It’s been a long six months since the last release of Turbo Admin. But v1.20 is finally here and it has some very nice new features and lots of little improvements.
I’ll also probably be setting up an email list for customers, and there may be a long-overdue price-rise in the works too.
New feature: Plugin Installation
It had been claimed that it was impossible. I can’t remember where, but I distinctly remember it.
So I have done the impossible.
There is now an “install” keyword which lets you search the WordPress.org plugin repository and install plugins from inside the Turbo Admin command palette – from any page on your site. Here it is in action:
Once a plugin is installed you will be redirected to the post-install page, where you can also use the command palette to “activate” the plugin.
Full instructions for installing plugins
New Feature: User Switching
There is an excellent plugin by WordPress legend John Blackbourn called “User Switching” that lets administrators temporarily assume the login of another user.
The user search in Turbo Admin’s command palette now lets you switch users if the User Switching plugin is installed.
It adds a new “Switch” menu item to the user menu in the palette. And it lets you switch back from the command palette too!
See it working:
Full instructions for user switching
You like this?
Here’s a little interruption with a link to: find out more and buy Turbo Admin!
Other minor improvements
There are a number of other improvements in the 1.20 release:
- Plugin list cache and search: The site’s installed plugin list is now cached and fuzzy-searched. The loading and caching of this was needed for other things, but now that it’s there, it allows a much better experience searching for what is installed on your site.
- API discovery improvements: There were quite a lot of places where you could get the message: “WordPress API Error. Try visiting the dashboard to refresh things.”. I’ve implemented a clever mechanism that should automatically fix this so you should see it much less often.
- Multisite improvements and compatibility: I’ve done a LOT of testing on multisite. This was one of the things that slowed down this release as there are places where, to Turbo Admin, WordPress multisite is very different. The new features have been pretty thoroughly tested in these setups, but do let me know if you come across issues.
- Kinsta Staging Domains: Kinsta’s staging domains have been added for the live/dev site notices feature.
- Barkeeper on multisite: If you use the Barkeeper function, it was hiding the multisite menu when you collapsed the admin bar. Whoops! This doesn’t happen any more.
Email list
I have all of my customer emails in my eCommerce System, and I have never used (or abused) that by mailing you directly.
But now that I’m not on Twitter/X, and my reach on other social platforms is small, I think it would be helpful to use email to let you know what’s going on with Turbo Admin.
So I plan doing a one-off email to everyone that’s ever bought Turbo Admin to let you opt in if you want the news. And then for those of you that want to hear, I promise I’ll only send you product updates.
You don’t want a load more emails, and I’m not going to be the one sending them if you sign up!!
A price rise?
I believe that Turbo Admin is one of the best value products in the WordPress ecosystem. It’s a labour of love for me, and I’ve deliberately chosen to keep it as a side project that’s highly affordable for everyone, rather than a business that needs to keep raising money to be sustainable.
But the price of everything is going up. A lot!! You could say that that’s a reason to keep the price of Turbo Admin down. But there are other reasons why I think I should do it:
- The competitor products have proven that people will pay more. A lot more.
- People have just plain told me I should charge more!
- I’ve just added two big new features, and more will be coming.
I’ve put off a price rise for AGES because I’ll inevitably end up telling people to buy now before the price goes up, and I don’t want to engage in such marketing trickery.
That’s not why you should buy Turbo Admin. You should buy it because it’s useful to you and you think it’s good value.
To that end, I probably won’t announce when this change will happen. It will just change one day. Probably to $50. This seems fair to me.
The Deal will not change. You get to use Turbo Admin for as long as it keeps working on as many sites as you can visit from 6 different browsers.
Some notes from me
1. Thank you!
I want to offer a huge thank you to you for your patience as I continue development. I’ve had a busy few months both at work and personally. This is just a side-gig and I have a lot of other things one.
Thank you also if you helped promote Turbo Admin, or have recently purchased it. Last year was a great year for my little browser extension! I really appreciate every sale and every bit of feedback.
2. If Turbo Admin looks simple and easy, it’s not!
Turbo Admin is a browser extension and it can’t get deep inside WordPress’s internals. This has pros and cons. The main pro is it works everywhere! (Well, within some reasonable limits).
But the main con is that I have to do some pretty weird and complex things to make stuff work. And I may not have covered every case.
So if I really have made it look simple, I did my job.
But if it’s janky and unreliable… well…
3. Feedback is SO important
Please tell me where things don’t work, or what you would like from Turbo Admin. I can only make it better with your help.
I’m not at the limits of what I can do yet. So get in touch and pass me your wishes and challenges. Your feature could be next! Or I might have to say “no”, but I at least had the chance to consider your request.
Use help@turbo-admin.com! It’s always great to hear from customers.
Links: