Viewing descriptions and changelogs for plugins

Basic usage

To view a plugin’s changelog, specify –changelog on the command line. You do not need to specify a site name in order to do this. e.g.:

wordshell akismet --changelog

Similarly, to show a description, use –description:

wordshell akismet --description

Note that this operation causes the WordPress.Org API. What this means is that it will only succeed for plugins that are available from the WordPress plugins directory.

Combining with other operations

You add –changelog or –description when performing another operation. For example, if you want to read the changelog for a plugin before you update it, then do like so (the order of parameters does not matter):

wordshell mysite akismet --latest --changelog

You might want to allow yourself the option to back-out after reading the changelog: perhaps upon reading it, for example, you will learn that the plugin is not compatible with your version of WordPress. Add –confirm to the command line to get WordShell to ask you to confirm before the update stage. (This switch also works with –delete and –install as well as –update):

wordshell mysite akismet --latest --changelog --confirm

or

wordshell mysite mynewplugin --latest --install --confirm --description

Next read:

• Previous section: Finding available updates for plugins
• Next section: Restoring backed-up versions / rolling-back plugins
• Index for this chapter: Working with plugins