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W3Dev Private Limited | 526 followers on LinkedIn. Converting Ideas into Reality | W3Dev is a web development startup and a technology company with an aim of solving the problem of India with innovation. Our mission is to empower every person and every organization in India to achieve more.

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W3Dev Private Limited is an IT Services and IT Consulting company_reader located in Delhi, Delhi with 37 employees. Find top employees, contact details and business statistics at RocketReach.

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Hello! We are alive, but in a different form. W3Dev was acquired earlier this century by AppLite, LLC. Thanks for visiting.

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Each eCommerce website needs to have pricing information, and displaying prices via table can be the most suitable and visually attractive way. In this article, I would like to cover the features you need for creating a WordPress pricing table the best WP pricing tables plugins. Also, I’ll try out to build a WP table without a plugin. Table of Contents: WordPress Pricing Table: Features We Need WordPress Pricing Table Plugins with Cases How to Create Pricing Table Without WordPress Plugin? TL;DR: Which WordPress Pricing Table Plugin to Choose? WordPress Pricing Table: What We Need? Before we check WordPress pricing table plugins available on the market, let’s figure out what do we need for the pricing page: : Create the pricing page structure following your pricing policy (or plans you have). For instance, a subscription-based pricing model with three plans. Structure : Allocate the main features of each pricing plan to help the user choose the most suitable one. Features : If you want to highlight one of the pricing models/plans, don’t forget to focus on it. Highlighted plan : Of course, the pricing page should follow your brand guidelines, so don’t forget to style your pricing page too. Styling WordPress Pricing Table Plugins with Cases 1. Elementor Pro Pricing Table Elementor team 🌟 Developer: Elementor Pro pricing table widget helps to stylish and build your pricing table. This plugin allows styling heading, pricing section, buttons, ribbons, etc. : ✔ Pros Styling options Editing without CSS or HTML Sale mode available ✘ Cons: High price No options to buy widgets separately The elementor pricing table is available only in Pro version, the prices start from $49 per year for one website, or you can opt for the Agency plan for $999 per year. 💰 Pricing plans: 🎨 Usage examples: Source 2. JetElements 🌟 Crocoblock team Developer: JetElements plugin is one of Elementor's best addons, which gives you flexibility and creativity for building pricing pages. ✔ Pros: Highlight each plan features Tooltips, CTA buttons, badges, tags 40+ Elementor widgets ✘ Cons: No pricing table templates 💰 The free version is available, and you can download it from the . JetElements premium costs $24 per year or goes such subscriptions: All-Inclusive ($130-$265), Lifetime ($750) Pricing plans: WordPress repository 🎨 Usage examples: Source Source 3. Responsive Pricing Table 🌟 WP Darko Developer: Responsive pricing table plugin is the free WordPress plugin created for simple pricing pages and has basic features. ✔ Pros: 11 fields available Highlight any plan Toggle, tooltips, skins in the Pro version ✘ Cons: Can be too basic for Devs 💰 This WordPress pricing table plugin is free and has Pro version plans: a single website for $19 per year or unlimited websites for $49 per year. Pricing plans: 🎨 Usage examples: Pricing table example Responsive table example 4. Pricing Table Plugin 🌟 Supsystic Developer: This WordPress pricing plugin allows creating a pricing table from the template with a drag and drop builder. ✔ Pros: Preset templates Custom header, features list, button Import or export pricing table ✘ Cons: Templates available only in the Pro version 💰 You can use the Lite version from the WordPress directory or proceed with six premium plans starting from $46 for one website / per year. Pricing plans: 🎨 Usage examples: Pricing table example Pricing page use case 5. Kadence Pricing Table 🌟 Kadence team Developer: The Kadence pricing table plugin helps to create a pricing table from a template or start from scratch. ✔ Pros: Table importer Animation effects Responsive design, translation-ready ✘ Cons: No free version is available 💰 Kadence pricing plugin costs $35 per year for unlimited websites. Also, Kadence's whole bundle for $219 includes the pricing plugin. Pricing plans: 🎨 Usage examples: Kadence pricing table example Pricing table case 6. AR Pricing Table Plugin 🌟 Repute Info Systems Developer: AR pricing table is a lightweight WordPress plugin with 300 table templates. ✔ Pros: Compatible with most popular WordPress page builders Live preview Custom CSS guidelines ✘ Cons: Limited free version 💰 Free version is accessible through , or the premium starts at $27 on codecanyon. Pricing plans: WordPress.org 🎨 Usage examples: Example Example 7. WP Table Builder 🌟 WP Table Builder team Developer: This plugin allows creating pricing tables, comparison tables, etc. The Wp Table Builder is built with this plugin, and it’s always a good tone to develop your pages with your plugins. pricing table ✔ Pros: Responsive tables 7 elements for creating simple tables Import & export tables ✘ Can be too simple for advanced pricing tables Cons: 💰 Among the free WP Table Builder plugin version, there are three plans available: Starter ($49), Pro ($99), Lifetime ($299). Pricing plans: 🎨 Usage examples: Source Source 8. Visualizer 🌟 Themeisle Developer: Visualizer is a handy tool for creating tables and charts, including pricing tables. ✔ Pros: Cross-browser compatibility Responsiveness Live editing ✘ More about creating charts than pricing tables Cons: 💰 vary from Personal ($99) to Agency ($399) options. Pricing plans: Visualizer Pro plans 9. Essential Addons for Elementor 🌟 WPDeveloper Developer: Essential Addons tool is one of the well-known Elementor plugins. This is not only a pricing table widget but includes more than 50+ free widgets, inclusively a pricing table widget. ✔ Pros: Lots of styling options Easy of use Lots of widgets ✘ Cons: Works only with Elementor page builder 💰 As the pricing table widget is available in the free version, I don’t want to stop in pricing plans. Essential Addons Pro starts from $40 for one website. Pricing plans: 🎨 Usage examples: Source Source 10. NinjaTables 🌟 WPManageNinja Developer: Ninja Tables plugin is one of the top WordPress plugins on the market. ✔ Pros: 100+ tables styles, frontend editing Responsiveness Easy-to-use ✘ Tables exporting is available only in the premium version. Cons: 💰 There are 6 pricing plans (wow!), so please check the to choose the fitting one. Pricing starts from $49 annually. Pricing plans: pricing page 🎨 Usage examples: Use Case How to Create Pricing Table Without WordPress Plugin? If you are not a plugin lover and think additional plugin affects your website speed, I want to create a pricing table with clean WordPress (5.9 version). To start with, I have deactivated all plugins I have and want to Add New page. So, go to : Pages > Add New Name your page as you wish: Press plus icon and search for table block: Then you’ll see two options available: Table block and Pricing table pattern: Let’s try each option. Creating a pricing table with a Table block Firstly, let’s choose Table block and configure how many columns and rows my table will have: I want three columns (pricing plans titles) and five rows (prices and features). Now I have the table created and want to turn on the heading section in the settings: Adding some text before proceeding: I also want to add the button with the email address so that the user can contact me for payment details: And add minimum styling to my table and button: So, my simple pricing table is ready: Creating pricing table with WordPress pattern Choose the pricing table pattern instead of the block to build a pricing table from the pattern. And you’ll see a ready-made pattern with columns and text. You can edit columns, text, buttons, delete unnecessary things, etc. I’ve changed the text, chose the gradient background, and my results were something like that :D Not encouraging, I suppose. The problem was in my WordPress theme, I was using Hello by Elementor (I forgot about this), so I think it’s just breaking my styling. It’s not a problem, I’ve changed the theme to Twenty Twenty-Two, and everything seems to look clean now: Final verdict: Creating the pricing table without plugins in WordPress is suitable for simple websites (maybe personal/blogging), but still, there is a lack of “no-coding” customization and styling. TL;DR: Which WordPress Pricing Table Plugin to Choose? Thank you for reading till the end. To sum up, I want to share my thoughts about which WordPress pricing table plugin to choose. From my point of view, the best options are: For newbies and those looking for a simple pricing table, the best options are , , Responsive pricing table Pricing table plugin Ninja Tables For creating attractive & creative pricing tables use , , . JetElements plugin Essential Addons Elementor Pro What do you think? I hope this pricing table plugins list was helpful for you, and you’ve decided which one you’d like to choose for your next project. Don’t hesitate to share any thoughts or suggestions with me.

