Plugin Register

If you are a WordPress plugin developer the chances are your plugins are available for download from the WordPress plugin repository. As part of that service the nice guys at WordPress show you how many downloads of your plugin you get per day. Very useful, and if you’re like me you check your downloads numbers very often.

However what these stats don’t show you is where your plugin is in use – which sites it is actually being activated on. Seeing that information would allow you to see exactly which sites are using your plugin, when they installed it, and what version the site is running. That is exactly what Plugin Register does.

By including the Plugin_Register class and calling it with some simple code in your plugin, your plugin will prompt the user to register your plugin when they activate it. When they register the plugin, the Plugin Register database on your site will be updated with the name and version of your plugin, and the site name and URL where that plugin has just been activated. A simple call is made to your website to save these details in the Plugin Register table, and you get some great statistics on which site is installing what versions of your plugins.

So, what do you need to put in your plugin? This example code hows you everything you need:

`// include the Plugin_Register class
require_once( “plugin-register.class.php” );

// create a new instance of the Plugin_Register class
$register = new Plugin_Register(); // leave this as it is
$register->file = FILE; // leave this as it is
$register->slug = “pluginregister”; // create a unique slug for your plugin (normally the plugin name in lowercase, with no spaces or special characters works fine)
$register->name = “Plugin Register”; // the full name of your plugin (this will be displayed in your statistics)
$register->version = “1.0”; // the version of your plugin (this will be displayed in your statistics)
$register->developer = “Chris Taylor”; // your name
$register->homepage = “http://www.stillbreathing.co.uk”; // your WordPress website where Plugin Register is installed (no trailing slash)
$register->Plugin_Register(); // set Plugin Register to be called when the plugin is activated

The reports you get include:

• Graphs showing how many registrations have been made for the last 24 hours, 14 days, 12 weeks and 12 months
• A list of all plugins registered, with how many unique versions and unique sites
• A list of all versions of a particular plugin, with the number of unique sites
• A list of all sites which have registered any of your plugins
• Details of what plugins were registered on a particular day
• A search, so you can see what sites have got version X of plugin Foo_Bar installed

Privacy

Registering a plugin is completely up to the user who has just activated it. Plugin Register does NOT automatically send any data back to your website without the user manually clicking a link. Some text is displayed which invites the user to register the plugin, by default it says:

“Please consider registering your use of [your plugin name] to tell [your name] (the plugin maker) you are using it. This sends only your site name and URL to [your name] so they know where their plugin is being used. No other data is sent.”

It is possible to override this default text on a per-plugin basis.