jim and Rene Nelson, and just so happens to be running on WordPress. Jim offered to share some background information on Tripawds when he saw our ongoing Behind the Site series.

In this series, a WordPress site’s owner walks us through what makes their site unique and how it does what it does. At this point I’ll hand it off to Jim, who wrote about he and his wife’s site below.

About Tripawds

Never in our wildest dreams did my wife and I ever imagine that running the largest online community for canine amputees and their people would become our full-time labor of love. But that is exactly what the little blog we started when our dog Jerry got cancer back in 2006 has become.

Home to more than 750 sites now, with over 3,000 members and more joining everyday, the Tripawds Blogs Community offers helpful resources, information and support to anyone facing amputation for their dog. We maintain free three-legged dog blogs, discussion forums, a live chat room and much more. And we couldn’t do it without WordPress multisite.

We have had our share of growing pains with the site over the years, migrating from a simple WordPress install on shared hosting to WPMU and finally to WordPress multisite, now on our own server. But the gratitude of members who find the site helpful makes it all worthwhile. I suggest anyone interested in how to grow a niche website or hearing our tips for maintaining an online community read my guest posts on ProBlogger.

Favorite Plugins

Since I’ve written an overview of all the best WordPress multisite plugins we’re using to build the Tripawds community, I’ll just review a few of my favorites in more detail here.

The Tripawds discussion forums are powered by the massively configurable yet easy to use Simple:Press Forums plugin. Simple:Press can be deployed across a multisite network, but we run forums on the main site only to provide a central location for all discussions. We use various forum topics to keep the community updated about news in our featured blogs. And the built-in Private Messaging option allows members to easily communicate directly with each other using a searchable username directory or their own Buddy List.

Any registered member can have a free Tripawds blog. By upgrading with a Supporter Subscription, however, they will have ads immediately removed from their site, get their upload quota increased, and gain access to additional plugins and premium themes. We do this all automatically using the Pro Sites plugin which allows us to easily offer enhanced features for paid subscribers.

Since the WordPress Admin Bar is only visible to logged in members, and it’s search field will only return results of the site being viewed, we’ve created a Tripawds Search page using the Global Site Search plugin that will search all blogs across the network at once.

Speaking of the Admin Bar, we have facilitated network navigation for Tripawds members with the Custom Admin Bar plugin. This lets us easily create a custom menu with our most popular resources easily accessible from any page, of any site on the network, even within a user’s dashboard.

Another way we direct members to helpful content is with the Admin Ads plugin. Instead of using it to show advertisements in a user’s dashboard, however, we display a list of quick links. This also comes in handy for notifying members about special announcements or site maintenance.

To help all our new members get started blogging, we’ve embedded various Unbranded Help Videos on the Tripawds Help page. We use a Technical Support discussion forum to provide additional help as needed.

Speaking of new bloggers, we use the Default Blog Templates plugin to configure every new site with the specific theme, widgets, blogroll links, and other settings I want them to have. We use this to help novice bloggers with info about getting started in their sidebar and links to our featured blogs in their blogroll.

One more free plugin I like that helps us keep members informed about news from the Tripawds community is the WordPress Multisite Dashboard Feed Widget. This lets us display recent posts from our featured blogs in user dashboards. It works by pulling in posts from a specified RSS feed. Anyone interested in learning how I created a feed for specific blogs should read my post about how to create a recent featured posts feed.

I could go on and on but I’ll wrap this up with bit about our theme and the role it played in improving site performance.

Long Overdue Theme Overhaul

After more than four years, the original theme we chose for Tripawds had become bloated with hacks, scripts and hard-coded widgets. After troubleshooting site performance issues we identified the theme as a primary cause for slow load times. Users were complaining and posts were getting dropped when saved to the forums. A site overhaul was long overdue.

I chose WPMU-Nelo for its custom homepage, multiple widget areas, menu support, built-in social networking bar and profile panel option; but most importantly for its clean, slim code base. For most people, Nelo’s many configuration options will suffice for designing a professional site to meet the needs of any business or organization. But I like to be difficult.

I added dynamic community user and member stats to the header, implemented random header images, and edited the profile panel which shows a log-in area to visitors or helpful dashboard links to logged in members. Anyone interested can read about how I customized the Nelo theme in more detail.

What’s Next?

The Tripawds community is just one of the WordPress sites I maintain. In the future I’ll be applying the expertise I’ve gained from growing this community to other niche markets.

Many thanks to WPCandy for choosing to take a peek behind the site at Tripawds. We’re always happy to share with the world how it’s better to hop on three legs than to limp on four.

Be featured on “Behind the Site”

Ed: Thanks for telling us about the site Jim!

If you have a WordPress site with an interesting story, an interesting mix of plugins, or a clever use of a theme, let us know and it just might be the next site we take a peak at behind the scenes.

In the meantime, what do you think of what Jim and his wife are doing at Tripawds, and how it works? Did you see any plugins in his list that you are going to check out now?

I recorded a Pressbits episode just for you:

If you would rather download it directly you can do that too, or subscribe to this show via RSS or on iTunes. If you would prefer a transcript, you can also read that just after the jump.

On simple plugin updates

I try to pay close attention to plugin updates. Not as close as WordPress updates, though when it’s a plugin I’m using it’s just as important to me.