10 WordPress Pricing Table Plugins that Rock

In July last year, AWS launched , a managed live streaming platform for creating low latency interactive streaming services. While Amazon IVS is a great addition to the existing AWS Media Services for building live streaming experiences, I am often asked by customers which option is best for their given use case. Amazon Interactive Video Service (Amazon IVS) I first like to understand the customers’ business goals, core technical competencies, and application requirements. If I’m talking to a broadcaster, putting video technology together is likely something they have done before. They may already have some of the components in place and often desire the ability to pick and choose capabilities to deliver premium video quality along with a high degree of control. This makes the building block approach of the AWS Media Services ideal because they provide flexibility both in terms of how they are used to create a full video pipeline, and the level of control within each service (such as fine grained encode settings). Conversely, if an ecommerce provider wants to use live video to increase user engagement around product promotions, they may not have experience with video technology, as it isn’t core to their business. In this instance, Amazon IVS is a great choice because it handles all of the video processing and delivery functions, making it very easy to get started. Many customers fall somewhere in between these use cases and the decision on which service to use is more nuanced. Before looking at the technical drivers for choosing one option over another, let’s look at the range of relevant AWS services from the perspective of their function within a live streaming architecture. I like to begin by looking at either end of this video delivery chain. If you are planning to build a new live service, where and how are you creating the video? Are you contributing the source video from a remote location? If so, do you have or need technical resources there? greatly simplifies the process of getting video from a camera into the AWS Cloud for processing. Just plug in SDI or HDMI from a camera, along with power and an internet connection, no on-site configuration or setup required. AWS Elemental Link Elemental Link then becomes a source to and is centrally controlled via the or APIs. Perhaps you are building an app based around user-generated live content, in which case you don’t have any control over where and when video streams are created. In this case, Amazon IVS is the perfect option, as it allows you to create channels that lay dormant until a user starts streaming video content and automatically stops them again when the input stream is stopped. This greatly simplifies orchestration and you are only charged for the time channels are active. AWS Elemental MediaLive AWS Management Console Now let’s jump to the other end of the video pipeline. Where is your audience located and what devices are they using? If you are delivering to web and mobile devices, Amazon IVS offers a player SDK for a consistent experience across web, iOS, and Android platforms. It maintains low latency and generates events when new interactive metadata arrives (more on that shortly). If you intend to deliver your live stream to a wider range of devices such as gaming consoles and connected TV’s, then AWS Media Services produce standards-compliant streams that can be consumed via a broad range of devices and third-party players. For the other workflow components in the middle (for example transcoding through distribution), if you already have a product or service managing one or more of these functions that you are happy with and want to retain, AWS Media Services allow you to do that. They are standards-based and, with the exception to Elemental Link that functions in conjunction with MediaLive, can be used in isolation of each other. Amazon IVS on the other hand, manages these capabilities completely on your behalf, consumable via simple APIs. Rather than stepping through the merits of each of the services in the preceding diagram, the following are a number of common functional requirements that come up in customer conversations: Interactivity Amazon IVS: This is obviously a cornerstone feature of Amazon IVS. Interactivity is enabled via a flexible metadata API used to insert interactive elements into the video stream. When used with the player SDK, it makes it easy to drive updates to your application based on what’s happening in each moment of the video. You can create polls, update product carousels, display viewer counts and much more. Other AWS Media Services: While interactivity is technically possible using some of the other AWS Media Services, it requires more custom work on your behalf to trigger metadata insertion, pass this through the video pipeline, and to detect and trigger action within your application. As a possible alternative depending on your application, both Elemental Live and MediaLive support rendering on screen graphics from HTML5 locations. This technology can be used to insert scoreboards or other visual elements from external data sources as part of the video content. Low latency Amazon IVS: Low latency is another core feature of Amazon IVS. The platform, combined with the player SDK, typically deliver glass to glass (camera to screen) latency under 5 seconds. Other AWS Media Services: AWS Media Services are standards-based and are ideal when delivering services to native players such as Apple’s AVPlayer, Google’s Shaka player, or other commercial or open-source offerings. AWS Elemental Live supports low latency DASH. When it is paired with AWS Elemental MediaStore, Amazon CloudFront, and a player that supports DASH with chunked mp4 fragments, it is possible to achieve glass to glass latency as low as two seconds. Content protection Amazon IVS: While Amazon IVS does not offer an option to encrypt content at this time, it does provide a mechanism to secure access to channels by authorizing playback sessions. For more instructions on how to restrict viewer access, refer to in the IVS user guide. setting up private channels Other AWS Media Services: AWS Media Services offer a wide range of content protection options via the protocol. This means customers can protect their content across multiple formats using standard encryption methods (Apple Fairplay, Microsoft PlayReady, and Google Widevine) via a range of specialist Secure Package Encoder Key Exchange (SPEKE) third-party vendors. Ad insertion Amazon IVS: Amazon IVS doesn’t currently offer the ability to monetize streams by injecting pre-roll or mid-roll ads. Other AWS Media Services: AWS Media Services, however, provide comprehensive ad insertion functionality. MediaLive can prepare content for ad insertion by either passing through SCTE-35 ad markers from the input stream or inserting markers via the service APIs. MediaPackage offers additional based on packaging types and AWS Elemental MediaTailor is a server-side monetization service for serving targeted ads to viewers at scale. controls and filters Automatic stream start Amazon IVS: When you create a new channel in Amazon IVS, it is available for streaming within seconds. More importantly, a channel automatically starts streaming when it receives input video. This makes orchestration very easy and is great for user-generated content (UGC) applications where your users can begin streaming video at any time. Other AWS Media Services: A MediaLive channel must be started and in a running state before you can begin pushing source content to it. It takes several minutes for a MediaLive channel to enter a running state and begin outputting content after receiving a command to start via the AWS Management Console or APIs. 24/7 channels Amazon IVS: Amazon IVS is targeted at event-based workflows. In my experience, customers streaming 24/7 channels are typically looking for control over redundancy architectures and failure scenarios. Other AWS Media Services: MediaLive offers input failover options to cater for potential source or ingest network failures, in addition to the option to run fully redundant pipelines (standard mode) distributed across separate . AWS Elemental MediaPackage also supports input failover, which when coupled with MediaLive’s redundant pipeline, allows you to build a highly available video service without the need to manage multiple publishing URLs and handle failure logic within the player. Availability Zones Live streaming is more popular than ever and is being used across industries to drive audience engagement, share new ideas and to stay connected with each other. I’ve only touched the surface of their capabilities in this blog, but AWS Media Services provide a suite of options for delivering great quality video experiences to your customers, whether you want control over the design and control your platform, or looking for friction free APIs to add live video to your app.

