plugin

Dec

2010

Multiple Streams Themes 4 Bonus Plugin

The video at the end of this post details the bonus plugin I’m including as part of this low cost release of this latest Multiple Streams Theme later today.

Now I know I didn’t have to do this and that I could have released the plugin and templates seperately. There’s certainly a market for these I now know for sure. But rather than do that, and the fact that it’s coming up to the season of goodwill and all that…

🙂

…I decided to include this plugin with MST004.

A bit mad I know, and it’s like throwing money away, but what the heck. 😉

Last week I released the other half of this plugin which allows you to add sales pages to any of your WordPress blogs, which will then survive theme updates and changes.

This half of the plugin does the same thing, but the difference being it allows you to add new subscriber squeeze pages to your blogs.

If you’re not sure what a squeeze page is, it’s a page that is designed to “squeeze” the name and email address from a visitor. ie turn that visitor into a prospect with the final aim being of turning them into a customer.

And from my perspective, this plugin is another step towards turning any WordPress blog into a total marketing machine.

We’re getting there, step by step… 😉

And as you’re a subscriber I’m more than happy to reward that you’re here with me by giving you the very best deals at each step of the way towards that total marketing machine.

This is what I’m going to do.

The FIRST FIFTY sales of MST004 will include the bonus plugin at just $10 for both the theme and the plugin. Outstanding value I know.

(Update: Now at $12.50)

After that, I’m putting the price up to $12.50 for the next fifty, then $17 until the full MST site is live (just a couple of hurdles to jump) together with the affiliate scheme (which I’m being bugged for), and then the theme will be set at $27 without the bonus plugin.

Does that sound more than fair? I’ll just recap.

1-50 = $10.00
51-100 = $12.50
100-??? = $17.00
Site live = $27.00 but no bonus templates.

It’s a cracking theme – our best yet – and there’s a bonus plugin with templates included.

Fantastic…

There’s just one downside to this plugin, and I’ll come clean with you about it now.

You can’t yet run it at the same time as the sales page plugin we released last week. This is because it uses the same method and there’s a clash.

Here’s what we’re going to do to fix it in January…

We’ll release a new unified plugin to everyone for free.

You then install and activate it and copy ALL your templates into the /templates/ directory and the plugin will auto-recognise which ones are squeeze page templates, and which ones are sales page templates.

You’ll then find that instead of a single drop-down, there will be a choice of two, selected by a radio button. You then select which type of page you’re creating and the templates for that page type will appear.

Okay?

I think I’ve already mentioned this here on this blog, but what we want to do is provide a single method of adding many page templates to your blog which survive theme updates and changes, and which is a standard method that all designer / developer types can use to create their own template packs.

In the new year the plugin will be free (and always will be), but we’ll charge for the templates. 😉

Today you’ll be getting five squeeze page templates as a free bonus when you buy MST004.

The sale will go live at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST) today, Friday 10th December.

I’ll add a new post at that time together with the payment link and send you an email.

And finally, here’s the video of the bonus plugin and templates.

[mc id=”1106″ type=”video”]mst004-bonus-plugin[/mc]

-Frank Haywood

Nov

2010

Christmas Sales Page Plugin…

Update: The sale for this plugin and template pack is now live at $10 for the first 100 copies and you can purchase using the button below.

ALL GONE at $10, now at $17.

***

Update: I’ve just created this short(ish) video to show you how the plugin works with the Christmas sales page templates.

[mc id=”1078″ type=”video”]WordPress Page Templates Early tour[/mc]

***

I know I’ve been quiet this last week, and that’s because I’ve been working with two of my staff to create something REALLY special.

It’s something that WordPress should have as part of its core, but doesn’t.

And we think what we’ve done is revolutionary.

Bear with me while I explain. Trust me, you’re going to have one of those “aha moments” really soon… 😉

First a bit of background.

One of my hugely popular products can be found at:-

http://www.WPAffiliatePages.com/

The product explains how you can turn any sales page into a WordPress page template, and it’s pretty good (ahem). It took me two years to discover how to do it (by accident) and it will take you just a few minutes to learn how to do it too.

(By the way I’ve dropped the price from $27 to $10 for a few days, so if you don’t already have it, now would be a good time to get it. It says $27 on the sales page, but when you click the order button you’ll see it’s $10 when you get to PayPal.)

