This page documents the free version of Daytime Notes, distributed on the WordPress.org plugin repository.
If you’re using Daytime Notes Pro, see the Daytime Notes Pro Documentation page instead — Pro includes everything on this page plus file attachments, a Notes Manager, and configurable notifications.
Daytime Notes lets your team and clients pin notes to specific elements on any publicly accessible page of your site, so feedback arrives attached to the thing it’s about rather than described in an email.
This page covers the free version from the WordPress.org plugin directory and is organised into two sections: Settings (everything you can configure) and How to use Daytime Notes (setting up, leaving feedback, and working through it).
1. Settings
Daytime Notes can work with no configuration as a tool for leaving yourself quick reminders. The free version comes with three site settings, one per-user setting and the built-in roles control everything else.
Site settings
Found under Settings → Daytime Notes. Only Administrators can open this page.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Note Character Limit | 150 | Maximum characters per note or reply. Accepts 50 to 10,000 in steps of 50. 150 suits short pointers; raise it to 300–500 if clients write detailed feedback. |
| Unassigned Note Completion | Off | When on, any Daytime Notes user can mark an unassigned note complete. When off, only the note’s creator can. Assigned notes are unaffected (see Roles below). |
| Uninstall Behaviour | Off (keep data) | When on, deleting the plugin permanently removes all notes, settings and user preferences. Leave it off if you might reactivate or reinstall. |
Note: Whichever uninstall option you choose, users with the Daytime Notes Reviewer role are moved to Subscriber when the plugin is deleted, and the Reviewer role is removed. Delete those accounts first if you no longer need them.
Note: Notification timing isn’t configurable in Free. See Notifications under How to use Daytime Notes.
Your profile setting
Each user has an Enable Daytime Notes checkbox under Users → Profile. It’s on by default.
Turning it off hides the Notes button and the dashboard widget for that user. Notes assigned to them are held, not lost: they’re emailed as one summary when the setting is turned back on.
Reviewers can’t reach their profile page (see below), so an Administrator changes this for them under Users → All Users → Edit.
Roles and what they can do
Access comes from WordPress roles. There’s nothing to assign beyond picking the role.
| Administrator | Editor | Author / Contributor | Daytime Notes Reviewer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Use Daytime Notes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Access wp-admin | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Change Daytime Notes settings | Yes | No | No | No |
| Dashboard widget | All users’ totals + own notes | Own notes | Own notes | No |
| @mention (assign) others | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Appear in @mention suggestions | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Send Notifications button sends | Everyone’s queued emails | Only their own | Only their own | Only their own |
Permissions on individual notes are the same for every role, Administrators included:
- Edit or delete a note: only the person who wrote it.
- Complete or reopen a note: its creator, or the person it’s assigned to. Anyone can complete unassigned notes if Unassigned Note Completion is on.
- Delete is blocked while a note has replies.
The Daytime Notes Reviewer role
The Reviewer role is built for clients. A Reviewer logs in and uses the site’s front end only:
- Any attempt to open wp-admin, including their own profile, sends them to the home page.
- The toolbar’s site-name link points to the home page, and its Dashboard link is removed.
- They can add notes, reply, edit and delete their own notes, and complete notes as above.
- Typing
@namedoes nothing for a Reviewer: there are no suggestions and no assignment. This keeps other users’ usernames hidden from clients. - Because they can’t assign, everything a Reviewer writes is unassigned, and unassigned notes are visible to every Daytime Notes user. If two clients review the same site, they’ll see each other’s notes.
- To change their password they use Lost your password? on the login screen.
Who sees which notes
On any page, each user sees:
- notes they wrote
- notes assigned to them
- all unassigned notes
Notes assigned to someone else are hidden, except where a visible reply needs its parent note for context. The Pages with notes list shows every page with notes and its counts, including notes the viewer can’t open.
2. How to use Daytime Notes
A typical review round has three steps: the developer installs the plugin and sets up access, the client leaves notes on the live pages, and the developer works through them and marks them complete.
Setting up (Developer)
- Install and activate Daytime Notes.
- Optional: under Settings → Daytime Notes, raise the character limit if your client writes detailed feedback (150 – 400 is a good ammount).
- Create a user for your client under Users → Add New with the role Daytime Notes Reviewer.
- Tick Send the new user an email about their account. WordPress emails them a link to set their own password, so you never send a password by email.
- Tell the client which pages to review and send them a link to the login page. Once they login, they will be sent directly to the homepage.
