The Hack Repair Guy's Stickies

Pin sticky notes to the exact spot on any page of your WordPress site, mention a teammate, and mark the note resolved when the fix is done.

"The button on the contact page is the wrong color." "Client wants this paragraph shorter." "The plugin conflict shows up right here." Stickies lets your team say it right where it happens. Notes are only for logged-in people with Stickies access; visitors never see them.

▶ Watch Stickies in action

What it does

• A small toolbar on the left edge of every page (and a Stickies item in the admin bar) adds a note, hides or shows notes, and opens the list of notes on the page.
• Notes are paper-yellow by default, with blue, green, pink and gray as options. Pick a color from the button at the top right. Drag by the top edge or by the pin, resize from the corner, and save with the check button or Ctrl+S / Cmd+S. A Hack Repair heart pin shows a saved note.
• Type @ to mention a teammate. They get an email linking straight to the note.
• Each note can be seen by the whole team, only the people mentioned, or just you. The ? beside the menu explains each choice.
• Mark a note resolved with the round check button. It leaves the page, with an Undo message, and stays in the notes panel (tick Show resolved) and the Stickies list, where it can be reopened.
• Stickies in the dashboard menu lists every note on the site with filters, search, and bulk resolve, reopen and delete.
• Stickies > Settings sets which roles can see, add or manage notes, whether notes show on dashboard screens, where the controls appear, mention emails, autosave and uninstall cleanup.

Privacy and scope

Notes live in one table in your site's database. They are fetched after the page loads through the WordPress REST API, so page caches never contain them. Nothing loads for visitors. Mention emails leave the site, update checks contact GitHub, and mention suggestions may load avatars from Gravatar or your configured avatar provider. The plugin is not a public comment system and has no anonymous notes.

Install

1. Download thrg-stickies.X.Y.Z.zip from the latest release.
2. In WordPress, open Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin and choose the ZIP.
3. Activate it, open any page of your site while logged in, and click the note button on the left edge.

Updates arrive through the normal WordPress Plugins screen from this repository's GitHub releases.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my mention show “No recorded send”?

Mentioning your own logged-in account does not send you an email. This is intentional, including on Team notes with mention emails enabled. Use a different administrator or editor to test.

The label means there is no saved send result. It also covers older mentions from before 2.0.1 and skipped notifications: emails disabled, invalid recipient/email, recipient unable to see the note, or the 10-minute cooldown.

Does saving or resolving a note resend emails?

No. Only newly added mentions trigger notification attempts. Re-saving the same mention, resolving, or reopening a note does not resend it.

How do I test it?

Enable mention emails, create a new Team note, select another administrator or editor from the @ dropdown, and save. Refresh the notes list for the send result and check Mailpit if used locally. If the new email arrives but no result is recorded, investigate the database upgrade and status write.

Development

Requires WordPress 6.9.4+ and PHP 7.4+. Tests are plain PHP scripts:

php tests/url.php
php tests/content.php
php tests/access.php
php tests/email.php
php tests/schema.php
php tests/smoke.php
php tests/uninstall.php
python3 tests/package-permissions.py

tests/integration.php runs against a real WordPress install (it loads wp-load.php; see the file header). It creates temporary users and notes and removes them afterwards.

Run shared PHPCS with /Volumes/BACKUP8TB2/plugins/PHPCS/run-phpcs.sh "$PWD". Build a release ZIP with python3 scripts/build-release.py.

See PROJECT.md for the architecture, design decisions and known limits.

Author and support

Jim Walker, The Hack Repair Guy, author and maintainer.

Questions, ideas and community support · Report a bug · Security reporting · Buy Jim a coffee

License and credits

GPLv2 or later.

Inspired by the 2014 WP Sticky Notes plugin by Soso Kruashvili (GPLv2). Stickies is a new plugin written from scratch; no code, images or text from it are used.

Update checks use Plugin Update Checker by Jānis Elsts (MIT license), included unmodified.

Made by The Hack Repair Guy.

Changelog

2.0.2

• Explain self-mentions, No recorded send, and notification troubleshooting.
• Add the walkthrough video and include Support in View details.
• Remove the repeated delivery disclaimer from the notes list.

2.0.1

• Show per-recipient mention email acceptance/failure and attempt timestamps in the notes list.
• Historical emails display No recorded send; acceptance does not confirm inbox delivery.

2.0.0

• Preserve edits during manual saves and protect concurrent updates with revisions.
• Translate mention emails and clarify avatar privacy.

1.1.2

• Resolved notes leave the page; open them from the notes panel or the Stickies list.
• The push-pin is now a Hack Repair heart and can be dragged to move the note.
• A soft sheen confirms a color change.
• Friendlier messages for empty and unsaved notes.

1.1.0

• Added a Stickies item to the left dashboard menu, with the note list and Settings under it.
• Notes show on the site and on dashboard screens by default.
• Added a help tooltip next to the note visibility menu.
• Moved the color button to the top right of each note and made it larger.
• The resolve button now explains itself, lines up with the color button and shows an Undo message.
• Fixed spacing of the empty notes panel message.

1.0.0

• First release.

Privacy clarification: Mention suggestions load avatars using WordPress’s configured avatar provider, which may contact Gravatar. GitHub is contacted for plugin update checks.