April 08, 2024

WordPress Button Plugin MaxButtons Plugin

WordPress button plugin so powerful and easy to use anyone can create beautiful buttons, share buttons and social icons.

MaxButtons is a powerful WordPress button, share button and social icon plugin. Create great looking CSS3 WordPress buttons in a minute. Easy to understand. Our button editor with live preview makes it a snap to generate awesome responsive buttons in very little time. The social share buttons and social icon features allow you to add social options to your website in minutes.

MaxButtons WordPress button plugin has been going strong for over 6 years and was the first button plugin for WordPress. MaxButtons has earned over 1000 5-star reviews and over 3.5 million downloads. Here are couple of our favorites:

“The best plugin of its kind” – by celito
“This plugin makes creating buttons sooooo easy.” – by ncrocker202
Why aren’t all plugins like this?!?
MaxButtons easily solved my problem with lots of options when creating the button and a live view of what it was going to look like. It would have done the job for me there and then but being able to adjust the text AND link with shortcodes on my page made modifications a breeze. – by discgosforth
“Easy, clear, and robust. I’m a programmer and can write CSS till the cows come home, but why? Just get it, install it and use it. Then, when you’re impressed, buy the pro version” – by jleahy

Max Foundry also makes the WordPress Gallery plugin MaxGalleria and WordPress Media Folders plugin for real WordPress Media Library folders.

Requirements

WordPress installed
PHP 7

WordPress Buttons

Create WordPress Buttons
Getting Social Icons on your WordPress site.
Share Buttons on your WordPress site.
WordPress button library and button sets can make my designers and developers more productive.

MaxButtons

No coding, the plugin takes care of everything
Button shortcodes for ease of use, unlimited text and link combinations possible
Create unlimited number of buttons
Live preview window instantly updates as you customize your buttons
Color picker for unlimited color combinations
Works with all modern browsers, degrades gracefully for others
Fully CSS3 compliant with text shadowing, box shadowing, gradients, etc.
Copy an existing button to use as starting point for others
See your buttons on different color backgrounds
Predefined defaults make getting started super easy
Works with your page builder: Beaver Builder, SiteOrigin, Elementor etc
Great Gutenberg support, works out of the box.
Integrates with Popup Builders to open Modals
Best responsive options. Customize for each mobile device and screen size

Share Buttons

MaxButtons has a share buttons addon that includes 7 beautifully designed share button sets for the following social networks:

Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Linkedin
Google+
Pinterest
VKontakte
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Whatsapp
Buffer

Plus email and print icons.

Social Icons

In addition to promoting your content through MaxButtons share buttons you can also use share buttons to promote your social network profiles. Simply select a social icon or make a button, include the link to your profile and post the button shortcode on your page. Social icons are easy with MaxButtons!

MaxButtons Pro

Take your buttons to the next level with MaxButtons Pro!

Our premium WordPress plugin for buttons, share buttons and social icons brings you the best WordPress button plugin through continuous feature updating. Upgrading to the Pro version allows you to add icons and images to your custom WordPress buttons. The Pro features allow you to do so much more!

Icons and Images – Add icons and images to your buttons and customize placement and size.
Multi-line text – Add a second line of text and stylize with font, size and placement.
Google Fonts – We have included the entire set to help your buttons stand out with beautiful typography.
Button Packs – Ready to use, value priced button sets that make any site good great.
Google AnalyticsEvent Tracking for WordPress Buttons. The best way to see you users’ interactions with buttons in Google Analytics. No coding needed.
Import/Export – Useful for backing up and/or moving your buttons. Also, use any of the great free icons listed on our site.
Dynamic Buttons – Use variables from WordPress or theme in your link and text
Custom CSS – Built-in per button custom CSS
Button Search – for easier management of large button sets.
Font Awesome 5 – Largest icon collection, fastest served
WPBakery Page Builder – Integrated with WPBakery Page Builder
Contact Form 7 Integration
Beaver Builder Integration
Easy Digital Downloads Purchase and Checkout Button Integration

WordPress Button Sets

In addition to the Basic Buttons and free button packs included with MaxButtons Pro you can also purchase additional professionally designed, production ready button packs from the largest WordPress button library in existence. The library features more than 6,000 buttons. It is the largest WordPress button library in the known universe.

WordPress button sets make designers and developers much more productive.

Free Icons

You can use free icons when you create your buttons with MaxButtons Pro so we’ve built one of the largest libraries to inspire you and make your buttons really stand out.

