Yeah, I have to agree.
But don’t abandon it just yet—you can disable that horrifying plugin list styling if you comment out the contents of the following file:
yoursiteurl/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-tinymce/includes/style.php
Plugin Author
Josh
(@josh401)
Horrifying? Really? I found it quite pleasant. I suppose I could tone it down a bit. But, isn’t it somewhat encouraging to know you have a developer who is into these things… and takes the time to study them and experiment with them?
Alerts – Can all be disabled by clicking the “hide message”.
Custom Formatting – Can be removed as defined above.
The reason I went with the backend formatting is that I know a LOT of sites get installed for clients, who have never viewed the backend of their website.
I find it an inexpensive (free if not including time) way of advertising. Clients who have never viewed the plugin list will immediately take notice of that particular plugin.
The alerts have all been added for various reasons:
1. Visit Settings Page – You have no idea how many emails I receive about how to change the settings of the plugin.
2. Donation – I’m sure you can understand this one.
I try to make EVERY one of my options selectable. Meaning, if you don’t want to use it… the code never gets rendered. I agree, and don’t like obtrusive info, which is why I make all of my alerts permanently dismissable.
I welcome ALLL feedback 🙂
I too find this highly annoying. It does not fit in with the rest of the WordPress theme, and I think that if everyone did this then the blog admin is going to start looking like a visually terrifying web page from the late 90’s-early 2000’s.
Additionally, the WordPress plugin guidelines (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/about/guidelines/) specifically state:
Plugins should not hijack the blog admin. It is fine to include an Upgrade prompt on the plugin admin page, but not throughout the blog. It is acceptable to embed a widget on the dashboard but this should be the same size as others and be dismissable. It’s fine to put an error message at the top of the admin for special cases, but it should be linked to a way to fix the error and it should be infrequent. Any form of “nagging” is absolutely prohibited.
And:
In general, things like banner or text link advertising should not be anywhere in a plugin, including on its settings screen. Advertising on settings screens is generally ineffective anyway, as ideally users rarely visit these screens, and the advertising is low quality because the advertising systems cannot see the page content to determine good ads. So they’re best just left off entirely. Putting links back to your own site or to your social-network of choice is fine. If the plugin does include advertising from a third party service, then it must default to completely disabled, in order to prevent tracking information from being collected from the user without their consent. This is the method commonly known as “opt-in”.
Your plugin does both of these. (and this could be easily seen as advertising within WordPress). Although, the second one (advertising) I’m not too worried about, as a developer I know that its nice to at least receive some compensation for something you’ve put many hours into (as you obviously have) — so I can’t fault you for that. The plugins page however, looks terrible, is intrusive, and is against WP plugin guidelines.
Aside from that, it’s a really good and handy plugin, but I absolutely hate anything that touches my WordPress admin outside of a single settings page. At best, this should be “opt-in”.
I would say that if this is not fixed by the next version I’ll likely downvote the plugin.
Plugin Author
Josh
(@josh401)
Granted. That is the most informative breakdown I have heard. Now THAT is the type of feedback I am looking for.
The newest version, 2.4, has the option to disable the styling of the admin plugin listings page.
Everything else is going to soon be removed. I have decided to go with a free version (here) and a pro version (paid). I will notate it in the changelog so that current users will know not to update (or they can if they want).
Then, I can include all the premium addons I currently have into the pro version, and consolidate everything to two plugins.
Ultimate Tinymce has been an experimental plugin for me to learn the “behind-the-scenes” of wordpress. I will get it back to a normal looking wordpress plugin, and then offer the pro version to those who are interested.
In the meantime… don’t forget about the option to disable the styling 🙂
@josh, I find your candor and lack of defensiveness refreshing. My Editor uses your plugin and likes it because he does not do HTML. We have little need for all the bells but like the fact that they are available and like that they are “choosable”.
I do have a question. We are currently still on a shared server. Is this plugin “expensive” as far as memory? I did turn off the new feature to refresh the page everytime it loads.
Thanks
Plugin Author
Josh
(@josh401)
Thank you.
Honestly, I haven’t put the plugin “through the ringer” as far as speed tests.
1. I will run some tests this evening and put together some “understandable” results.
2. The refreshing of the tinymce editor should consume very little resources… as all it’s doing is clearing the cache. However, if you never adjust the editor buttons or features, you won’t need this feature enabled. Basically, it’s there to help you get the editor “tweaked” how you like. If you make a change, and don’t see it reflected in the editor… enable this option and refresh, then disable if you are concerned about resources.
I’ll post back with some speed tests later this evening.
I agree with the above aroud intrusiveness (alerts, custom formating)AND I appreciate your openess, Josh, to take feedback into account. Thanks.
What a great plugin ! 🙂
just uploaded the plugin, great, but what is the large grey shadow bar in the plugins list page, I would donate happily but pushing it into ones face is not cool
Plugin Author
Josh
(@josh401)
There is an option in the settings page to “Disable plugins list css styling”. This will remove the modified formatting on the plugins listing page.
