Contacting plugin developers to ask for ClassicPress compatibility

We now have a sample email/message that people can use to send to the developers of their favourite plugins.

It has been added to the online FAQs, but I will paste it here too, that seems easier.

Hi there,

You might already have heard of ClassicPress (https://www.classicpress.net), the hard fork of WordPress 4.9.8. It’s in Beta 1 now and the team is working hard on the first production release, ClassicPress 1.0.0. Version 1.x of ClassicPress will always stay backward compatible with WP 4.9.x.

Although I have read that you are working hard to make [PLUGIN_NAME] compatible with the new editor that WP will introduce in version 5.0, I assume (hope) that it also remains compatible with earlier versions of WordPress, such as 4.9.8?

I really hope it is, because as long as your plugin remains compatible with WP 4.9.x, it will also be compatible with version 1.x of ClassicPress.

You probably know this already, but there is even a handy condition that you can use in your plugin:

function_exists( 'classicpress_version' )

And if you want to go even further, you can add somewhere in the plugin’s readme.txt that your plugin is compatible with ClassicPress. Once you do, it will be very easy for people to search in the WP Plugins Directory on ClassicPress compatible plugins: https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/classicpress/

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Thank you very much,
[YOUR NAME]

From this thread: Wordfence and ClassicPress - #8 by pieter

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I’ve tweeted Mark Maunder at WordFence and Sucuri Labs that supports Sucuri.

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Very glad to read that. I have been a customer of Sucuri for years, and very pleased with them. The current main hosting service for WP sites does not support Sucuri firewall due to their own “in-house” security configurations, but stillI have kept a Sucuri subscription active, although I use only part of their tools, since I think that it could become useful for me again some day. It would be really nice if they would support CP the same way they support WP.

Well…it doesn’t mean they’ll do anything. We’re facing an uphill battle to get plugin developers to a) acknowledge CP when they’re facing push back from WordPress/Automattic and b) do something about it. In most cases, it’s not a huge amount of work on their part, but they have to want to do it and see the value in doing it and the value it will create over time.

Quick and probably stupid question:

Does the bit of this sample letter about the “handy condition” apply to themes? Or is there an equivalent, or something? I’m currently writing to the creators of my favourite theme, Nirvana, in the forums at Cryout Creations to ask them about CP support including changing the footer link (normally something one has to pay for) to ClassicPress instead of WordPress. Is there something useful I can say along the lines of, “Your themes can read which it is by looking at [this bit of code]”? Rewriting the rest around multiple themes instead of a single plugin (and making a point of the fact that ClassicPress is business-oriented) is easy enough.

If this was answered elsewhere, I’m sorry I missed it. Thanks!

Yes, function_exists( 'classicpress_version' ) is fine for themes too.

Not a silly question! And great to hear you are reaching out, if there is anything else you need from else to support you reaching out please let us know :slight_smile:

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Thanks @james and @wadestriebel! I left a slightly re-wriiten version of the suggested letter in the support forums on Cryout Creations’ site. I don’t use all that many plugins and a few have been abandoned (but they still work and perform small functions I find extremely useful, like a word count column) but I’ll see how many I can ask. I’m trying to choose routes other than the WP forums just to avoid the whole spam-or-not question entirely. I’ve already emailed one I particularly value, and I’m waiting on a reply. And I know where to direct them if they have questions! :slight_smile:

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I’m struggling to know where to contact people. I’ve gone through some on my theme/plugins list, but either they want to be contacted on the WP forum, or they will only accept support requests if you have a pro account :confused:

I’ve just managed to contact iThemes about BackupBuddy :slight_smile:

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And Imagely for Photocrati with the plugins NextGen and NextGen Plus :slight_smile:

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@Zooey : I know, some are definitely easier to find than others. I understand not wanting to be flooded with repeat questions and requests for changes and who-knows-what-else they get, and I understand some of them do this as part or all of their income, but it does make it difficult at the moment to let them know that they have users migrating over and to assess what that will mean. I’m just going to be happy about whichever ones I can reasonably reach, because each one is still one more we have a reply from, right? :slight_smile:

The creator of List all posts by Authors, nested Categories and Titles (I love this for sorting serials into chapters) replied to an email with this, which isn’t a guarantee about anything later, but it’s a start.
“don’t worry. The plugin is not using (and it does not depend upon) any editor. Backward compatibility with 4.9.8 is guaranteed.”

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Absolutely! Imagely have replied that my request will be passed to their developers and CEO. iThemes have given me a ticket…

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Unfortunately, it looks like I’m going to have to try to find a new theme to use across all my sites. That’s extremely disappointing, especially since I put a lot of time into customizing the colours across various sites and previously gave them a donation (although I never needed a premium subscription). I got a reply from Cryout Creations, who make several free and premium themes, in their support forum:

Thank you for continuing to use our creation.

The classic editor is still available and usable with WordPress 5.0+ releases using the separate Classic Editor plugin.

We will continue to support the classic visual editor with our themes for as long as it is available in WordPress, but for now we are not planning to explicitly support WordPress forks.

If not contacting them directly, Twitter would be the best bet from my experience. Aside from that, tweeting to the WP audience in those powers that be can’t delete tweets like they can with comments on other platforms. We just need to keep pinging devs as much as we can.

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