Is there a way to query a WP site to see the number of updates currently available? I’m not really looking for a list of the actual updates, just the number. This would be the total number of Plugin/Theme/Core updates, like it is listed in the WP admin menu.
I manage multiple WP sites across multiple servers and would like an easier way of knowing when updates are available, rather than checking them individually.
You can use the http://managewp.com/ to maage all your sites from one dashboard.
From site
Take a look into
wp-admin/includes/update.phpfile. There you can seeget_core_updates(),get_plugin_updates()andget_theme_updates()functions. Eeach function returns array of required updates. So you need just summarize counts of these arrays:Check out wpremote.com as well. I don’t think it has as many features as ManageWP, but it’s free.
Your best bet is a 3rd party service that will aggregate all your sites’ update status and several have been mentioned already.
There is another one that’s free also, http://worpit.com that gives you full view on your updates across all your sites.
Hope that helps give you some other options.
Old question but, I wanted to post this here for reference, since I never accepted an answer.
This functionality is now easily achieved using the Jetpack centralized dashboard. You can administer updates to all your connected WP sites.
http://jetpack.me/2014/12/16/jetpack-3-3-a-single-home-for-all-your-wordpress-sites/