Unlike some of you who do this for a living, I am just a simple business owner who is also an IT professional. There was a time when updates for plugins only happened about once every couple months. Lately, updates are flying in almost every other day.
This isn’t so bad if you’re working with updates that “auto-update” through the main update screen in WordPress. But, if these are add-ons that came with a “theme” it becomes a serious chore to constantly go to your email, follow the link to the updated “theme”, backup your work and then uninstall and reinstall the theme. It’s ridiculous!
I respect the fact that people who create plugins and themes deserve to get paid for their work. I also agree that some form of security should be in place so that people who try and steal their IP without paying is minimized. But, the current way of auto-updating those themes is ridiculous!!
When I look through the forums here, and when I’m viewing the intuitive minds working on WordPress, ThemeForest, Plugins, etc, I see some “BRILLIANT MINDS”! Somebody out there has an answer for this hodge-podge, disjointed system of updating things…
can we start a movement? A voice? something, to get those who make plugins, and those who help develop WordPress to put this on top of their “To Do” list??
I’m not just raising this because I’m frustrated with today’s updates, I’m raising it because I’m starting to see the gap in this problem growing wider, not narrowing and becoming smooth and seamless.
I appreciate any thoughts and ideas on others who may see this same thing becoming a real problem… Thanks!
I think updates are almost about new features and fixing issues in special configurations, which developer couldnt find out without many different uses of themes by many customers.
Only sometimes it is in security reasons. I have webs without updating for motnhs to years and working well same as at the beginning.
You dont need to do every update, and get mad about backups and configurations The envato wordpress toolkit or the new one mentioned above could also help.
Hi Gareth, thank you for the information. Is this not available through either Wordpress.org or on the Envato plugin’s page?? Not that I don’t want to show respect, but please understand my cautious nature for not just downloading a pluign from someone I am not familiar with. What is the actual name of the Plugin and can it be found directly on Envato?
Thanks for the answer. it seems the ones that constantly update are probably "feature"driven then. I’m running 7 websites and I have Envato update notices at least two to 3 times a week. My average theme probably has 12 to 19 plugins, so I am assuming that’s average on a 10 plus page website…
It’s still in beta so only available on Github at the moment, I don’t think it will get released on WordPress.org anyway as it’s a “private plugin” which has been developed for a very small limited user base.
I haven’t downloaded the plugin but I have used many from Github, looks at the issues and it will tell you if it’s working and tested, Github is an awesome way for developers to share their code to be downloaded / amended.
Well I can imagine, sometimes I receive a mail notification about update and before I can take a look on it, the new one update notification comes That is one of reasons why I do not update every time, especially if the site is working well.
Another thing, theme developers use to provide “update log” in item description, so you can first read it and decide if it is important for you.
Thanks guys, I’m a guppy swimming in shark infested waters here, so I appreciate the advice from the experienced travelers of this domain… I will grab it today.
I agree 100% updating automatically should be the case fro plugins that come with the theme
It is really frustrating for me too as I have been trying for hours now to figure out how to update a plugin it should not be this hard!!!
I purchased the Jupiter theme which comes with the Visual Composer plugin and it is not working correctly anyone has issues with Visual Composer lately?
The Jupiter theme includes a highly customized version of Visual Composer, so the theme authors need to provide you with a theme update, that also includes an updated version of Visual Composer.
I believe that I have purchased my first and last plugin at Code Canyon. The dev is very responsive, but his plugin requires FTP replacement or deleting to update. I was shocked. How does one hand over the keys to a small business website and say “I’ve invoiced you for a premium plugin that you won’t be able to update unless I give you access to my Envato account, as well as be able to use FTP apps to access your webhost.”
Some sites I build I also manage, but even if this is the case, there are way too many to be manually replacing plugin files via FTP. This is absolutely unacceptable for premium wordpress plugins. I am still having trouble accepting that this marketplace sells ANY plugins in this situation. At very least plugin authors that do implement some of these updating dev side solutions should be recognized for it clearly in a yes or no listing;
Auto Updatable: YES/NO
Is this something I have to watch out for in themes as well? The only theme I’ve bought here is Avada and it updates with a purchase code/API. Are there themes on here that actually don’t do this? Is there a client-side plugin that can take care of themes at least? I thought I saw some mentions of an official ThemeForest updating plugin in another post about updating plugins started no less than 4 years ago!
The envato wordpress toolkit or the new one mentioned above could also help.
What is the actual name of the Plugin and can it be found directly on Envato?
That is one of reasons why I do not update every time, especially if the site is working well.