Plugins/Licenses
Welcome back team! We’re here with another episode of Designer’s Desk, and today we will review the basics of how WDS updates plugins and why you will never need to put in a license key. Let’s get started!
The Video
The Why
Why should I bother updating plugins?
The biggest reason to keep plugins up to date is to prevent security vulnerabilities and to gain added features. Because of the nature of WordPress being an open source software, attackers can use this as an advantage and find potential holes in the plugin coding, which they can then turn into a way to gain information either from the website or from the site visitors. Good plugin developers will constantly update their coding or add functionality to their plugin to make it more secure and versatile, so making sure you keep your plugins up to date is important.
Disclaimer:
Plugin updates should not be done on behalf of the customer. If a customer needs their plugins updated and is not comfortable doing it themselves, a ticket should be created to update the plugins for them. This ensures that if something were to go wrong on a plugin update, the build team could diagnose and resolve the issue in less time. If the customer updates plugins and the site goes down, a ticket must still be created, potentially delaying the resolution and the site being down for an extended period of time.
If a ticket is submitted to update plugins, the build team will only update the plugins that have been approved. Any 3rd party plugins not listed on our features site will not be updated, and should be managed by the customer. This is because we are not trained in these plugins and have not tested them with our current plugins. If an update to a 3rd party plugin were to break, there would be little we can do to resolve the issue.
We want you all to have the proper knowledge for plugin updates should you need to chat about it with your customer.
Premium Plugin License Keys
What about those license keys, don’t I need those to update our plugins?
Short answer, you don’t need to enter license keys with WDS plugins.
We actually made this super simple for everyone and included the license keys for all of our premium plugins inside of GD cORe. So all you need is to download and update these inside of cORe and your all set.
Update Frequency
But how often SHOULD I update plugins?
I’m sure you have heard the phrase, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it”. For WordPress that is typically true, however, as we mentioned before plugin developers will often patch their code to prevent attacks or add new features so it is important to keep everything up to date.
The flip side of this argument is that not all plugin developers talk to each other, so updating a plugin every single time there is a small update could cause something to break unexpectedly.
Good news, that is one of the reasons WDS created GD cORe. You have probably seen the message on the plugins page saying there is an update available, but when you go to the cORe plugins page no update is available. This is because the build team tests the updates for our core plugins to make sure there aren’t conflicts with the core plugins used on WDS builds, plugins like Beaver Builder, Beaver Themer, PowerPack, and UABB to name a few. After the builders have tested the new updates, GD cORe will show that the plugin is ready to be updated.
A good rule to follow is to check for updates on a monthly basis.
The How
Best Way to Update
OK but HOW do I update plugins?
There are three things to look at while inside the WordPress dashboard:
- GD cORe
- The plugins page
- The theme
GD cORe
When updating plugins, the first step you should do is go straight to the GD cORe Plugins screen. This should always be the first step in updating, because as we stated before, we test these plugins first.
You may or may not see a button that says “Reauth”. This is nothing to worry about and you can click the button.
- If an error occurs, which is unlikely, while reauthenticating, you will need to open a ticket to have the builders resolve the error before moving forward. Once the Reauthentication has finished you should be brought to the core plugins page.
On the plugins page you will see a list of all the available plugins in core and a status next to each one.
Please note, you do not always need every plugin in core installed to have your site operational.
You should see one of the following next to each plugin:
- Plugin is not installed – Red
- Plugin is installed, but not active – Yellow
- Plugin is active – Green
- Plugin needs an update – Orange
For each plugin that shows that it needs an update, click on the update link to the right of it. It is best to do these one by one, so the server doesn’t freeze up and cause an error.
WordPress Plugins Page
Now that all the core plugins are up to date, we can head over to the standard WordPress plugins page to finish updating. As with the core plugins, make sure you do the updates one by one to make sure the server doesn’t freeze up and error out.
You may see that some of the plugins are asking for a license key to be updated.
- If this is a core plugin, you do not need to enter any keys, GD cORe holds all the license keys for you.
- If it is not a core plugin and is on our approved list, a ticket must be submitted to update the plugin.
- If the plugin is not a core plugin and is not on our approved list, the customer must manage this on their own.
You may run into a core plugin showing an available update on the plugins page, but in core it shows that it is up to date. This can and will happen. This just means that there is a new version of the plugin that we have not yet tested to make sure the update doesn’t conflict with our other plugins.
Any of our approved plugins that have an update available and ARE NOT IN CORE should be updated here.
To see a list of our approved plugins head on over to the Features site features.wdsgallery.com/
Exceptions: The following list of plugins always have to be updated on the Plugins page. They only appear in Core so they can be auto-installed on initial setup.
- FiboSearch – AJAX Search for WooCommerce
- Cookie Notice
- Event Tickets
- The Events Calendar
- WooCommerce
- WooCommerce Royal Mail Shipping Calculator
- Yoast
It is recommended that WooCommerce always be deactivated before updating, then reactivated after it has completed the update. This can prevent critical errors. You can also uninstall the plugin and then reinstall it through core, this will install the most up to date version and you will not lose any WooCommerce data.
The Theme
Now that our plugins are all up to date, lets discuss the theme. Themes don’t have updates often, but they should be updated when available for security reasons.
To check to see if the theme needs to be updated, go to GD cORe and click on Themes. Like the core plugins page, you should see a status indicator next to the theme. If an update is needed you can simply click the update link. That’s it, you don’t need to do anything else here.
Final Note
This information is simply meant to help give you a better understanding of updating plugins, it is not meant to enforce updating plugins over the phone or avoid submitting a ticket to have the build team complete the updates. As we mentioned above, customers are welcome to update on their own, but the build team will not be able to accommodate on the fly fixes should an update break the site. When in doubt submit a ticket!