Plugin Organizer

This is a plug in that we developed to help with a project.  It allows you to change the load order of your plug ins.  If you need one plugin to load before another then this is the plug in to do it.  To download the plugin please go to the WordPress plugin page.

Documentation

This is a screenshot of the WordPress plugin page after Plugin Organizer has been applied.  There is a Drag column added that allows you to grab a row in the plugin table and move it up or down to change the load order. After ordering the plugins you just click on the Save Order button and the load order is changed.

 

This is a screenshot of the plugin settings page.

 

This is a screenshot of the global plugins page.  Here you can disable a plugin for the entire site.  This allows you to turn it on for just the pages you need it.

 

This is a screenshot of the URL admin page.  Here you can set the plugins that will be disabled/enabled based on the URL being accessed on your site.

 

 

This is a screenshot of the page edit screen.  You can disable or enable plugins from here.  This meta box will be added to all post types that are selected on the settings screen.

 

91 Comments


  1. Can you please tell me how I can remove the must-use plugin “Plugin Organizer MU”.

    Thanks.

    • You have to log in as root or a user that can delete the files created by the user your web server runs as. Use FTP or SSH.

      • Hello Jeff,

        I saw now your replies. I am the administrator. There isn’t any other user. I’m trying to delete from ftp the folder /httpdocs/wp-content/mu-plugins but I can’t. I can only rename it. Can I delete it from wordpress control panel?
        I tried and created a folder inside wp-content and I was able to delete it. the “mu-plugins” couldn’t!? Whatever chmod I’m trying to do or to the file inside the folder, is ineffectual.
        If there isn’t any solution, I will have to live with it..

        • I’m going to release a new version that will clean up after itself when the plugin is deactivated. You will just need to install the new version and go to the settings page to set the preserve after deactivation setting. Then when you deactivate the plugin all the database tables the plugin created will be dropped and the MU plugin file will be deleted. I will hopefully have this ready to release later today.

        • I have released version 2.3. Install this version and go to the settings page. Select the No radio button under preserve settings and deactivate the plugin. See if this resolves your issue.

          • Yes, it worked!
            Well done!!
            Thank you very much, you are the best!

            I’m sorry for any inconvenience that I caused to you.

  2. Hi,

    Great Plugin!

    I would just like to make a suggestion…

    - Activate and Deactivate plugins on specific time.

    Example:
    My site uses few plugins (datafeed import plugin, DB optimizer, etc…) that are in use only on specific times “nightly cron”. Those plugins should be activated only on specific times and then deactivated so the site can be faster for visitors… Site speed is widely affected by activated plugins and most of the speed is taken by plugins that are not in use but activated…
    I did test my site with activated and deactivated “cron” plugins, and the loading speed was 50% faster…

    Hope you see it useful.

    Cheers
    Miha

  3. Hi Jeff,

    Great plugin! I’ve been searching for some time for the functionality your plugin brings in – thanks for your efforts so far, a well deserved 5* rating…

    Just a very quick question please: If I disable plugins ‘globally’, does it do this for the frontend only, or does this also affect the admin backend too?

    Thanks,
    David

  4. Hi, Jeff awesome plugin! In the url admin is there away to have reg expressions in url matching? For example it would be neat that every sub page under sitename.com/blog/ gets plugins disabled or enabled.

    thanks for your awesome work on this!

  5. p.s. If I select a group for example (under Select Group), and Bulk deactivate, it also doesn’t work – i.e. they don’t get deactivated

  6. Groups – v 2.1.1

    Jeff, now trying it out. I have created a group. For example, 2 plugins in one group. However, when I click on this group, it still shows the entire plugin list rather than just the 2 plugins.

    There is a new column in the plugin list showing the name of the group it is assigned to, if assigned, next to a plugin.

    • I’m not having this issue on any of the sites I have Plugin Organizer running on. Maybe a plugin conflict?

    • I came across a site that had this problem today. Figured out the issue and fixed it in V 2.1.2. The problem was caused either by a low or really high value for Show On Screen under Screen Options. The site I was working on had the value set to 999. I lowered the value to 60 and it worked. The plugin now checks for the plugin group argument instead of comparing the Show On Screen value to the number of plugins displayed. Hopefully that makes sense. Try the new version and see if you can view your groups.

      • Thanks, it works now. I just checked the Screen Options and it does show 999. I never touched this though, so 999 must be the default.

