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3. FAQ
First thing is to read all the online documentation available (Installation, Usage, Wiki, and of course this section) as they should address most of the questions you might have about this plugin.
If Recently is not working as expected on your website and none of the FAQs listed below provide an answer to the issue(s) you may be having while using this plugin then doing some initial troubleshooting might help you figure out what's going on.
The Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin and its Troubleshooting Mode will allow you to disable plugins and even switch to a different theme without affecting your visitors. For them your website will continue to work as usual, same theme and same active plugins as before. It only affects the user who enabled the Troubleshooting Mode (you). This is useful because this way you can check whether the problem is being caused due to a conflict with another plugin and/or your current theme.
So:
- Install the Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin and enable its Troubleshooting Mode mode.
- Go to Plugins and make sure that only Recently is activated (and that all of your other plugins are disabled), then try to reproduce the problem.
- If the issue is gone and Recently is working as expected then the problem is likely being caused by at least one of your other plugins. Reactivate one of them, check again and repeat until the issue reappears to find the culprit(s).
If you prefer a video tutorial you may want to check out Automattic's How to health check or troubleshoot plugins and themes video to learn how to use the Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin.
If the problem persists even with all of the other plugins deactivated, try switching to a different WordPress theme for a moment (eg. Twenty Twenty), make sure that Recently is the only active plugin, and check again. If switching themes didn't make a difference then please open a new issue or stop by the support forum to report the problem.
Alternatively if you have a Staging website already set up (or plan to get one) you can also disable all of your plugins there -except for Recently- and do the tests as described above - but in this case installing the Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin won't be necessary.
Stopping by the Support Forum is also a good idea if you can't find an answer here. Please share as much information as possible (what the issue is, how to reproduce it, active plugins, site URL, etc) so I can help. Do make sure to check whether someone else has reported the same issue already though.
Remember: read first. It'll save you (and me) time.
Yes, generally speaking the plugin should work with most (if not all) caching plugins/systems out there. However, note that:
- When you first install the plugin and after every plugin update, flushing your caching plugin's cache is highly recommended to make sure that Recently can insert its JavaScript code into your posts and pages correctly.
- Your caching plugin must regenerate/purge its cache at least once per day so Recently can work. The reason for this is that Recently uses a security token (or nonces as the WordPress team calls them) to prevent the misuse of the plugin by external actors. Said token expires roughly every 24 hours so in order for Recently to be able to do its job your site's cache should also be recreated every 24 hours (or less) so Recently can obtain a new security token. Alternatively, although not really recommended for security reasons, you could also have WordPress Nonces last as long as your site's cache lifetime. That way it won't be necessary to have your caching plugin regenerate its cache every day.
- Some caching plugins include a JS minification/bundling feature. In some cases this (the minification/bundling thing) isn't handled properly, breaking Recently's ability to loads its widget via AJAX. See here for more details: Is Recently compatible with plugins that minify / bundle JavaScript code?
- You'll want to make sure to enable the Ajaxify widget feature to keep your caching plugin from caching your recent posts widget (Settings > Recently > Tools, Under Data set Ajaxify widget to Enabled, click on the Apply button below to save changes, then clear your caching plugin's cache for changes to take effect.)
Some of these plugins can at times be a bit too aggressive when minifying / bundling JavaScript code which often leads to stuff being broken. In Recently's case this results in Recently not being able to display recent posts.
If this is happening to you please try clearing said plugin's JavaScript cache and check again. If Recently still doesn't work after that then make sure to exclude Recently's JavaScript files from the JS minification / bundling process.
