My still-young relationship with WordPress MU just got a lot more satisfying: I discovered Plugin Commander.
One of the first things a WPMU newbie is likely to encounter is the messy reality of the WordPress plugin ecosystem and interface. On the positive side, there are countless plugins out there; on the negative end, WPMU 2.6 makes managing user access to those plugins a complete pain in the ass.
(No offense intended to WPMU’s lone shepherd, donncha, who can’t be expected to get everything right all by himself. And I say this from experience, brother.)
For example: yeah, you can find a plugin for every taste, but most of them weren’t designed with multi-user environments in mind. Take TypePad AntiSpam… it’s a great plugin that provides spam monitoring services for blog comments, and unlike Akismet, it’s free for all uses. But there’s no MU version, so it has to be enabled for each user. And what if a new competitor enters the race someday, and I want to change horses? Answer: I get to trudge through and make the change for each and every blog I host. Not fun, nor practical for more than a handful of blogs.
That’s where Plugin Commander enters the game.
- It allows me to mass-activate/deactivate a plugin across all active blogs with a single click. So switching to NewAntiSpamThingie would be as simple as installing the plugin and hitting a link.
- I can set certain plugins to auto-activate upon the creation of a new blog, meaning that TPAS can be ready to go for everyone right away. (They’ll still need to procure an API key, but one less step is always good.)
PC also has uses beyond day-to-day drudgework-avoidance. In a stock WPMU environment, blog owners are either given control over plugins, or they’re not; this despite the fact that some plugins are complicated, potentially problematic beasts in the wrong hands. The Commander to the rescue!
- Just switch off the stock plugin controls at the Site Admin level and use PC’s ability to toggle user control of individual plugins on or off. Suddenly, blog owners can only manipulate the limited set of plugins that are deemed safe.
- And yet, as Site Admin, I can still activate any “hidden” plugin for a blogger with the specific needs and experience to warrant access.
If I have a criticism, it’s that PC doesn’t pop up an “are you sure?” dialog when triggering a mass (de)activation. Can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve been known to do admin chores in the wee-hours when my eyes are getting bleary and my clicking-finger is getting heavy… it would be nice to have a little insurance that protects me from myself.
But outside of that… excellent stuff!