From feedback about that product, I realised that what people REALLY wanted was a nice easy way to add pre-done sales pages to WordPress.

i.e. Someone supplies great looking sales pages, and there’s a simple way to add them to WordPress.

And there’s the problem.

You see there’s no simple way of adding page templates to WordPress that interact with it properly. Even my very popular method works outside the WordPress “loop”…

Think about how page templates work now.

You activate a theme, and you find there’s only one page template. Two if you’re lucky.

And even though I’ve been changing that with the Multiple Streams Themes (MST) and adding a variety of page templates to give you more control over the look and feel of your blog – it’s not an ideal way to do it.

Think about it.

You set up great looking and unique pages on your blog, decide to change / update your theme, and suddenly all your pages default back to the one standard page template supplied with the new theme. (The laughable thing is, it happened to me today.)

All that gorgeousness lost in an instant.

Until now…

I’ve had one of my plugin developers and my graphics guru working together to come up with both an end-user PLUGIN and developer/designer methodology for creating “sticky” page templates.

So when you change themes, your custom designed pages remain UNCHANGED.

And here it is, that moment I promised you earlier…

Aha!

Even better is I’m releasing the plugin and methodology for free. 🙂

But… Don’t get the wrong end of the stick and please don’t get confused about what this plugin does. And I’ll explain in a bit more detail.

It allows graphics designers and developers to create specially formatted page templates.

These special page templates then work hand in hand with the plugin which adds easy to use option fields where you can add detail like pre-header, header, autoresponder sign up code etc, just by entering the data into boxes on the page editor.

You then add your body page content as normal using the HTML or visual editor, select one of these special page templates and publish your page.

When you view the page on the front of your blog, it looks completely different to the design on the rest of your blog.

If you decide you don’t like the design or it’s not appropriate for the content, you just select another one and update the page – there’s no need to change any of the content or other fields.

The page on the front of your blog changes appearance when you refresh. 🙂

And because it’s a plugin working outside the active WP theme, it doesn’t matter if you change or update your theme.

Your pages will still look the same as the day you published them.

Ta-daa!

We think it will revolutionise the way that page templates are created using WordPress, and that more people will be inclined to use WordPress as a sales and promotional platform.

Yep, we believe that by doing this we’ve opened up WordPress to a market that’s always been there, but has never had the right tool to do the job.

So when and what am I going to distribute?

Tomorrow, Wednesday 1st December, I’ll be releasing this new plugin together with a 5 pack of sales page templates in jolly old Christmas designs – snowmen, holly, Christmas trees, etc.

All 5 of the designs will be supplied in both standard HTML and the new WP Page Template plugin format.

The plugin is free and always will be, the 5 pack of templates will be $10 for the first 100 buyers – now $17 – and then the price goes up – this is a special subscribers only price. I don’t think it’s a good idea to waste any time hanging around with this one.

Here are 60% original size screenshots of the designs. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

The sale will open tomorrow at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST), and I’ll drop you a line about 3-4 hours beforehand to remind you.

-Frank Haywood

P.S. PLAhh.com members will receive their second months product (December) tomorrow, so also watch out for an announcement about that.

Nov

2010

Private Comments Available Today

Update: The Private Comments plugin sale is now LIVE and you can purchase a discounted licence for the plugin by clicking the button below. There are 50 copies available at just $7 and the plugin itself will be updated shortly with some additional features. 🙂

***

This is a quick reminder that just 50 copies of the Private Comments plugin will be released at 5.00pm GMT (12.00 midday EST) for only $7 and it’s a case of first come, first served.

Now as I write this, my developer is testing out some additions to the plugin that I’ve asked for.

IF she doesn’t think she can get these changes in, then I’m not going to hold up the sale, as when I do that I get told off.

It’s true.

In the past when I’ve delayed a sale for any reason, I’ve always had complaints that people can’t now make the new time and that I shouldn’t have changed it.

So “come hell or high water” I’m going to release the 50 licences at 5.00pm GMT today.

IF the changes aren’t done and tested by that time, it will turn into a PRE-ORDER SALE and when the changes are done (probably tomorrow) I’ll update your download page with the plugin.

Okay?