For example:
- If you're using the W3 Total Cache plugin, go to its Minify settings page and under Never minify the following JS files add
/wp-content/plugins/recently/assets/front/js/recently.min.js, then click on Save Changes and also on the Empty All Caches button afterwards for changes to apply immediately. - If you're using the WP Fastest Cache plugin, go to its settings page and click on the Exclude tab. Under Exclude JS, click on the Add Rule button, then add
recently.min.jsand click on Save. Lastly, go to the Delete Cache tab and click on Delete Cache and Minified CSS/JS button. - If you're using the WP Optimize plugin, go to its Minify page then click on the JavaScript tab. Under Exclude JavaScript from processing add
/recently/assets/js/and save changes. Additionally, you may also need to disable the Process HTML option under the Minify Status tab as well (excluding Recently's JS as mentioned earlier should be enough though.) Finally, if you're using WP Optimize's Page Caching feature please go to its Cache page and click on Purge Cache for changes to take effect. - If you're using the Fast Velocity Minify plugin, go to its settings page and click on the Pro tab, then under Ignore List add
/recently/assets/js/. When you're done, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Save Changes. Next, click on the Status tab and click on the Delete button under Purge the cache files so these changes are applied right away. - If you're using the Merge + Minify + Refresh plugin, add this line to the box under Ignore these files (one per line):
https://www.my-domain.com/wp-content/plugins/recently/assets/js/recently.min.js(replacewww.my-domain.comwith your actual domain name) and save changes. Remember to click on Purge All afterwards for changes to take effect. - If you're using the Hummingbird plugin by WPMU DEV head to Hummingbird > Asset Optimization, then under Configuration > Exclusions click on File exclusions, select the recently-js option and click on Publish Changes. When you're done, go to Hummingbird > Caching > Page Caching and click on the Clear Cache button so these changes are applied to your website right away.
Other plugins provide a similar functionality to exclude specific JS files from its JS minification/bundling process. Make sure to check their documentation (or get in touch with its developers) for more details.
Unfortunately the answer is no. But that might change in the future.
Please check that either the ImageMagick or GD extension is installed and enabled by your hosting.
You can tell Recently to pick the thumbnail from either of the following options (available at wp-admin > Settings > Recently > Tools):
- Featured Image (default).
- First image on post.
- First attachment.
- Custom field.
If no images are found, the default thumbnail will be displayed instead.
Please make sure that:
- you have assigned one to your posts (see the FAQ above for more details);
- at least the gd extension for PHP is installed and enabled on your server, otherwise Recently won't be able to generate thumbnails;
- the image file is actually on the server.
Fortunately, yes. Go to wp-admin > Settings > Recently > Tools and check under Thumbnail source. Alternatively, you can also just replace the image sitting on wp-content/plugins/recently/.
Ideally, the thumbnail you're going to use should be set already with your desired width and height - however, the uploader will give you other size options as configured by your current theme.
It depends. If you're seeing a "No Thumbnail" image then please check this FAQ.
If your thumbnails are broken / not loading at all then it's possible that there's a conflict with another plugin. Since version 3.0.0 Recently has the ability to lazy load its thumbnails and this functionality is enabled by default. If you have another plugin trying to lazy load images at the same time (eg. Smush, Optimole, etc.) then this might cause Recently's thumbnails not to load sometimes. In that case either disable Recently's Lazy Loading feature (Settings > Recently > Tools) or have your other image lazy loading plugin ignore -if possible- images that contain the recently-thumbnail CSS class.
Another possible reason for thumbnails being broken is SSL/HTTPS not being properly configured on your website: Some thumbnails are not loading (this is a WordPress Popular Posts support thread but applies to Recently as well.)
If none of the above suggestions help fix the issue then please follow the instructions from this FAQ to do some basic debugging and figure out what's going on: I need help with your plugin! What should I do?
Simply add your custom post type to the Types field in the widget.
Activate the Use custom HTML markup option from the widget and set your desired HTML tags in conjunction with Recently's built-in Content Tags (see wp-admin > Settings > Recently > Parameters) and/or your own custom Content tags to customize the look & feel of your recent posts list. You can also try your hand at creating a widget theme.
A more advanced way to customize the HTML markup is via WordPress filters by hooking into recently_custom_html. For more details please check the Filter Hooks page.
