Fluent Forms developers told me they expect to support CP for quite some time, and FF (free and pro) is about 1000x better than Caldera.
3 Likes
Agreed about FF vs Caldera!
The problem with this is, as with so many other plugins, that it doesn’t really declare compatibility with classicpress
(Note: I’m not sure this is the plugin you actually mean. Please correct me if I’m wrong)
It also includes blocks
Which means it uses functions available only in wp 5.0 above, js scripts not available in cp, and even if it smartly loads things only when needed or available it means you probably will have enqueue “blocks” scripts from the plugin in the front end, and even if all this is carefully orchestrated within the plugin it does encourage people to use it, while the developer didn’t make an official commitment. There isn’t even a trello entry on the roadmap to request said ongoing compatibility or plans to keep it.
So the only information our new user has when he comes to cp and sees this or other posts is “it works/they told me it’ll continue work for a while”
That is not how we will produce a reliable environment for classicpress users
We are putting the users de facto at risk with this.
Just as an example, a very very important and flagship-instance of cp is actually running wp5+ plugins.
Unsafe, openly disclosed vulnerable plugins. Why? Because accidentally that plugin in question is not stating wp4.x compatibility in its read me file and this no update was even shown on the admin side of said website.
Another user here in cp was running compatible plugins who then updated version requirement thru a bug fix. Bad practice? Yes. Will it happen again? Certainly.
I really think we have to stop this “it’ll work for a while” approach.
Either the plugin declares intent to supoort cp ( thru an actual tag or by putting it on our directory) or it should be considered a suboptimal solution if not even a no go area.
I for once Intend to run my sites for as long I can, not for as long as plugin xy decides to maybe keep compatible with cp. building my new sites with a plugin that I don’t know for sure it’s for cp, is a bad decision IMO.
While this is just my opinion, and I do understand what it takes to develop new plugins for 20 users who aren’t willing to pay for it, it’s the only way how we can safely and professionally approach this issue. Correct me if I’m wrong. I’d be more than happy to change this but I don’t think it’s possible in a justifiable and secure way.
Toolset also once said they’ll support wp 4.x “for as long as possible”
So does metabox. “As Long there’s no reason to break it we won’t”
Yet I’ll never trust those kind of statements unless there’s an actual commitment visible in a tag or repo entry.
Even the tag is not trustworthy to 100% but it’s more than a statement in a chat or else instance
Caldera always had tons of outstanding bugs. It wasn’t reliable.
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@anon95694377 @timkaye @anon71687268 Caldera is just a suggestion since it is shutting down. I prefer Gravity Forms, but they don’t support 4.9 or ClassicPress.
Idealistically, yes that’s what we should do. Realistically, many of us rely on WP plugins because there are no CP alternatives yet. For example, on one of my sites, I have many redirects managed by a redirects plugin. On WP I used Pretty Links. When I switched to CP I had to find something else that works because Pretty Links stopped working. So I ended up with SEOPress Pro, it has a built-in redirects manager. This will also stop working eventually. So I’ll need to find another redirects plugin unless someone creates or forks it.
We should definitely use available CP plugins whenever possible, but we can’t stop using WP plugins cold turkey. We still need to have functional websites.
I understand that
But let’s just say that if a plugin author says “yay, I’ll make sure it keeps working” we should the very least “make” him or her do this officially Thru a tag or by putting it on our dir as well
As soon I asked toolset to do that they went ahead and bumped requirements to 5.0
Says a lot.
I’m not saying kill your websites (this is also why this poll is here so devs can actually make more targeted decisions as of what to develop)
It’s a matter of facts that if we rely on unofficial or “it works” we will have troubles
We will forget to check and in a few months or a year or else, you are back at the issue and still no plugin will be here to replace it.
That’s all I’m saying. We need to pull in those who say to keep compatible in a more official way, and push as hard we only can towards our own solutions. Which is hard, I know that.
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It’s designed to work with WP4.5 and above. Yes, it has blocks for those using 5.0+, but the developers are clearly backing both horses at the moment.
I’m not entirely sure what your point is here. Any developer can create a plugin for CP … and then pull the plug at any time. In the end, all anyone can go by are statements of intent.
Yeah, this can happen as well like a plugin be pulled even if made for cp.
However a tag on WP, that says more than “it works”
An entry in our directory is a clear commitment as well.