What Is the Right AWS Live Streaming Solution for Your Use Case

When you post something on the Facebook WordPress group on Christmas Eve about the poor quality of plug-ins and it gets 131 reactions and 118 comments within a few hours, basically all in agreement, you know you are not alone in how you feel. The post in question was about the poor quality of far too many WordPress plug-ins, including paid for premium plug-ins, not just free ones. To be clear from the outset, I’ll continue to refer to plug-ins throughout this but I also mean themes and all other WordPress products, services and add-ons. I’d been meaning to write something about this for a while, but I’ve been busy non-stop with a new WooCommerce site and my main business for months. It’s clear from my own experience, and validated by many other people in the Facebook discussion on Christmas Eve, that too many WordPress plug-ins are simply not up-to-scratch. This not only damages the reputation of WordPress but also wastes valuable time that developers, web-site builders, designers, and end-users don’t have to spare. There are many reasons for this poor level of quality including the false idea that anyone can write a plug-in and sell it, an almost universal lack of quality control, a lack of knowledge many developers of the industry the plug-in is written for, and often poor documentation and best practices etc etc In recent weeks I’ve personally fixed a number of paid-for plug-ins on behalf of the developers simply because I just wanted to get them to work and couldn’t wait for them to do it. Almost none of them gave any thanks, or even an apology for their code simply not working. And I’ve ended up getting refunds on too many for my liking. Refunds costs us more money than developers lose I don’t want to ever have to ask for a refund for a plug-in. if I do it means I’ve already lost more money than I’ll get back because of the time wasted and the delays in the project which mean delays in earning money. The option to refund should always be there of course — and not all plug-ins offer them — but when you buy something after researching the plug-in itself, competing plug-ins, reading reviews etc, you should have a good idea if it will work for you or not. Refunds should be rare. Any company that refuses to offer refunds because of the potential for fraudulent refunds presumably doesn’t understand the huge market for nulled plug-ins. Nulled plug-ins are obviously bad for developers, but they are also bad for the future of WordPress and the end user. If developers don’t earn what they deserve from their hard work and skills they will stop developing, and then everyone loses out. But many people have told me they use nulled versions first to test plug-ins because of the poor quality of so many and difficulties in getting refunds. I’m sure some go on to pay the developer, but many will probably not get around to it even if they do continue to use the plug-in. What’s wrong with existing review sites? If you need a plug-in to achieve a particular task it’s easy to search Google and find lots of reviews that should help you make a decision on which one to buy. But if you do this, you’ll find that many — most? — of these ‘review’ sites and compilations of ‘best plug-ins for X’ are written by people who have never tested them in real life, or if they have ‘tested’ them, they may have installed them, looked at the settings and concluded it works. Many of them are nothing more than lists of affiliate links where every plug-in ’works’ and is ‘worth buying’ — ‘just click here please’. Ker-ching! Someone suggested WPHive which I’ve had a brief look at and their stated aim is to provide a better repository of plug-ins which is great. But, from what I can gather, it is based largely on automatic code testing. While there’s certainly a role for automatic code testing, it’s not something that can be easily done by anyone except for the actual developers of the code. And it seems most plug-in developers don’t have the level of knowledge to set up and run correct unit testing. WPHive explain that their system will fail and mark a product as having major errors if their automated system finds any error at all. And it fails if the plug-in has any dependencies that are not core WordPress. So, straight away, lots of plug-ins will fail their testing as they do rely on other plug-ins to work. This is not an attack on WPHive. I don’t know enough about it to make any definitive statements but certainly the level of automatic testing they describe and how they mark plug-ins as having errors is clearly not a viable method to prove conclusively if a plug-in actually works properly. So, what’s the answer? It’s only by actually using a plug-in on a real project, that has real-word consequences (normally financial), that we can see if it works well or not, and what its limitations are. People using a plug-in in a professional setting can provide valuable feedback that helps other potential users/purchasers of the plug-in, the developers, and the WordPress platform as a whole. Reviews on sites like Codecanyon are often superficial and in some cases clearly fake (this applies to other sites as well, I’m not pointing my finger solely at Codecanyon). Genuine queries, bug reports or complaints often go unanswered by the developer, or they reply with a promise that ‘a fix is coming in the next release’ and months go by without any fix. Going back to WPHive, their aim is to quality-check every plug-in and claim to have tested 50,000 so far — although as I’ve already said, this is based on simplistic and flawed automatic testing. Yes, there is a role for some automated processes, such as checking ratings on other sites, checking how often something is updated, running profile testing to measure the speed impact of the plug-in and so on. These are all valuable metrics. But only by real users installing, configuring, and working with a plug-in can genuine feedback be gained that is useful to others. A plug-in can look amazing until you start to use it and you realise it lacks basic features that it appeared to have, or should have, and the developer either refuses to add the feature or, worse, tells you that you don’t need the feature (and that’s especially annoying when they have no knowledge of the business sector you operate in or what is actually needed). I write this as someone who started programming around 40 years ago and has released software, and has been paid to develop software and web sites. These days though I am in the online retail business but I use my experience as a programmer and developer to produce our own sites and systems. I’m basically more of a hacker — in the correct use of the word — than a professional developer. The only time I’m the best programmer in the room is when I am alone, and even that presumes there isn’t a fly hovering about. But I get things done and often find myself at loggerheads with self-declared ‘professional developers’ of plug-ins who know half of what I do and refuse to accept something can be done, normally before I just do it myself. Perhaps it’s fair to say I have higher expectations than some, but if I do that’s just because I know what can be done and what should be available, while many end users are just fobbed off and disappointed the plug-in doesn’t fulfil their business needs because they don’t have the technical background to know the developers are just being lazy or incompetent. I also come from a background where, having first used WordPress sometime around 2005 or 2006, I never for one moment thought I would be using it professionally. But it has grown and matured, and perhaps it’s fair to say I am too old to be re-inventing the wheel each time I want to do something, and I now find myself using it, and largely happily. But my experience in the last year of actively using the platform, plug-ins and themes, and developing my own code for it, makes me think it is at a bit of a crossroads and if things aren’t handled properly, it may easily take the wrong turn. No CMS platform is perfect. No E-commerce platform is perfect. And no community is perfect. But they can all be made better. Bigger platforms than WordPress have disappeared, and no platform has a right to ever-lasting success. I explain my recent ‘conversion’ to WordPress to make it clear I may be unaware of solutions that solve the problems I’ve mentioned. For instance, I hadn’t heard of WPHive until this conversation on Facebook, although that doesn’t seem to be the answer I’m looking for. What we can do next This is a very rough idea, literally based on thoughts since my post on Christmas Eve Maybe there is something out there already that does what I feel is missing. Or maybe what I feel is missing is not something others would want. If there’s no demand for it, great, I can get on with other things — I really shouldn’t have spent the time writing this out as my TODO list is huge as it is ;) And if someone is already doing this, even better! Point me to it! But if not, I’m proposing some form of WordPress Quality Mark that can be awarded to plug-ins that meet certain standards. This is not as simple as it may sound, as quality marks tend to require a strict pre-defined list of conditions products must meet to qualify. Just defining those would be a big task alone, and designing them to suit the various types of plug-ins even more so, and likely impossible given the wide range of use cases for plug-ins. So maybe all that is needed is a review site that focuses on real-life use. A site where the aim isn’t to list every available plug-in that does X, but a small number that do it well. I think the focus should be more on software that works well, rather than simply attacking software that doesn’t. In my teenage years I used to enjoy reading occasional writing by Jeff Minter, the games designer and programmer, who would sometimes review software for magazines like ZZap!64. His philosophy was basically along the lines of ‘If you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say it at all’ or, in other words, he preferred to give his time praising great products rather than attacking bad ones. That said, while there’s no need to review every single plug-in and criticise it — life is too short and there are too many poor plug-ins — if a plug-in is well-known, well-promoted and well-used then it certainly needs to be reviewed and problems or limitations highlighted. Any such project would need the co-operation of users who are prepared to provide feedback on the use of plug-ins, developers prepared to provide free copies for people to use (probably in the form of a refund after reviews are written rather than up-front freebies — the aim is to get people who really need and use the software to use it, not to attract bargain hunters), and developers prepared to accept constructive criticism and use it to improve their products. Depending on how it develops it may even eventually need funding to employ people to manage it — probably in the form of payment from developers on a sliding scale depending on their size/revenue — although this is not something I want to be part of. Not that I am against the idea, simply because something along those lines is a much bigger task and one I absolutely do not have the time or will to do. Other potential income streams include affiliate links — but only as long as they are clearly marked as such and have absolutely no influence on the review of the product or the award of any mark. There’s no point working towards this only to replicate the sham review sites that already exist. Any such site or awarding body would need transparency in how it operates and who is behind it. As far as I can see WPHive doesn’t even say who operates the site unless you click on the LinkedIn Icon where you see it seems to be by weDevs (again, sorry, I’m not picking on WPHive, it’s just the only one I’ve found that is vaguely similar). And plug-ins also need more transparency. Too many are for sale by ‘companies’ (often individuals) with no real contact details, and users/purchasers don’t have much — if any — knowledge of who they are buying from. This alone is a huge issue the platform faces. It’s down to us, developers, web-site builders, end-users and, in some cases, devotees to WordPress to do what we can to ensure the eco-system stays on track and develops in the right way and, alongside the work that goes on developing the core WordPress platform, ensuring a decent level of plug-ins is essential to that. I’ve created a group on Facebook called (very much a temporary title I would imagine) and invite anyone interested in this concept — whether end-users, web site builders, programmers and especially plug-in developers — to join and discuss this in more detail. WP Quality Mark Being totally honest, I’m incredibly busy so may not be able to devote much time to this (otherwise I would set this up as a business and would have launched with a fancy-pants web site with payment methods setup for developers, rather than this very long and very boring Medium post!) If there is a demand for this, hopefully we can find the right people to work on it together. But again, if there is no demand, great, let’s all get on with our other work, or if something already exists that does this that I’m not aware of, please let me — and others — know. I’m not remotely precious about this idea and have far too much in my life, both personally and professionally, to devote much time to this and I’m more than happy for others to take the basics of this idea and run with it if they wish. I only hope it is done with the right reasons, and not just to replicate the existing vapid review sites that exist solely to make money. WordPress deserves better. And we deserve better. Join in now! Please feel free to leave comments here but it would be better to join the group and post there. At the moment it is a public group but depending on whether or not it attracts any spam or abuse etc, it may change status to a private group and require approval to join. You can find the Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/wpqualitymark ps. please excuse any typos etc, it’s Christmas and I really should be doing other things! Previously published at https://johnrisby.medium.com/its-time-for-some-quality-control-for-wordpress-plug-ins-a-proposal-7ac9d9865b3

