Tell visitors when you change your Privacy Policy or another legal page
The Update Notices kit in TermsFeed AutoTerms shows a bar that names each legal page you recently changed, with a link and the date of the change. The Privacy Policy that the plugin generates promises, in its section "Changes to this Privacy Policy", an email or a prominent notice before a change takes effect. The bar announces a change to any legal page, that policy included, only after you save it, so give advance notice another way. Setup takes 4 steps and about 15 minutes. You need a published legal page and an Administrator account, or an account with a plugin role and the WordPress unfiltered_html capability.
Which legal page updates the Update Notices bar announces
The bar announces a published legal page whose last modified date falls within the period set in "How long to keep the announcement bar", which is 3 days by default. Every save with the "Update" button moves the "Last updated" date of a published legal page. The bar announces a typo fix as a change too.
The bar leaves out these pages.
- A page you only published and never edited afterward has no change to announce.
- A page saved again only within 60 seconds of publishing counts as unchanged.
- A scheduled page does not get a notice when it goes live.
- A draft, a private page, or a page in the trash does not get a notice.
Pages changed on the same date share one message. The bar uses "Message for multiple updated pages" while 2 or more pages of that date have notices the visitor has not closed. It uses "Message" when only one is left. Check how editing a legal page moves its dates in Edit and Publish WordPress Legal Pages.
Step 1: Turn on the Update Notices kit
A kit that is off does not print the bar or its script, and cached pages do not show the bar either. Turn on the kit with the "Enable" button on the Compliance Kits screen, or with the "Enabled" checkbox on its settings screen.
- Open TermsFeed > Compliance Kits in your WordPress admin.
- Click the "Enable" button in the Update Notices of Legal Pages box. The kit turns on with no "Save Changes" click, and the notice "Update Notices of Legal Pages enabled." appears.
- Click the "Configure" button in the same box to open the "Update Notices of Legal Pages" settings screen.
Step 2: Set the Update Notices options
The bar works with the defaults of the "Update Notices of Legal Pages" settings screen. Click the "Save Changes" button after you change the fields, style fields included. The fields at the top of the screen set whether the kit runs, where the bar sits, who sees it, how many days it appears, and what it says.
| Field | Values | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Enabled" | Checkbox | Off | Turns the kit on or off |
| "Announcement bar position" | "top", "bottom" | "top" | The edge of the page the bar sits at |
| "Announcement bar type" | "static", "fixed" | "static" | Whether the bar scrolls with the page or stays at the edge of the window |
| "Disable for logged-in users" | "yes", "no" | "yes" | Hides the bar from visitors who are logged in to WordPress |
| "How long to keep the announcement bar" | "24 hours", "3 days", "10 days", "30 days" | "3 days" | How long after a change the bar announces it |
| "Message" | Rich text | A sentence with a link to the page and the date of the change | The text for a single changed page |
| "Message for multiple updated pages" | Rich text | A sentence with links to the pages and the date of the change | The text for 2 or more pages changed on the same date |
| "Message for close button" | Text | "Close" | The text of the link that hides a message, printed as plain text, so HTML in it shows as typed |
"Announcement bar position" and "Announcement bar type" place the bar as they place the Cookie Notice bar. Both bars print into the same 4 page containers, one for each combination of position and type, and where both bars share a container, the Update Notices bar prints first. Compare static and fixed bars in How position and type place the Cookie Notice bar.
Step 3: Write the Update Notices messages
Each message is a small editor with the Bold, Italic, Underline, bulleted list, numbered list, Link, and Unlink buttons. The shortcodes in a message fill in the changed pages. The "Message" and "Message for multiple updated pages" editors hold these default messages.
Our <a href="[wpautoterms page_link]">[wpautoterms page_title]</a> has been updated on [wpautoterms last_updated_date].
