Here’s what an inline changelog looks like when implemented:

As you can see, a small notice like this helps users know at-a-glance what’s new in your plugin update.

Here’s the code you can incorporate into your plugin:

<?php
function my_plugin_update_info() {
	if ( $info = wp_remote_fopen("http://www.example.com/my-plugin-updates.txt") )
		echo '<br />' . strip_tags( $info, "<br><a><b><i><span>" );
}
add_action('in_plugin_update_message-'.plugin_basename(__FILE__), 'my_plugin_update_info');
?>

Of course, to keep plugin users happy, be sure that your inline changelogs are informative and unobtrusive. Happy coding!

(Plugin users, if you’d like to see this feature implemented in your favorite plugins, you could try sending the plugin author a link to this post! You could also check out the new Changelogger plugin.)

That’s the goal of SEO Ultimate, which is a free plugin I’m developing on behalf of SEO Design Solutions.

Right now the plugin is in its early stages (currently at version 0.6). There are many more features yet to come; as more functionality is added, I expect SEO Ultimate to become the all-in-one WordPress SEO solution of choice for more people as time goes on.

Features

Current functionality includes the standard All in One SEO Pack features:

• Title rewriting
• Noindex checkboxes
• Meta editing
• Canonical tags
• Post meta box

SEO Ultimate also has these additional capabilities:

• 404 monitoring
• Linkbox insertion
• Settings import/export functions

Upcoming features include robots.txt editing, 301 logging, XHTML validation status monitoring, and much more. (If you install the plugin now, you can get these features delivered to you on a regular basis via WordPress’s semi-automatic plugin updater!)

I’ve also incorporated these extra features into SEO Ultimate:

• Inline changelogs
• Readme changelog
• Footer branding
• WordPress 2.7 menu integration
• Integration with WordPress’s Help system
• Inline phpDoc documentation

Auto-Installer

Also, be sure to check out this cool auto-installer system I invented. Just type in your blog’s URL, click “Launch Installer,” then click “Install Now,” and voila, SEO Ultimate will be installed on your blog! You can then enable it by clicking the Activate link.

Try it out:

You can also download the zip file. SEO Ultimate requires WordPress 2.7 or above.

Let me know what you think!