Plugins

I came across Koko on the website of M4WP, a plugin that links your site with Mailchimp.

Koko advertises itself as a privacy-friendly, simple and lightweight analytics plugin for WordPress. It does not use any external services, so data about your visitors is never shared with any third-party. It says it lets you focus on the important metrics, while respecting the privacy of your visitors.

It also says that no visitor specific data is collected, only aggregated counts.

So some data is collected and if aggregated counts is in reference to your individual site then Koko knows how big your audience is, at the very least. That may not concern you or it may. At least we can say that whichever method you use, someone will be collecting data. For example, it says that using Koko means you can stop sharing visitor data with third-party companies who also happen to sell ads. Fair point, I think, maybe.

And it says that Koko will stop unnecessarily slowing down your website if using other methods. I can’t speak to that because what is the real difference? I guess an A-B test is the only way.

There is a free version in the WP Repository, and a paid version that in addition to the features of the free version – Pageview & visitor counts, Realtime pageviews, and Referrer URL’s – also enables Custom event tracking, Periodic email reports, and Email support rather than via the Support option in the WP Repository

I am going to add it to this site so that I can report on it at some point in the future.

Update 12 February 2024

The stats are very clear. So as far as I can see, what is not to like?

Advanced WordPress Reset is another plugin that will reset and restore a WordPress database to its original state when you want to start from scratch with a site. You can also direct it to clean up the uploads folder, delete comments, remove plugins.

I just used this plugin and then WP Reset that I wrote about before, to clean up a test site to start from fresh.

The WP-Sweep plugin is in the WP repository and has, as of the time of writing, over 100,000 active installations. It cleans up the database and comes highly recommended as well as being speedy in doing its job. It comes with a health warning that before you do any sweep, to backup your database first because any sweep done is irreversible. I have used it on this site, and other straightforward WordPress sites, and also on an e-commerce site running WooCommerce.

I deleted WP-Sweep after using it, on the basis that I can always download it as and when I want to sweep away the cobwebs. So where it says there are over 100,000 active installations, there may be others who have done what I have, and junked it after use.

If it’s not clear from the name, the plugin is aimed at developers doing work for clients and managing client dashboards to prevent clients messing up the work you have done. This is a plugin From WP Codeus, who are located in Madison, WI, USA. Apart from their own client work they make three plugins, one of which is Ultimate Client Dash.

There is a free version in the WordPress repository, and a Pro version on their plugin-specific site at Ultimate Client Dash.

From the blurbs, with the free version you can do the following in client dashboards:

• Manage & hide default WordPress widgets, and even create your own.
• Easily create a beautiful landing page while you work on your clients website.
• Add code snippets and easily manage all aspects of Analytics & Pixel Tracking on your website.
• Create custom notices and messages for your clients or users when they login.

In the Pro version you can also do this in client dashboards:

• Give your clients access to only things they need. No more accidentally broken sites.
• Remove dashboard menu items from all roles or the role client.
• Fly your brands colours in the dashboard. Modernise the client dashboard with our custom theme.
• Hide WordPress notification nags & alerts from your clients.

I’m going to have to give this a try because one of the essential things this plugin needs to be able to do is to hide itself. Watch this space.

The Custom Login plugin is in the WordPress repository and it is made by Ben Gillbanks, who is a core contributor. The plugin enables you to customise the login screen on a WordPress install. I like the way you can set it up with a very minimal appearance.

I heard about this plugin when looking at the reply to someone in the WooCommerce Blocks forum who observed that the text disappears to a tiny size when the number of columns increases beyond three. The recommendation was to try rolling back to the previous version of the WooCommerce Blocks plugin using WP Rollback. There’s a wiki for it as well.

That sounded interesting and I looked it up and saw that the plugin is made by the company that makes the GiveWP donations plugin.

The description says that it obviates the need for manually downloading and FTPing the files or learning Subversion. And it says you can rollback to any previous (or newer) version of a theme or plugin. Maybe rollforward should be a word?