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Slick­Stack
Lightning-fast WordPress on Nginx

MU Plugins

The following Must Use plugins are included in every SlickStack installation (you can download latest versions in the public mirrors). While these plugins cannot be disabled from SlickStack, they can be controlled and/or disabled on an individual basis using the supported defined constants. Note: some plugins do not support many constants yet, this is rapidly being addressed however… most of the plugins using our PBP boilerplate v1.2.0 or later have a full array of defined constants that they support, including the basic true/false to enable/disable that plugin.

  • Autoloader: Enables standard WordPress plugins contained in a folder to be placed in the mu-plugins directory and loaded prior to others (forked from Bedrock).
  • Clear Caches: The easiest way to clear caches including WordPress cache, PHP Opcache, Nginx cache, Transient cache, Varnish cache, and object cache (e.g. Redis).
  • Cloudflare: Easily connect your WordPress website to free optimization features from Cloudflare, including one-click options to purge cache and enable dev mode.
  • Custom Functions: Enables the ability to input custom WordPress functions such as filters in a centralized place to avoid the dependence on a theme functions.php file.
  • Dashboard Cleanup: Cleans up the WP Admin backend by disabling various bloat features including nag notices, Automattic spam, and other outdated and pointless items.
  • Delete Expired Transients: Deletes all expired transients upon activation and on a daily basis thereafter via WP-Cron to maintain a cleaner database and improve performance.
  • Disable Attachment Pages: Completely disables media attachment pages which then become 404 errors to avoid thin content SEO issues and better guard against snoopers and bots.
  • Disable Embeds: Disables both external and internal embedding functions to avoid slow page render, instability and SEO issues, and to improve overall loading speed.
  • Disable Emojis: Completely disables both the old and new versions of WordPress emojis, removes the corresponding javascript calls, and improves page loading times.
  • Disable Empty Trash: Completely disables the automatic trash empty for WordPress posts, custom posts, pages, and comments to avoid data loss and encourage manual emptying.
  • Disable Gutenberg: Completely disables the Gutenberg block editor and enables the classic WordPress post editor (TinyMCE aka WYSIWYG) for lighter coding and simplicity.
  • Disable Image Compression: Completely disables all JPEG compression in WordPress including image uploads, thumbnails, and image editing tools, thus retaining original quality.
  • Disable Post Via Email: Completely disables and hides the Post Via Email feature included in WordPress core for stronger security and to simplify the backend settings page.
  • Disable XML-RPC: Completely disables all XML-RPC related functions in WordPress including pingbacks and trackbacks, and helps prevent attacks on the xmlrpc.php file.
  • Error Log Monitor:
  • Force Strong Hashing: Forces all user passwords generated by WordPress to be hashed using Bcrypt, the most secure and popular PHP hashing algorithm currently available.
  • Header Cleanup: Cleans up most of the unnecessary junk meta included by default in the WordPress header including generator, RSD, shortlink, previous and next, etc.
  • Index Autoload: Adds an index to the autoload in wp_options table and verifies it exists on a daily basis (using WP Cron), resulting in a more efficient database.
  • Limit Heartbeat: Limits the Heartbeat API in WordPress to certain areas of the site (and a longer pulse interval) to reduce AJAX queries and improve resource usage.
  • Minify HTML: Tactfully minifies HTML output and markup to remove line breaks, whitespace, comments, and other code bloat to cleanup source code and improve speed.
  • Plugin Blacklist: Allows web hosts, agencies, or other WordPress site managers to disallow a custom list of plugins from being activated for security or other reasons.
  • Remove Query Strings: Removes all query strings from static resources meaning that proxy servers and beyond can better cache your site content (plus, better SEO scores).
  • Server Status: Useful statistics about the server OS, CPU, RAM, load average, memory usage, IP address, hostname, timezone, disk space, PHP, MySQL, caches, etc.
  • SFTP Details: Displays a small Dashboard widget to remind logged-in Admin users of their server SFTP login information for easy reference (uses defined constants).
  • Virtual Robotstxt: Replaces the default virtual robots.txt generated by WordPress with an editable one, and deletes any physical robots.txt file that may already exist.
  • XXX Notices: Occasional notices designed to appear in the WP Admin Dashboard that mention important changes regarding the SlickStack environment (white-labeled).

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