It is Time To Have A Quality Control For WordPress plugins

Do you want to learn robot, but you don’t have money to buy the robot? Or you don't know where to start? Webots simulator is the solution! You can learn with any kind of robots and environments . Also you can create your custom robots and environment. The most interesting is Webots is free and open source. easily Here we will discuss about Webots, and create our first robot program to make it move. The robot program is implemented to e-puck robot. My Experience using Webots I have used Webots to help my friend in her thesis to develop obstacle avoidance algorithms in Niching Particle Swarm Optimization algorithms for multi-target search multi-robot system. Robots is locate in a search area. Then the robots move to search for a targets. With Niching Particle Swarm Optimization, robots is sharing their best location related to possible target location, so robots can find the best possible target location. In this simulation, we used 40 robots, and 4 targets. My experience in developing this project using Webots is it's very easy to learn and use, complete tools, and realistic. Also I don't need to spend any money to buy real robots 😎 I will discuss about this project soon. Webots: Robot Simulator Official website: https://cyberbotics.com Webots is an open source robot simulator that provides a complete development environment to model, program and simulate robots. Thousands of institutions worldwide use it for R&D and teaching. Webots has been codeveloped by the , thoroughly tested, well documented and continuously maintained since 1996. It is the most efficient solution to quickly get professional results. [ ] Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne Reference What Can I Do with Webots? Develop custom robots or using available robot Develop custom 3D environment (ground, obstacle, object, sky, physics behavior) Create your robots logic Simulate and testing Record or Screenshot your simulation Webots Research Area Many mobile robotics projects have relied on Webots for years in the following areas: Mobile robot prototyping (academic research, the automotive industry, aeronautics, the vacuum cleaner industry, the toy industry, hobbyists, etc.) Robot locomotion research (legged, humanoids, quadrupeds robots, etc.) Multi-agent research (swarm intelligence, collaborative mobile robots groups, etc.) Adaptive behavior research (genetic algorithm, neural networks, AI, etc.). Teaching robotics (robotics lectures, C/C++/Java/Python programming lectures, etc.) Robot contests (e.g. Robotstadium or Rat’s Life) Webots Simulation A Webots simulation is composed of following items: A Webots file (.wbt) that defines one or several robots and their environment. world The .wbt file does sometimes depend on external PROTO files (.proto) and textures. One or several controller programs for the above robots (in C/C++/Java/Python/MATLAB). An optional physics plugin that can be used to modify Webots regular physics behavior (in C/C++) Available robots Webots have many kinds of available robot, for example: e-puck (two-wheeled robot) Parallax Boe-Bot (three-wheeled robot) Four-wheeled robot Hexapod robot Robotics armSmall size car-like robot Humanoid robot Dog-like robot Programming Language You can write the webots robot controller using C++, Java, Python or MATLAB. Choose any kind of your favourite programming language. Webots User Interface Webots GUI is composed of four principal windows: 3D window that displays and allows you to interact with the 3D simulation Scene tree which is a hierarchical representation of the current world Text editor that allows you to edit source code, and finally Console that displays both compilation and controller outputs. User Guide Webots has provide a great and clean . Also there is a that you can learn. user guide tutorial e-puck Robot Official website: rg https://e-puck.o Wiki: https://www.gctronic.com/doc/index.php/e-puck2 The e-puck robot is a mini mobile robot developed by GCtronic and EPFL. The e-puck robot is designed and has been widely used in research and educational purposes and is easy to use [ ]. Reference e-puck has been a very successful robot since 2005. About 3000 units used both in education and research. From January 2018 version 2 is available [ ]. Reference The e-puck robot is a non-holonomic wheeled robot. Non-holonomic wheeled robot is a robot that depends on the path it can reach to move and cannot move in all directions [ ], different from the holonomic wheeled robot that can move in all directions [ ] without changing its orientation. Therefore, if the e-puck robot wants to move to a different direction, the e-puck robot must rotate its body first to face that location. Reference Reference Simple Tutorial Here I create a simple tutorial to create the environment, add obstacle, add e-puck robot, and create the e-puck robot program to make the robot move forward. Before, install Webots on your computer from this . I use Webots version 2019b. tutorial 1. Create Project Directory Click “Wizards” menu then click “New Project Directory” submenu Click “Next” Choose directory for your new project, then click “Next” Choose a name for the new world (here I name it “main.wbt”), and check the features you want (here I check the “Center view point”, “Add a textured background”, “Add a directional light”, and “Add a rectangle arena”. Then click “Next” Finally click “Finish” 2. Add e-puck Robot Select the last node “RectangleArena” of the scene tree view. Click on the Add button (plus sign) at the top of the scene tree view. In the dialog box, choose “PROTO nodes (Webots) / robots / gctronic / e-puck / E-puck (Robot)”, then click “Add”. An e-puck robot should appear in the middle of the arena. Save the simulation. 3. Centering the Arena We want to look the arena from above to make it clearly visible. You can rotate the arena in X, Y, or Z axis by “hold left click and “move the cursor”. You can move the arena by “hold right click” and “move the cursor”. You can zoom-in or zoom-out by “scrolling your mouse up or down”. ” Here I give you my setting to make the arena looked from above. Double-click on the “Viewpoint node in the scene tree. This should open the node and display its fields. Select the “orientation” field and set its “angle value to 1.58. Select the “position field and set its “x value to -0.034, “y value to 2.2365, and “z value to -0.023. ” ” ” ” ” ” Below is the environment look: 4. Add Obstacles Adding obstacles in this scenario is optional. I added the obstacles just to make the simulation look more real, and just for fun 😄 Add rectangle obstacle. Select the last node “E-puck” of the scene tree view. Click on the Add button (plus sign) at the top of the scene tree view. In the dialog box, choose “PROTO nodes (Webots) / objects / factory / containers / WoodenBox (solid)”, then click “Add”. Then Double-click on the “WoodenBox node in the scene tree. This should open the node and display its fields. Select the “size” field and set its “x” value to -0.2, “y value to 0.1, and “z value to -0.1. Select the “translation” field and set its “x” value to 0, “y value to 0.05, and “z value to -0.2. ” ” ” ” ” Add tube obstacle. Select the last node “E-puck” of the scene tree view. Click on the Add button (plus sign) at the top of the scene tree view. In the dialog box, choose “PROTO nodes (Webots) / objects / obstacles / OilBarrel (Solid)”, then click “Add”. Then Double-click on the “OilBarrel” node in the scene tree. This should open the node and display its fields. Select the “radius field and set it value to -0.05. Select the “height field and set it value to 0.1 Select the “translation” field and set its “x value to 0.2, “y value to 0.05, and “z value to -0.2. ” ” ” ” ” Below is the environment look: 5. Create e-puck robot controller Click “Wizards” menu then click “New Robot Controller” submenu Click “Next” Choose the language for your controller program. Here I use C language. Then click “Next” Specify a name for the controller name. Here I name it “e-puck-move_forward”. Then click next. Finally click “Finish” Below is your controller source code look: 6. Edit your controller program You can edit the controller from webots built in text editor. Or you can edit with your favourite IDE. The controller directory is placed in “[your project directory]/controllers”. The program is placed inside this controller directory. Here is the move forward source code, or you can view it on my from . Copy and paste the source code to your controller program. GitHub Repository time_step; WbDeviceTag left_motor, right_motor; { time_step = ; (time_step == )
 time_step = ( )wb_robot_get_basic_time_step(); time_step;
} {
 wb_motor_set_velocity(left_motor, MAX_SPEED);
 wb_motor_set_velocity(right_motor, MAX_SPEED);
} { time_step = get_time_step(); left_motor = wb_robot_get_device( );
 right_motor = wb_robot_get_device( );
 wb_motor_set_position(left_motor, INFINITY);
 wb_motor_set_position(right_motor, INFINITY);
 wb_motor_set_velocity(left_motor, );
 wb_motor_set_velocity(right_motor, );
} { wb_robot_init();

