I love WordPress plugins but there are things that other developers do that, as a user, really frustrate me. Now, to be clear, these are issues I have as a user and don’t represent the views of WordPress or Automattic.

In this case I’m going to kill two birds with a single stone with just one plugin that I’ve just installed – To Top.

#1 – Adding an unnecessary menu item

If a plugin adds in a number of screens then it makes sense to collect them all together under a single new menu item. If, however, it only adds one screen, and particularly, if it’s a settings screen, then it’s just a nuisance. In the case of this plugin it does indeed add just a settings screen – this should be a sub-menu option under “Settings”.

Why this can’t be part of the the plugin checks that are performed by WordPress, I don’t know. Indeed, although there are many standards defined for plugin developers, where to put your menus is not one of them.

#2 – Not providing support on WordPress.org

Some plugins authors, happy to make use of WordPress.org for hosting their plugin, then force the user to visit THEIR site for any further support. The thing is, it’s right there – the wp.org support forum is a tab on the plugin page. It’s the obvious place. It’s tightly integrated with WordPress in general, and as well as the plugin author you get the wealth of WordPress experience, including their fine support contributors.

So, for this plugin, on the front page, they make it nice and clear…

Catch Themes team does not provide support for the To Top plugin on the WordPress.org forums. Support is provided at To Top Support Forum

This links through to their own forum, which you have to separately register too. Rather than, you know, the wp.org forum you are already probably signed up to.

In the case of this plugin, I had an issue that I wanted to report but wasn’t prepared to sign up to a third party forum to do it. So. when leaving a review I mentioned it there, as well as marking the score down for having this issue – normally, I’d raise the issue first and see the response before giving any review, which means if they respond to it positively I’m more likely to give a better review score in the end. So, yeah, they end up with, potentially, a worse review as a result.