Another month in the year 2020. To say it has been a tough year for us all is an understatement.
Yet people are still launching new products and websites! This month, October 2020, we explore some of those launches in the latest roundup.
Giddy up.
DocketWP recent launches
From the mind of Kyle Van Deusen of The Admin Bar comes DocketWP.
DocketWP is a lightweight plugin that allows you to easily store and access your processes and to-do’s without leaving your dashboard.
I watched a video demo that Kyle did with Kim Doyal and got a chance to see the product in action.
This is a great option for smaller and solo teams. If you ever wanted to have your own checklist built inside the WordPress dashboard, this product does just that.
I can remember when I worked for an agency, and we used a very robust tool for project management. The drawback was always going back and forth between the tool and the WordPress dashboard when I checked off tasks.
This solves that problem.
The checklist docks as an overlay where you can mark a task completed. You can easily pull it up each time you need to mark off a task.
The checklist can be templated using your own or using one of the checklists in the existing library. You can use a checklist for things like maintenance, blog post publishing, a launch checklist, or just about anything you can imagine.
You can take a look at a video demo here.
The premium price is just $68 per year (a steal, I think), or you can try it out by downloading the free in the WordPress repository.
Ben Townsend launches WPDeals in September.
Sometimes the best ideas happen when you just try it. That could be the philosophy that Ben Townsend used when he launched WPDeals. The website sens regular emails with deals on WordPress products.
He recently wrote,
Where was I? Ah yes, 21st of September, with one deal via email under my hat, I decided to release it into the wild!
I had everything in place, welcome email, double opt-in, and a thank you page; I spent 4 hours recording thank you videos and decided on one at the end. I think it kind of works, and I could show it to you here, where’s the fun in that? Subscribe, and you’ll see it ????
Townsend went from 6 subscribers to over 200 in less than a month. He may be on to something.
In the past year or so, Townsend had spent time helping WordPress product owners by reviewing their product. This takes it a step further.
Currently, it is free for product owners to list. Townsend asks for a custom discount for his email subscribers. He will revisit this in 6 months to see if he wants to change anything.
Learn more about the website here.
WP Weekly #13
Davinder Sing Kainth has reached 13 episodes of The WP Weekly. It is fast becoming one of the most popular email newsletters in the WordPress space.
The email is full, I mean full, of all kinds of information, tips, and news in the WordPress arena.
In episode number 13, he gave a link to the 2021 WordPress default theme.
Other things he noted were Townsend’s new WP Deals website, a new satirical website (because we all need a laugh), a Gutenberg tutorial by the king of tutorials Sridhar Katakam, snippets for the new WordPress sitemap feature, and so much more.
It is packed in a short guide. There is no beating around the bush, and you get it straight to your inbox each week.
He finishes each email with a section he calls “Trending Deals.” Check out issue number 13 here.
Change it back, Facebook!
If you are like me, you aren’t quite sure about the new Facebook layout. Sure it looks kind of cool, but it is hard to find the things you used to know where they were.
I ran into a problem trying to help a client update the “Our Story” section on the About tab. The problem was, I couldn’t find it on the desktop.
It is simply not there.
I had a hard time finding it on my Android Facebook app. My client wanted to change the picture.
I could not find it on the desktop and was not sure how I would change it.
I really liked the Our Story feature, but the header image in that box never worked quite right.
I looked around for information and found this article by Liz Jostes at Eli Rose Social Media.
Jostes wrote a fantastic article about how to use the Our Story feature originally in 2018. The article was updated as changes began to take place
She said,
As more time went by and more users started receiving the new Facebook look, I began to get more and more questions about where the Our Story section disappeared to. As of late summer 2020, it’s a mix of people who can still get to their Story section but can’t edit it and others who can’t find it on their Page at all. At this time, Facebook hasn’t officially announced anything about the Our Story section, so there’s no way to know (yet) for sure if it’s going to go away entirely, or if it’s just been lost in the Facebook Page renovations that continue to take place.
It appears that the Our Story section is on its way out.
Combine that with Facebook not letting you revert to the old layout anymore, and it makes it more difficult to make changes like on the Our Feature section.
That is when I found a Google Chrome extension.
This article introduced me to F.B. Purity. The chrome extension helps you revert your Facebook back to the old layout.
It’s magic.
So, if you are just wanting the old layout or need to make a change that you can’t find out how to do in the new layout, this extension may be a lifesaver.
Wrapping it up
Despite us being in a pandemic, that doesn’t stop things from changing. We have new products and websites launching and the ever-changing Facebook to contend with.
Another change is that MainWP has rolled out a new extension. The extension is from the third party Termageddon and helps you manage Privacy Policies on your websites.
We recently did a Q&A article with Donata Kalnenaite of Termageddon. Check out that article.
The extension includes two sets of policy licenses.
Not a MainWP user? Get started today!
