The Story of WP Brain

The story of WP Brain began a year ago, at that time, I was working on a WordPress website for a client, he asked me to create some shortcodes to help him show different content for mobile devices and tablets, and he also wanted to show different navigation links and widgets for logged in users so they can access their account page or logout.

By default, WordPress do not give us the possibility to control the content visibility based on the visitor’s device or login status. I searched for existing plugins but all I found was few plugins that offer limited possibilities and I will end up installing lot of plugins to do this, so I decided to code my own plugin for this purpose.

In the first version, I have created the “IF” shortcode that allowed us to control the visibility of the content inside, I was able to do almost anything with that shortcode because I am the coder and I know what to do. But, my client was unable to remember the shortcode syntax so I wrote a detailed documentation for him that explain all the possibilities he can achieve with that shortcode. Even after reading the shortcode documentation, it’s really hard for a non tech client to work with complex shortcodes like the one I created, This situation forced me to look for a solution that will allow him to insert the shortcode using an easy to use interface.

The shortcode was great and gave my client the control to show or hide page content based on several criteria, but we can’t control menu items and widgets using that shortcode! We didn’t have more time on that project, so we gone with creating two menu locations and two widgets areas and switch between them using some custom PHP code even if the client wont be able to have the flexibility of changing that by himself.

Since then, I was working to improve the plugin and make it possible to easily manage the conditions and filters via a modern and easy to use interface, and the result was WP Brain.

Now, WP Brain can’t only filter content based on user device or login status, but it offer much more flexibility and customization that my old client would like to have in that time when we was working on his WordPress website. This made the plugin unique and will help any website owner taking control of the visibility of each element in his website, it’s simply the Brain of WordPress.