David Artiss

If you’re upgrading from a previous release of Draft List (i.e. pre version 2.5) please check out the FAQ – a number of changes have been made in this release that you need to be aware of
Draft List allows you to both manage your draft and scheduled posts more easily but also to promote them by showing them on your site via shortcode or widget – use it to show your visitors what’s “coming soon” or as a great SEO tool.
How easy is it display a list of draft posts? Here’s an example of how you could use it in a post or page…
<pre><code>[drafts limit=5 type=post order=ma scheduled=no template='{{ul}}{{draft}} {{icon}}']
</code></pre>
This would display a list of up to 5 draft posts in ascending modified date sequence, with an icon displayed to the right of each if the draft is scheduled.
Key features include…
<ul>
<li>Both widgets and shortcodes are available for you to show off your up-coming content</li>
<li>Output is highly configurable – create your own look by using a template, identify scheduled posts with an icon, sequence the results in various ways and even narrow down the results to a specific timeframe</li>
<li>Click on any of the drafts posts listed to edit them</li>
<li>A meta box in the editor screen allows you to omit individual posts from any list outputs</li>
<li>Tested up to PHP 8.2</li>
<li>Fully complies with WordPress coding standards</li>
<li>Compliant with the stronger <a href="https://wpvip.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress VIP</a> coding standards, as well as compatibility with their platform</li>
<li>Community plugin – visit the <a href="https://github.com/dartiss/draft-list" title="Github" rel="nofollow ugc">Github page</a> to get involved with the latest code development, request enhancements and report issues</li>
</ul>
Iconography is courtesy of the very talented <a href="https://www.fiverr.com/jankirathore" rel="nofollow ugc">Janki Rathod</a>.
<h3>Shortcode Parameters</h3>
The following shortcode parameters are valid…
<ul>
<li>cache= : How long to cache the output for, in hours. Defaults to half an hour. Set to <code>No</code> to not cache at all. Whenever you save a post any cache will be cleared to ensure that any lists are updated.</li>
<li>date= : The format of any dates output. This uses the PHP date formatting system – <a href="http://uk3.php.net/manual/en/function.date.php" title="date" rel="nofollow ugc">read here</a> for the formatting codes. Defaults to <code>F j, Y, g:i a</code>.</li>
<li>folder= : The scheduled icon will be, by default, the one in the plugin folder named <code>scheduled.png</code>. However, use this parameter to specify a folder within your theme that you’d prefer the icon to be fetched from.</li>
<li>limit= : The maximum number of draft items to display. The default is 0, which is unlimited.</li>
<li>order= : This is the sequence that you’d like to order the results in. It consists of 2 codes – the first is either <code>t</code>, <code>m</code> or <code>c</code> to represent the title, modified date or created date and the second is <code>a</code> or <code>d</code> for ascending or descending. Therefore <code>order=td</code> will display the results in descending title sequence. The default is descending modified date.</li>
<li>pending= : True or false, where to include pending posts in the result. By default, pending posts will not be included.</li>
<li>scheduled= : True or false, where to include scheduled posts in the result. By default, scheduled posts will be included.</li>
<li>template= : This is the template which formats the output. See the section below on * *Templates** for further information.</li>
<li>type= : This allows you to limit the results to either <code>post</code> or <code>page</code>. The default is both.</li>
<li>words= : The minimum number of words that must be present in the draft for it to be included. Defaults to 0.</li>
</ul>
To restrict the posts to a particular timeframe you can use the following 2 parameters. You simply state, in words, how long ago the posts must be dated for e.g. “2 days”, “3 months”, etc.
<ul>
<li>created= : his reflects how long ago the post/page must have been created for it to be listed. For example <code>6 months</code> would only list drafts that were created in the last 6 months.</li>
<li>modified= : This reflects how long ago the post/page must have been modified last for it to be listed. For example <code>6 months</code> would only list drafts that have been modified in the last 6 months.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Templates</h3>
The template parameter allows you to format the output by allowing you to specify how each line of output will display. A number of tags can be added, and you can mix these with HTML. The available tags are as follows…
<ul>
<li>{{ul}} – Specifies this is an un-ordered list (i.e. bullet point output). This MUST be specified at the beginning of the template if it is to be used.</li>
<li>{{ol}} – Specifies this is an ordered list (i.e. number output). This MUST be specified at the beginning of the template if it is to be used.</li>
<li>{{icon}} – This is the icon that indicates a scheduled post.</li>
<li>{{draft}} – This is the post detail and is the only REQUIRED tag.</li>
<li>{{author}} – This is the name of the post author.</li>
<li>{{author+link}} – This is the name of the post author with, where available, a link to their URL.</li>
<li>{{words}} – The number of words in the draft post.</li>
<li>{{chars}} – The number of characters (exc. spaces) in the post.</li>
<li>{{chars+space}} – The number of characters (inc. spaces) in the post.</li>
<li>{{created}} – The date/time the post was created.</li>
<li>{{modified}} – The date/time the post was last modified.</li>
<li>{{category}} – Shows the first category assigned to the post.</li>
<li>{{categories}} – Shows all categories assigned to the post, comma separated.</li>
</ul>
If {{ul}} or {{ol}} are specified then all the appropriate list tags will be added to the output. If neither are used then it’s assumed that line output will be controlled by yourself.
<h3>Omitting Posts/Pages from Results</h3>
If you wish to omit a page or post from the list then you can do this in 3 ways…
<ol>
<li>By giving the post a title beginning with an exclamation mark. You can then remove this before publishing the post.</li>
<li>The post and page editor has a meta box, where you can select to hide the page/post.</li>
<li>You can add a custom field to a page/post with a name of ‘draft_hide’ and a value of ‘Yes’</li>
</ol>
<h3>Edit Link</h3>
If the current user can edit the draft item being listed then it will be linked to the appropriate edit page. The user then simply needs to click on the draft item to edit it.
There are separate permissions for post and page editing, so an editor with just one permission may find that they can only edit some of the draft items.
Drafts that don’t have a title will not be shown on the list UNLESS the current user has edit privileges for the draft – in this case a title of [No Title] will be shown.
<h3>Using a Widget</h3>
Sidebar widgets can be easily added. In Administration simply click on the <code>Widgets</code> option under the <code>Appearance</code> menu. <code>Draft Posts</code> will be one of the listed widgets. Drag it to the appropriate sidebar on the right hand side and then choose your options.
Save the result and that’s it! You can use unlimited widgets, so you can add different lists to different sidebars.

