Every plugin that touches the WordPress dashboard lets you remove widgets. Periscope is about what you put in their place. It replaces the default “WordPress Events and News” widget with your own: as many RSS feeds as you want, merged into a single list and sorted by date, plus nearby WordPress comm
PricingFree downloadThe WordPress.org download is free. Pro versions, add-ons or external services may cost extra.
CompatibilityRequires WordPress 6.0 and PHP 7.4.
SourceWordPress plugins · Oct 18, 2026
01 / Source details
About this tool.
Every plugin that touches the WordPress dashboard lets you remove widgets. Periscope is about what you put in their place.
It replaces the default “WordPress Events and News” widget with your own: as many RSS feeds as you want, merged into a single list and sorted by date, plus nearby WordPress community events and your own announcements for the people who log into the site.
That merge is the point. Swapping the news feed of the default widget for another single feed is a two-line snippet. Combining your agency blog, your favourite WordPress sources and your client’s industry news into one widget, with URL validation, per feed limits, cache control and a real settings page, is what Periscope does.
Built for agencies and freelancers
If you build sites for other people, the dashboard is the first thing they see:
Announcements : post a message at the top of the widget, with an optional link and expiry date. Tell your clients about scheduled maintenance, a new feature or anything they should know, without sending an email.
Role visibility : choose which roles see the widget, so your clients get it and other users do not.
Feed health : see at a glance which feeds are working, how many items they return and how old the latest one is. Dead feeds no longer disappear silently.
Features
Aggregate unlimited RSS feeds into one widget, merged and sorted by date
URL validation before a feed is added, with feed title and item count
Per feed health status: last check, items collected, age of the latest item
Your own announcements at the top of the widget, with optional link, expiry and pinning
Show the widget only to the roles you choose
WordPress community events with per user location, configurable count and meetup or WordCamp filtering
Option to hide the default “WordPress Events and News” widget
Configurable items per feed and maximum items displayed
Configurable footer links for both sections
Feed caching with configurable duration and a refresh button that really refetches
Filters for developers to preconfigure everything from code
Clean, native WordPress admin styling with a two-column settings page
Fully translatable, including URLs so each locale can point to its own resources
Works alongside your dashboard plugin
Periscope only touches one widget, the news one. It coexists with plugins that customize or clean the rest of the dashboard, such as Ultimate Dashboard, White Label CMS or DietPress: use them for the structure, use Periscope for the content.
For developers
Everything can be driven from code with filters: periscopio_feeds , periscopio_items , periscopio_settings , periscopio_events_args , periscopio_announcements and periscopio_show_widget .
Default Feeds
The plugin comes pre-configured with these feeds (you can change them):
WordPress News (wordpress.org)
Matt Mullenweg’s blog (ma.tt)
Make WordPress Project
WordPress España News
AyudaWP
External services
This plugin connects to the following external services:
WordPress.org Events API
This plugin uses the WordPress.org Events API to retrieve WordPress community events (meetups, WordCamps) near the user’s location. The user’s configured location and locale are sent to the API when the dashboard widget is loaded or when the location is updated in the settings page.
Service: WordPress.org Events API
Data sent: city/location name, user locale, and timezone
WordPress.org Privacy Policy
RSS feeds
This plugin fetches RSS feeds from URLs configured by the site administrator. By default it includes feeds from wordpress.org, ma.tt, make.wordpress.org, and ayudawp.com, but administrators can add, remove, or change feeds in the settings page. Feed content is cached locally for the configured cache duration.
Data sent: standard HTTP requests to the configured feed URLs
No personal user data is transmitted to the feed providers
Support
Need private support or custom development?
Do you need one-on-one help, priority troubleshooting, or a custom feature, integration, or tweak built specifically for your site? I offer private support and custom development. Just contact me and tell me what you need.
Need help or have suggestions?
Official website
WordPress support forum
YouTube channel
Documentation and tutorials
Love the plugin? Please leave us a 5-star review and help spread the word!
About AyudaWP
We are specialists in WordPress security, SEO, and performance optimization plugins. We create tools that solve real problems for WordPress site owners while maintaining the highest coding standards and accessibility requirements.
See it in action
Screenshots & previews.
Dashboard widget showing events and aggregated newsSettings page with two-column layoutFeed management with URL validation
02 / Source details
Getting started.
01Upload the periscopio folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
02Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
03Go to Settings > Periscope to configure your feeds
04Visit your Dashboard to see the new widget
03 / Source details
Frequently asked questions.
How is this different from just changing the feed of the default widget?
The default widget shows one feed. Periscope merges as many as you want into a single list ordered by date, so your agency blog, WordPress news and your client’s industry sources appear together, newest first. It also validates each feed, tracks whether it still works, lets you cap how many items each one contributes and adds your own announcements on top.
Can I send messages to my clients through the dashboard?
Yes. In Settings > Periscope > Announcements you can create messages with a title, a short text with basic HTML, an optional link, an optional expiry date and a notice style. They are shown at the top of the widget, above the news.
In which order do announcements appear?
Pinned ones first. Then the ones with an expiry date, the soonest to expire first, because they are the most time sensitive. Then the rest, in the order you created them.
What happens when an announcement expires?
It stops showing in the widget that same day, but it stays in the settings, flagged as expired. Nothing is deleted behind your back: you can change the date to bring it back, reuse the text for something else, or remove it yourself.
Can I show the widget only to some users?
Yes. In the widget settings you can pick which roles see it. Leave every role unchecked to show it to everybody, which is the default.
I unchecked “hide the default widget” and it is still gone
Another plugin is probably hiding it too. DietPress, for example, hides the same widget by default from Settings > DietPress > Widgets. Periscope tells you when it detects this, and turning its own option off is not enough as long as the other plugin is hiding it.
Can I hide the default WordPress news widget?
Yes, there’s an option in the settings to hide the default “WordPress Events and News” widget.
How many feeds can I add?
There’s no hard limit. However, adding too many feeds may slow down your dashboard. We recommend 5-10 feeds maximum. Each feed URL is validated before it can be added.
How often are feeds updated?
By default, feeds are cached for 12 hours. You can change this in the settings (1-72 hours), and the Refresh button really refetches every feed instead of serving the cached copy.
Can I customize the footer links?
Yes. Both the events and news sections have configurable footer links (2 per section) that you can customize in the settings page.
Are the URLs translatable?
Yes. All default URLs (feeds, footer links) are wrapped in translation functions so each locale can point to their own resources.
What happens to my data if I delete the plugin?
Everything is removed: settings, feeds, announcements, cached content and the location each user saved for the events section.
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