Possibly The Most Useful WordPress Plugin Ever
I recently had the pleasure of being able to review some of the premium products from Dev4Press one of which was their WordPress plugin GD Press Tools, and I was blown away by it. I mean literally in total awe for the 3 hours it took for me to get through playing with all of it's features, options and tools which made my jaw drop on more than occasion. It is the single most useful plugin and most advanced one I have seen to this date. I really can't stress that enough.
How many plugins (or functions you've custom coded into your theme if you're like me) do you use for things that you consider an essential feature or enhancement to the WP dashboard? Maybe a handful or more, right? And how many plugins would you install if not for the fact you don't want 1001 plugins installed just to do one thing here, two things there, etc.? Probably more than a handful, and possibly much more. I know because I would just from the number of custom code functions I wrote or use as common include for every site I make. The dashboard is good, but it can be so much better mostly in little ways depending on your personal preferences.
Now think about how keeping these things all up to date and otherwise regularly maintained and working properly....
Let's say you have 5 plugins installed for enhancing the admin some how in some way, all created by different people. It's not guaranteed that they all will be maintained and/or updated as needed or even at all in some cases. You have to rely on the developers of each plugin to release updates. Plus, let's say even if all 5 of them DID update their plugins regularly, that still means you have 5 things to install updates for. Not to mention options for these things might be non-intuitively implemented like in a section or existing options page you wouldn't expect, or just entirely non-existent. I can think of many more things I have disliked about plugins, leading me to just start coding my own things into my themes and reducing the need to install plugins by a lot.
One Plugin + One Place + One Update = Win
"The idea is to include as many admin related features as I can, and eliminate need for many different plugins that will potentially break with WordPress updates because their authors didn't update them. So, I am adding all the things I need, and as this is premium plugin, it will be updated to be compatible with latest versions of WP minimizing problems to users when switching to new version."
- Milan Petrovic
There are far too many features available in GD Press Tools to list here, but they are organized under the following:
- Database tools
- Backup Tools
- Registrations And Users Management
- Search engine optimization
- Cron scheduler
- Administration tools
- Info
- Integration
- Logging and Debugging
- Dashboard Widgets
- Post Tools
- Auto Tagging
- RSS Feeds
- Security
- CSS Hacks
- Updates
- Tracking Visits
- PHP Settings
- Various Tweaks
WOW!!! Even as I made that list I said to myself holy S***! I'm serious. And these are just the sections, which each include sub-sections. Basically, picture something like 2 dozen separate things that are like multiple common little plugins your using on your site right now, all packed into one plugin and organized nicely and with more options than those you have installed all have if they were combined into one.
Take a look at the screen shots of just a few of the options pages to see what kinds of settings and features you can customize to get a better idea what I'm talking about.
There really wasn't anything I found wrong or negative about it. I even said to Antonio how amazed I was with how optimized it was based on the performance and speed of the site. I would think such a plugin would use a lot of memory and slow down your site since I have seen tiny plugins use more memory, but surprisingly, there was no difference at all in speed that I noticed.
The plugin is constantly in development with many new options added with every major update. GD Press Tools 4.0 Pro Beta 1 is coming out on Tuesday, which includes many rewritten or massively improved plugin parts, plus tons of newly added features!! After I heard this, I couldn't even think what else there could even be left to add so I can't wait to see what's new. The official version of 4.0 is set to be released at the end of this month.
On top of regular improvements and additional features it is always kept up to date with latest WordPress core development. It's tested with WordPress 2.8 and newer, including WordPress 3.0 even in multi site mode with additional global settings for the site administrator. Yes there are options pages and settings which allow you to control the multi site features in 3.0 which is wicked awesome.
There are 3 editions of GD Press Tools available. The Free Edition is the Lite version, which has less options and features and doesn't include other really good things like documentation, support, and tutorials. The Standard Membership is the Pro version, and includes everything. The Developer Membership is the same as Standard but with email support, SVN and TRAC access included as well.
Special Offer For Our Readers
As an added bonus to readers of this site, use the coupon code NEW2WP when purchasing this plugin and you will receive a 20% discount (on initial product purchase payment). This promo coupon is good for the next year.
I did the math for you too (I really hate math just so you know):
Using Coupon: NEW2WP
You pay only: €48 or $65 first year (€24 or $32.50 after that)
That's a pretty good deal, and even more worth it, as if the number of plugins this one plugin could replace, and/or improve or add on your site wasn't enough already.
Go check out the huge list of features.
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I personally think it should've won the 2010 WPHonors Commercial Plugins if only more people had an idea of what it is capable of.
If anyone has used this plugin before, what did you think about it? Post a comment with your experience of it, and let us know.