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nickd32
Member
—
9th August 2011 (9 months ago)
First, let me say this thread may be considered controversial. But in the interest of improving the user experience for WPMU bloggers (and making life a little simpler for WPMU admins), I think it's a worthwhile "white label" discussion.
Many WP plugins have admin/config screens with "extra" info and DIV boxes that most likely aren't relevant to WPMU end-users. For example:
- Click here to Donate
- Upgrade to the Premium edition!
- Latest News/RSS from {Plugin Author}
- Other plugins from {Plugin Author}
- Certain Dashboard widgets
...you get the idea.
Quick Disclaimer
I'm all for supporting (donating to) plugin authors if they do good work, but for WPMU this is most likely going to fall on the Admins who installed the plugin, rather then the end users. I (as the network admin) am probably 100x more likely to donate cash to a developer than one of my clients (many of whom are non-technical folks struggling just to learn basic WP for the first time).
Suffice it to say, I'm interested in a generic way to override certain panels on certain third-party plugins that we use on our WPMU network.
Potential Solutions
1. Hack each plugins' code and comment out the stuff you don't want. But then as soon as you upgrade, they're back again.
2. Create a special admin CSS file and selectively set certain div boxes to display:none;
3. Create a site-wide plugin that (a) creates a list of the active plugins, and (b) filters out boxes you don't want for each plugin.
if (is_plugin_active('plugin-directory/plugin-file.php')) {
//plugin is activated
//remove or hide xxxx div boxes or lists
}
Other Benefits
1. Certain plugins, like Redirection for example, have extra config options (like 404 logging) that I don't want my users to turn on. I would love to be able to disable that option from the plugin.
2. We maintain a support site for our WPMU network with simple tutorials for each plugin. I would love to be able to inject a DIV box onto each plugin's options page with a link to our support tutorials.
Any thoughts from the community on this one? I was going to make a custom mu-plugin for our network, but this might be a cool one for WPMU DEV to develop generically.
First, let me say this thread may be considered controversial. But in the interest of improving the user experience for WPMU bloggers (and making life a little simpler for WPMU admins), I think it's a worthwhile "white label" discussion.
Many WP plugins have admin/config screens with "extra" info and DIV boxes that most likely aren't relevant to WPMU end-users. For example:
- Click here to Donate
- Upgrade to the Premium edition!
- Latest News/RSS from {Plugin Author}
- Other plugins from {Plugin Author}
- Certain Dashboard widgets
...you get the idea.
Quick Disclaimer
I'm all for supporting (donating to) plugin authors if they do good work, but for WPMU this is most likely going to fall on the Admins who installed the plugin, rather then the end users. I (as the network admin) am probably 100x more likely to donate cash to a developer than one of my clients (many of whom are non-technical folks struggling just to learn basic WP for the first time).
Suffice it to say, I'm interested in a generic way to override certain panels on certain third-party plugins that we use on our WPMU network.
Potential Solutions
1. Hack each plugins' code and comment out the stuff you don't want. But then as soon as you upgrade, they're back again.
2. Create a special admin CSS file and selectively set certain div boxes to display:none;
3. Create a site-wide plugin that (a) creates a list of the active plugins, and (b) filters out boxes you don't want for each plugin.
if (is_plugin_active('plugin-directory/plugin-file.php')) {
//plugin is activated
//remove or hide xxxx div boxes or lists
}
Other Benefits
1. Certain plugins, like Redirection for example, have extra config options (like 404 logging) that I don't want my users to turn on. I would love to be able to disable that option from the plugin.
2. We maintain a support site for our WPMU network with simple tutorials for each plugin. I would love to be able to inject a DIV box onto each plugin's options page with a link to our support tutorials.
Any thoughts from the community on this one? I was going to make a custom mu-plugin for our network, but this might be a cool one for WPMU DEV to develop generically.
