A New WordPress Plugin for Comment Notifications

Honestly, this article exists mainly for testing purposes. I need an article under which I can post comments and check whether the notifications actually arrive in my inbox. Exciting journalism, I know.

The WordPress plugin is designed to send two types of notifications, which you can see below in the comment section:

1. Notify me when my comment is approved.
2. Notify me when someone replies to my comment.

Version 1.4 had a small but rather visible mistake: it displayed “Notify me when my comment is approved” twice. That has now been fixed in version 1.5.1.

The mistake sat proudly on my website for an entire week, which is slightly embarrassing. But when I stare at the same code for too long, I eventually become blind to the most obvious things. Apparently, duplicating a sentence is much easier than noticing that I duplicated a sentence.

Anyway, the plugin is nearly finished and will soon be released as a small gift to everyone, completely free of charge. It is especially suitable for grumpy bloggers who enjoy complaining about noisy birds at 4 a.m. while still trying to finish an article about some other annoying shit.

What Does “Published Soon” Mean?

That is a very good question.

Unfortunately, I also have work to do in real life, so “soon” probably means within a week or two. Once the plugin is ready, I will add a link to the article where it can be downloaded, along with a proper description and instructions.

Will It Have a Settings Page?

The plugin already has a settings page. You can enable either one or both notification types. You can also customize the email text and add your own email signature.

I am still considering whether to include an option for adding a logo. It could look nice, but every innocent little feature eventually demands more code, more testing, and more opportunities for something to break.

I want to keep the plugin lightweight and the amount of code to a minimum. More features mean more things that can go wrong, so less is often better. WordPress already has enough bloated plugins attempting to run an entire civilization from the admin panel.

What About Privacy and Security?

There will be no ads, no tracking, and no mysterious heartbeat phoning home to report what you are doing.

All submitted fields are sanitized, and the plugin will support current PHP versions and follow WordPress security practices.

The final ZIP file will also include an uninstall.php file to remove the plugin’s stored settings after uninstallation. If someone deletes the plugin, it should clean up after itself instead of leaving little pieces of rubbish in the database forever.

Yes, It Will Be Free, But…

The plugin will be completely free. I like free stuff, and I assume everyone else does too.

For some reason, however, people rarely think about the time spent creating, testing, fixing, documenting, and maintaining something they receive for free. If it costs nothing, it must have magically appeared by itself.

I will probably add a “Buy Me a Coffee” button. The plugin will remain free, but if someone sends me at least five dollars, that certainly would not be bad. And let’s be realistic: there probably will not be 5,000 people rushing to do it.

Perhaps I should write another article about how people never click buttons labeled “Buy Me a Coffee” or “Support Me.” And yes, it will be a rant.

Putting an important button on a website only for everyone to pretend it does not exist sucks.