After a short pause while things were busy, I’ll finally have time to put into developing Turbo Admin again. Hooray!
(For those that don’t know, Turbo Admin is my magical WordPress browser extension that adds a command palette and other admin features to the WordPress Dashboard on any site that you log in to.)
A particularly busy winter
I know everyone is perpetually “busy”, but I feel like I’ve been busy-with-stuff since about last summer!
Preparing for WordSesh and then LoopConf. Updating caniphp.com for PHP 8.5. And then all the Christmas things. And then I needed to invest some time in sorting out a bunch of side projects that needed updating and moving to a new VPS. And then I had to prepare for a Meetup talk that I was delivering. There has always been Something To Do. All while being a parent, husband, householder, working hard at WP Engine, trying to do self-care, and occasionally being ill too.
Yes, there is a phase of life where your side project time is very limited and needs prioritizing. And that has what happened.
But… things feel a little clearer now. No big events on the horizon. Ancient infrastructure taken care of. I think I finally have time to get to some of the many things that need updating or improving in Turbo Admin!
Yes, it is not dead. It has just been on the back-burner for a very long time now.
Opportunities and challenges
I confess, there was also some hesitation about what to do next. There are some great opportunities with, for example, the Abilities API potentially allowing Turbo Admin to discover new things it can do.
But there are also challenges.
A WordPress Dashboard redesign has been in the planning for a while. This has been scaled back to just a “CSS coat of paint“. But a potential, React-based re-working of the admin could stop Turbo Admin working entirely.
And there is also a Command Palette built in to WordPress core now, which potentially removes the need for the biggest feature of Turbo Admin.
But! I built Turbo Admin for me and … say it quietly now … I just prefer it to the built-in command palette. Turbo Admin also has a bunch of other things that it does. And I have plenty of ideas for other things that it could do too.
So development will re-start. I don’t know how fast things will get added/fixed. But there will be releases coming.
I may even set up a mailing list to let customers know.
Speaking of customers: you’re all amazing and I keep getting great feedback, both ideas for changes and things that need to be fixed. Turbo Admin is great value and no support is ever promised, but I love to hear from customers and I do my very best to get back to you every time. So thanks to everyone who has been in touch, and is patiently awaiting fixes and features.
On with the work!
A note on AI coding
Opinions are divided on the topic of AI coding and LLM agents. I know some people are avoiding products created by AI. So I want to say what my stance is for Turbo Admin.
I have, during the “fancy autocomplete” phase of AI coding, used LLM-based fancy autocomplete when working on Turbo Admin. But it only ever wrote small chunks of code and boilerplate template-style code.
I have not, and will not, use agent-based coding tools to work on Turbo Admin.
So I can not, with my hand on my heart, say I have never used an LLM in my coding practices. But that use has been very minimal and I do not plan to ramp up my use of LLM’s in personal side project and I do not have a subscription to any LLM-based AI services.