Draft List

WordPress plugin to manage and promote your unpublished content.

webheadcoder

What happens if WP-Cron stops working?
WordPress, Themes, and Plugins would never know if a new version is out. You could login to your website everyday for months, and never see any notices about updates. If you’re not careful you’ll soon have an out of date WordPress installation susceptible to hackers. Scheduled posts would never get published, auto drafts never deleted… you get the picture. Your website would crumble up and die.
Use Woocommerce? Subscriptions? Customers would never get billed again! Sessions would never be deleted. Scheduled sales would never appear. Your website would become bloated while giving away subscriptions for one time payments.
WP-Cron is important. So make sure it keeps working.
Think of this plugin as insurance, but free. WordPress, plugins, themes, and servers are all moving parts that can be updated at anytime. You can’t guarantee any of these changes won’t break your website in some way. While it’s not likely WP-Cron will stop working, if it does, you better know about it.
Every 24 hours this plugin automatically checks to see if WP-Cron is still able to run. Obviously, it does not depend on WP-Cron. Instead it sets its own transients that expire over 24 hours. Whenever the transient expires it checks to make sure WordPress can run WP-Cron. If an unexpected error occurs the you’ll get an email.
In addition to checking if WP-Cron CAN run, this plugin now logs all hooks running with WP-Cron and if they fail or complete. You’ll be able to see what ran, when it ran, how long it took, and if it completed.
For your convenience The WP-Cron Status Checker is displayed on your WordPress admin dashboard. The status page is accessible through the Tools -> WP Cron Status side menu.
Know when WP-Cron doesn’t complete
When a WP-Cron hook fails you’ll get notified soon after. A hook “fails” when it takes longer than 5 minutes to complete. You’ll get an email within 24 hours (or based on the plugin’s settings) to notify you of any failures.
Sometimes a plugin runs some code that abruptly exits the process and there is no way of knowing when it stopped. WP-Cron Status Checker does it’s best to detect this type of code. If it’s caught, the elapsed time is not recorded and you’ll see “N/A” with an “Incomplete” status. Other times when it’s caught you’ll see an “Exit” status which is considered complete. <a href="https://webheadcoder.com/wp-cron-status-checker/" rel="nofollow ugc">Please see the plugin page for more on completion statuses.</a>
PRO Version 
The PRO version removes the 3 log limit and lets you choose to keep logs longer and email more frequently. Please see more on the plugin page: <a href="https://webheadcoder.com/wp-cron-status-checker/" rel="nofollow ugc">https://webheadcoder.com/wp-cron-status-checker/</a>

WP-Cron Status Checker

I know I created this plugin, but I am also using it and it has warned me WP Cron stopped working.  I'm not sure what the error was.  WP Cron just stopped working for a short while and then started working the next day right before I contacted the web host.

Caught an error

I debug WordPress websites for a living and a stopped, paused or failed cron is often a problem. I use this plugin to help in the process. Thanks to the dev!

One request. At first, it was very hard to find where to find the status (it's a widget on the dashboard btw). It would be helpful if this was mentioned somewhere in the description of the plugin (unless its there already and I missed it). 

Cheers!

Very handy tool in my debug tool kit

This is an easy way to check if WP-cron is enabled and jobs are actually running. Don't let the relatively low number of active installations mislead you, I suspect many people may use this plugin just like I did - install it just to check WP-cron is doing ok, then remove the plugin again.

My only criticism is that I had expected to be able to view the WP-cron status on this plugin's settings page, instead I had to look for it in the Dashboard.

Good tool to check WP-cron


I installed by mistake, intending to use a simple tool to monitor and log WP-Cron activity. It appears, this is now another freemius plugin which seems to me to be a bait, because description and screenshots are not accurate and up to date.



To use this plugin is now required to give all your personnal data or to register/subscribe. This shouldn't be required for such limited functionality plugin. An unnecessary and intrusive step for something as simple as viewing cron logs



Thankfully, better alternatives exist. Installed by mistake, uninstalling by will.


Almost a bait because it requires personnal data

If WP-Cron runs important things for you, you better make sure WP-Cron always runs!

Draft List vs WP-Cron Status Checker