 init_robot(); (wb_robot_step(time_step) != ) { move_forward();
 }; wb_robot_cleanup(); EXIT_SUCCESS;
} /*
 * Copyright 2019 Albert Alfrianta
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 * 
 * 
 * Created on: 2019-09-16, Bogor, Indonesia
 * 
 * Contact: albert.brucelee@gmail.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/albert-alfrianta/
 * 
 * Description:
 * 	Simple e-puck robot program to make the robot move forward
 * 	Written in C programming language
 * 
 */ # include <stdio.h> # include <stdlib.h> # include <string.h> # include <webots/device.h> # include <webots/distance_sensor.h> # include <webots/led.h> # include <webots/motor.h> # include <webots/nodes.h> # include <webots/robot.h> int /* Motor device */ static /* E-puck angular speed in rad/s */ # MAX_SPEED 6.28 define /* function to get simulator time step */ static int get_time_step () static int -1 if -1 int return /* function to set motor velocity to move forward */ static void move_forward () /* function to init robot stuff */ static void init_robot () // get simulator time step // get a handler to the motors and set target position to infinity (speed control) "left wheel motor" "right wheel motor" 0.0 0.0 /* main function */ int main ( argc, **argv) int char /* necessary to initialize webots stuff */ /* main loop
 * Perform simulation steps of TIME_STEP milliseconds
 * and leave the loop when the simulation is over
 */ while -1 /*
 * move the robot forward
 * */ /* Enter your cleanup code here */ /* This is necessary to cleanup webots resources */ return Then click “Build” menu, then click “Build” submenu. Make sure that your controller program is open in webots text editor before build. The important things about this program: wb_robot_get_basic_time_step() Webots have simulator time step. The is the time step increment used by Webots to advance the and perform physics simulation . basic time step virtual time [reference] wb_robot_step(time_step) This command is to perform simulation steps. This needed for the controller time step. The is the time increment of time executed at each iteration of the control loop of a . We must call this to synchronize our program and the simulator condition. It will return -1 if the simulation is stopped. If we not call this command, the robot will do nothing. For example the wb_motor_set_velocity(left_motor, MAX_SPEED) only set the motor speed value. So we need to call and looping the wb_robot_step(time_step) command to make the robot move. controller time step controller Program Flow: First we initialize the robot, and the necessary stuff like get handler to the motors. Then we make the robot move forward using the while loop. When the while loop exit, we cleanup the webots resources. Note: in this program we run an infinite while loop, so the wb_robot_cleanup is never reached. 7. Setting e-puck robot controller Double-click on the “E-puck” node in the scene tree. This should open the node and display its fields. Select the “controller field, then click select, then choose your controller name (here my controller name is “e-puck-move_forward”). ” 8. Play it Above the 3D window, click play button to run the simulation in real-time). If the simulation is run, then this button is turn into pause button. Click this pause button if you want to pause the simulation. The simulation is look like below: 9. Lastly Don’t forget to save your world by click the save button or by menu “File -> Save World”. When a Webots world is modified with the intention of being saved, it is fundamental that the simulation is first paused and reloaded to its initial state, i.e. the virtual time counter on the main toolbar should show 0:00:00:000. Otherwise at each save, the position of each 3D object can accumulate errors. Therefore, any modification of the world should be performed in that order: pause, reset, modify and save the simulation Download this Project You can download this project from my . Simply download it, and run it in your webots. GitHub Going Further Please read this to advance your knowledge. tutorial Next Tutorial Stay tuned for more tutorial. Give response if you like or if you have any advice. Contact me if you have any question at my LinkedIn Thank you!