If the devs intent is as genuine as it is when saying (maybe in a chat or support thread) “will be working for as long I can make it” or similar, which’s less reassuring than an actual “commitment” thru tags or pushing to our directory, they won’t mind adding the tag or even pushing to the dir.
This did happen already.
I do agree, though, we should ask and encourage plugin developers to list their plugin in the CP directory. This is the main indicator of their seriousness in supporting CP compatability.
I’ve had this discussion before with others, but will post here as a general comment. I view plugins as falling into two broad categories. Those where it doesn’t matter too much if they fail, and those that are absolutely critical. So, if an image slider on your site stops working it’s no big deal. If the payment gateway on your e-commerce site fails it’s serious… you are losing sales and losing money.
To me, one obvious place for developing paid plugins is in extensions for Classic Commerce. We really need fail-safe solutions for CC, and e-commerce site owners are more than happy to pay for reliable plugins in this area. They earn money from their sites and any outlay for a plugin is small change for them.
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Yes, I agree. We are getting there slowly with Woo plugins becoming compatible with CP and developers using CC to power e-commerce stores.
Whatever helps people make money, that’s what you can make money on.
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I totally agree with this.
It takes time and a lot of hard work to set up an income-generating website, but while that’s not happening yet, a budget-limited website owner (like me) has no choice but to depend on free plugins.
Of course, when enough money is coming in, I’ll be more than happy to support the developers by donating or by buying their premium products.
How about going even more basic? Just a simple contact form plugin to do the job? No frills, except maybe for anti-SPAM, like CAPTCHA. Many people don’t have a need beyond that.
I’ve checked out the Canuck theme, where the author has included a simple contact form, and i agree with his reasoning, that many folks don’t need the many features of a form builder.
I myself have installed Fluent Forms, but I only need it for a basic contact form. Too bad Contact Form 7 no longer supports WP 4.9…
@anon98749105 I have just pushed a stable version of plugin as you describe above to Git. I plan to submit for review on Monday.
If I understood you right, you would be using something like that (contact form), right? Do you mind if I inbox you so I can send to you the plug for a quick round of “user” testing?
Only if you want, no obligation.
The plugin has no reCaptcha as I consider that unnecessary and also problematic, it however includes a honeypot where bots get captured and stopped from submission.
(reCaptcha can be tricked by bots, so can honeypots, and human spammers can break any barrier as well, so mostly I do not really care a lot about reCaptcha and the likes. Never had issues with it, so far)
The plugin allows you to put a contact form on a page with name, subject, email and message - labels are customisable as well success and error messages + receiver email.
I think this could be a start for something simple, targeted, and easy to maintain. Thus could stay free, and perhaps some AddOns could be done as “pro” supplements (or I could add some filters for developers to add their own logic here and there).
Anyway, let me know if you up for some tests. I am stepping out an hour or two but will be back after.
3 Likes
Sounds like one I’d be interested in, so happy to do some testing.
Yes, I’ll be very happy to test it.
thanks!
EDIT: I don’t mind honeypot. One of the WP plugins I planned to use in CP was WP Armour, which is anti-SPAM using honeypot. But Shield Security already has anti-SPAM for comments, and Fluent Forms has its own honeypot, and so I didn’t install it.
Hi @anon98749105 - cool. @azurecurve already took it for a spin and found a BUG + added a feature request too, which I now will first tackle
I will then contact you inbox for another round of tests once I solved this/added feature.
Might be next week 
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no problem… looking forward to it…
OK so with 7 voters we can’t motivate a developer to produce plugins 
I would have thought there would be more need behind this, but probably everyone is happy using (meanwhile maybe outdated without notification) WP Plugins.
I am closing the poll and will use this, plus Plugin dev help needed for possible dedicated CP plugin - #10 by Pross, "Must Have" Plugins List and What are your top 5 plugin needs? - #24 by Daniel to compiles a list, that shows:
- plugins people seem to use/want most from top to bottom
- wether or not replacement exists
- oterhwise try to reach out to said plugin author and make them officially support CP (or mark it as "not suggested / incompatible)
Based on that I hope dev’s could then (proceed) picking what they want to develop, and users what they want to support, or snippets, or tutorials, whatever adequate.
The contact form plugin bespoken above has been submitted today to the repo (that one that provides remote updates).
As soon it went thru that, it will also be submitted to CP repo.
1 Like