Roots Dev’s Favorite WordPress Plugins and Utilities

https://roots.io/favorite-wordpress-plugins-and-utilities/

I asked Brandon Nifong, Mike Spainhower, Craig, Evan Mattson, Nathan Knowler, and Matt Mirus for their recommendations on WordPress plugins and any relevant Composer packages they use on their sites. Here’s what our list of most frequently used WordPress plugins looks like!

Free WordPress plugins

  • Better Search Replace for performing a search/replace on the database $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/better-search-replace
  • Breadcrumb NavXT for breadcrumb trails $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/breadcrumb-navxt
  • Disable Comments for globally disabling comments on any post type $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/disable-comments
  • Duplicate Post for cloning posts from any post type $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/duplicate-post
  • Easy WP SMTP for configuring WordPress to send emails through any SMTP server $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/easy-wp-smtp
  • HTML Forms for straightforward and flexible forms in WordPress $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/html-forms
  • Imsanity for automatically resizing large image uploads $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/imsanity
  • Intervention for cleaning up and customizing the wp-admin $ composer require soberwp/intervention
  • Post Type Switcher for reassigning any post to a new post type $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/post-type-switcher
  • Query Monitor for WordPress dev tools $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/query-monitor
  • Restricted Site Access for enforcing user logins or whitelisting IPs for access $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/restricted-site-access
  • Safe Redirect Manager for managing redirects $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/safe-redirect-manager
  • Safe SVG for allowing SVG uploads $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/safe-svg
  • Simple Page Ordering for re-ordering any type of page or post with drag and drop $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/simple-page-ordering
  • Stream for logging activity on your WordPress install $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/stream
  • The SEO Framework for fast SEO with automated titles and descriptions $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/autodescription
  • WPBruiser for preventing spam comments and brute force attacks $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/goodbye-captcha
  • WP Stage Switcher for switching between different environments from the admin bar (by Roots) $ composer require roots/wp-stage-switcher
  • WP Term Order for re-ordering any term with drag and drop $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/wp-term-order
  • WP User Avatars for allowing users to upload & select their own avatars $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/wp-user-avatars
  • WP User Profiles for a different way to edit users $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/wp-user-profiles
  • WP-Optimize for automatically cleaning your WordPress database $ composer require wpackagist-plugin/wp-optimize

Paid WordPress plugins

Utilities/Composer packages

Performance Lab

By WordPress Performance Group

https://wordpress.org/plugins/performance-lab/

Description

The Performance Lab plugin is a collection of modules focused on enhancing performance of your site, most of which should eventually be merged into WordPress core. The plugin allows to individually enable and test the modules to get their benefits before they become available in WordPress core, and to provide feedback to further improve the solutions.

Currently the plugin includes the following performance modules:

  • WebP Uploads: Creates WebP versions for new JPEG image uploads if supported by the server.
  • Persistent Object Cache Health Check: Adds a persistent object cache check for sites with non-trivial amounts of data in Site Health status.
  • Audit Autoloaded Options: Adds a check for autoloaded options in Site Health status.
  • Audit Enqueued Assets: Adds a CSS and JS resource check in Site Health status.
  • WebP Support: Adds a WebP support check in Site Health status.

Koko Analytics – An open-source analytics plugin for WordPress

Koko Analytics – An open-source analytics plugin for WordPress that does not use any external services and respects your visitors’ privacy.

view a demo of Koko Analytics here.

Features

  • Plug and play. After activating the plugin, stats will be collected right away.
  • No external services. Any data about your visitors never leaves your site.
  • No personal information or anything that could lead back to a specific visitor is tracked.
  • Fast. Koko Analytics can handle thousands of daily visitors or sudden bursts of traffic without breaking a sweat.
  • Option to not use any cookies while still being able to determine returning visitors and unique pageviews.
  • Option to exclude certain user roles from being tracked.
  • Option to automatically delete older data.
  • Built-in blacklist to filter referrer spam.
  • Compatible with pages served from cache.
  • Compatible with AMP powered pages.
  • Completely open source (GPLv3 licensed).
  • GDPR compliant by design.

commonWP

Description

commonWP is a plugin that enables usage of free, public CDN (jsDelivr) for open source JavaScript and CSS files. Those files are:

  • All files from WordPress core, unless development version of WordPress is used.
  • All files from plugins hosted by WordPress.org Plugins Repository, unless author of specific plugin doesn’t use SVN tags for releasing.
  • All files from themes hosted by WordPress.org Themes Repository.
  • All files from plugins and themes hosted on GitHub that support GitHub Updater.
  • All files marked as available on npm in any type of theme, plugin, or MU plugin.

Beaver Builder

Custom module developer guide

http://kb.wpbeaverbuilder.com/article/124-custom-module-developer-guide#overview

Create a plugin

  • Make a new folder in plugins: bb-plugin-custom
  • Create a php file with the same name: bb-plugin-custom.php
  • Copy-paste this in the file:<?php
    /**
    * Plugin Name: My Custom Modules
    * Plugin URI: http://www.mywebsite.com
    * Description: Custom modules for the Beaver Builder Plugin.
    * Version: 1.0
    * Author: Your Name
    * Author URI: http://www.mywebsite.com
    */

    define( ‘MY_MODULES_DIR’, plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) );
    define( ‘MY_MODULES_URL’, plugins_url( ‘/’, __FILE__ ) );
    function my_load_module_examples() {
    if ( class_exists( ‘FLBuilder’ ) ) {
    // Include your custom modules here.
    }
    }
    add_action( ‘init’, ‘my_load_module_examples’ );

  • Edit the information such as Plugin Name and Author. You should also rename the constants MY_MODULES_DIR and MY_MODULES_URL to match your plugin’s namespace, keeping the _DIRand _URL suffixes.

Add a module to your plugin

 

Overriding built-In modules

Any of the built-in modules can be overridden within your theme by following the steps below.

1. Create a new folder in your theme’s folder named fl-builder.

2. Create a new folder within your theme’s fl-builder folder named modules.

3. Copy the module you wish to override from wp-content/plugins/bb-plugin/modulesto your theme’s fl-builder/modules folder.

That’s it! You can now start editing the module to suit your needs. Note that even though you can customize the module’s code, the module’s folder name, main PHP file name, and main class name must remain unchanged to be recognized by the builder.

If you’re not seeing your changes, try clearing the Page Builder cache.