How to Create and Play a Simple Robot Program via Webots Robot Simulator

Sometimes we want to show menu item content in a separate tab for various purposes. In this tutorial, we will discuss the process of opening a custom menu item in new tab from popular multivendor marketplace Dokan's vendor dashboard. If you are wondering how can you generate a new menu item in the vendor dashboard, you can find the details . here So we take a look at this bit of the code: add_filter( , ); {
 $urls[ ] = ( => __( , ), => , => dokan_get_navigation_url( ), => ); $urls;
} 'dokan_get_dashboard_nav' 'dokan_add_help_menu' function dokan_add_help_menu ( $urls ) 'help' array 'title' 'Help' 'dokan' 'icon' '' 'url' 'help' 'pos' 51 return This part brings you a custom menu item with "Help". When you click on the help menu item, it should redirect you to the `help` page. You can see title and - these two are the keys and there are values against these keys. If you want to change the label from Help to anything else say contact, this will be the modification: title url add_filter( , ); {
 $urls[ ] = array( => __( , ), => , => dokan_get_navigation_url( ), => ); $urls;
} 'dokan_get_dashboard_nav' 'dokan_add_help_menu' ( ) function dokan_add_help_menu $urls 'help' 'title' 'Contact' 'dokan' 'icon' '' 'url' 'help' 'pos' 51 return Say we want to navigate through wedevs.com instead of a page inside the vendor dashboard. We have to remove as the value of the key . dokan_get_navigation_url() url So we change the value of the key here like this: url add_filter( , ); {
 $urls[ ] = array( => __( , ), => , => , => ); $urls;
} 'dokan_get_dashboard_nav' 'dokan_add_help_menu' ( ) function dokan_add_help_menu $urls 'help' 'title' 'Help' 'dokan' 'icon' '' 'url' 'https://wedevs.com' 'pos' 51 return Paste the above code in your child theme's functions.php file and then try to visit the vendor dashboard. It should show you the menu item with title Help. Now if you click on the item, it will redirect you to weDevs.com site. Our next step is to open the link in a new tab. Here we will require a bit of custom , because Dokan doesn't allow you to add values for target attribute in <a> tag. JS For adding custom JS in your page we need to add the following block of code in your child theme's functions.php file. We have to use hook to do that. wp_enqueue_scripts add_action( , ); {
 wp_enqueue_script( , get_stylesheet_directory_uri(). , array(), , );
} 'wp_enqueue_scripts' 'enqueue_custom_js' ( ) function enqueue_custom_js 'custom' '/scripts/custom.js' false true Here, you can see we have used so we have to build this directory. In order to build the directory, please navigate through wp-content/themes/child theme folder. Inside the child theme folder, create a folder named script and inside the script folder, create a file named custom.js. /script/custom.js Now, inside the custom.js file, add the following block of code: ( { link = .getElementsByClassName( )[ ];

link.addEventListener( , (e) => {
 e.preventDefault(); url = e.target.getAttribute( ); .open(url, );
})
})(); ( ) function var document 'help' 0 'click' var 'href' window '_blank' Done! Now visit the vendor dashboard and click on the 'help' menu item. Click on the item. You will see it opens in a new tab. Feel free to let us know if it helps! You can follow me on and on . GitHub Twitter

Open Custom Dashboard Menu Item using WP Hooks

A Raspberry Pi 3 Raspberry Pi (aka rpi) is a nice little thing. It is cheap, runs debian from an SD card. Doing anything on it is fast and easy, as long as you don’t use it as a device. headless Headless devices are those devices which don’t have peripherals like monitor, mouse or keyboard attached. They essentially are at their bare minimum: and . (These can run lightweight distros without GUI). The only way of accessing these machines is through a serial-to-usb adapter or ssh. Particularly, access through ssh presents its own problems. Power Networking How would you shutdown your headless rpi without network connectivity? There is an entire on reddit dedicated to shutting down headless pi’s. Most of the answers revolve around attaching a button to GPIO or buying an addon board. There are quite a lot of solutions involving buying stuff. thread Am I going to buy stuff? No way! Once upon a time, Stefan Tomanek wrote something named . In his words, triggerhappy Triggerhappy is a hotkey daemon developed with small and embedded systems in mind, e.g. linux based routers. It attaches to the input device files andinterprets the event data received and executes scripts configured in itsconfiguration. Just give me the steps already! To shutdown the pi, we are going to plug in a mouse into the pi’s USB and right click. We will configure daemon to listen for this event and call the shutdown command. triggerhappy Connect your mouse (or any other input device) to rpi. Find out the event name of your click/tap by running . This should list the events related to your click. In my case, it was for mouse right button down and for button up. Find the event code of trigger thd --dump /dev/input* BTN_RIGHT 1 BTN_RIGHT 0 **Create the shutdown script**Make a file with /etc/trigger.sh #!/bin/bash # Announce to all terminalswall 'A mouse forced me to shut down' # The actual shutdown command. sudo is used because shutdown# needs root previlagessudo /sbin/shutdown now Make the script executable sudo chmod +x /etc/trigger.sh Create a file with the following contents. (Replace with your trigger event code from the first step) Create the config file triggerhappy /etc/triggerhappy/triggers.d/mouse-poweroff.conf BTN_RIGHT BTN_RIGHT 1 /etc/trigger.sh Restart triggerhappy sudo systemctl restart triggerhappy.service Roadblock! Well, isn’t it supposed to work already? _Nope._triggerhappy, executes our script as a user called . According to , nobody wikipedia In many Unix variants, “ ” is the conventional name of a user account which owns no files, is in no privileged groups, and has no abilities except those which every other user has. Some systems also define an equivalent group “nogroup”. nobody The command to actually power off the pi. actually cannot execute any command with superuser privilages. We are going to bypass that now. We need to allow user to execute with without requiring password. shutdown needs root previlages nobody nobody shutdown sudo Now, will open an editor to edit the file. Append the following at the end, save and exit. sudo visudo sudoers # We add echo command for testing. Remove laternobody ALL =NOPASSWD: /bin/echo*,/sbin/shutdown* This is not a clean or secure way, since we are granting permission for to shutdown your pi. Warning: nobody To see if it works, from your current user and check if you can as . sudo su -s /bin/bash nobody sudo echo 'hello world' nobody And we’re done. Attach the mouse to your rpi, right click and watch the rpi turn off.