  7. This is a great plug in and allows me to have control of a wide range of plug-ins which are only used in specific areas of the site. It means i can have 2 plug-ins running on separate pages that when installed together, and it also means i can increase my page load speed by removing unneeded script.
    However i have a question! There is an option to enable/disable plug-ins on admin pages, how is this controlled? I’d like to disable some plug-ins that interfere with things like Tiny MCE in admin but work great on the site. Can this be managed? I am guessing you have some standard scrip this invokes at the moment?

    • They are disabled in the same way plugins are on the front end. The PluginOrganizerMU.class.php file does all the work at load time. The options selected are checked before anything is disabled. FYI if you end up disabling something and have problems change the PO_admin_disable_plugins option in your database to 0 and everything should go back to normal. The only page where plugins cant be disabled is the plugins admin page since they are disabled permanently if that happens.

  8. One question, what is the Group feature for ?

    Thanks

    • It is for admins who have too many plugins running on a site and have a hard time going through the list every time they want to find a plugin. You can put plugins of a particular type together for easy finding. I have intentions down the road to add the ability to disable and enable plugins by group instead of individually but I havent gotten that worked out yet.
      I’m currently working on some new functionality for the next version that will have a button and drop down list of groups by the save order button. You just check the boxes next to the plugins you want to add and click Add to Group to add plugins to a group. It will also have the ability to create new groups from this page.

    • I just released V 2.1 which has better group management. The pages for group management have been removed from the menu but the code is still there. I’m going to do a maintenance release in the next couple of weeks to remove that code and fix any other problems anybody finds. Ive tested this on wordpress 3.1+ so it works with jquery 1.4.4 and 1.7.1. I didnt get a chance to test it with jQuery 1.6.1 which I know has some issues and was released with wordpress 3.2 but I don’t think anything I did will cause issues.

      • Well, the Load Order option is gone, I am using the latest WP. Was this intended ?

        Nothing at all about groups of course …

        • Im not sure what you mean by Load Order option. All of the actions have been moved into the Bulk Actions dropdown on the plugin admin page. There should also be a dropdown of your groups next to the Apply button for bulk actions. Are you seeing the new options in the bulk actions menu? Do you see the Groups dropdown?

          • What I see after the upgrade :

            Plugin Organizer
            Global Plugins
            URL Admin

            That’s it. Where is the plugin admin page ? Nothing about Bulk actions too. I don’t see the plugin admin page mentioned in your documentation, just the 3 above.

            I’ve deactivated, activated, erased the mu folder, still don’t see any

            Thanks

          • I just released V 2.1.1 that adds an option to show the old admin pages to the settings page.
            Click on Plugins in the admin menu and you should see the following options in the bulk action dropdown at the bottom and top of the list of your plugins.

            Remove From Group
            Add To Group
            Save Group
            Delete Group
            Save plugin load order

            There should also be a dropdown next to apply that has your plugin groups in it. If you dont see them then there is some sort of javascript error. Can you see if there is a javascript error when you visit the page? If you are using firefox it is under Tools -> Web Developer -> Error Console. Or push Ctrl+Shift+J on the keyboard. Post the error here or you can start a topic in the forum.

          • Ok, with v 2.1.1, I now see the old admin pages.

            As for bulk action dropdown above and below plugins list, I now see the new options.

            For these new options, they may have been there all along, I just wasn’t looking. I was only concentrating on looking at the Plugin Organizer setting menu on the left side of the screen, not at the top and bottom of the plugin list. Now I understand, thanks.

          • Great. I’ll leave the old admin pages in there for now but they will eventually be going away. You should be able to do everything from the plugins page now that you can do with those 2 pages.

        • Ive also started documentation for plugin organizer. I’ll be adding pages to it but it has some instructions for changing the load order. http://www.wpmason.com/our-plugins/plugin-organizer/documentation/

  9. p.s. this is when adding a new Arbitrary URL, seems no problem if existing Arbitrary URL being edited

  10. I have put in some plugins under Global Plugin settings.

    When editing Arbitrary URLs under URL Admin, these Global Plugins have their own section under Enable Plugins. When I check these to enable, I then save it.

    However, after saving, the check marks disappear. I have to do it again a second time to really get saved.

    Is this just in my setup or is it a bug ?

    Thanks

  11. If nothing else, the phraseology of the url updater tool is now more understandable – thx :)

    If I change a slug / permalink on the same save that I activate i.e Amazon PIP / FilmGettr plugin(s), Plugin Organizer updates the url itself and the plugins work as intended.

