Uninstalling my plugins

I consider very ambiguous the way some plugins should be upgraded and the proper way of uninstalling them, so I believe I should explicitly explain it for my plugins.

In the following article you will have detailed instructions regarding plugins uninstallation. It may look complicated, and you may even think my plugins are complex to unintall, but it's just because most plugins developers neglect these informations. Indeed, my plugins are easier to install and uninstall than most plugins, I'm just giving complete and extensive instructions .

If any of my plugins is activated and then is suddenly deleted from HD, what will happen is 2 things:

• any code that calls its functions and methods without first testing if they are present, will break
• it will be deactivated by Wordpress, its data in database will remain intact, and once the plugin is back in place you just need to reactivate it and everything will go back exactly to how it was before the plugin disappeared

So, if you have to upgrade manually, simply delete the plugin folder and extract the new version. If Wordpress detects the plugin disappeared for a little while, just follow installation steps again, your configs will be safe.

Now, if you want to uninstall any of my plugins, there are 3 ways of doing so and you can choose 2 consequences.

Let's see what may happen upon uninstalling first:

1. The plugin will be disabled, its code and features will be unavaillable, but any database config it has (for plugins that have configs) will be retained, and anytime you enable the plugin again they will be there waiting for it. This solution is good for when you want it disabled for sometime but foresee using it again, and don't want to reconfigure everything again.
2. All database configs are removed, database is cleaned and no track (regarding the plugin itself, not other plugins that may interact with it) of the plugin ever being in your system will remain. This solution is good for when you want to totally remove the plugin and never use it again, or when you eventually reinstall it you want to config everything from scratch, or also when something is wrong and you want to reset configs to default.

And now, the 3 ways a plugin can be uninstalled:

1. Using an uninstallation feature, that will be triggered when a Uninstall Button is clicked. For my plugins, this feature is available when they have any config stored on database: the feature deletes these configs from database (leading to uninstallation consequence B I listed above) and then the plugin disables itself. After uninstalling you are free to delete plugin's files from HD, or simply leave it there waiting to be activated again.
2. Deleting the plugin folder while it is enabled. Doing so, Wordpress will notify you it was deactivated with a message like The plugin hikari-obfuscator/hikariobfuscator.php has been deactivated due to an error: Plugin file does not exist. It leads to uninstallation consequence A I listed above, configs will be kept and when you reinstall it, the plugin will detect and use those configs automatically.
3. Using Wordpress deactivation link, which is in Manage Plugins page. I believe there are some plugins that, when using this deactivation link, triggers the plugin configs deletion. But for my plugins, database configs will not be deleted if you simply use Wordpress deactivation link. It is the prefered way to achieve uninstallation consequence A, plugin will be nicely deactivated and configs will be safe.

If, for any reason, you uninstalled any of my plugins using options II or III, which led to consequence A, and want to delete all configs that you don't need anymore and are just cluttering your database, you can follow these steps:

1. Upload the plugin back to your plugins folder.
2. Follow all installation steps, having the plugin properly activated.
3. Use the Uninstall Button, described in uninstallation option A. It will delete any remaining data the plugin may have added to your database, and it will automatically deactivate itself, not running anymore unless you reactivate it.
4. Delete plugin's folder from your plugins folder.

With this tutorial, at least with my plugins you know exactally what each action results in your website