Baxtersweb Guide Dots – WordPress Admin Guidance and Client Handover

A guide dot is a visual marker placed on a WordPress admin screen. Selecting it opens the contextual instruction attached to that location.

Guide Dots is intended for agencies, developers, designers, site administrators and anyone responsible for handing over, documenting or maintaining a WordPress website. It can also help clients and editors who need instructions while managing website content.

Open Tools > Guide Dots in the WordPress admin. The Guide Manager lists guides from across the admin area and provides filtering, ordering, tour and deletion controls.

No. Guide Dots runs only inside the WordPress admin. Website visitors do not see the dots or their guidance.

No. It works as a standalone WordPress plugin.

The current release requires the manage_options capability, which is normally available to WordPress administrators. Other logged-in users may follow guides only when their account already has permission to access the relevant admin screens.

No. Audiences are organisational groups used to label guides and build separate tours. They do not automatically restrict a Client, Editor or Developer audience to matching WordPress roles or individual users.

Yes. Select the add-audience control while creating or editing a guide, then enter the new audience name. Guide Dots assigns an identifying colour automatically.

Yes. Multiple guide dots can be placed on the same WordPress admin screen. The screen summary lists all guidance available there, and users can open guides individually.

Yes. Ordered guides can belong to different admin screens. Selecting Next opens the screen containing the following guide and brings it into view.

Open Tools > Guide Dots and filter the guide list to one audience. Drag the guides into the required order, then select Save order.

Yes. The Guide Manager generates a tour link for the selected audience. The recipient must be logged into the same WordPress website and have permission to open the admin screens included in the tour. The link opens Guide Dots in view-only mode, but it does not bypass normal WordPress access controls.

No. Guide Dots does not create user accounts, log users in or grant admin permissions. The recipient needs an existing WordPress account with suitable access.

Yes. Open the guide and select Edit Guide to update its text, audience or position.

Yes. Use Hide Guides in the WordPress admin bar. The setting applies only to the current user and does not delete any guides.

Guide positions are stored as percentages of the admin page dimensions. A guide may need to be repositioned when a plugin, theme or WordPress update significantly changes the related screen layout.

The Guide Manager retains the guide but marks its screen as unavailable. The guide can still be deleted from the manager.

No. Guide content is stored as plain text with line breaks. This keeps the guidance focused and avoids executable or complex markup inside admin popups.

It can replace many screen-specific instructions, but broader documentation may still be useful for project context, policies, credentials, hosting information or long-form reference material. Guide Dots is strongest when the instruction belongs beside a particular WordPress control or workflow.

No. It does not create public-facing walkthroughs. Guide Dots is specifically designed for guidance inside the WordPress admin.

No. Guides, audiences and settings are retained by default. To remove them during uninstall, enable Delete all Guide Dots data when the plugin is uninstalled under Tools > Guide Dots before deleting the plugin.