Button Shortcode

Click the MaxButtons page from the admin menu.
Click the Add New button.
Create and customize your button using the button editor.
Fill out and select the options needed to build your button.
Once you’re ready, click Save.
A button shortcode will be generated (ex: [maxbutton id=”17″] or [maxbutton name=”My Button Name”]).
Use the shortcode anywhere in your content and the button will appear.

You can also pass the button text and URL as parameters in the button shortcode, giving you even greater flexibility. For example, if you want to create a set of buttons that look exactly the same, except for the text and URL, you could do something like this:

[maxbutton id=”17″ text=”Search Google” url=”http://google.com”]

[maxbutton name=”MaxButtons Button Name” text=”Search Yahoo” url=”http://yahoo.com”]

Another parameter you can give the shortcode is window, which tells the button whether or not to open the URL in a new window (by default the button opens the URL in the current window). To do so you always give the window parameter the value “new”, shown below. Anything else will open the button URL in the current window.

[maxbutton id=”17″ window=”new”]

You can also use the nofollow parameter, which will add a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the button when set to true, as shown below (the default is false):

[maxbutton id=”17″ nofollow=”true”]

NOTE: Passing parameters to the shortcode overrides those settings saved as part of the button.

Support

We work hard to give timely support during the week. And we give support when we’re on during the weekend.

MaxButtons. Bringing the #buttonlove!

Installation

For automatic installation:

Login to your website and go to the Plugins section of your admin panel.
Click the Add New button.
Under Install Plugins, click the Upload link.
Select the plugin zip file from your computer then click the Install Now button.
You should see a message stating that the plugin was installed successfully.
Click the Activate Plugin link.

For manual installation:

You should have access to the server where WordPress is installed. If you don’t, see your system administrator.
Copy the plugin zip file up to your server and unzip it somewhere on the file system.
Copy the “maxbuttons” folder into the /wp-content/plugins directory of your WordPress installation.
Login to your website and go to the Plugins section of your admin panel.
Look for “MaxButtons” and click Activate.

Screenshots

Button overview - Everything in one view
Button editor - Your own look and feel
Color picker including styles, transparency and more
Button packs, easily add premade buttons
Simple but powerful Social Share options
Clear and fast output.
Responsive buttons for mobiles made easy
Simply way to add buttons to your content

FAQ

Do I have to copy a button if I want to have a different text or link?

No. The shortcode enables you to change various items on the button including the text and link. It’s better to create a single button and reuse it.

To change text and link :
[maxbutton id=”1″ text=”yourtext” url=”http://yoururl”]

If you only want to change one of the two, just leave the not needed option out.

Most often used options:

[maxbutton id=”1″ text=”yourtext” url=”http://yoururl” window=”new” nofollow=”true”]

You should never copy buttons if you only have a different line of text and / or link on any button. You can use the ‘add button’ dialog from your posts and pages to easily use this options

How do I use the shortcode in a sidebar/widget?

Simply add the button shortcode to your widget (ex: [maxbutton id=”17″] or [maxbutton name=”MaxButtons Button Name”]). If the styling is missing on the widget, try to check the ‘use important’ checkbox under ‘advanced’ settings.

How can I add the shortcode to my post/page template?

You can use the WordPress do_shortcode function for this. Use the button name instead of ID for clearer code and easier replacement.

Can’t see styling on the frontpage

Sometimes the button styling doesn’t load on the frontpage. There are usually two major reasons:

Theme doesn’t have proper footer, check if wp_footer() is called in the theme
Using MaxButtons with sliders, dynamic page loaders (such a parallax and one-page themes ) or caching mechanisms.
Some Caching plugins will remove styles. Either whitelist .maxbutton class or use the file loader in MaxButtons PRO settings
If loading dynamically, you can output the style next to the button using [maxbuttons id=x ‘style=inline’] in the shortcode

TablePress and MaxButtons

TablePress uses a caching mechanism which prevents the MaxButtons style design from functioning. To solve this problem, simply add the caching option to the shortcode like this: [table id=123 cache_table_output=false] . See this support topic on TablePress.

A solution which will keep the cache enabled is to use this in your shortcode: [maxbutton id=1 style=”inline”] . Flush the TablePress cache after adding this.

Use this only if you encounter issues. Most of the time MaxButtons works without any need for modifications.

Part of my button is cutoff, how do I fix that?