Our [wpautoterms page_links] have been updated on [wpautoterms last_updated_date].The "Insert shortcode:" links under each editor add the shortcodes that editor understands. The link "revert message to the default one" puts the default text back into that editor.
| Link under the editor | Shortcode it inserts | What it prints |
|---|---|---|
| "title" | [wpautoterms page_title] |
The title of the changed page |
| "link" | <a href="[wpautoterms page_link]">[wpautoterms page_title]</a> |
The title as a link to the page |
| "href" | [wpautoterms page_link] |
The web address of the page |
| "titles" | [wpautoterms page_titles] |
The titles of every page in the message, as "A, B and C" |
| "links" | [wpautoterms page_links] |
Those titles as links, as "A, B and C" |
| "last effective date" | [wpautoterms last_updated_date] |
The date of the change, in the date format and language of your WordPress website |
The "titles" and "links" shortcodes print only inside Update Notices messages, and "Message for multiple updated pages" offers them. Look up every option of these shortcodes in Legal Page Shortcodes for WordPress.
On a save by a user without the WordPress unfiltered_html capability, the plugin keeps only the HTML that WordPress allows in post content in each message. Check which accounts have that capability in TermsFeed AutoTerms Capabilities and Roles.
How the Update Notices "Close" link hides a message
A click on the "Close" link hides that message, and a new change to one of the pages it names shows the message again. The click writes 1 cookie for each page, named wpautoterms-update-notice- followed by the page ID.
A closed message comes back once the cookie expires, while the change is still inside a period of "10 days" or "30 days". Each site of a WordPress multisite network, and a site installed in a subdirectory, keeps its own wpautoterms-update-notice- cookies.
How the Update Notices bar works with page caching
A bar at the bottom appears on cached and uncached pages, and each visitor sees only the changes that visitor has not closed. A bar at the top appears there only under a page cache that stores it with the page, such as WP Super Cache or Cache Enabler. Turn on "Caching plugins compatibility mode" on the Advanced tab of TermsFeed > Settings to show it on cached pages under any page cache. A page cache stores one copy of a page for everyone, so on a cached page the bar asks your WordPress website for the current notices through admin-ajax.php. Logged-out visitors send that request, and it needs no login.
A firewall or a security plugin that blocks admin-ajax.php for visitors stops the bar on cached pages. Set up the cache and the page speed plugins with WordPress Caching Plugins.
Style the Update Notices bar on your WordPress website
The lower part of the settings screen holds the color and font fields of the bar and the "Additional CSS" field.
| Field | Values | Default | What it styles |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Background color" | A hex color, such as #162942 |
Empty | The background of the bar |
| "Font" | "default", "Arial, sans-serif", "Georgia, serif", or "custom..." with any text without HTML tags | "default" | The font of the bar and its links |
| "Font size" | "default", "12px", "13px", "14px", "15px", "16px", or "custom..." with any text without HTML tags | "default" | The text size of the bar and its links |
| "Text color" | A hex color | Empty | The color of the message |
| "Links color" | A hex color | Empty | The color of the links in the message |
| "Additional CSS" | CSS rules, saved only by an account with the WordPress unfiltered_html capability |
Empty | Your own rules for the bar and its close link |
Target each message and its close link in "Additional CSS" with the selectors the editor lists. Find every selector of the bar in TermsFeed AutoTerms CSS Classes and Containers, and fix rules that do not save with Code or HTML Not Saving in WordPress.
An empty color field or a "default" font field does not print a rule for that property, and the bar takes that color or font from your WordPress theme. Trace a color or font that stays unchanged with Colors or Fonts Not Showing in WordPress.
Step 4: Test the Update Notices bar with a real edit
Test the bar with a real change to a published legal page. Use a page you published earlier, not one you published a minute ago. Test as a logged-out visitor, because the bar hides from you while you are logged in.
- Open a published legal page in the editor, change a word, and click the "Update" button.
- Clear your page cache. For a bar at the top under a page cache, turn on "Caching plugins compatibility mode" first.
- Close every private window, because private windows share their cookies, then open a new one, open Chrome DevTools, select the Network tab, and type
admin-ajaxin the filter box. - Load your WordPress website in that window, select the
admin-ajax.phprequest, and check on the Payload tab that it sendsaction=wpautoterms_check_updates. - Check that the bar names the page you changed, with the current date.
- Click the "Close" link, select the Application tab, open Cookies for your domain, and check that a cookie named
wpautoterms-update-notice-followed by the page ID exists. - Reload the page and check that the message stays hidden. Find the cause of a bar that stays hidden in Update Notice Not Appearing in WordPress.