When Users Go their plugin activation screen, I'd like to remove the generic "Visit Plugin Site" link and replace it with a custom link like "Read Our Tutorial" or "Click here for Our Simplified Documentation" -- basically, that links to our custom support site.
I'm trying to make our WPMU network feel more cohesive, so that users don't have to go on a Googling wild goose chase to learn how to use each plugin.
8202 pointsLike some sort of WPMU DEV GodMindblowingly helpful memberLifetime member
WPMU DEV Fanatic
—
9th August 2011 (9 months ago)
#
Hi nickd32,
I actually had an idea for a Snippets plugin that would allow you, as Super Admin, to provide an unlimited number of code snippets that you could easily enable or disable sitewide or even on a per site basis, all from one Network Admin settings page. You could then use snippets to disable various portions of plugins on the site and easily network enable those snippets.
If you'd prefer a plugin to handle specifically, the matter of removing or rephrasing different facets of plugins, that method may not work so well, but it seems to me that something like that would work for this scenario.
One other thing though, I think a lot of the rephrasing/renaming of plugin elements can be done via language files, no?
A filter adjustment like that would be easy to include on a site via a snippet type plugin as I mentioned too. You just include the code as a snippet and activate it. Just a couple thoughts on it.
9603 pointsLike some sort of WPMU DEV GodMindblowingly helpful memberLifetime member
Sales & Support Pro
—
10th August 2011 (9 months ago)
#
If you know how the plugin adds the information you want to remove you *should* be able to just use remove_filter().
You could bundle as many of these as you like into one plugin that you network activate.
To go one step further you could have some sort of admin panel to allow the turning on and off of filters on a network-wide or per site basis, or maybe even per user.
Going the next step would be a plugin that automatically detects any filters used by plugins although I'm not aware of a method to detect that.
Responses (5)
Member — 9th August 2011 (9 months ago) #
One Other Request (if this becomes a plugin)--
When Users Go their plugin activation screen, I'd like to remove the generic "Visit Plugin Site" link and replace it with a custom link like "Read Our Tutorial" or "Click here for Our Simplified Documentation" -- basically, that links to our custom support site.
I'm trying to make our WPMU network feel more cohesive, so that users don't have to go on a Googling wild goose chase to learn how to use each plugin.
WPMU DEV Fanatic — 9th August 2011 (9 months ago) #
Hi nickd32,
I actually had an idea for a Snippets plugin that would allow you, as Super Admin, to provide an unlimited number of code snippets that you could easily enable or disable sitewide or even on a per site basis, all from one Network Admin settings page. You could then use snippets to disable various portions of plugins on the site and easily network enable those snippets.
If you'd prefer a plugin to handle specifically, the matter of removing or rephrasing different facets of plugins, that method may not work so well, but it seems to me that something like that would work for this scenario.
One other thing though, I think a lot of the rephrasing/renaming of plugin elements can be done via language files, no?
-David
Member — 9th August 2011 (9 months ago) #
I like the code snippets idea -- I think that would be a good start.
Not sure about modifying language files:
1. Not all plugins support that
2. In most cases, I'd rather remove content than rephrase it
WPMU DEV Fanatic — 9th August 2011 (9 months ago) #
The plugin meta row information can easily be adjusted, I believe using the 'plugin_row_meta' filter.
You'll see that filter in use in the Multisite Plugin Manager plugin (by one awesome dev :) ):
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/multisite-plugin-manager/
A filter adjustment like that would be easy to include on a site via a snippet type plugin as I mentioned too. You just include the code as a snippet and activate it. Just a couple thoughts on it.
Sales & Support Pro — 10th August 2011 (9 months ago) #
If you know how the plugin adds the information you want to remove you *should* be able to just use remove_filter().
You could bundle as many of these as you like into one plugin that you network activate.
To go one step further you could have some sort of admin panel to allow the turning on and off of filters on a network-wide or per site basis, or maybe even per user.
Going the next step would be a plugin that automatically detects any filters used by plugins although I'm not aware of a method to detect that.
Phil
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