We released Meta Box AIO two years ago with a single purpose: help you to install Meta Box extensions easier without bloating your plugin list. Until today, the plugin included only premium extensions. That means you still need to install the free extensions from .org separately. Well, it’s not very convenient and sometimes confusing. But it’s changed with version 1.7.0 which has just been released today. From now on, you are able to enable free extensions in the plugin settings page, just like premium extensions.

True All-In-One Package

With this update, you have united experience with picking up which modules (extensions) you need, and never wonder whether they’re free or not. You don’t care about premium or free, do you? With Meta Box AIO, you just need to care which ones you need. That’s all.

This also removes the old notification asking for installing/activating free extensions. And the admin interface looks cleaner now. Of course, the code for the notification (TGM Activation Class, technically) is removed.

And finally, there’s no process of downloading plugins from wordpress.org. Everything is just a few clicks in the plugin settings page. So it’s fast.

We also updated the filters on the settings page, you can now filter the list of extensions and pick what you need faster. The filters also work with free extensions.

Here is the screenshot of Meta Box AIO:

Some Side Notes

Firstly, the Meta Box AIO is only available in Developer Bundle and Lifetime Bundle. If you don’t have such a license, please get it here.

Secondly, to prevent any conflict, please remove all free extensions from the plugin list before activate them in the Meta Box AIO settings page. You might have fatal error if you forget to do that. We’ll add some checks in the future for this, but as it requires updating all free extensions, it takes some time. At the moment, just remember to remove them from WordPress first.

Alternative Way To Bundle Extensions

It’s worth noting that using Meta Box AIO is not the only solution for bundle extensions.

You have at least 3 ways to do that:

Using Composer: this is the recommended way to load extensions. We have added Composer support for premium extensions and free extensions. For more details, please see this docs and video.

Using TGM Activation Class: this is the WordPress-way to load plugins. You need to download the plugins zip files and put inside your plugin/theme, then using TGM Activation Class to load them. See how to do it.

files and put inside your plugin/theme, then using TGM Activation Class to load them. See how to do it. Bundle the extensions directly in your themes/plugins. Simply put the extensions in your themes/plugins and include main PHP files. Again, here is the docs.

These methods are convenient if you develop plugins or themes (we allow you to include them in your commercial products). If you build websites for clients, using Meta Box AIO is better.

Thanks

This idea comes from some users. But I’d like to thank Dave Navarro Jr., who gave us a lot of valuable feedback, including this idea.

If you have any idea in your mind and want us to add to Meta Box, please just let us know in any way: via contact form, Facebook group / Messenger or in the Support forum. We’ll try out best to do that as fast as we can.