Today marks a momentous occasion – for most of this year I’ve been trying to bring my 18 WordPress plugins up-to-date and, as of this morning, it’s now complete.

You see, I’d allowed my WordPress plugins to fall behind in their updates, for various reasons, and changes were required to them all – not enhancements but basic maintenance tasks.

Why did it take me so long? Quite simply, time. With a new job, I need to prioritise that above everything else. Now, more settled I’ve been able to find the time to get this work done. And, my work also allowed me time to complete one of those tasks – learning Github enough to be able to start hosting my plugins there – as Github knowledge is of use to my role as well.

Anyway, in no particular order, here’s what has happened to all of my plugins…

• Moved to Github. Code, instructions and, particularly, issue and enhancement logs. This also required…
  • Adding Github links to all the READMEs
  • Updating the plugin header to point to Github
  • Adding a link to Github in the plugin meta
• Stopped donations. Now I work for Automattic, donations are not appropriate. This has meant removing it from the README header as well as the plugin meta
• Tested and fully compatible with WordPress 4.9. This has been a moving feast throughout the year as new releases of WordPress have launched but I’m happy to say that all 18 are now tested with 4.9. When I started this I was aiming to get them to 4.6!
• Added minimum PHP requirements. This is added within the plugin header.
• Language updates. WordPress plugins no longer need their own translation files, as this can now all be handled by WordPress natively. This has involved moving language files and various header and script references as well. I have also converted all plugins (inc. README) files to US English and then provided UK English translations for them all.
• Minimim WordPress compability is now 4.6! This allows me to make the above language changes but also means I can remove various version checks from my code, which is never a good way to be doing things.
• Update my website links. My website used to be artiss.co.uk, it’s now artiss.blog. This happened some time ago but, you know, it’s taken a while.
• All new image assets – the Windows Metro style blocks have gone and so have the L-to-R banners which are no longer needed by the repository.
• READMEs have been updated to reflect the recent massive upgrade to the WordPress.org plugin repository. Plugins are presented differently, and that’s meant laying out the READMEs slightly differently to take best advantage of it.

Now, if this doesn’t appear too much, you have to remember that this is just the changes that I’ve made to all of them – many other changes have been made too, such as moving to using Yoda conditions in all situations.

Now all of this is done I can begin to concentrate of working on much-needed enhancements. But which plugin to pick first?