Note: An existing Editor or Author account works too, but those users can also reach wp-admin and edit content.
Leaving feedback (Client or Reviewer)
- Log in, then visit any page on the site. You’ll stay on the front end.
- Click Notes in the toolbar at the top of the page to open the main ‘Daytime Notes’ Notes panel.
- Click the element you want to comment on: text, an image, a button, anything. It highlights and a form appears.
- Type your note and click Save Note. The counter shows how many characters you have left.
To follow up on a note in the main panel, click Reply. Replying to an earlier message in a thread quotes it for you. You can Edit or Delete your own notes; a note can’t be deleted once someone has replied to it.
To jump to another page with notes, open Pages with notes at the top of the panel.
Working through feedback (Developer)
- Log in and open the Notes panel on any page. The Open and Completed tabs split outstanding work from finished work.
- Use Pages with notes to see every page that has notes, with its open count. Tick Hide completed pages to show only pages with work left.
- Hover over a note in the panel to scroll to and highlight the element it’s attached to.
- Make the change, then click Complete on the note. It moves to the Completed tab and the note’s creator is emailed. Click Reopen if it needs more work.
Desktop Widget
The Daytime Notes widget on the WordPress dashboard lists your own open notes. Administrators also see open and completed totals for every user.
Assigning notes with @mentions
Type @ followed by a username to assign a note to that person. Suggestions appear as you type (0.2 second pause), matching on name or username.
- A note has one assignee: the first person mentioned. Mentioning a second person doesn’t assign them.
- The assignee sees an assignment badge on the note and is emailed.
- Editing a note to mention someone different moves the assignment and notifies the new person.
- Reviewers can’t assign notes. Any
@namethey type stays as plain text.
Notifications
Daytime Notes collects notifications and sends each person one combined email, rather than an email per note.
| Event | Who’s emailed |
|---|---|
| A note is assigned to you | You (the assignee) |
| Someone replies to your note | You (the note’s author) |
| Someone else completes your note | You (the note’s creator) |
Queued emails go out automatically every 4 hours, or straight away when someone clicks Send Notifications in the panel. That button shows a count when anything is waiting. Administrators send everyone’s queued emails; other users send only the ones they triggered.
The 4-hour send uses WP-Cron, which runs only when someone visits the site. On a quiet staging site, emails can be held well past 4 hours, so click Send Notifications when you finish a round.
Email links open the page with the Notes panel already open. If the recipient is logged out, they’re asked to log in first and then taken straight there.
When pages change
Notes remember their element using its position and attributes, so they survive most content edits and reordering. If the element is removed or rebuilt, the note shows a broken-link icon and stays on the page. Re-create it against the new element if it still applies.
Moving a page to the trash permanently deletes its notes. Restoring the page from the trash does not bring them back.
Troubleshooting
I can’t see the Notes button.
- Check you’re logged in. Notes are never shown to logged-out visitors.
- Check your role. Subscribers and Customers can’t use Daytime Notes.
- Check Enable Daytime Notes on your profile. Reviewers need an Administrator to check it for them.
- The button only appears on the front end, not in wp-admin or inside page-builder editors.
Emails aren’t arriving.
- Click Send Notifications in the panel. If they arrive now, WP-Cron wasn’t running often enough (see Notifications).
- Check spam folders.
- Check the site can send email at all. Most hosts need an SMTP plugin for reliable delivery.
- If the recipient has turned off Enable Daytime Notes, their emails are held until they turn it back on.
A note shows a broken-link icon.
The element it was attached to has been removed or rebuilt. Read the note, then re-create it on the new element if it still applies.
I can’t assign a note to someone.
Only Administrators, Editors and Reviewers appear in @mention suggestions. Authors and Contributors can still be assigned by typing their exact username after @.
I can’t delete a note.
You can only delete notes you wrote, and only while they have no replies. This applies to Administrators too.
Privacy & data
Daytime Notes keeps everything inside your WordPress database. It sends no data to external servers, uses no tracking or analytics, and makes no external API calls.
Stored in your database: note content, the element each note is attached to, page URLs and IDs, authors, assignees, completion status, timestamps, your settings, and each user’s Enable Daytime Notes preference.
Stored in the browser: the panel’s display preferences and any unsaved draft note, in localStorage. No cookies are set beyond WordPress’s own login cookie.
When data is removed: notes are deleted when their page is moved to the trash. Everything else stays until the plugin is deleted with Uninstall Behaviour turned on.