I took advantage of the last days of the year to release two plugins that are already approved and available in the WordPress repository for download and installation. In the end I decided to convert into plugins what were originally functions that I used to cover specific needs. And since they were working here, their logical evolution was to convert them into plugins and share them in case they could be useful for others.
I've learned a few things along the way, especially about the submission and review process and about the WordPress translation ecosystem. I've also discovered that it was a lot less complicated than I always thought it was.
Remember for Bluesky & Mastodon
This plugin was born to automate the sending of posts to these two networks, which are the only ones I frequent since I left Tonter. At first I thought of using Revive Social (former Revive Old Post), but the automatic sending to Bluesky was an option of its Pro version, so I made a simple function just for this that would end up becoming something more complete.
The plugin not only sends new posts to Bluesky and Mastodon when they are published, it also allows you to create a schedule to refresh your old posts and publish posts from the same day, but from other years, at a time that suits you. It can be used to publish ephemeris or to give a bit of fresh air to your old content. You can see it working on this Bluesky account @jrmora-hemeroteca.bsky.social and here you have the initial note of the function with the details.
Real-Time Widget for Matomo
This plugin, which adds a real-time widget of Matomo statistics (On Premise) to the desktop, although the official Matomo plugin does the same, came out of the need to have some real-time warning of unexpected and sudden traffic spikes in the most lightweight way possible.
The initial idea was to be able to receive a native Windows notification with sound and text alerts when you receive a number of visits above a set threshold, although the plugin can also be configured to notify you in real time of each visit as they come in. Simply leave the WordPress desktop page open in the background while you go about your business.
This not only gives me a better idea of the origin of the traffic without having to consult the statistics, but also helps me to be informed of the origin of the sudden increases that arrive from time to time from different sites. I remember that a few years ago, the so-called " Menéame effect" was very dangerous and you had to run to plant a static page of the wiggly thing to try to save the furniture and stop the server from crashing in seconds. More than once I imagined such an alert function to be able to anticipate.
This feature article explains the features of the plugin in more detail.
