Description
ObitMaker Lite gives membership organisations, associations, and community groups a structured way to publish and manage obituaries on their WordPress website.
It is built around a one-time setup principle. Configure the Sentence Builder once to define how obituary announcements are worded, then every new obituary is created by filling in the details. The announcement text is built automatically from your templates.
Key Features
Obituary Management
* Custom post type for obituaries, separate from normal WordPress posts
* Auto-generated post titles from first name, last name, and date of death
* Featured image support for obituary photos
* Standard and legacy obituary templates
Sentence Builder
* Define announcement templates using simple and conditional phrase tokens
* Conditional phrase tokens suppress missing fields automatically
* Separate templates for standard obituaries, legacy historical records, funeral details, wake details, and Roll of Honour entries
* Live preview updates as you type
* Named link tokens for directions and other per-obituary links
Roll of Honour
* Display obituaries whose date of death falls in the current month
* Configurable Roll of Honour sentence template
* Shortcodes for current month, specific month, all entries, and all entries by year
* Supports both ObitMaker obituaries and existing WordPress post obituaries
Book of Condolences
* Visitors submit condolence messages directly on the obituary page
* Messages held for admin moderation before appearing publicly
* Email notification when a new message is received
* Edit, approve, or delete messages from the admin panel
* Spam protection with an arithmetic question and honeypot field
* CSV export of condolence messages
Comments & Tributes
* Display tribute messages collected from other sources such as email, letters, or social media
* Text formatted as Name: message displays the name in bold automatically
* Collapsible panel on the public obituary
CSV Export
* Export stored obituary records to a CSV spreadsheet for backup, reporting, or migration
ObitMaker Pro
ObitMaker Pro is a separate plugin available outside WordPress.org. ObitMaker Lite is fully functional as distributed on WordPress.org.
Shortcodes
[obitmaker_lite id="123"]— single obituary display[obitmaker_lite_roll_of_honour]— Roll of Honour for the current month[obitmaker_lite_roll_of_honour month="3"]— Roll of Honour for a specific month[obitmaker_lite_roll_of_honour_all]— all Roll of Honour entries[obitmaker_lite_roll_of_honour_all year="2024"]— all entries for a specific year[obitmaker_lite_book_of_condolences]— standalone Book of Condolences for existing posts[obitmaker_lite_comments_tributes]— standalone Comments & Tributes for existing posts
Who is ObitMaker for?
ObitMaker is suitable for any organisation that needs to publish and manage obituaries professionally:
- Police associations and retired comrades associations
- Military veterans organisations
- Sports clubs and associations
- Professional membership bodies
- Community groups and societies
- Religious organisations
- Any membership organisation that records the passing of its members
Support
For support, contact support@obitmaker.co.uk. When requesting support, please include your WordPress version, ObitMaker Lite version, and a clear description of the issue.
Privacy
ObitMaker stores obituary details entered by administrators, and Book of Condolences submissions consisting of name, email address, and message. Email addresses submitted via the Book of Condolences are stored in a dedicated database table and are never displayed publicly. Site administrators are responsible for ensuring their use of this data complies with applicable data protection legislation including GDPR.
Screenshots
Installation
- Upload the
obitmaker-litefolder to the/wp-content/plugins/directory, or install directly through the WordPress Plugins screen. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins screen.
- Go to ObitMaker Lite Sentence Builder and configure your announcement templates.
- Go to Posts Categories and create a Roll of Honour category with the slug
roll-of-honour. - Create a WordPress page for your Roll of Honour and add the shortcode
[obitmaker_lite_roll_of_honour]. - Go to ObitMaker Lite Add New Obituary to create your first obituary.
- If clicking View Obituary shows a 404 error, go to Settings Permalinks and click Save Changes.
FAQ
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Does ObitMaker work with any WordPress theme?
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Yes. ObitMaker uses a custom post template and shortcodes that work with any properly coded WordPress theme. The plugin includes its own CSS for the obituary display and admin panels.
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Can I restrict obituaries to logged-in members only?
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For member-only or private pages, use WordPress page passwords or a membership plugin alongside ObitMaker Lite.
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Does ObitMaker work with existing WordPress post obituaries?
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Yes. The Roll of Honour shortcodes support both ObitMaker obituary posts and existing WordPress posts assigned to the Roll of Honour category. The standalone shortcodes
[obitmaker_lite_book_of_condolences]and[obitmaker_lite_comments_tributes]can be added to any post or page. -
Is ObitMaker GDPR compliant?
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ObitMaker provides tools to manage obituary data and condolence submissions responsibly. Site administrators are the data controllers and are responsible for their own GDPR compliance.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“ObitMaker Lite” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “ObitMaker Lite” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.0
- Initial release