Description
This plugin connects with your Patreon account and allows you to show progress meters towards your Patreon goals.
The goal widget works with per-item and per-month funding, and displays your current funding and the goal, and animates to catch your potential patron’s eye.
Currently the widget includes two color schemes, one designed to look good on dark backgrounds, the other on light backgrounds. You can roll with one of those or you can override the schemes with your own colors. I’m working on giving you a bit of control over the shape of the progress bar as well.
You can see the widget in action at knives-the-novel.net
Road Map
= Things I’d like to put in this plugin =
- More control over widget appearance (partially done, control over the progress bar shape still in the works).
- Live preview on options page.
- Blurb in widget describing the goal, that can optionally be pulled from the Patreon site (partially complete).
- Patron access control to allow “patron only” sections of your site. (Maybe – still evaluating the semi-official plugin from Patreon.)
- I’m open to your ideas!
Screenshots
The goal tracker and button widgets on a page. Almost to the goal! 
The Options page, part 1: The patreon connection stuff. Once you get this set up, you can ignore it forever. 
The Options page, part 2: colors! 
The Widget form. It will go fetch your list of goals to make things easier for you. 
The button widget form. Pretty straightforward.
Installation
- Upload Goal Tracker for Patreon to the
/wp-content/plugins/directory - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
- In the Settings menu, select Goal Tracker for Patreon.
- Enter your Creator Access Token (see FAQ).
- Now it’s time to actually put a widget on your page. In the Widgets admin page, drag a Patreon Goal widget into the desired widget area.
- Open the widget and click “Refresh List”. This will contact Patreon and load in a list of the goals you have set there.
- Choose a goal and fill out the other stuff.
- View your site and watch the thermometer animate! Pretty!
- Go back to the settings page and fiddle with the color options. Choose hideous colors, have a laugh, and then set the progress bar colors to match your personal aesthetic.
FAQ
- How do I connect with my Patreon account?
-
There is a form you fill out on the Patreon site, and when that process is complete, you get your Special Secret Codes. You’ll be just like James Bond!*
NOTE: If you have already filled out the form for a different Patreon plugin, you will need to do it again for this one (with a different app name), so the plugins don’t trip over each other.
Start by logging into your Patreon account, then go to https://www.patreon.com/platform/documentation/clients. You will find a form with a bunch of stuff that may not make sense to you. App name? What the heck? Just remember: there aren’t really any wrong answers. Most of that is so you can keep things straight.
For App name, you can use the name of your WordPress site. For description, a description of your site is fine. I’m not sure if privacy policy and terms of service URL’s are required, but on my site I made quickie pages that said I would never ever share info with anyone, and that I reserved the right to ban people who are jerks. For this plugin, those are never used.
Once you get all that stuff filled out, you will see a Client ID, a Client Secret, Creator’s Access Token, and Creator’s Refresh Token. Each of those items has a place on the plugin’s options page. Paste them in, and when you save, you will see a little message over on the side with your creator id in it. That shows that your info was correct and you have successfully connected with Patreon.
* Cool gadgets and attractive sidekicks not included.
- How do I customize the look of the widget?
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On the settings page, you can set the colors of all the parts. There are two colors for the progress bar and for the background, providing a feeling of dimension.
“Oh, but Jerry,” you say, “that whole 3-D thing is so 2012.” No problem; if you want that modern, flat look, just use the same color for the base and the highlight. Personally, I think we let go of 2012 a little too quickly. Not a bad year, as years go.
- So your name is Jerry, I take it?
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Yes, it is. It’s a pleasure to meet you.
- Shouldn’t I just use the Patreon WordPress plugin?
-
They are two different animals, and actually complement each other.
This plugin provides information about your campaign; the other allows your patrons to set up accounts on your site based on their Patreon credentials, which is useful for providing patron-only content.
Reviews
Contributors & Developers
“Goal Tracker for Patreon” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Goal Tracker for Patreon” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
0.4.6
- Bug fix – does not depend on jQuery getting loaded in the document head
0.4.5
- Another animation redo, this time to make Microsoft’s new Edge browser happy by replacing SMIL with CSS keyframes. It’s a lot more complex, but animations seem to be smoother on all browsers.
- Added an easing function to the animations.
- Improved error handling when Patreon returns unexpected result when doing monthly token update.
0.4.4
- Patreon put its data back the way it was. Sorry for the inconvenience. Apparently the previous change was an accident.
0.4.3
- Updated to match Patreon’s data format changes.
0.4.2
- Made more resilient in themes that alter widget id’s.
0.4.1
- Some SVG fixes to make things look right on Firefox
- Better feedback when Patreon is down or is in maintenance mode.
0.4.0
- A host of new options to provide custom colors.
- Minimum WordPress version is now 3.5
- Code refactor to make things nice and tight.
- Modified the thermometer animation in anticipation of new progress bar shapes.
0.3.3
- Added field to include a small blurb with the goal.
- Very minor edits to instructions
0.3.2
- fixed bug preventing setting Client ID after invalid token entered
- fixed bug that would clear Client ID when options saved without change
- added reminder to users that more settings are required to enable automatic access token update
0.3.1
- documentation update
0.3.0
- automatic refresh of access key
0.2.0
- add support widget
- fix goal overrun bug.
0.1.0
- first beta release