Update:

The Private Comments plugin sale is now LIVE and you can purchase a discounted licence for the plugin by clicking the button below. There are 50 copies available at just $7 and the plugin itself will be updated shortly with some additional features. 🙂

-Frank Haywood

Nov

2010

Private Comments Plugin

Update: Sale starts today, Friday 19th at 5.00pm GMT (12 noon EST).

***

Tomorrow I’m going to release 50 copies of my new plugin called Private Comments, and it’s something I’ve wanted myself for ages.

It allows you (as admin) or a visitor to your blog to add a private comment that isn’t seen by the rest of the world, allowing you to hold a private discussion with someone.

This is incredibly useful.

From my own perspective, I sometimes get a comment on my blog that really shouldn’t be published, and that I’d like to reply to there and then.

I’ve found it quite frustrating not being able reply directly to a visitor so they can see what I have to say to them and not involve everyone else. You’ve probably had the exact same issue.

The only way round this is either to use email when I often don’t want to give the person my email address (and that’s not always guaranteed to get through spam filters), or to edit the comment they made and leave it unpublished, but that’s not always noticeable, and it just doesn’t seem to be a good way of doing it.

The visitor can’t then reply without creating a new comment and it all starts to get a bit messy.

The upshot is, we don’t always want everyone to see the content of a discussion do we?

This plugin solves the problem.

It allows you or the visitor to mark the comment as private. Now only you as the site admin and your visitor can see the tic-tac of back and forwards conversation.

And as a little nice bonus, we’ve built in comment threading (nesting) for those themes that don’t support it. This means you can reply to a comment and the plugin will keep it all cleanly organised and directly underneath the original comment.

(There’s a teensy problem with some old WP2.x themes, more on that in a moment.)

The Private Comments plugin does this without requiring your visitors to register on the blog. Instead, it uses the cookie that WordPress normally drops on your visitors browser allowing them to see their comments, and now of course, yours too.

Think of it as being like the blog equivalent of a PM (Private Message) on a forum, but where registration isn’t required in order to keep it private.

(And we’re also planning on making it more robust for those people who do register.)

Apart from the obvious use discussed above, I also realised that this plugin could be used for some other things too, such as client discussions, and even a simple support desk. 😉

Now then…

At the moment, the only downside to this plugin is that it seems to have problems with some (not all) old WP2.x themes, and it doesn’t do the comment threading (nesting) properly or at all.

But don’t worry as the developer is looking at this to see if it can’t be fixed or worked around, and when it’s solved we’ll release a new version. (Who knows, she might get it done by tomorrow.)

The good news is, every WP3.x theme we’ve tried it on seems to work perfectly.

Tomorrow (Friday 19th) at 5.00pm GMT (12.00 midday EST) I’m making available 50 copies in a pre-launch sale at a bargain basement discount price. First come first served, and when they’re all gone that’s it, the price goes up.

Okay? 🙂

I’ll drop you a line tomorrow with details of the sale.

-Frank Haywood

Nov

2010

Script Manager Plugin – You Should Get This

This is one of those unassuming but useful little plugins that you’ll end up using time and again across all your blogs. In fact I’ve been trying to imagine how I’ve managed without it all this time.

It allows you to easily and simply add third party javascript code (for tracking and external scripts) to your header and footer area on your blog, either across all your pages and posts or only on some of them if you prefer.

You don’t realise how useful this is until you need to do it.

Traditionally you’d need to add the code directly to the theme’s header.php and footer.php (which can be fiddly), but as soon as you change or upgrade themes, your code changes are always lost.

And as I’ve had it pointed out to me, some themes will break if you go adding javascript to the header.php or footer.php, and now I’ve been reminded, I can remember that this has happened to me at least once.

Not any more.

Now you just add the code to either the global plugin settings, or on an individual post or page and the plugin will automatically insert the code into the right bits of your blog. When you upgrade your theme, or switch to a different one, the code remains and everything carries on as normal.

So, like I said, this is an unassuming plugin that I think you’ll find entirely useful.

Or as Hamant Keval (hi Hamant) said:-

“That is one awesome plugin…”

I’m releasing 50 copies today at just $7.

When all 50 copies are gone I’ll set the regular price, but you’ll get it at a very nice discount until then.

Update: The price is now $17 until I set the final price which will likely be $27.

-Frank Haywood