Offer Closed
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Starting today I’m running a weekend sale for the exceptionally useful “Get Plugins” plugin at just $10 (full price at launch isWhat does it do?
You know how when you install a new blog (or worse still you’re working with an existing one that might be a clients installation) and there are certain “must have” plugins that need installing? Usually you can either FTP them all up at once (which is how I *used to* do it) or install them one at a time by using the browser uploader.
FTP is easy and quick enough (unless there are lots of files in a plugin), but sometimes if you’re working with someone else’s blog, they don’t give you (or don’t know!) their FTP details.
So then you’re stuck with having to upload them all via the browser or search through the WordPress repository in the admin panel and adding them that way. It’s a pain and it can take AGES if you have about 15-20 standard plugins to install.
What “Get Plugins” does is allow you to set up your list of plugin locations in advance, and the plugin will go fetch them from wherever they’re located and install them all for you.
This can be a location in the WordPress repository for free plugins you’re using, or a location on one of your own domains if it’s a premium plugin.
All you have to do is know the URL where each zip is located and either do a quick copy and paste into a box, or just upload a text file with all the URLs in. For extra speed you can even add the text file into the plugin zip if you want to and the plugin will find it when it’s uploaded.
So now instead of installing all your plugins one at a time, you get to install the whole lot in one go.
Pretty cool eh?
When you click the “Submit” button, then all the plugins in the list are retrieved concurrently and independently of the others, so there’s no waiting for each one to complete before the next one starts – they all run at the same time. 😉
The weekend sale starts today at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST), and I’ll send you a short email when it does.
I wonder if you have any suggestions for some favourite plugins you’d like to see in the default text file list of plugins we include? If you do, please leave the full URL of the zip file AND the page it’s on.
-Frank Haywood
This is one of those plugins I install on every site. In fact, the first I usually install. It makes it easy for me (but also easy for my VA’s since they don’t have to figure out which ones to install each time and where the premium plugins are) I keep one repository up to date and it’s done.
I wish we could do the same thing with themes, (hint, hint, Frank) but this plugin is totally worth getting. One of the best.
Hi Pol,
Yep it’s cool isn’t it? It’s funny but it seems to be a recurring theme – I get asked if there’s a fast way to set up a WP blog and apart from cloning one (which has its own issues) the safest/best way is install using Fantastico or Softaculous and then install this one plugin.
That way you can be sure you always have your favourite plugins to hand on each blog. And the nice thing is you can create your own list of plugins in the pg-get-plugins.txt file which you can then put into the Get Plugins zip replacing the one that comes with it.
My current setup for myself is I have a big pile of my own plugins in the list and (until I replace it with my own tool) FastMember. 🙄
I’ll go ask my developer to take a look at adding themes to the plugin, I can’t see any reason why it can’t be done and it can’t be too difficult to do (famous last words).
-Frank
Oh yeah. And…
If you’re working with a new clients existing WP based site you can’t clone it, so this is the ideal solution for bringing it up to date quickly and easily.
Oh please add it, please please. This plugin is great, but would love to have the themes easily added too!
Hi Frank –
Happy Birthday!
Paul
I have had a confusing time with using FTP in my wordpress before, but the plug-ins really are worth it. Though sometimes there are just a handful of plug-ins you can use at a time.