Shut down your Raspberry Pi, the easy way

Depending on who you listen to, JWTs are either a panacea for all your authentication problems or should be avoided like the plague. We're in two minds here at SuperTokens. What is a JWT token? A JWT, or JSON Web Token, is a string/token issued by the server that asserts properties contained in its "payload". Its most common use case is for authentication (OAuth 2.0 + Open ID Connect) and session management. As the name suggests, a JWT can contain any information inside it in JSON form. This is also known as "JWT claims". For example, for session management, the JSON would at least need to contain the logged-in user : userId {
 "userId": "...",
 "expiry": 1646472008501,
 ...
} If the JWT containing this information needs to expire, the JSON can also contain the token's expiry time (as shown above). There is also a of the keys to these fields. In our example above those are: convention for the names -> userId sub -> expiry exp Taking an example of the login process, a JSON containing the above information will be sent to the client, and then on each request, the client can send this JSON back to the server. This way, the server knows which userID is querying its APIs. If the JSON has expired, then the server can reject the request, and the user must log in again. However, from a security point of view, it's very easy for the client to change the value in the JSON and spoof being another user. To prevent this, the server sends the original JSON's "signature" along with the JSON. This "signature" is created using a secret that is known only by the server, so the client cannot create a signature of a JSON by itself. Therefore, if the client changes the JSON, the server will fail to match the original JSON's signature with the incoming / changed JSON's signature (this is known as verifying the signature) and can then reject the request. userId There are several algorithms that a server can use to generate a signature for a JSON: HMAC + SHA256 RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 + SHA256 ECDSA + P-256 + SHA256 The signing method chosen to create the signature must somehow be encoded in the JWT so that the same method is used when verifying the signature. All in all, a JWT contains three parts: The header string contains information about the signing algorithm used. The body string contains the actual JSON. The signature string can be used to verify that the JWT has not been changed by the client. These three sections are concatenated with a separator to form the full JWT Token. An example of JWT can be later seen in this blog post. . Advantages of JWT Tokens The JWT approach certainly has its advantages over opaque tokens. JWTs are: : The JWT can contain the user's details (not just a session ID, like a cookie but other custom data such as user name and even permissions), together with the token's expiry time so you don't need to query a database for that information. This is completely unlike an opaque token which, by its very nature, is just a meaningless jumble of alphanumeric characters. Self-contained : JWTs are digitally signed using either a secret (HMAC) or a public/private key pair (RSA or ECDSA) which safeguards them from being modified by the client or an attacker. Secure : You generate JWTs on the server and send them to the client. The client then submits the JWT with every request. This saves database space. Stored only on the client : It’s quick to verify a JWT because it doesn’t require a database lookup. Efficient Disadvantages of JWT Tokens The fact that JWTs are only stored client-side leads to a fundamental disadvantage with JWTs. And that is: how do you revoke a user's access? Sure, JWTs have an expiry time and this can be as short-lived as you like. As soon as the access token expires, however, the JWT is invalid and the client must re-authenticate with your server. This, of course, has a negative effect on the user experience.. But suppose the user intentionally logs out of your system? Or you want to kick them out because you fear that security has been compromised? You can't[1]: if they still have an unexpired token, they still have access. There is a solution to this problem, but it does involve some extra work on your part. It is a technique that requires maintaining a JWT blacklist/deny list. In this article, we'll show you what a JWT blacklist/deny list is, how to implement one and discuss whether it is a good solution to this problem or not. What is a JWT blacklist/deny list? A JWT blacklist/deny list is a list of tokens that should no longer grant access to your system. Where you maintain this list is up to you. You could use a traditional database, but a much better approach is to use an in-memory data cache, like Redis. An in-memory data cache provides much faster and more predictable seek times than data stored on a disk. That’s what we’ll use in this example, and we’ll code our solution using Node.js and Express. If that’s not your chosen technology stack then fear not: the fundamental approach is the same regardless of how you choose to build it. OK, so how do I do it? First, you’ll need to instantiate your Express server application and set up Redis so that you can maintain a list of active JWTs: import express from "express";
import bodyparser from "body-parser";
import jwt from "jsonwebtoken";
import redis from "redis";

const JWT_SECRET = "Ultra-secure-secret";

const app = express();
app.use(bodyparser.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
app.use(bodyparser.json());

let redisClient = null;

(async () => {
 redisClient = redis.createClient();

 redisClient.on("error", (error) => {
 console.log(error);
 });
 redisClient.on("connect", () => {
 console.log("Redis connected!");
 });

 await redisClient.connect();
})();

// listen for requests
const listener = app.listen(3000, () => {
 console.log("Server running");
}); To test the storage and subsequent revocation of a JWT, you’ll need a way to create a user and generate a JWT for that user. Let’s add the endpoint for this. You can make a POST request to this endpoint with the name of the new user: createUser import jwt from "jsonwebtoken";

app.post("/createUser", (request, response) => {
 const token = generateAccessToken({ username: request.body.username });
 response.json(token);
});

const generateAccessToken = (username) => {
 return jwt.sign(username, JWT_SECRET, { expiresIn: "3600s" });
}; Hit that endpoint, and you’ll see a JWT being issued for the user: curl --location --request POST 'http://localhost:3000/createUser' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
 "username": "Derek"
}'

"eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJ1c2VybmFtZSI6IkRlcmVrIiwiaWF0IjoxNjQxMzA3MTgxLCJleHAiOjE2NDEzMTA3ODF9.3yrIJpWMS952QVakifjviiTs0ANJOmxZDovQO0N5brQ" If you paste that token into the , you’ll see that the JWT has the user name encoded within it, along with other details such as the time it was issued ( ) and the time it expires ( ): online debugger iat exp {
 "username": "Derek",
 "iat": 1641307181,
 "exp": 1641310781
} The next thing you need to do is authenticate the user with that JWT whenever that user attempts to do anything with your application. This is a three-step process. First, you’ll want to ensure that the JWT has been supplied. Then, you’ll want to test whether the JWT supplied is in the blacklist/deny list stored in Redis. If it’s not, then you’ll finally want to verify that the JWT is valid. We can encode these steps as Express middleware: // JWT middleware
const authenticateToken = async (request, response, next) => {
 const authHeader = request.headers["authorization"];
 const token = authHeader && authHeader.split(" ")[1];

 // token provided?
 if (token == null) {
 return response.status(401).send({
 message: "No token provided",
 });
 }

 // token in deny list?
 const inDenyList = await redisClient.get(`bl_${token}`);
 if (inDenyList) {
 return response.status(401).send({
 message: "JWT Rejected",
 });
 }

 // token valid?
 jwt.verify(token, JWT_SECRET, (error, user) => {
 if (error) {
 return response.status(401).send({
 status: "error",
 message: error.message,
 });
 }

 request.userId = user.username;
 request.tokenExp = user.exp;
 request.token = token;

 next();
 });
}; Now what will happen is that any time the user you created earlier attempts to visit your home route ( ), the JWT they supply will be checked against the blacklist/deny list first and then verified before being granted access. / That’s all well and good, but at the moment you have no way to revoke a JWT, so there’s nothing in the blacklist/deny list. Let’s create another route that will simulate a user logging out. When this endpoint is hit, the user’s JWT is persisted to Redis, using the format for the key, and the value is the actual token. We’ll set the key to expire when the token itself expires, so as not to fill up Redis with lots of expired tokens. bl_<token> app.post("/logout", authenticateToken, async (request, response) => {
 const { userId, token, tokenExp } = request;

 const token_key = `bl_${token}`;
 await redisClient.set(token_key, token);
 redisClient.expireAt(token_key, tokenExp);

 return response.status(200).send("Token invalidated");
}); Issue a request to the endpoint: POST /logout curl --location --request GET 'http://localhost:3000/' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJ1c2VybmFtZSI6IkRlcmVrIiwiaWF0IjoxNjQxMzA4NTQwLCJleHAiOjE2NDEzMTIxNDB9.nlJJe7XtK3PJVgvjevrHabeImqJyRoUDiXejDhVK5yM' Now the user’s JWT is technically still valid (until it expires), but now it’s in the blacklist/deny list and will therefore be intercepted on subsequent requests. Repeat the request to the home route above and you’ll get an HTTP 403 Forbidden error, with a message . POST "JWT Rejected" However, this won’t help if you want to deny access to a user who hasn’t logged out and whose token is still valid. The problem is that you won’t know what the user’s access token is at that time, and therefore you won’t know what to put in the cache. To solve this issue, you should add the ability to blacklist a user via Redis and check that blacklist as well during JWT verification. Unlike the JWT blacklist, this entry won't have an expiry time associated with it. userID You can find a working version of this example on . Github Is this a good idea? So now you see that this concept of a JWT blacklist/deny list is relatively easy to implement. But is it the best way of handling this situation? In our opinion, it’s not. The biggest advantage of JWTs is that they make session verification fast. If you maintain a blacklist/deny list and have to query it on every API call, then you’ve lost that advantage. Instead, what we advocate is a solution for session management that combines the respective strengths of both JWTs and opaque tokens. In this workflow, when the user logs in, the server issues both short-lived JWT (the access token) and a long-lived opaque token (the refresh token). When a user is granted access, both of these tokens are sent to the client. When the user attempts to access a resource, they send the JWT access token along with every request. When the JWT expires, the client then uses the opaque refresh token to request a new JWT and a new opaque refresh token. This process is known as refresh token rotation. The client then uses this new JWT to make subsequent requests and the process continues. The advantages and disadvantages of issuing two tokens and of implementing refresh token rotation The benefit of this approach is that if you want to revoke access, then all you need to do is invalidate the opaque token on the server-side. Then, when the refresh endpoint is called, the server looks up the opaque token, sees that it has expired, and logs the user out. Note that this doesn’t solve the problem of still-valid JWTs existing on the client. But, because you can make those JWTs much more short-lived (even just a few mins), you should find that it’s not too big a problem. In this way, you keep one of the key benefits of using JWTs and that’s the fact that you don’t have to keep accessing the database on each API call to verify the JWT - you only need to do a database lookup when refreshing the session - which happens relatively rarely. If this sounds ideal for your use case, check out SuperTokens’ implementation of this session flow. SuperTokens uses this method to harness all the benefits of using JWTs while mitigating many of their disadvantages by combining them with opaque tokens. Furthermore, changing the refresh token on each use adds additional security benefits like being able to . detect session hijacking Written by the Folks at — hope you enjoyed it! We are always available on our server. Join us if you have any questions or need any help. SuperTokens Discord

