More Features or reworked "Pro" Version?

Thanks for the comments! As you have already figured out, I’m also more receptive to feature requests for customers of paid extensions (both for new extension features, as well as core plugin features). Busy day today, so didn’t get much programming done, but hope to have some updates released by the end of the week. Several new features coming.

Thanks very much for the donation and the feedback!

Not sure when/if I will rewrite and create a much better paid version. As you can tell by the lack of responses here (yet no shortage of feature requests), the majority of people who use this free volunteer plugin are not willing to purchase a paid version or pay for any kind of support or further development. WooCommerce extensions have a MUCH higher return on time invested.

Hi Jose,

Thanks for the purchase and the feedback!

If you have not found it yet, documentation for most of my plugins can be found under the “Docs” menu on my site. Direct link:

https://stephensherrardplugins.com/docs/

Once you read through the documentation to understand all the options/settings, and play around with the plugins a bit, they should be fairly easy to figure out. But, please let me know via the proper support forum if you have any issues not covered by the documentation.

Regarding text notifications, I believe somebody asked me about this previously. First, there is no way to send a text message directly from WordPress. That would need to be done through some third party system (another site that has that backend infrastructure setup), which you would most likely need to subscribe to and pay for. Since there are several such services available, all with their own custom API, it would be a lot of work to support them all. Yes, it could be done, but it not natively from your site via your hosting company’s server. It has to connect to one of those services to send the text.

At this point, there does not seem to be enough interest in a pro version to support the amount of time I would need to put into its development, let alone all the time it would take to code custom interfaces for all the popular text message services. So, it’s not looking good at this point. Perhaps once I get a few other WooCommerce extensions finished up that have been in the works for a while, and if I’m not too busy with custom development projects, I may still take on this project. Based on my schedule this year so far, I don’t see that happening this year.

On the other hand, if someone wanted to pay me to develop an extension for the existing sign up sheets to send reminders/notices via text message through a specific service that they want to use, that is something I would consider since paid custom development projects always take priority.

Hi Leslie,

Thanks for taking the time to register and post a comment! Yes, it’s always between having the site get overrun with spam posts, or making it a bit difficult for legit users to login and post. Sorry for that, but I’d rather spend my time programming and providing support than sorting through spam posts every day. BBPress doesn’t make things much easier, unfortunately, but I also didn’t want to waste my time coding my own support system and forums.

I would pay for a plugin that “Hides” or marks as “Pending” registration until a paypal (or other) button is clicked and payment made.

I’m assuming you are talking about signing up for a slot on a sign-up sheet, as opposed to registering for a user account on your web site. I’m certainly open to these types of suggestions if and when I decide to rewrite a “pro” version.

Perhaps (now that you are registered), you could add this to the Feature Requests section as a type of “paid signups” feature where payment needs to be made in order to be signed up for something. That would be a fairly major feature to try to add to the existing plugin, especially when you need to start messing around with payment gateways and processing responses from those various payment systems. But, I agree that would be a nice feature to have in a paid version of the plugin.

Hi Christina,

Thanks for the comments. Yes, there are certainly some things that could be done better (and certainly would be if I ever do a pro version), and there is definitely no shortage of feature requests (but, I can’t please everyone).

However, I will quickly respond to one “buggy” thing you mentioned:

One issue we had is that we have “log in” to sign up disabled because when you log in and come back to the page it does not automatically refresh. Then the user is asked to log in again. It’s an endless loop.

This sounds like an issue with your site, or, more likely, another plugin that handles logins for your site? Perhaps your logins are done with some kind of javascript pop-up add-on so that the underlying page does not get refreshed? Or perhaps you have some plugin that is caching that page to speed up your site, so that when you come back to it, you are still seeing what was displayed previously? Neither of those have nothing to do with my plugin, as it’s working just fine with the default login operation of WordPress, and nobody else is reporting similar issues. I can’t control what happens with other plugins that take over the login process for you, or that are overly aggressive with caching pages. So, not really anything I can “fix” there.