One of my favorite dashboard-tweaking plugins has been, for some time now, the Expandable Dashboard Recent Comments plugin by coffee2code (I believe I mistakenly referenced Viper007Bond as the author — sorry Scott!). I’ve mentioned it on The Sweet Plugin before, but in short it allows you to expand the comments you see on the dashboard (the previews you use to quickly approve or trash new comments). It saves me a page load since I don’t have to visit the comments screen, which I like.

The plugin update (released in the last couple of weeks) includes a user interface improvement. Previously the link to expand the comments was a double arrow placed inline with the comment text. The plugin update moves the control to the comment action links, right next to approve, spam and trash.

This brings the plugin more in line with the standard WordPress dashboard UI, which is something every plugin should aim for. Not every plugin update needs to be something major, or even specific to functionality. coffee2code is making a point to revisit and update all of his released plugins right now. I think stepping back and improving UI in a simple way like this – particularly for something users might be using a dozen or more times each day – is well worth the effort.

Matt Alexander has sold themes on ThemeForest for 2 years now, under the username digitonik. He’s ready to break free and start out on his own.

Matt decided to focus on the business side of themes, and offer them in a bundled fashion just like Elegant Themes is doing.

Matt’s new WordPress theme shop is called the “WP Business Bundle.” Props to Matt for being mindful and not violating the registered WordPress trademark owned by the WordPress Foundation.

I caught up with Matt and asked him why he made the move.

I can’t say it any better than he can, so here’s what he had to say.

1. Older themes that do not sell thousands in the first few weeks do not really get the exposure I feel they deserve. I hate putting in hours or months of work on a theme only to see it barely being used. Creating my own store allows me to highlight older themes and bring them back to life. I never liked the fact that a beautiful theme barely gets used after a few weeks once it is bumped off the first or second page.
2. With so many people joining in on the TF bandwagon it’s harder to compete with some of the ones who really have big exposure. I did fairly well on TF but I though I just could do better on my own.
3. I do not like how they pay affiliates. A one time payment only on the first deposit is great for TF but not that great for the affiliate. I chose a subscription model. This way affiliates will get paid for the initial signup and also every month for the life of that customer. This I feel rewards the affiliate more and also keeps them promoting my theme shop for the long term. My affiliate program is not live but will be soon.
4. Financially it was not making sense. Some people don’t mind it but I feel providing lifetime support for a $35 theme was just not a viable option and is kind of crazy. With a subscription model I only provide support to members who have an active subscription. I believe Elegant Themes does this as well. It is also kind of annoying to deal with support on TF. You have to deal with emails, a different thread for each theme, do I have a support forum or not? Just a lot of ways for support questions to fall through the cracks. With one focused support area I rarely miss a thing. Currently using TenderApp and it rocks!
5. Back to the old debate from a few months back on theme prices. I like having the option to control the prices and also keep my themes and plugins all in one store. Just being able to control that aspect and also change things from customer feedback is great!
6. One more thing to add. I think they (TF) completely under value the price of a great and functional plugin. With standalone plugin shops like Gravity Forms selling licenses anywhere from $39-$199. Authors could totally make sites for their plugins alone and do 10 times more sales with the higher prices.
7. Overall my reason was just the entrepreneurial drive to try new things. I also like building a brand up from nothing and the excitement of growing it and having loyal customers is a great feeling.

All that to say, he is still likes ThemeForest and thinks they have a great service, but he had outgrown the need for the service. In fact, his website actually uses a theme purchased from ThemeForest, at least until he gets off the ground running and has time to develop his own theme for the shop.

Responsive design is definiteively a topic for 2011 and converging into 2012. Having a responsive design is more than just having a “mobile friendly” site. It’s about having a site that will look great and functionally work on nearly any device; whether it’s an iPad, a Kindle Fire, an iPhone or Droid, all the way back to the desktop.

Take WPCandy.com for example. If you were to resize the browser, it would work seamlessly without any issues. Not all sites do this, and most WordPress themes are not responsive yet. A few theme and framework creators have started creating responsive themes, but it’s still a long ways away before all of them are.

Enter stage left, ResponsivePlugin.com; created by Marios Lublinski, who runs Dessign.net, a site about creating modern and clean WordPress themes, conceived the idea of helping making all WordPress themes responsive.

There’s no mention yet about whether it’s going to be a free or premium plugin, but I imagine it will be a premium plugin, given that it has its own domain. Most free plugins offered, don’t have their own domain.

I’m really excited about this plugin because, if he can execute it properly, it will help make so many websites responsive and easier to read on non-desktop experiences. It’s a great idea and wish him all the success in creating the plugin.

When the plugin is released, do you think you’ll grab a copy to help make your site responsive?

If you would rather download it directly you can do that, or subscribe to Pressbits via RSS or on iTunes. A summary of this episode is after the jump.

Do your clients understand the admin you’ve given them?

You’ve built some pretty cool features into a website, and you’re about to hand it over to your client. But do they know what to do with these features, and how to use them? Do they even know they exist? What good is it if they login and get overwhelmed?

Unless you tell them, they probably don’t know where to go, or what to do, or how to navigate the backend at all. There are options out there to help you clean up the clutter, and I personally use the White Label CMS plugin to help me do that. Not only does this plugin let me select some unnecessary (for the client) menus to hide, but I can quickly create a couple of helpful widgets, like one with quick links to help and our company support contact information.

So before you wrap up your next client site, take a step back and put yourself in a beginner’s shoes to make sure that the experience isn’t too overwhelming, and offers them clear direction of how to operate the site as soon as they log in.