WordPress Manual Plugin – Review

As a web developer or designer you know how valuable a content management system like WordPress can be in running a client’s website.

But how many times have you run across a client that is comfortable right out of the gate using WordPress? Chances are you are going to be holding their hand and teaching them the ins-and-outs of the system.

Now, thanks to Video User Manual’s WordPress plugin, there’s an easier way.

What is the WordPress Manual Plugin?

For those who deploy a lot of WordPress sites, you know how much effort it takes to teach the client how to operate the program.

You may have developed a manual or a series of screencasts on how to use the features in WordPress. But what happens when WordPress receives a complete overhaul making all that work obsolete. Is it back to the drawing board?

Well the good news is – if you’re using the WordPress Manual Plugin – all that will be done for you automatically.

The WordPress Manual Plugin contains over 30 video tutorials that are updated with each new version of WordPress. In addition, all the training material is accessible from the WordPress dashboard.

There are videos for learning what does what on the dashboard and topics like how to add posts and images. Pretty much all the kind of questions you’ll get bombarded with when you hand the site over to the client for the first time.

Features

Here are some of the standout features of the plugin:

• Over 80 written pages with over 100 screenshots – There’s plenty of material broken down into manageable chunks. If your client doesn’t like videos, they can always read up on all the features in the User Manual.
• Every button on visual editor toolbar explained – The visual editor is where most of your client’s heavy lifting is going to be done. There is a video or section explaining each feature of this toolbar.
• Developer license can be used on unlimited domains – Your $24 per month license allows you to deploy the plugin on as many sites as you like.
• Plugin doesn’t need to be updated – The plugin will automatically find out which version on WordPress is being run and serve up correct tutorials. New videos are made available with each update to WordPress.
• Can brand with your own logo – Should you desire to brand the plugin, you can change the logo as well as several areas of description text. Your client will think you did all the hard work yourself, and since all the videos are presented with an Australian accent, your client may also think you’re an Aussie.
• Add your own videos – If you feel like it – or you have custom instructions you would like to add – you can include your own videos with the plugin.

Installation is a easy as One, two…wait

I’ve activated plenty of WordPress plugins during my work as a web designer, so I was pretty confident that this plugin was going to be a snap to install. I would just need to download, upload to the plugin folder and activate. At least so I thought.

The reality was a little more difficult.

The limited instructions said all I needed to do to activate the plugin was input the serial number in the administrative section. What I ran into, however, was a whole slew of 404 and User ID errors.

It seems the plugin didn’t want to save anything I entered into the admin menu, so when I clicked on the manual it would keep throwing me up an error. I’m not sure if it needed special read/write permissions or what. Either way, it wasn’t as easy to get running as you would typically expect from a purchased WordPress plugin.

Now, the truth is, I sort of enjoy it when a product I review doesn’t go completely smooth. It allows me the opportunity to try out the product’s support features.

Video Users Manual’s support forum is rather sparse with only a few troubleshooting subjects listed, so I decided to send an email. Sometimes, when I feel like testing support response times, I won’t mention that I’m reviewing the product for FreelanceSwitch. That way I won’t get special treatment. But because I only had a limited time to use the plugin, I thought I should mention that I was a reviewer.

So with the email on its way, I started the stop watch to see how long it would be before I heard back.

I waited.

And waited.

In fact, a couple weeks have gone by and I’m still waiting.

So I sent off another email and instead of waiting around I decided to go in and hack the plugin manually. It didn’t take me that long to open the PHP file and input my serial number manually. Even after that it wouldn’t work until I reset the plugin to its default settings. It only took me a few minutes, but should that really be necessary for a purchased plugin?

Conclusion

Glacial customer support issues aside, the plugin is actually very useful. It’s easy enough to use that it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle getting the client to use it rather than email you with all their WordPress questions.

The plugin costs $24 a month, which makes it a little expensive unless you deploy and support a lot of WordPress sites.

The plugin is available from the Video User Manuals website.