    If the plugins were already activated and I change the slug / permalink, then I have to update the PO urls.

  12. Excellent plugin !

    How can one revert back to the original loading sequence before they were changed in Plugin Organizer’s Load Order option ? Need it for debugging.

    And what is the option “Recreate Permalinks ?”

    Thanks

    • There isn’t currently an option to revert the load order back to default. I will try to add this to my next version. The way that the plugins are loaded by default is alphabetically by the plugin folder name. You could manually set them back to the default order with plugin organizer by looking at the folder names through ftp and setting the order accordingly.

      The “recreate permalinks” button recreates the urls in the plugin organizer tables. The permalink of a post is what is used for matching the visited page to a row in the database to know what settings to use. If you change your permalinks then plugin organizer wont recognize the URL’s anymore. If this happens click recreate permalinks to set them all to the current permalink structure.

      • Thank you for these information :)

      • When I use the Recreate Permalinks Button (i.e. after changing the slug / permalink of a post…) it reports an ever-increasing number of “urls failed to update”. Could you explain this?

        PO has visibly improved performance of my site vastly but it seems like a very complex plugin – I am still not entirely sure I have it set up 100% for maximum usability.

        thx

        • It looks like I made a typo in version 1.1 that compares an empty string to the current permalink in the plugin organizer table. Since they never match it tries to update a row in the database with the same information and the update fails. It wont hurt anything and I will release a new version with this fixed soon.

          The recreate permalinks button is really for an emergency when your permalinks arent updating when you save the post or you change the permalinks structure under Settings->Permalinks. The plugin hooks in when you save a post and will automatically update your permalinks. I added this button in the first version because we had an issue with permalinks not updating in wp 2.9.2. You dont need to use this if you change the permalink through the edit post screen.

          • I actually have been using the update permalinks button a lot – the main reason I sought out PO was I use Amazon Plugin-in-a-Post and FilmGettr plugins, while they are both wildly useful they are both also pretty resources-intensive – I have benefited from a significant site-wide performance boost disabling them both except on pages / posts that need those plugins. I have been optimizing lots of permalinks on my site lately for relevant keywords as well and I usually have to use the update permalinks button to get the Amazon PIAP and Film Gettr to activate and work.

          • I submitted V 1.2.2 a few minutes ago that fixes the permalinks issue. Let me know if it works for you.

  13. Hello, I would like to know how can I do to “Admin URL” to make it to block even the linked pages, the pages as comments. If I insert a page as I do for the pages of comments? Type: http://www.example.com/example/comment-page-2/

  14. Thanks so much, this is a perfect plugin and a must have for all wordpress installations.

  15. Pam,
    Did you put the PluginOrganizerMU.class.php file in the mu-plugins folder? Did you go to the Plugin Organizer settings in the wordpress admin and click the enable radio button to turn it on?

  16. not sure why but this just isnt doing anything for my site. I have tried using it specifically for the checkout page but its not turning off any of the plugins, I can see see them in the source code

  17. Plugin Organizer keys off of the url you are accessing. Because of the way wordpress works the plugins must be disabled before the wordpress core is loaded. If the plugin is enabled for the page it will also show up in the posts because you arent accessing the posts directly, the page is actually pulling the posts out of the database.
    Not sure why changing Plugin Organizer to be the first plugin loaded would effect anything. That plugin doesnt do the actual disabling of plugins. It only provides the admin interface. You can actually disable that plugin for the entire site. I was thinking of doing that by default. If you look on the plugins page in the wordpress admin you will see a Must-Use link by the All, Active, and Inactive links. When you click that link you will see Plugin Organizer MU. This is the actual plugin that does the disabling on the front end. Do you have any other MU plugins?

  18. Hi Jeff,

    first of all: Great work! It is very flexible.

    On my site I combine a WP page, and several posts: First, the content of the site is shown. Following the posts appear. For the posts I would like to disable the plugin AddThis Social Bookmark Widget.

    What I’ve set in vers. 0.9 of Plugin Organizer?
    1. For page AddThis enabled.
    2. For the posts AddThis is disabled.

    Error: AddThis appears in the posts.

    Tries:
    I disabled AddThis of the page. Result: AddThis no longer appears on page and posts.
    I changed the order of loading plugins. Plugin Organizer is loaded as the first plugin. Result: AddThis appears at page content and at posts.

    Note: AddThis has no function to hide the AddThis widget at posts. Therefore, it should be disabled for posts.

    Do you have any advice for me?

    Thx & Regards,
    CK

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