Drop-ins Manager Sneak Peak

Here’s another update on the new MD Drop-ins Manager. You’ll see the screenshot has two categories for “Installed” and “Core” Drop-ins.

Installed Drop-ins are ones you can upload via .zip file through the Drop-ins interface. You can activate and deactivate them like WP Plugins, which makes the old way of installing Drop-ins via child themes obsolete.

Core Drop-ins come shipped with Marketers Delight and in version 5.3 the definition of a Drop-in has changed. As MD exists now you see features like footnotes, subtitle, MD editor blocks, and a couple other things listed as Drop-ins that will now be treated as regular MD features. Those features I just mentioned can be enabled in MD > Site Design > Content.

You’ll also notice in the first screenshot I included a file window from the /wp-content/ directory. All Drop-ins you upload will be stored in this new folder where they can be updated by reinstalling the Drop-in, and eventually will be able to receive auto-updates like the MD theme.

This marks a big move because your uploaded Drop-ins will now primarily be stored outside of your child theme. But don’t worry, you can still edit Drop-ins from your child theme, only now it works more like editing plugin and parent theme files.

For example, to edit the main Documentation loop template you should first go to /wp-content/md-dropins/docs/templates/category-listing.php and copy the file contents.

Next, go to your child theme and recreate the same directory (minus the md- prefix): /wp-content/themes/my-child-theme/dropins/docs/templates/ and create the file and paste its contents.

The huge advantage here is that your child theme no longer has to carry Drop-in files, and in fact will only hold the ones you’ve made changes to without getting lost in updates. As the purpose of a child theme is to store your own customizations, the new MD Drop-ins system makes that goal even easier.