🔔 IdeaPlugins Notification Bars — Documentation

Overview

IdeaPlugins lets you create one or more promotional or informational bars and display them conditionally across your WordPress/WooCommerce storefront. Each bar is independently configurable and can be activated or deactivated without changing the other bars.

Installation & Menu Location

Requirements for the current release:

• WordPress 5.6 or newer.
• PHP 7.4 or newer.
• WooCommerce 4.0 or newer for WooCommerce-specific targeting such as Shop, Cart & Checkout and Product Categories.

Installation:

1. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
2. Select the IdeaPlugins ZIP package and install it.
3. Activate the plugin.
4. Open Notification Bars in the WordPress admin menu.

Dashboard

The Dashboard gives you a quick operational overview of the notification-bar system.

The Dashboard also lists bars with their theme, display rule, schedule status, clicks, coupon copies and active/inactive state. WooCommerce category targeting is summarized in the Active Bars by Category area when applicable.

Create or Edit a Notification Bar

Go to Notification Bars → Add New Bar. The editor is organized into six tabs:

The Statistics tab appears when editing an existing bar.

TAB — Theme

Select the visual theme and decide whether the bar appears at the top or bottom of the viewport.

TAB — Content

Build the message shown to visitors. Every content block can be enabled or disabled independently where the editor provides a toggle.

Leading Visual

• None — no leading visual.
• Emoji / Icon — enter an emoji or icon character such as 🔥, 🎁 or ⭐.
• Image — choose an image from the WordPress Media Library or provide an image URL.

Title & Subtitle

• Title is the main promotional message.
• Show subtitle controls the secondary line.
• Subtitle is editable text displayed below the title.

Badge

Enable Show badge and enter the badge text, for example NEW, HOT, SALE or VIP. The badge uses a pulsing visual treatment.

Coupon Code

Enable Show a copyable coupon code and enter the code. Visitors can click Copy to copy the code through the browser clipboard API. Each copy action is tracked in the bar statistics.

Countdown Timer

• Duration per visitor — counts down from the configured hours/minutes/seconds in the visitor's browser session.
• Fixed end date — counts down toward the configured date/time.
• Hours, minutes, seconds define the duration when Duration mode is selected.
• Fixed target date/time defines the target when Fixed mode is selected.

Email Capture Layout

Enable Show an email input instead of a plain button to display an email field and optional CTA button. The current 1.0.0 implementation provides the front-end input layout and tracks form submission as a click interaction; it does not store the submitted email address or send it to an email-marketing service.

Button

• Show button enables the CTA.
• Button text controls the visible label.
• Button link is the destination URL.
• Same tab / New tab controls link behavior.

Close Button

• Allow visitors to close the bar adds the close control.
• Remember for stores the visitor's closed state in a browser cookie for the configured number of days.

TAB — Design

Use Design settings to override selected theme values without changing the underlying theme preset.

Leave the color fields empty to keep the selected theme's own background and text styling.

TAB — Targeting

Targeting determines where a published bar is allowed to render.

TAB — Schedule

Scheduling provides an automatic end time for a published bar.

• Automatically turn this bar off after a certain date enables schedule handling.
• Start (optional) is available in the editor as a stored date/time field.
• Turn off at is the effective automatic expiry point in the current release.

Expiry is checked during WordPress requests and does not depend on WP-Cron.

TAB — Statistics

When editing an existing bar, the Statistics tab displays three per-bar counters:

• Button Clicks — CTA link clicks. Email-form submissions are also tracked through the same click counter.
• Coupon Copies — successful copy-button interactions.
• Closes — visitor close-button interactions.

The Reset Statistics action sets all three counters for that bar back to zero.

Settings

General — Enable notification bars

This is the plugin-wide master switch. When disabled, no notification bar is rendered anywhere, even if individual bars are still marked active.

Advanced — Delete all data when the plugin is deleted

This option is off by default. With the default setting, deactivating or deleting the plugin does not remove the saved bars, statistics or plugin settings. If the option is explicitly enabled before uninstall, the uninstall handler removes the notification-bar posts and plugin options.

Bar Management

All Bars provides a visual card list of saved bars.

• Edit opens the complete bar editor.
• Duplicate creates a copy of an existing configuration.
• Delete moves the bar to WordPress Trash.
• Status switch changes the bar between published/active and draft/inactive without opening the editor.

The Dashboard also exposes a compact table view with theme, targeting, schedule, clicks, copies and status.

Responsive & Mobile Behavior

The public stylesheet includes a dedicated breakpoint at 640px.

• Bar height and internal spacing are reduced on small screens.
• The subtitle is hidden on mobile to preserve space.
• Title, CTA, icon/image and countdown elements scale down.
• Coupon and email controls use compact dimensions.

The front-end bar uses a very high stacking order so it remains visible above normal page content.

Data, Updates & Safety

• Bars are stored in a private plugin-managed WordPress custom post type rather than exposed as normal public posts.
• Plugin activation is designed to avoid recreating demo data after the first installation.
• Deactivation intentionally performs no destructive cleanup.
• Plugin updates use a stored database-version value and are designed not to wipe existing bars or statistics.
• Admin actions use WordPress nonces and capability checks.
• Public interaction counters use nonce-protected AJAX endpoints and only increment integer counters.
• Front-end assets are enqueued only when at least one matching bar will actually be rendered.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use it without WooCommerce?

Yes for the general notification-bar functionality. WooCommerce is required only for WooCommerce-specific targeting options.

Can multiple bars be active at the same time?

Yes. The front-end renderer evaluates all published bars and outputs every bar whose targeting rule matches the current page.

Does the email field save customer emails?

No. In version 1.0.0 the email layout is visual/interactive only. Submission is prevented from navigating and is counted as a click interaction; the address is not stored by this plugin.

What happens when a schedule ends?

The plugin detects the expired end time during a WordPress request and changes the published bar to draft. No WP-Cron job is required for this check.

Are my bars deleted when I deactivate the plugin?

No. Deactivation intentionally leaves bars, statistics and settings untouched.

Are my bars deleted when I uninstall the plugin?

Not by default. Data removal is opt-in through the plugin's Advanced setting.

Why do I not see Shop or Product Category targeting?

Those controls are shown only when WooCommerce is detected as active.

Changelog