WP Tables Plugin Review
I’ve been looking for a stylish way to display a price comparison table for my WordPress Training classes and purchased the WP Tables premium plugin. It seemed to have it all including total customization of the table and cool HTML5 features. Read my honest review of this plugin, what it offers, what it lacks, and why I might not be using it in the future.
About WP Tables
The WP Tables plugin provides an interface where you can build many types of tables without knowing HTML or CSS coding. You can customize the colors of every row and control the look of the text. The plugin comes with a large set of small icons like check marks, sales tags, and purchase buttons that can easily be integrated into the table as well. It also has the option to include HTML5 code to make a table section seem to float up a bit when hovered over.
Ease of Use
I’m an old coder and have built many tables from scratch. So, the user interface terminology didn’t throw me for a loop. But I suspect it would for folks who are not versed in HTML. Plus, it’s a little odd how it requires you to work differently with rows and columns. Equally odd is how it jumps back up a level in the process once you save the section you’re working on.
In other words, the user interface has a learning curve and has a few quirks unique to this plugin. Once you get used to all that, it’s fairly easy.
The plugin does have a few video tutorials, but they are more feature-oriented than step-by-step instruction.
The Result
Once I got over the learning curve and quirks, I was able to customize a large table to my heart’s content. You can see an example of the table I created for the WordPress Training packages below.
However, I was never able to get the HTML5 feature to work properly, which a real disappointment because that gave the table a cool factor.
The Errors
After a few days of using the WP Tables plugin, I began to get the following errors every time I uploaded a new image to the Media Library.
Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: Cannot send session cache limiter – headers already sent (output started at blogaid/wp-content/plugins/wp-tables/admin/main.php:197) in blogaid/wp-content/plugins/wp-tables/main.php on line 33
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at blogaid/wp-content/plugins/wp-tables/admin/main.php:197) in blogaid/wp-admin/async-upload.php on line 26
One of my clients who also uses the plugin was getting the same error and had contacted the developer. She initially received a reply from him right away that he was checking into the problem, but then never heard back again.
I also contacted the developer about it and have yet to receive any reply. The plugin’s site has no changelog page, so I don’t even know if they are working on this issue or if others are having the same problem, although I suspect they are.
As far as I can tell, these warnings are not causing any problems on my site and do not keep me from uploading my images.
Wrap Up
WP Tables does build complex tables that can be customized far better than any other plugin I have seen. The extra icon/graphics bundle is especially nice. But, the user interface is too complex not to have better tutorials. And, the lack of response and support for warnings does not inspire confidence.
Bottom line, this is a premium plugin. I would expect the previously mentioned shortcomings from a free plugin, but not from one that has a price tag.
Since I’m an old coder, I can just as easily build my own tables and drop use of this plugin. I can no longer recommend it to my clients now because of the lack of support and lack of good tutorials.
Personally I’ve found that for tables WYSIWYG never works out well… from a programmer’s perspective, coding to handle everything you can do with a table is a nightmare to implement, and the tools I’ve seen are all complicated enough that the time & energy spent learning ho w to use them would be better spent just buckling down and learning actual CSS/HTML :P
Agreed, Tyler. That’s basically the conclusion I came to at the end of the post. I always provide my clients with seed code for creating a table and then vid tuts to customize it.
This comment is for a video tutorial I’m making to display how threaded comments appear when there are multiple replies.
I too always look for easy ways for noncoders (clients) to be able to do more by themselves. It’s a shame and blight on the supportive, good premium plugin developers for one such as this not to come up with a fix or at least a “I’m working on it.” Not good for the trust of the WP community.
You’re so right Cyndi, and they’re really missing out on all the trainers and designers who could be recommending this product to their clients. You would think loss of revenue would be a motivation.
You certainly got farther than I did with this plugin! Ah, the beauty of knowing how to code! Very true representation and review.
As Tyler said, you’d be better off spending your time learning to code rather than learning the quirks of the plugin because the time investment is about the same.
My clients an I have had good luck with WP Tables-Reloaded. So far no errors and the ease of use for the end user has been great.
Good to know Alex. I’ve heard mixed reviews about WP Tables-Reloaded, but suspect that many of the complaints may come from folks who have not had good guidance in using it. Tables in general are a bit of an advanced feature.
how can we addd css and styles to wp reloaded ? and also how to add ratings
You’d have to get into the core code to add stylings and ratings. You might want to check the developer’s website to see if they have a forum, a FAQ sheet, or place to ask questions about specifics on the plugin.