About the Auto-Generated WP Sitemaps and How to Disable Using Simple Code or a Free Plugin

WordPress 5.5 and beyond features built-in sitemaps that are enabled by default. For new users and sites this may be a good thing. Now users don’t have to bother with thinking about how to implement a sitemap. Like with Privacy control, WordPress just does it for you automagically. BUT for the millions of sites that already have a sitemap thanks to any of the excellent and free sitemap plugins — that’s like maybe 5–10 million websites — well congratulations you […] Continue reading »

WordPress Plugin: Disable Media Sizes

Whenever you upload an image using the Media Library, WordPress automatically creates a set of alternate-size images. The number and size of these auto-generated images continues to grow each year, as WordPress tries to keep up with increasingly hi-resolution screen sizes. For many WordPress-powered websites, the extra media sizes enable WordPress to serve images responsively and that’s a good thing. But for some WordPress sites, all the extra images simply are not necessary. In some cases downright wasteful. And that’s […] Continue reading »

WordPress Plugin: Disable Lazy Load

WordPress 5.5 brings some cool new features, including built-in support for lazy-loading images. So whether you want it or not, WordPress will add a new “loading” attribute to all of your images. That way supportive browsers will be able to load your images as the user scrolls the page, instead of trying to load everything at once. It’s a popular front-end technique that may help to boost performance a little bit. Like anything else, there are pros and cons to […] Continue reading »

WordPress Plugin: Override Comment Options

Want to keep comments open on a few old posts? This plugin is for you. It does one thing and does it well: it overrides the WordPress setting, “Automatically close comments on articles older than x days”. So you can leave comments open for any individual posts that may have passed the deadline. I actually wrote this plugin for use here at Perishable Press. Normally comments are closed after 90 days, but there are a few old posts for which […] Continue reading »

Custom Widget Names with Dashboard Widgets Suite

[ Dashboard Widgets Suite - Default Widget Names ]

Quick tutorial for my Dashboard Widgets Suite plugin. This post explains how to customize the DWS widget names on the Dashboard. Normally each DWS widget displays the widget name along with “Widgets Suite” and a little gear icon that links to the plugin settings. Several users have asked if there is a way to change the text, specifically how to remove the extra text and gear icon. So this article explains how to do it as of Dashboard Widgets Suite […] Continue reading »

Activate WordPress Plugins via the Database

Recently a reader named Chris asked, “how can we turn ON a plugin from the database?” He mentioned reading my previous article, Quickly Disable or Enable All WordPress Plugins via the Database, but for circumstantial slash technical reasons needed to do the opposite and enable a plugin directly via the WordPress database. I thought it was an interesting question that might actually be useful to discuss here at Perishable Press. Continue reading »

WP Cron HTTP Auth

Welcome to the official homepage for my free WordPress plugin, WP Cron HTTP Auth. This page explains what the plugin does, how it works, and where to download and get support. The plugin actually is very simple, however, so there is not a lot to explain. If you are looking for plugin documentation, visit WP Cron HTTP Auth at WordPress.org. There you will find installation steps, support forum, translation tools, and more. Continue reading »

WordPress Plugin: Disable WP REST API

Welcome to the official homepage for my free WordPress plugin, Disable WP REST API. This page explains what the plugin does, how it works, how to test the plugin, and why anyone would anyone on earth want to disable the REST API, for crying out loud, all explained on this page. If that sounds like you, you’re in the right place. If you are looking for plugin documentation, visit Disable WP REST API at WordPress.org. There you will find installation […] Continue reading »

Contact Form X

Welcome to the official homepage for my free WordPress plugin, Contact Form X (CFX). This is a more personal look at the plugin, aimed at readers who are familiar with my work. Here you’ll find some screenshots, cool features, and of course some rambling backstory (because there is one). If you are looking for official plugin documentation, visit Contact Form X at WordPress.org. There you will find docs, download, installation steps, support forum, translation tools, and more. Continue reading »

BAM: 5 New WordPress Plugins. Ahh Yeh.

I’ve been super busy this year, cranking out some useful new plugins. Nothing as awesome as Banhammer Pro, but some pretty useful new plugins nonetheless. So I’m launching a total of five new WordPress plugins. The first four basically are utility plugins designed to make WordPress life easier. The 5th and final plugin (for awhile at least), is Contact Form X, which I am now using as the contact form here at Perishable Press. Contact Form X I know what […] Continue reading »

WordPress Plugin: Disable Gutenberg

For those still in the dark, WordPress 5.0 will bring HUGE changes to the post editor. Dubbed Gutenberg, the new WP post editor replaces the entire “classic” post editing screen. So as of WordPress 5.0 and beyond, the “Edit Post” screen will be completely replaced by a giant WYSIWYG content builder called “Gutenberg”. So much more is being replaced than just the content editor. The list of things that are replaced by Gutenberg include the RTE/Visual Editor, Plain Text Editor, […] Continue reading »

WordPress Plugin: Custom Fields for Gutenberg Block Editor

Currently Gutenberg does not display the Custom Fields meta box. Before Gutenberg, in WordPress 4.9 and earlier, the “Edit” screens in the WP Admin Area optionally displayed the Custom Fields meta box. The Custom Fields meta box is employed by millions of sites, themes and plugins. Including my own collection of WordPress plugins, which use custom fields for Posts, Pages, and many Custom Post Types. Basically Custom Fields are a critical part of WordPress functionality, so I wrote a plugin […] Continue reading »

Banhammer WordPress Plugin

[ Banhammer - Protect your site from enemy hordes! ]

Banhammer makes monitoring traffic and banning visitors crazy easy and fun. Say your forum is being harassed by some dirtbag. Or your admin directory is crawling with bad bots. Or some script kiddie is trying to brute-force your login page. Don’t just sit there and watch it happen.. drop the Banhammer on those fools and block them forever. Continue reading »

New WordPress Security Plugin: Host Header Injection Fix

Since version 2.3, WordPress has been vulnerable to a Host Header Injection attack in certain server environments. Over the years, there has been some discussion about fixing the vulnerability, but as of WP 4.9 (beta) nothing has been implemented. So to help those in the WP community who may be concerned (including myself), I developed a new security plugin that fixes the issue: Host Header Injection Fix (HHIF). Continue reading »

Disable WordPress Responsive Images

WordPress responsive images are awesome. But some people want to use their own methods to implement. This post explains how to disable WordPress responsive image functionality so that you can use your own methods. It makes things easier when you don’t have to wrestle with what WordPress is doing. Continue reading »

Display bbPress Posts without a Plugin

I recently redesigned my .htaccess site, htaccessbook.com. Before the redesign, I was using bbPress for the forum functionality. It worked okay for a few years, but along the way there were all sorts of really nasty bugs and important things breaking. It seemed like, no matter what, each updated version of the bbPress plugin caused serious problems, like replies not working, permalinks changing, and all sorts of other issues. Eventually, I got tired of spending hours after each bbPress update […] Continue reading »

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