CoreActivity is a new plugin in the ‘Core’ line of plugins for WordPress, and it is a completely free plugin. The plugin is currently available for download from Dev4Press, and we are still waiting for the WordPress.org review and approval.
Due to the huge backlog of plugins to be reviewed on WordPress.org, it is currently unknown when CoreActivity will be reviewed and available on WordPress.org. Until that happens, CoreActivity will be available for download from the Dev4Press website. Once the WordPress.org review finishes, the plugin will be available from there, too.
Events Tracking and Logging
This plugin aims to log various events and activities on WordPress-powered websites and provide an easy way to review, filter, and analyze logs. Activities are logged in the database tables. The plugin registers 3 database tables for log and log metadata and events (for individual events settings). The plugin’s modular structure allows for the easy addition of new features, and even the third-party plugin can register components to expand the activity logging to include new events.
This last feature will be used in future Dev4Press plugins that need logging capabilities without implementing their own logging system, and instead expanding the coreActivity plugin and taking advantage of centralized logging.
You have control over which events are active, with additional filters to control further what is logged and what should be skipped. The plugin logs various information about each request: URL, IP, method, protocol, and context (AJAX, REST, CRON, CLI), with an optional user agent and referer. Many types of events include the source of the event (file, line, plugin, theme, and more).
Main Plugin Features
Currently, in version 1.0, the plugin includes support for 27 components and 117 events. Some components depend on specific conditions (multisite network use) or third-party plugins, so not every component will be active upon installation! More details will be provided on the CoreActivity dashboard and via the Events panel, where all registered components and events will be shown.
The plugin also has the following features:
- Live Log Updates: Essentially, while you are viewing the Logs panel, if there are new events logged, they will appear on that page, and every 15 seconds, the plugin checks for new log entries in the background. It is very useful for monitoring the logs, and the live logs feature supports filters, too!
- Instant notifications for selected events: Get instant notification to your email when the event is logged for the most important events. Notifications are sent at most once every few minutes to avoid email flooding.
- Daily and Weekly digest notifications for selected events: Digest is sent once a day or once a week with an overview of all events logged in the previous period.
- Auto Cleanup and Cleanup Tools: Remove old logged entries automatically, or remove only selected events logged entries filtered by the log entry age.
- IP Geo Location: Get location information (if possible) for every logged IP and show the country flag.
- Setup Wizard: Simple getting started Wizard for setting up basic plugin settings.
- Admin Bar Integration: Add a simple admin bar menu to quickly access the plugin Dashboard, Logs, or Events pages.
- Multisite Network support: Show all the Logs on the Network level, with the ability to show Logs for each blog in the network.
Version 1.0 has direct logging components for many popular plugins, currently including:
- bbPress
- BuddyPress
- Contact Form 7
- DebugPress
- Duplicate Post
- Gravity Forms
- Jetpack
- SweepPress
- User Switching
More plugins, components, and events will be added in future versions.
More about CoreActivity
To learn more about the plugin, check out the official home page and the list of all components and events included with the latest version available. The download page is here. The plugin is available on GitHub.
Plugin Install & Update
Until the plugin is available in the WordPress.org repository, you can use Dev4Press Updater to install the plugin or update the plugin inside WordPress. To use Dev4Press Updater, you need an account on Dev4Press.com; no purchase is needed.
Why is CoreActivity developed?
There are many activity log plugins for WordPress available, but most of them have Pro upsells, and even with that, they lack features that I found useful and wanted to include. Not to mention that all the activity logging plugins I tested in the past years have various downsides, and I would not use any of them myself or recommend any of them to my clients. I wanted a highly flexible plugin that would be easy to expand and maintain and include all the essential and advanced features built in. That is what coreActivity aims to be, and this first release is already including more features than other activity plugins available in Pro versions.
Why only the free version? I believe every website needs to have a plugin like this one, and the best way to wide adoption is to have the plugin free, base future development on community requests, and have it open on GitHub for community-driven development, too.
So, feel free to test the plugin and let me know if you find any issues and want to see more components and events added. Feel free to stop by the GitHub page and contribute to the plugin development.
To see the list of all the changes in this version, please check out the changelog. If you find any issues with the new version, please, report them in the support forums.