Subsidized development of new features is always a good way to get the features you want… especially if you can gather a few people willing to contribute. In the meantime, though, I will focus on projects that actually help feed my family.

Subsidized Development

Thanks for the feedback Tina. I don’t charge for the current free version since it started its life as another plugin that I “forked” into my own version 6 or 7 years ago for my son’s school PTA web site.

But, yes, if I ever do have the time and inclination to create a much better version (starting with a better database foundation), then it will certainly be a paid version, and everything will be in one plugin. At this point, though, it doesn’t appear to be worth my time unless I can aggressively market it to enough schools and non-profits that are using WordPress to generate enough sales to at least cover my time investment.

Hi Konrad,

Thanks very much for the kind words and the generous support donation!

I pretty much suck at marketing, but thanks for the idea.

Frankly, I’ve just been so busy with huge custom programming projects, as well as some great projects in my recording studio, that I haven’t had time to finish up a couple of other WooCommerce extensions I started a couple years ago. I keep thinking about the Volunteer plugin, though, as it’s definitely my most popular plugin (even though I no longer use it myself for any of my sites). One of my huge custom projects, which is ongoing (new features every year), is a giant extension for the Volunteer sign-up sheets for a big non-profit that works with schools all across the nation. It’s a bit too specialized for their specific needs to be of any use to anyone else, but there are definitely quite a few parts of it I could use for a “pro” version of the core plugin, if I even can find the time.

Regarding your specific feature request, are you just using it as an event calendar and creating “no sign up” events? So, you are just wanting to block out an event that repeats once a week, but then just be able to edit the “task” to change who the lecturer is?

I supposed one way you could do it with the current system is to create a single date event for the first week, and then use the “copy” function to copy it a whole bunch of times, and then edit the title and task for each copy you created. Alternately, you could maybe do a multi-day event and then enter all your tasks where you can specify the date for each, and make each task a different lecture? That way it’s still all in one sheet, and you can have as many tasks as your server can handle in one form submission.

True Google Calendar recurring/repeating type events are actually quite complex to create, and I did search for how to represent those in a database a year or two ago when thinking about the pro version. Lots of conversation out there about how to make that happen, but it’s not simple, and not really possible with the initial database structure I had to start with (would have to create new database tables to hold dates and rules for repeating events, exceptions, etc…).

It’s definitely something I would still like to do at some point, if my other work even slows down.

Thanks again for your support!

Thanks Don!

I keep thinking about a total rewrite, and it’s something I would like to do, I’m just so swamped with custom projects, as well as projects in my recording studio, that I haven’t been able to find the time (and still spend some time with my family, at least). Someday, maybe.

Hi Kym,

Thanks very much for taking the time to share your thoughts! I very much appreciate it, and certainly your idea of throwing the words “Signup Genius” into some text, and pitching my plugins as an alternative, is a very good idea. There are other signup type plugins out there already, and there seems to be a pretty good event calendar plugin made by the same developers who do a commercial Event Manager plugin, which seems to be doing pretty well. So, there is definitely some competition. In fact, as mentioned elsewhere, my own Sign Ups plugin started its life as another plugin at WordPress.org, simply called Sign Up Sheets (still active), and they had their own “pro” version.

As far as plugins that sell, the WooCommerce extensions I have created sell far more than the extensions for any of the “PTA” plugins… but, even those don’t sell enough to justify the time I put into them. However, at least those plugins work as a form of “advertising” and have been responsible for me landing several quite large custom programming projects.

Unless I get super busy again with custom jobs, I’ll probably end up doing it, because I do somewhat enjoy the “puzzle” aspect of putting something like this together… although, then I’m bringing a whole bunch of extra support work my way, which I don’t really enjoy so much (and takes up WAY too much of my time).

I’m certainly open to any type of marketing suggestions, even if it involves commissions to have other people help me license it to organizations. To do it right, though, I basically have to start from scratch and rework the whole database structure, and get it much more object oriented and easier to maintain. So, I don’t see this happening before spring or summer at the earliest. But, still not 100% sure it’s the right use of my time at this point.