Revoking Access to JWT tokens with a Blacklist/Deny List

“We are struggling a bit with the optimization of our marketing activity,” said the CEO of a three-year-old startup that had just raised almost $10M in funding. His marketing manager and self-described growth hacker was nodding in confirmation from behind his shoulder. It didn’t sound right to me. “You mean that your marketing is profitable, but not profitable enough?” “No, not really, I wouldn’t call it profitable,” he replied. I started to understand the story. “So, you still haven’t found the audience for this product, and your methodology to finding it is ‘optimization’?” “I guess so,” he replied indifferently as I tried to conceal my disapproval. It’s hard to tell why high-tech managers like to optimize things. Maybe it’s because optimization sounds more technical and familiar to engineers, or maybe they just don’t yet understand how this marketing thing really works. The fact is that terminology matters, and many times they actually spend their time . optimizing things that don’t yet work And things do have to work first: You cannot optimize your archery skills before you know how to operate a bow and arrow, and have a target set up. There is no hack or optimization algorithm for it. You have to start with experience-based targeting and intelligent insights BEFORE you reach optimization stage: It’s a qualitative stage, not a quantitative one. Here is where the lies: such as SEO and funnel analysis like the understanding of consumer psychology and creativity. second part of the problem Tech executives tend to overrate hard marketing skills and underrate the importance of softer marketing skills It’s understandable — we all tend to overvalue the skills that are similar to our own and undervalue skills that we don’t know as much about. But this is detrimental to our success, and we have to overcome it. 4 stages to cross prior to optimization Every marketing process should start with people who have impressive soft skills in marketing and solid experience in persuasive communication. : Stage 1 Gain an in-depth understanding of the psychological needs of your target audience It all starts with the customer. This is the target for you to shoot your arrows at. You need to get deep into your customer’s perceptions, motivations and predispositions. : Stage 2 Develop a story and a visual language Stories are shortcuts to persuasion. Without a clear narrative that involves your customer as a hero, you have no chance of hitting the bull’s-eye. At this stage, though, I recommend that you don’t finish the story. Leave it open-ended so you can explore together with your customer in stage 4. : Stage 3 Find your audience You need to understand the best channels to reach your customers, the best time to do it and the ideal state of mind for embracing your offerings. You need to understand his/her decision-making process and build funnels accordingly. : Stage 4 Start telling your story in many different ways It’s better not to jump in with large advertising budgets before you know what works. Test various iterations of your story, until you know you got it right. If things don’t work well, and you can’t come close to your target numbers, go back to stages 1–3 and see what you need to change there. Only when you start reaching your target numbers can you start optimizing and growth-hacking your way forward. _______ Need help with any of the above mentioned stages? You can contact me directly at info@newspark.pro

The Blind Spot of Optimization Strategy

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We’ve recently migrated 10 projects to a single git repository. Here’s a short memo on why we introduced the new approach and how we carried out the transition without blocking the feature delivery pipeline. Voucherify Why monolith 2 years of Voucherify gave our code base enough time to outgrow a single project and become a handful of interconnected services. Naturally, in the course of building our platform, we’ve noticed a growing number of code used in several places — popularly called “ So far, we’ve simply duplicated the code where it’s needed. This is clearly the fastest way and we chose it deliberately because our dev team iterates fast. development commons”. But there comes a time when duplicating and maintaining the becomes troublesome and actually slows down the iteration speed. The burden of remembering all the places where the util is used is just too high. Therefore we’ve brainstormed how to solve the issue and actually ended up with 2 solutions. commons The first one is to create a module repository. E.g. wrap projects into NPM modules, introduce a versioning scheme, and set up a private module repository. Although this approach has some indisputable benefits, it’s not a 100% fit for our case. Here are the bullet points from our meeting: With so many repos, somebody has to learn how to maintain (and do so) the NPM repo. With monolithic repo, no dependency issue, no manual upgrading module versions management Code reviews become easier with monolith Navigation in the source tree and projects becomes easier too Testing and continuous delivery becomes easier — you know you have a consistent state at commit X Basically, deciding to take the mono path is about having the “commons” issue solved and keeping the iteration pace at the same level. Additionally, we’re still a small, lean team — working on a single project as a matter of fact. That’s why there’s little chance that our developers will waste time on understanding irrelevant pieces of code. It’s quite the opposite, everybody should be watching every change. For the very same reason, we don’t have to introduce any access control measures. So, we agreed it’s a good move and then we started wondering how to execute the transition in a way which doesn’t block ongoing development. Migration process The transition turned out to be super smooth. We’ve kept the commit history, even with the commit hashes unchanged. This was achievable with a single git command — . The procedure looked as follows: git subtree Putting the repos into a single one. 1. git subtree add --prefix=project-a git@github.com:voucherify/project-a.git master git subtree add --prefix=project-b git@github.com:voucherify/project-b.git master ... Changing the deployment process so that it handles the new “commons” properly (changes in Dockerfile, Procfile, and shell scripts which I won’t be discussing in this article; if you’re interested, let me know in comments). 2. Updating the changes pushed in the meanwhile. 3. git subtree pull --prefix=project-a git@github.com:voucherify/project-a.git master git subtree pull --prefix=project-b git@github.com:voucherify/project-b.git master The ongoing work is being committed to developer branches on a particular repo (also, for the sake of simplicity we have merged all awaiting pull requests to master). 4. Migration of branches from multiple repos, an example for project-a repository. 5. export BRANCHES=$(cat <<HEREdevelopment-branch-1development-branch-2development-branch-3development-branch-4HERE) for branch in $BRANCHESdoecho “============== copying ${branch} ============= “git checkout mastergit checkout -b $branchgit subtree pull --prefix=project-a git@github.com:voucherify/project-a.git $branchgit push -u origin $branchgit checkout masterdone In the meantime, developers clone the new monolithic repository and reconfigure the IDEs correspondingly. 6. When a “merge master” gives a signal that he migrated all developer branches, developers can check out remote branches with the following command: 7. git checkout -b branch_name origin/branch_name That’s it, Voucherify runs on the monolithic repository from now on. 8. Summary & future enhancements It’s been a month since we performed the migration. By getting easy-to-maintain utils at their fingertips, the team has increased productivity. They are also happy to have only a single instance of IDE running instead of 5 (browsing search results becomes a bit harder though). Now, the next improvement is to extract more “commons” that will make building features even faster: modules like commons-auth or other business-related stuff. Originally published at www.voucherify.io .

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