General Settings

For larger WordPress installations, WordPress to Buffer Pro provides some additional features for debugging and better performance.

In the WordPress Administration, click on the WP to Buffer Pro > Settings in the menu.
WordPress to Buffer Pro: Settings Menu

The following screen is then displayed:

WordPress to Buffer Pro: General Settings

Enable Test Mode

Test Mode is available in WordPress to Buffer Pro 4.2.4, releasing Thursday 18th June 2020 23:59 UTC.

To test how your status configurations perform across publishing, updating, reposting and/or bulk publishing Posts, Pages and Custom Post Types, you can enable the Plugin’s Test Mode.

When enabled, status(es) are not sent to Buffer, but will appear in the Log, if logging is enabled.

This setting is ignored when using WP-CLI commands for Reposting and Bulk Publishing; these commands have their own test mode flag which can be enabled.

Send to Drafts

Send to Drafts is available in WordPress to Buffer Pro 4.8.6, releasing Thursday 31st March 2022 23:59 UTC.

When enabled, status(es) are stored in Buffer as drafts. They will not be published on the social media profile until they’re approved in Buffer:
Buffer: Drafts

Scheduling options are honored for drafts based on when the WordPress Post was published or updated.  For example, a status set to publish 4 hours after a WordPress Post was published at 4:52PM will appear in Buffer’s drafts with a schedule time of 8:52PM:
WordPress to Buffer Pro: Send to Drafts: Custom Time

Use WP Cron

When enabled, status updates triggered by publishing or updating a Post will be asynchronously scheduled to send to Buffer using the WordPress Cron, instead of being sent to Buffer immediately.

This improves plugin performance on WordPress Post / Page edit screens. Status updates may take a few minutes (or longer, on sites with low traffic volumes) to appear on Buffer.

This setting is required if using any frontend post submission, feed importer or autoblogging Plugin e.g. User Submitted Posts, WP Property Feed, WPeMatico etc.

For each Post, Page or Custom Post Type that is published or updated in WordPress, WP to Buffer Pro will schedule a single, one time job/task with the Hook Name wp_to_buffer_pro_publish_cron and parameters for the Post ID and action.
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This is not a persistent job/task.  It is only added to WordPress’ Cron when a Post, Page or Custom Post Type is published or updated.

You’ll see these task(s), even if you have no status(es) configured for a given Post.  This is by design, to ensure said Posts read the most up-to-date status configuration at the point the task runs.  It doesn’t mean status(es) will wrongly be posted if they’re not configured to, and there is no performance hit with this approach.

Once executed by WordPress’ Cron, it will disappear.

You may choose to use WP Crontrol to monitor Cron Jobs.  Under no circumstance should you be using WP Crontrol to manually add any wp_to_buffer_pro_publish_cron job/task; Crontrol should be used purely to monitor should you be encountering issues.

You’ll need to also ensure that the WordPress Cron system is running.  Check for the following line in you wp-config.php file:

define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', true );

If the above line exists, you’ll need to confirm that your web host either:

  • Intentionally disables WordPress’ Cron, and instead triggers WordPress’ Cron in a different way, or
  • Do not intentionally disable WordPress’ Cron, and will therefore need to remove the above line in the wp-config.php file.

Disable URL Shortening

By default, WordPress to Buffer Pro will shorten any URLs in status messages, using the URL shortener specified on your Buffer account.

To disable this, and have the full URLs appear in status messages, tick the Disable URL Shortening? option.

Force Trailing Forwardslash

By default, WordPress to Buffer Pro will not include a trailing forwardslash at the end of the Post’s URL.  Whilst the link will be valid, some users prefer to force the trailing forwardslash to avoid 301 redirects in their analytics.

To enable a forwardslash, tick the Force Trailing Forwardslash? option.

Disable Fallback to Content if Excerpt Empty?

This option is available in WordPress to Buffer Pro 4.2.2, releasing Thursday June 4th 2020 23:59 UTC.

By default, WordPress to Buffer Pro will output the Post’s Content when an {excerpt} tag is used and the Post contains no explicit Excerpt.

To disable this, therefore outputting nothing when the {excerpt} tag is used on a Post that has no explicit Excerpt, tick the Disable Fallback to Content if Excerpt Empty? option.

Use Proxy?

By default, WordPress to Buffer Pro will connect to Buffer’s API to:

  • Fetch Account information
  • Fetch Profile information
  • Send Statuses

Some countries’ ISP and web hosts may block these connections if social media is banned in those geographies.

Enabling the Use Proxy option means that the above requests are sent through our USA-based proxy server, which should resolve this issue.

You may still need to use a VPN for initial Authentication when setting up the Plugin for the first time, because you have to login to your Buffer account through buffer.com.

Post Level Default

When creating or editing Pages, Posts or Custom Post Types, you can choose the default Plugin setting to pre-select in the WP to Buffer Pro meta box:

  • Do NOT Post to Buffer
  • Use Plugin Settings
  • Post to Buffer using Manual Settings