Try enabling the container and setting its margin options. You could also fix this manually by surrounding your button shortcode with a div element with margins. For example:

<div style="margin: 10px 10px 10px 10px;"> <?php echo do_shortcode('[maxbutton id="17"]'); ?> <?php echo do_shortcode('[maxbutton name="MaxButtons Button Name"]'); ?> </div>

Then adjust the margin values as needed (the order is: top, right, bottom, left).

How do I center the button on a page?

Enable the “Wrap with Center Div” option in the Container settings.

How do I align multiple buttons next to each other?

Enable the container option and set the alignment property to either “display: inline-block” or “float: left”. You might also want to add some margin values to put some spacing between your buttons. If that doesn’t work, try using a simple HTML table.

<table> <tr> <td>[maxbutton id="1"]</td> <td>[maxbutton id="2"]</td> <td>[maxbutton id="3"]</td> </tr> </table>

A lot of modern page builders have solution for positioning content, like grids. You can leverage those for better results.
You can use TablePress to create tables in WordPress.

How do I display a MaxButton in a WordPress menu?

By default WordPress can’t display shortcodes in a menu. You can use this plugin to allow shortcodes in a menu. Just copy the MaxButton shortcode in the menu after installing

How do I display a MaxButton in Excerpts / Post listing

By default WordPress only displays plain text in Post Excerpts. If you want to show a button there, you can add this snippet to your functions.php

add_filter( 'the_excerpt', 'shortcode_unautop'); add_filter( 'the_excerpt', 'do_shortcode');

Alternatively there are many plugins for customizing the excerpt that can do this for you and give control over other parts of the excerpt as well.

How do I display a MaxButton in a slider?

This depends on the slider plugin you are using. Most of the well-known ones are allowing the use of shortcodes within the slides. To find out if your plugin can handle that, please ask the slider vendor.

I use Autoptimize with MaxButtons

Autoptimize is supported and should work fine in most cases. However, if you see weird results, try to load the pageby adding ?ao_noptimize=1 to the URL. If the buttons load normally then the issue is with Autoptimize. You can enter an exclusion for .maxbutton in the CSS exclusions.

Non-Latin language users

The plugin works with users of non-lating languages with a few exceptions. First, the character set of the Database Table should be in UTF-8. If you see ‘????’ characters in the plugin, go to Settings -> Advanced. There is a button to set the tabel to UTF-8

Secondly, please use latin only characters for button name ( Basic settings) and extra classes ( Advanced settings ). Not doing so might prevent the styling output from working correctly.

How do I upgrade the plugin?

Upgrading to the PRO version is quite simple. Obtain a license key via our site. You can enter the license code within the free version on the ‘Upgrade to PRO’ page. After entering the license key, the PRO version will automatically download and install. You are good to go!

Changelog

9.7.8

Fix – XSS issue with rel tags. Thanks for reporting Dmitrii Ignatyev of Cleantalk
Fix – Strict JS warning in font loader.

9.7.7

Tweak/Fix – Security Don’t allow javascript by default in the shortcode.

9.7.6

Fix – Lack of escaping on URL could lead to issues.
Fix – Potential issue with converting icon data on activation if field contains malformed data.

9.7.4

Fix – Issue when shortcode has invalid fields

9.7.3

Fix – Issue with strict time conversion in button class

9.7.2

Fix – Issue with responsive migration on sites that have null / faulty data in responsive field.

9.7.1

Fix – Fatal error if certain maxbuttons option was not set

9.7

Fix – SimpleHtmlDom library now checks for defined constants ( in case library is loaded already )
Fix – Prevent not-loading interface when screen query parameter is wrong
Fix – Type in documentation
Fix – Json_decode during installation process could be called with wrong arguments
Tweak – Fixes to make plugin strict

9.6

Fix – Attribute escaping on shortcode fields
Fix – Shortcode could break html when adding certain characters

9.5.3

Fix – Deprecated notices for PHP 8.1+
Fix – Copy button not working

9.5.2

Fix – TablePress and Gutenberg caused conflict with Maxbuttons block
Fix – Selecting buttons in TablePress fixes (advanced editor)
Fix – Rare issue with responsive mixin and beaver builder resulting in bad output

9.5.1

Fix – Updated SCSSPHP library – issue with cspace in older version, added polyfill

9.5

New – Show all defined responsive options on the overview screen.
Fix – Deprecation notices when certain CSS output was empty
Fix – Ctrl-S save option no longer showing alert after modifications

9.4.1

Fix – Javascript check on conditionals caused by external plugins conflicting in the button editor

9.4

New – Clearer interface showing changes and differences on responsive screens from main button
Major improvements in Javascript performance and loading the button editor
Screen icon and title on preview window to make more clear which screen is active
Updated range input, removed deprecated styles
Tweak – Pressing ctrl-s now saves the button.
Fix – Preview width / height would in some cases show wrong value when changing screen
Fix – Better escaping in query for CSS output
Fix – Issue loading gradient color fields in responsive screens
Fix – Removing color from color field will now make it transparent
Fix – Check on user capability when doing button actions.

