Core Essentials

<p>Easy Updates Menu is a lightweight plugin that enhances your WordPress admin interface by adding a convenient “Updates” submenu item under the Plugins menu. This submenu only appears when there are plugin updates available, making it easier to quickly access and manage pending updates.</p>
<p>We’ve all dealt with slow servers and clunky setups when running maintenance on sites. How frustrating is it to log in to the dashboard, click on ‘Installed Plugins’, then click ‘Updates’? It eats up precious time. With Easy Updates Menu, you can simply log in to the dashboard, click “Updates,” and start updating without the hassle.</p>
<h4>Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Adds a dynamic submenu item: Plugins <span aria-hidden="true" class="wp-exclude-emoji">→</span> Updates</li>
<li>Shows the number of available updates in the menu</li>
<li>Only visible when plugin updates are available</li>
<li>Direct access to the updates view</li>
<li>Respects WordPress user capabilities</li>
</ul>
<h4>How It Works</h4>
<p>The plugin automatically checks for available plugin updates and adds a submenu item when updates are found. Clicking the submenu takes you directly to the plugins update screen, streamlining your update workflow.</p>
<h4>User Permissions</h4>
<p>The submenu is only visible to users with the ‘update_plugins’ capability, maintaining proper WordPress security practices.</p>


Easy Updates Menu

Adds a dynamic 'Updates' submenu item under the Plugins menu when updates are available.

zzio

<p>Plugin Update Message Customizer changes the default “There is a new version of PLUGIN available.” message on WordPress’ Plugin listing page.</p>
<p>This is useful for multiple scenarios:<br />
*   If using WordPress within a dev/staging/live production environment, this plugin is great to install on the live and staging servers so that end users won’t update a plugin and therefore break the tracked remote branch.<br />
*   On sites where you only want specific users to update the plugins, this will prevent users from clicking “update now.”<br />
*   If you want to add additional options (e.g., “View version X.Y.Z details, update now, or mark as in testing.”) to the plugin new version message, e.g., “mark as in testing” to let others know the plugin is currently being tested and they should not yet update it on production.</p>
<p>Of course, other plugins and functions would prevent all plugin notifications. However, for the average user who logs into their live/production site instead of local/dev, this would still allow them to see that updates EXIST, however will just prevent them from performing them in an environment they should not be updated in.</p>
<p>Upcoming features:<br />
*   Backwards compatibility (to be tested starting with WordPress 4.5)<br />
*   Ability to hide the number of plugins with updates next to “Plugins” in admin sidebar)<br />
*   Ability to hide all update notifications<br />
*   Ability to prevent all automatic updates<br />
*   Action on plugins with update message to apply the label “In testing,” which lets other users know that the plugin’s update is currently being tested in dev<br />
*   Functionality to hide the plugin in the Plugins listing page</p>


Notification Customizer

Plugin Update Message Customizer changes the default "There is a new version of PLUGIN available." message on Wordpress' Plugin listing …

Easy Updates Menu vs Notification Customizer