Blog Archives

PublishPress 2021 Review and Thank You

Written on January 26, 2022.

In 2018, we launched PublishPress.com as a side-project. In 2019, PublishPress was growing quickly and we began to see it as a project with real potential. So at the end of that year, we started to write year-end reviews. You can read previous reviews for 2019 and 2020.

These reviews are for our customers. Thank you for all your investment in our work. I hope the reviews help you get a better understanding of our vision for these plugins.
The reviews are for business owners. We try to be honest about the ups-and-downs in the hope that you can avoid some of the mistakes we've made!
And finally, the reviews are for us. We pour many hours of our lives into building these plugins. It's easy to forget key incidents as you do the daily work. And as the years go by, it's great to look back on these reviews and remember the rollercoaster ride.

Here's our recap of key events for PublishPress in 2021.

How to Include Authors in WordPress Search Results

Written on January 12, 2022.

Here at PublishPress, we focus on helping publishers succeed with WordPress. Many of those publishers spend much time to find and showcase awesome authors for their content.

However, we've regularly heard from publishers who have run into a problem: WordPress authors don't appear in search results. This makes it hard to find content written by specific authors.

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to understand and solve this WordPress search problem.

How to Set Default Access in PublishPress Permissions

Written on January 11, 2022.

Earlier this week, we had a question from a PublishPress user. They are using PublishPress Permissions to control access to specific posts and pages.

In the image below, you can see the metabox from the PublishPress Permissions plugin. For each role, you can choose whether or not they can edit this page. The Author and Contributor roles are set to “No”. The Administrator and Editor roles are set to “Yes”.

PublishPress Series Now Has Improved Series Groups

Written on December 10, 2021.

PublishPress Series has a new update this week: version 2.7.1.

The PublishPress Series plugin allows you to collect WordPress content together into a series. This is ideal for magazines, newspapers, short-story writers, teachers, comic artists, or anyone who writes multiple posts on the same topic.

There are a lot of small fixes in this release, and also three improvements that are worth explaining in detail.

Here's an overview of key new features you'll find in version 2.7.1:

Please Update If You Use PublishPress Capabilities

Written on December 8, 2021.

If you use the PublishPress Capabilities plugin, please update to the latest version which is currently 2.3.1.

A week ago, the WPScan team notified us about a security issue in earlier versions of PublishPress Capabilities. That issue is fixed in 2.3.1, so please update your sites.

The WordPress.org plugin team have been very helpful. They are rolling out auto-updates for this security fix, so everyone who uses the version of PublishPress Capabilities from WordPress.org should be covered ASAP. If you use PublishPress Capabilities Pro, please update your site manually.

The most common sign of this issue is new users being created. This Wordfence post has details on how the issue is being exploited.

We apologize for this issue. You trust us with your sites. We need to do better and review our policies to avoid this happening in future releases.

If you have any questions about this issue, you're welcome to send an email to [email protected].

If you ever discover a vulnerability in a PublishPress plugin, we always appreciate hearing from you. Please follow these steps to contact us.

Post Expirator is Now Called PublishPress Future

Written on November 25, 2021.

The Post Expirator plugin allows you to choose an “expire” date for WordPress posts. The plugin has over 100,000 users and has been working reliably for years.

We're delighted to say that Post Expirator is now part of PublishPress and it has new name: “PublishPress Future”.

PublishPress Revisions 3 is Available With a New Workflow

Written on November 11, 2021.

PublishPress Revisions is the plugin that allows you to safely make changes to WordPress posts.

You can edit a post and submit those changes for feedback and approval, before it goes live on your site. It's also possible to schedule those changes to go live on a future date.

All of these features make PublishPress Revisions a popular choice for WordPress publishers.

However, to realize the full potential of PublishPress Revisions, we've made some big updates to how the plugin works.

How to Hide WordPress Dashboard Widgets

Written on November 2, 2021.

When you log in to a WordPress site, you will see boxes full of information. These are called “Dashboard Widgets”.

You will probably see a “Welcome to WordPress!” widget with lots of useful links. There's also a “WordPress Events and News” widget with official updates. There's an “At a Glance” widget so you can quickly see key statistics for your site.

Those are only some of the default widgets. And when you add plugins, they will also add extra widgets. In the image below, you can see a widget called “Easy Digital Downloads Sales” which comes from a plugin.

How to Hide the Admin Toolbar for WordPress Users

Written on November 2, 2021.

WordPress sites display an admin toolbar for all logged-in users. This is visible on the frontend of your site and also in the WordPress admin area.

This toolbar contains shortcuts to key features in WordPress. A user in the Subscriber role will only see a few features. A user in the Administrator role may see a very busy toolbar, particularly on a site with many plugins. This image below shows my toolbar here at PublishPress.com:

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