9.3

Fixed minor CSRF issue on settings page
Fixed XSS issue with shortcode handling

9.2

Works with PHP 8.1 / WordPress 5.9.3+
Fix – Extra check for database tables in case activation didn’t run
Fix – Returns to last screen active after saving.
Fix – Add new different size of editor viewport than edit mode.

9.0

Upgrade to PRO directly from the plugin ( Upgrade to PRO screen )
Streamlined save process / redirects in the POST process

8.8.4

Added integer check on gradient to prevent crash on bad data.

8.8.3

New – Auto-Tablepress integration will only add button once to output inline, to avoid repetition.
Fix – Database error on primary key would happen occasionally when activating plugin
Fix – Removed old database check option from code.

8.8.2

Fix – Text-shadow buttons without color could trigger a crash in certain cases.

8.8.1

Fix – Moved external libraries to own namespace to prevent conflicts.

8.8

Updated SCSSPHP library to 1.8.1
Updated several deprecated JQuery calls

8.7

Removed Shortcake integration
Fix – Hidden items would still take space when invisible

8.6

Fixed notices on argument order ( PHP8+ )
Loading button editor has better flow of hidden items ( fades )
Updated Alpha Color picker to version 3
Fix – When ‘add button’ is hidden in classic editor, would cause issue with Gutenberg.
Fix – If a widget would load calendar during init time, could trigger a fatal error.
End of support for PHP 5.x. Minimum PHP version is now 7.0

8.5

New – Option to force a download of the URL
New – Select Site Content also searches recent media library items.
Fix – Preview window would increase in size when dragging
Fix – Gutenberg open in new window / rel nofollow controls now working

8.4.2

Fix – Responsive hide button would work with additional settings

8.4.1

Fix – Button width / Container width processed incorrectly when main and responsive are the same value, but not the default.

8.4

[Tweak] Elementor button preview now works better
[Fix] TablePress Advanced Editor Button Popup now works.
Tested on PHP 8.0
Tested for WordPress 5.6

8.3

New – When external Javascript crashes Maxbuttons, an error is displayed
Review notice updated

8.2.2

Fix – PHP notices on support page

8.2.1

Fix – Preview axis showed ‘pxpx’ on new buttons
Fix – Duplicate button warning linked to non-functional preview

8.2

New – You can now control how much auto-responsive mode changes buttons – in settings
Fix – Collections transitional database table caused issues on some installations
Fix – Code quality updates

8.1.2

Fix – In Auto-responsive, font-size would be decreased doubly in size.

8.1.1

Fix – New color picker library always triggered save warning

8.1

Fix – Color Picker fixes for Jquery and WP 5.5+
Fix – Trash / Copy from Button Overview would wrongly always copy first on the list
Fix – Script hardening to prevent crashes when something is missing
Tweak – Autoresponsive is now a setting for those we don’t need more granular control.

8.0.4

Fix – Container alignment could crash style compile when used in responsive screens

8.0.1

Fix for Beaver Builder
Shortcode now renders in Beaver Builder front editor

8.0

Major rework of responsive options :
- Better UI / Layout with Screens
- Almost all styles can be altered in responsive
- Smart system keeps extra output to a minimum
- New LivePreview system let’s you preview responsive options
- Rulers and sizes in preview pane
Width / Height can now be put as percentages.
Several CSS properties will now combine to shorthand CSS, resulting in small CSS
Textareas now trigger save status
Updated SCSSPHP library to 1.1.1.
Translations: Dutch translation ( Thanks Peter Smits! )

7.13.4

Updated ScssPhp to 1.0.7
Updated SimpleHTMLDom to 1.9.1
Fixed Buttons menu tab

7.13.3

Fixed – relative require_once include, sometimes this crashes.
Fixed – Catching error when directoryIterator fails

7.13.2

Tested WP 5.3
Fixed – Removed comment that caused a warning for some users.
Fixed – Another fix for trash view.

