Steve’s Blog

December 8, 2022

Interview With WPTavern on Gutenberg Phase 3

Phase 3 is the most interesting part of the Gutenberg project for me personally.

Phase 3 will allow multiple users to interact with WordPress content at the same time. This is the Google Docs experience inside WordPress. Open up a document, click a button and share that document with others. Those with the correct permissions can interact with you in real time, and you can see the amendments they’re making in real-time.

I chatted about Phase 3 with Nathan Wrigley at WPTavern. We talked about why this a necessary update to WordPress, but also why it’s such a difficult feat of engineering.

Update: as Phase 3 gets close, I’ve been writing more on this topic:

October 27, 2022

Logtivity 2.0 Has Hosted Error Logs for WordPress

At Logtivity we aim solve problems faced by WordPress agencies, or anyone else who is in charge of lots of WordPress sites.

One problem that agencies kept talking about was error logs. It’s often very difficult for them to view error logs for WordPress sites. Some hosting companies require you to contact them, and a few days later, they’ll send you the logs!

With Logtivity 2.0, you’ll always have instant access to view the errors, because we host your error logs. I’ve attached a screenshot below.

September 22, 2022

From 1,000 to 1,000,000 WordPress Installs

Back in February 2019, I wrote a post called “Going From 1,000 to 100,000 WordPress Installs“. At that time, we were just starting our WordPress journey and made the decision to acquire some popular plugins to build the “PublishPress” brand.

Just over three years later, the journey is going strong and we can add an extra zero to the install numbers.

June 17, 2022

We launched RoleUp for Onboarding and Offboarding WordPress Users

Over the years, we’ve built a lot of WordPress plugins. Recently we’ve experimenting with SaaS platforms for WordPress.

First was Watchful which is a site maintenance service.

Next was Logtivity which is a monitoring service for WordPress agencies.

This month, we’ve launched RoleUp. This a platform to onboard and offboard users from a lot of WordPress sites. You can see a preview of the RoleUp dashboard in the image below:

March 11, 2022

Logtivity Has Notifications That Work Across All Your Sites

I’ve been building sites and starting projects for … too many years now. Let’s say 20 years as a conservative estimate. I’ve collected dozens of sites for work, hobbies, side-projects, and for various family members.

It’s always been a pain to keep track of them. At least one site every year gets hacked and falls victim to a bad plugin, or some mistake I’ve made.

So I’ve been making full use of the “Global Alerts” we’ve just built at Logtivity.

March 10, 2022

TaxoPress Gets a Big New Feature: Auto Terms with AI

I posted at the end of last year about a side-project: overhauling the TaxoPress plugin.

We continue to make steady progress on this plugin. The most recent new feature is “Auto Terms” which can scan your WordPress content and automatically assign terms.

There are lots of ways to get big websites with tons of content. Some sites have forums with 10,000’s of posts. Some sites have large stores with massive amounts of products.

Personally, my sites have always leaned towards content. I’ve written a lot of blog posts and documentation articles. At a certain point, all that content becomes hard to manage. However, if you’re publishing 10, 100 or even 1,000’s of posts every day, it can be difficult to organize it all.

November 13, 2021

Logtivity Charts Got Much Better with Chart.js and Date Range Picker

Logtivity is a WordPress activity log that we launched this summer. Not only can you track all the activity on your site, but with Logtivity you can also turn that information into beautiful and useful charts.

We use the charts all the time in our other business. You can use these charts to show logins, purchases, subscriptions, cancellations, downloads, or any other key events.

Logtivity charts just got a lot better because you can customise the date range for charts. Your charts are updated with advanced date ranges, so you can zoom in to view any time period.

November 12, 2021

TaxoPress: What it’s Like to Overhaul a Legacy Plugin

Earlier this year, we took over running Simple Tags, an old WordPress plugin that had 80,000 users, but hadn’t been updated in a long time.

We saw a need in WordPress for one plugin that can manage all the taxonomies on your site. A plugin like that would be incredibly useful in organizing large sites.

On the surface, these deals always look attractive for developers. We get a large existing userbase at an affordable price. And hopefully those users can become customers and we can build a business.

The reality is more rocky.

October 5, 2021

Logtivity is Featured on WPTavern

On Friday, our new Logtivity project was featured on WPTavern. For a start-up, being featured on the Tavern often marks a debut into the WordPress community.

Every now and again, some complaints pop up about WPTavern. Mostly they center around the fact that the site is owned by Matt Mullenweg, and there are potential conflicts of interest, but people are rarely able to point to specific examples. WPTavern is well run. Yes, it probably focuses more on boosting and encouraging the WordPress community, than it does on hard-hitting criticism, but that’s not a bad thing at all. For entirely independent alternatives, there are Post Status and also WP Mainline, although I’m afraid you’ll find them to be warm and welcoming also. There are harsher takes on the WordPress world, and you can find them with a little digging on Twitter.

August 20, 2021

Logtivity and Easy Digital Downloads User Tracking

We launched Logtivity in August: it’s a new activity log service that helps you understand exactly what’s happening on your WordPress site.

The first version of Logtivity had support for the WordPress core, so it recorded eventss like these:

WordPress Core Updated
Post Updated
Post Published
Attachment Uploaded
Theme Deleted
User Created
Profile Updated
Plugin Activated

The next big step is integration with Easy Digital Downloads. If you sell WordPress plugins or themes, there is a very good chance that you use the Software Licensing extension. It is a cornerstone of the WordPress economy.

August 12, 2021

We Launched Logtivity: A New WordPress Activity Log

A few months ago, I saw a tweet from Iain Poulson, who has been very active on the business side of WordPress. Iain regularly links to WordPress products for sale, and this time it was a listing on Flippa:

July 14, 2021

TaxoPress Pro is Here to Help Organize Your WordPress Sites

Earlier this year, I posted that we had adopted a WordPress plugin called Simple Tags, and renamed it “TaxoPress”.

Since then, we’ve been working hard with frequent releases. Here is the download chart for the plugin on WordPress.org. Each big spike represents a new release. Can you spot when we took over?