Plugins from WP 4.9

I do not know and I guess I do not care, either, lol. No idea what problem this solves but it must solve something. All I know currently is that I keep running into WP people posting at various social sites online that ClassicPress is built on 4.9 so plug-in’s will become sparse as devs won’t be supporting 4.9 for much longer. Latest one was at WP Tavern. Just a share to mull upon …

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This is called “moving the goalposts”. First “forking WordPress is too hard”, now “you won’t have any plugins”…

This is why we are maintaining lists of plugins that are working with ClassicPress, officially supported with ClassicPress, and we have multiple developers in our community building solutions just for us.

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They are just trying to belittle ClassicPress in order to convince not educated people that remaining with WP is for them the best option.
And it’s unfair way of competing.
Let’s just show what we are made of in a peaceful way and they are going to shut up one day. Or maybe not, but it won’t matter.

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Yes, that would be accurate if it was written by WP fans. That’s not the case. I see these posts from people who have are sincerely interested in ClassicPress. Their concern, without information to the contrary, causes them to brake and consider other alternatives.

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OK, I agree, “moving the goalposts” is one thing (that we’ve seen a lot of), potential users having questions/concerns is another :slight_smile:

Sounds like we need an updated documentation page with links to our resources and plugins, so that we can share it in response to these inquiries.

See my post to ElisabettaCarrara. This is not deviousness. It’s prospect feedback. What is needed are News Tips and/or Press Releases to media that covers CMSs to communicate the advances. I am considering donating the five to six hours it would take to do this every two months, if a university student cannot be found. I have to think about my schedule but will let marketing team know.

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Yes we are on the same page now. I don’t have much experience with press releases but up-to-date documentation is also an effective and complementary way to respond to these concerns. We’ll be happy for help in this area, hopefully we can do both.

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You are referencing an individual plug-in’s documentation?

We can include links to plug-in page for media within News Tips or releases.

I generally refer people to this page: "Must Have" Plugins List

The list of green ticks is starting to get impressive.

In the initial thread, @easternwawoman brings up a perfectly valid and good point, regarding plugin support for WP 4.9. I am sure this has been brought up many times before.

The point is, Gutenberg is here to stay. As that evolves, the WordPress core will evolve as well, and likely support for 4.9 plugins will as well. That is already happening, with premium plugins no longer supporting. 4.9. So at some point it will come to WP plugins vs. CP plugins, this is inevitable. And I think that will happen within a year.

So, when @easternwawoman says the following, she is completely correct:

“I see these posts from people who have are sincerely interested in ClassicPress. Their concern, without information to the contrary, causes them to brake and consider other alternatives.”

For example, we use Gravity Forms extensively in our sites, tied in with HelpScout etc. We have invested in licensing for quite a few other premium plugins and page builders as well. We have compliance and standard proecudures in place. And I am a small agency in comparison to the larger agencies we work with.

Those plugins are already clear on not supporting WP 4.9. So yes, it is a valid issue. It is really up to the CP community how they want to support or develop plugins moving forward.

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I pretended to be a first-time visitor to the forum. I tried to one-click drill down to get to the Must-Have Plugins List from the forum plugin dir and was unable to do so. Are my neurons doing a midweek misfiring or ?

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I know the developers here are doing the very best they can. Juggling paid work and developing plugins must be a challenging task for what I understand is a small but dedicated and determined group. I salute them for their relentless efforts.

That said, isn’t it a huge task? Is it a do-able one? Wouldn’t it help to spread the word via social to recruit more developers or is that already being done? Because I used to teach, I’m always wondering about reaching out to uni students. They are so eager for experience, resume-builders and contacts. The workload to me is scary!

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Yeah, I know. I bookmarked it because it was so hard to find. Maybe it’s a good contender for some sort of “sticky” option.

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If you are talking about all 57,000 plugins then it’s certainly not do-able. But we can tackle the main types and try and get at least one viable option for each one.

But Avrom highlights a very important issue… the larger agencies have often made a big investment in using plugins that suit their workflow. The way they work revolves around using those plugins, and to say to them: “well, there is this other option that is very similar” is not going to convince them.

Not sure of the answer on that one. But there must be a point where changing their approach to web design is easier than trying to retrain all their clients. I suspect most of these agencies have just installed the Classic Editor plugin and are collectively crossing their fingers.

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This is where a documentation page would help.

No, this would be a page on docs.classicpress.net. That site needs some work before it can accept new content but I’ll post here when it’s up and running…

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“I suspect most of these agencies have just installed the Classic Editor plugin and are collectively crossing their fingers.”

Yes @ozfiddler Alan, that is exactly what is happening with us, and many agencies. There are also other agencies, and plugin and theme developers supporting Gutenberg - so a non-issue for them. Once that Classic Editor no longer becomes an option, many of us will need an alternative. ClassicPress offers that alternative.

“I tried to one-click drill down to get to the Must-Have Plugins List from the forum plugin dir and was unable to do so.”

@james @easternwawoman @ozfiddler Yes a clear menu link and page, on the main website with plugins for ClassicPress (both supported plugins and dedicated CP plugins) is essential. It needs to be clear and easy to find. Really, can only help.

Cheers
Avrom

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Yes, there needs to be something in big bold letters somewhere obvious… “What plugins can I use?

This is probably the No.1 question that people will want answered.

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This.

My opinion is that people go to where people are – meaning first stops at forums. At this stage of CP’s growth and given that plugins are on anyone’s mind that considers migrating from WP to CP, I think it would be wise to prominently display the link, even if in the future this question becomes less pressing at which time the prominent display can be removed.

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It’s very kind of you to offer, thank you! Our first marketing meeting will be next week, if you’d like to attend and share your input. Please consider adding your vote for a meeting time to the Doodle poll up in the #marketing channel on Slack or here in the #team-discussions:marketing-forum.

I have this issue as well. We use GF and ACF extensively.

I agree; it is a daunting task, and from what I know about some of the more complex plugins, I’m not sure it’s something a uni student would be well-suited for. We need experienced developers well-acquainted with the ins and outs of CP Core to develop reliable plugins, and we need those developers to also commit to maintaining those plugins over the long term. If someone builds the plugin but then abandons it, that’s not really all that much help.

Wouldn’t it help to spread the word via social to recruit more developers or is that already being done?

We haven’t reached out with a specific call to action for developers to fork WP plugins and turn them into CP plugins. I’m not sure how it would be perceived; do you think it would show CP in a negative light in any way? We don’t want to be seen as oppositional (either support CP or we’ll just fork your code and make our own!), yet we need to do something or risk being starved out. I’m not sure what the right answer is here that won’t make us sound like we have the attitude of “fork ALL THE THINGS!”

It seems to me that the more diplomatic path would be to work harder/differently at getting the support of existing plugin developers, rather than forking everything and duplicating the work that other developers have already done.

Sadly, in my case, I’ve had to do exactly that on my client sites where I could not avoid it. It’s been frustrating.

Tagging @wadestriebel here to see if there isn’t a way to make it more obvious to a new forum user what plugins can be used safely with ClassicPress.

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Maybe it’s time for a slightly different call to action. I think that the road taken by WP will affect theme developers and developer of plugins oriented to layout (page builders mainly).

Those people can find in CP a way to continue their business.

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