Display List of Active Plugins in WordPress Dashboard

This question came up in one of the WordPress-related Facebook groups I belong to.

The poster wanted to allow selected registered WordPress users to see a list of active plugins without giving them the capability of managing (adding, editing, activating, deactivating, deleting) any plugins. He was thinking about creating a new custom WordPress role and then customizing capabilities. That would work. However, adding a script with the following code snippets to a file in the mu-plugins folder is a lot easier.

I’m indebted to Boopathi Rajan, on whose website I found these code snippets.

Here’s what the listing looks like:

Summary of steps:

1. Create a PHP file called something like show-my-plugins.php
2. Add the two snippets (see below) to the file.
3. Upload the file to the /wp-content/mu-plugins/ folder.

Code to set up the dashboard widget:

/* Initializes a new dashboard widget */
function nwb_dash_widget_plugins_init() {
	if( current_user_can('manage_options') ) {
		wp_add_dashboard_widget(
		'nwb_dash_plugins',						// Widget slug
		'* Installed/Active Plugins (nwb)',		// Widget title
		'nwb_dash_widget_plugins_content',		// Callback to function that has the content
		);  
	}
}

Notes:

• Line 3: Change manage_options — which is a capability only Administrators and Super Adminstrators have — to a capability appropriate for your target audience. For example, use read to allow Contributors to see the listing. Details on WordPress roles and capabilites here.
• Line 7: This calls the function that generates the content.

Notice that the code on line 7 is what calls the function that generates the content.

Code to generate the content of the dashboard widget:

/* Generates the content of the new dashboard widget */
function nwb_dash_widget_plugins_content() {
	$plugins = get_plugins();
	?>
	<div class="wrap">
		<table class="nwb-list-plugins">
			<thead>
				<tr>
					<th>Plugin Name</th>
				</tr>
			</thead>
			<tbody>
				<?php
				$sno=1;
				if($plugins) {
					$counter = 0; 
					foreach($plugins as $key=>$plugin) {
						if($plugin['TextDomain']!='export-plugin-details') {
							$version_latest='-';
							$args = array(
								'slug' => $plugin['TextDomain'],
								'fields' => array(
									'version' => true,
								)
							);
						if ( function_exists('plugins_api') ) {
							$call_api = plugins_api( 'plugin_information', $args );
							/** Check for Errors & Display the results */
							if ( is_wp_error( $call_api ) )  {							
								$api_error = $call_api->get_error_message();
							} else {
								if ( ! empty( $call_api->version ) ) {
									$version_latest = $call_api->version;
								}
							}
						}
							if(is_plugin_active($key)) {
								$counter ++;
								$counter_cos = str_pad($counter, 3, '0', STR_PAD_LEFT);
								echo "<tr>";
								echo "<td><code>" . $counter_cos . '</code>' . $plugin['Name']."</td>";
								echo "</tr>";
							}
						}
					}
				}
				else {
					echo "<tr><td colspan='4'>No Plugins found..</td></tr>";
				}
				?>
			</tbody>
		</table>
	</div>
	<?php
}
add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'nwb_dash_widget_plugins_init');

Notes:

• Line 26: I had to add this because, in one installation, I was encountering a fatal error telling me the plugin didn’t exist. I never dug too deep to figure that out, and now the listing works wherever I’ve added it.
• Line 56: This add_action call starts everything in motion, associated with the wp_dashboard_setup hook.