Glimbyte Starter Sorter

Glimbyte Starter Sorter adds three productivity features to the WordPress Plugins screen: a sort toolbar, date tracking columns, and a persistent Extensions menu in the admin bar.

Extensions Menu in the Admin Bar

An Extensions item is added to your WordPress admin bar and stays visible on every page — including the front end of your site when you are logged in as an administrator. This means you can jump straight to plugin management without navigating through the sidebar, from wherever you are on the site.

The dropdown includes:

• Installed — go straight to your plugins list
• Add New — jump directly to the plugin installer (shown only to users with the install_plugins capability)
• File Editor — open the plugin file editor (shown only when file editing is enabled)
• Active (N) — filtered view of active plugins, with a live count
• Inactive (N) — filtered view of inactive plugins, with a live count
• Update Available (N) — shown only when updates exist, with a live count

Sort Toolbar

A toolbar appears above your plugins list with one-click sort buttons for Name, Author, Installed Date, and Activated Date. Click once to sort ascending, click again to reverse. Sort preferences are saved per user and persist across sessions.

Date Tracking Columns

Two new columns — Installed and Activated — are added to the plugins list table. Plugins installed after activating this plugin show exact timestamps. Pre-existing plugins fall back to their file modification date, marked with a tilde (~) to indicate the date is approximate.

Key Features

• Extensions menu in the admin bar, accessible from any admin page or the front end of the site
• Live plugin counts for Active, Inactive, and Updates Available shown in the dropdown
• Capability-aware links — Add New and File Editor only appear to users with the relevant permissions
• One-click sorting by Name, Author, Install Date, or Activation Date
• Ascending and descending toggle with a second click on any sort button
• Sort preference saved per user, persists between sessions
• Installed Date and Activated Date columns in the plugins list
• Accurate timestamp tracking for plugin activations, deactivations, and new installs
• File modification date fallback for pre-existing plugins, marked with ~
• No external scripts, no database tables, no configuration required
• Fully translatable (text domain: glimbyte-starter-sorter)