Plugin Review: List category posts

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Prefatory

I work in an environment where we end up with a few hundred WordPress sites.

Many standalone installs as well as multi-site installs that have hundreds of sub-domains.

A frequent request is to add plugins to sites, and for standalone sites this is not something I normally deal with as their install integrity is in their own hands, but for shared servers and multi-site installs more care has to be exercised, less the server go down … for the lulz.

lulzsecs: lulz boat

So to decide whether someone can use a plugin, I have to “grade” it. I do this by doing an install and checking for notices, warnings, etc. I also check for basic things like … does it actually do what it says it does? Does the code make sense? Is it written in a way that won’t break later? How much documentation and experience does the developer have, what’s their style like, and so on.

So I figured I’d start posting this stuff!

More often than not, the plugins I get asked to reviewed are very bad stuff. LOTS of errors, notices, they don’t work the way they are supposed to – blah blah.

Today I reviewed: List category posts

Requires WordPress Version: 2.8 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.1.3
Last Updated: 2011-2-14 Downloads: 135,939

Version: 0.18.3

Short description: List Category Posts allows you to list posts from a category into a post/page using the [catlist] shortcode.

So some things that I noticed right from the start, thanks to the author’s description:

  • It’s been tested with 3.1 and the Twenty Ten theme.
  • The plugin requires PHP 5.

These are goo things to know.

The Review

The Basics

  • +1 Point: The author appears to still be actively supporting the plugin.
  • +1 Point: I installed the plugin and activated it. No notices and no errors.
  • +1 Point: Upon use of the shortcode, no errors and no warnings were thrown.
  • +1 Point: Does what it said it would do.
  • +1 Point: Good documentation.

The Code

  • +1 Point: Uses objects instead of prefixed functions.
  • -1 Point: Does not conform to the WordPress coding standards for formatting: WordPress Coding Standards: Indentation
  • -1 Point: Code quality is lacking. It’s a bit messy and hard to follow in areas. Unnecessarily.
  • -1 Point: The code is trusting all user input. It’s not making any attempts to sanitize the data. Never trust the user: Andrew Nacin: WordCamp Seattle
  • +1 Point: Allows for custom templates in such a way as to not edit core files of the plugin.

The Results

Passed!

  • The Basics: +5 Points
  • The Code: -1 Points

Total: +4 Points

So this plugin passes, and in my opinion the author did a great job. I would recommend it. My only issues with it are really the readability of the code and security issues.

With respects to the author and the WordPress community, these are my opinions and my thoughts – in no way is the review a personal matter – never take it personally. I also have and do make mistakes when it comes to the readability of code and security, but that’s why we use version control, refactor and so on.

We shall use it!

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