While I have not fully tested it, Recently should work just fine (and if it doesn't, please let me know).
Yes, Recently includes a stylesheet called recently.css located at wp-content/plugins/recently/style. However, it doesn't include any predefined styles (well, almost).
Each time Recently is updated the recently.css stylesheet gets reset and I lose all changes I made to it. How can I keep my custom CSS?
Copying your modified recently.css file into your theme's folder will prevent future plugin updates from overwriting it with the default recently.css file.
If you're trying to customize one of the built-in widget themes (eg. Cards Compact) though please have a look at the Customizing an existing theme section from the Wiki to learn what's the proper way to do this so that future plugin updates don't overwrite your changes.
If none of the bundled themes fit your needs and/or you want a more custom design for your recent posts list you can customize Recently's HTML markup so it looks exactly the way you want.
If you're not familiar with HTML/CSS -or if don't feel like styling the list yourself- you should consider hiring someone to help you out with this (I'm also available for freelance work in case you're wondering.)
You can disable the stylesheet via wp-admin > Settings > Recently > Tools.
It allows you to show a heading for your recent posts listing. If left empty, no heading will be displayed at all.
This filter allows you to decide which post types to show on the listing. By default, it will retrieve only posts and pages (which should be fine for most cases).
This allows you to filter posts by a given taxonomy. You could for example have Recently list all recent posts that belong to category Development; or filter out those posts with a given tag.
To use it, simply add the ID(s) of the term(s) ID (eg. the category ID). A negative sign in front of the ID (eg. -25) will exclude posts that are associated to it from the listing. You can specify more than one ID with a comma separated list (eg. 24,3,-25 <- this would return the most recent posts from categories 24 & 3 but exclude those that belong to category 25).
You can use a plugin like Reveal IDs to see the IDs of your categories, tags, etc. in the Categories / Tags / etc. screens of your WordPress dashboard.
Similarly to the Taxonomy filter, this one lets you filter posts by author ID. You can specify more than one ID with a comma separated list (but unlike the Taxonomy filter, you can't exclude author with a minus sign... yet).
You can use a plugin like Reveal IDs to see the IDs of your users in the Users Screen of your dashboard.
If checked, Recently will show how your readers are rating your recent posts. This feature requires having WP-PostRatings plugin installed and enabled on your blog for it to work.
If checked, you will be able to customize the HTML markup of your recent posts listing. For example, you can decide whether to wrap your posts in an unordered list, an ordered list, a div, etc. If you know HTML/CSS, this is for you!
Yes, check the Other Notes section at wordpress.org for more information.
I want to translate your plugin into my language / help you update a translation. What do I need to do?
If you're interested in helping translate Recently into your language please go to Recently's Translation Project, find your locale and submit your translation suggestions for a Translation Editor from the WP team to review them.
You can also translate Recently for your website only using a gettext editor, like Poedit for example. For this you'll find a .pot file bundled with the plugin under the i18n folder that you can use to create your translation files. Check this handy guide for more details (skip Step 1 as you don't need to do that.)
When you're done, move the resulting .po and .mo files (eg. recently-es_ES.po and recently-es_ES.mo) into /wp-content/languages/plugins/ so the plugin picks up your translation.
If it fits the nature of my plugin and it sounds like something others would like to have, there's a pretty good chance that I will implement it (and if you can provide some sample code with useful comments, much better).
If the theme/plugin you're talking about is a free one that can be downloaded from somewhere, sure, I can try and take a look into it. Premium themes/plugins are out of discussion though, unless you're willing to grant me access to your site (or get me a copy of this theme/plugin) so I can check it out.
Updates will come depending on my work projects and the amount of time I have on my hands (I'm a full-time web developer). Quick releases will happen only when/if critical bugs are spotted.
The Support Forum is usually the best way to get in touch with me since I'm checking it constantly.