7.13.1

Fixed – Wrong redirect on copy / move to trash actions.

7.13

Updates to code base
Fixed – Small bug in Gutenberg regarding text fields
Fixed – Zero-width space (Unicode Character) could disturb URL output.

7.12

Fixed – Certain external admin notices overlapping on overview page
Fixed – Notice button_id when during copy / restore on the overview page

7.11

New – Support for transparency.
New – On button save tries to flush cache for popular caching engines: WordPress, wp-super-cache, WP Engine, Total W3TC, WPFastestCache
New – When using TablePress, buttons automatically load style inside the table due to caching.
New – Option to remove all buttons in trash
Fix – Action in button overview now keep paging in tact.
Fix – PHP notice when dismissing review question.

7.10

New – Button overview lists last date when button was updated
Fix – Updated pagination in button picker popup
Fix – Updated styling and exceptions on button paging ( overview )
Update – Gutenberg block now can set CSS to inline
Update – PHP minimum version now 5.6, matching WordPress.
Fix – Help text mistake in Gutenberg
New – Better support for RTL lanuages ( hopefully )

7.9

Fix – Setting on ‘border-box’ now also being applied in the admin button list.
Fix – Color picker sometimes jumping to top of page
New – All shortcode options available in Gutenberg
Tweak – Help texts and added clarification
Tweak – Styling of help text
Tweak – Updates to the preview scripting
Tweak – Button dialog styling improvements
Fix – Pseudo-elements in main button class now in correct order

7.8

Fix – Crashes on PHP 7.3 due to simple HTML DOM library
Tweak – If no Box Shadow is defined, it’s not set on the MaxButton.
Fix – Box shadow with only spread now works and properly removes values from stylesheet
Fix – Box shadow blur minimum is now zero
Fix – Gradient stop field hidden when gradient option is off

7.7

Tweak – Warning when button name is duplicate
Tweak – Removed unused action hooks in field
Tweak – Small speed improvement in Javascript

7.6

Fix – Saving buttons in Gutenberg block
Fix – Extra classes could conflict with styling in certain situations
Fix – Removed requirements for any user roles in adding buttons to content
Fix – Icon in Gutenberg classic block
Fix – Activation check could trigger notices when missing database table fields
Fix – Bug when using Siteorigins in Widgets area
Removed – Shortcake Font Awesome reference

7.5.2

Fix – Further fixes for TinyMCE while being loaded out of WP-editor context.
Fix – Hide ‘add button’ setting now also doesn’t show Tinymce button

7.5.1

Fix – Error when loading tinymce button resulted in crash for some users (PHP 5.3)

7.5

New – Support for Gutenberg
New – Button icon in TinyMCE interface
Fixed – False positive compatibility notice for PHP 7.x
Tweak – Prevents certain events from loading twice (performance)

7.4.1

Fixed notice in 7.2 when button not found in Database
Updated buy PRO page

7.4

Fixed grammar
Removed unused code

7.3.1

Fix – Issue with Link Picker styling / picker not always working properly

7.3

Link picker – Easier way of selecting links to your content
Updated parser SCSSPHP to version 0.7.5
Fixed – Issue with modals, causing issues on certain themes / plugins
Cleanup unused scripting
Fixed issue with unicode button name crashing style output
Fixed issue with custom shortcode handlers
Removed references to any Font Awesome scripts

7.2

‘Add button’-Dialog improvements, plus all shortcode attributes now available in interface
New shortcode attribute ‘extraclass’ to add extra classes
Fixed issue where media script and modal script would interfere with each other
Added No optimize string for Autoptimize users
Updates to support page
Improvements to shortcode visibility
Fixed Javascript bug that could cause issues with other not-isolated plugins
Tested on WordPress 4.9.6.

7.1.3.

Fixed legacy issue with social share that could crash plugin in certain cases

7.1.1 / 7.1.2

Fixed issue when other sources call jQuery.noConfict()

7.1

Vertical align now working
Fixed issue with selecting buttons via SiteOrigin Page Builder

7.0

Removed old Social Share from base plugin. Use WordPress Share Buttons ( https://wordpress.org/plugins/share-button/ )
Upgrade to Font Awesome 5
Added vertical-align: middle as standard property
Streamlined plugin Ajax processes
Fixed – Issue with button updated warning when nothing was updated.
Fixed – Issue with shortcake integration