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    A guide to Plugins which extend functionality of a WordPress site.
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Image:Icon_Wordpress_40px.png WordPress Plugins

This page contains info about Plugins which extend the functionality of a WordPress website.


Contents

About WordPress Plugins

Here are links to some Plugin resources:

Installed Plugins by Site

  • wordpress.fishcakesmedia.com
    • Active —
    • Deactivated —
  • lucindalambton.com
    • Active —
    • Deactivated —
  • xelerator.com
    • Active — AJAX Calendar, Akismet, Code Markup, Contact Form 7, Cronless Postie, Dashboard Editor, Flexible Upload, Google XML Sitemaps, Login Style, Postie, Search Unleashed, ShareThis, Sideblog Wordpress Plugin, Sphere Related Content, Templatedia / Templatedia MediaWiki Variables, TinyMCE Advanced, Viper's Video Quicktags, WordPress.com Stats, WordPress Mobile Edition, YUI Top Menu
    • Deactivated — Admin Drop Down Menu, All in One SEO Pack, BackUpWordPress, Hello Dolly, podPress, Search Everything, WordPress Admin Bar, Wordpress Automatic Upgrade, wp-cache
  • ourmams.com
    • Active —
    • Deactivated —

Installed Plugins

AJAX Calendar Widget

All in One SEO Pack

  • All in One SEO Pack — optimises Wordpress site for Search Engine Optimization. 4 stars, 29 ratings. — Excellent for experienced users as give the ability to customise title, description and tags for each entry. Not for low-tech users.

cforms II Contact Form

  • cforms II Contact Form — an extremely customizable, flexible & powerful contact form plugin. 5 stars, 15 ratings.

Dashboard Editor

  • Wordpress Dashboard Editor — This plugin allows you to add whatever you want to the Wordpress dashboard through PHP and HTML even Sidebar Widgets. You can also wipe the entire dashboard or individually remove some of the more irritating sections like the Dev news, Planet Wordpress and the getting started section. — Excellent plugin as gets rid of all the clutter for low-tech users.
  • To install upload dashboard.php to plugins folder.
  • Add Fishcakes Sidebar: 
<table width="99%">
   <tr>
      <td>
         <div style="background:#eee; border:1px solid #c5c5c5; font-size:80%; margin-top: .5em; padding: .5em; width: 50%; float:left;">
            <table cellpadding="3">
               <tr>
                  <td>
                     <a href="http://fishcakesmedia.com" target="_blank" style="border:none;"><img src="http://www.fishcakesmedia.com/adev/logos/fishcakes_logo_blue_t.png" alt="logo" width="80" height="120" hspace="5" vspace="5" border="0" align="middle"></a>
                  </td>
                  <td>
                     <p>This is the website of <strong>Fishcakes WordPress Demo</strong> which uses the <strong>WordPress</strong> Content Management System.</p>
                     <p>If you have any problems or need support, please email <a href="mailto:dan@fishcakesmedia.com">dan@fishcakesmedia.com</a>.</p>
                     <p>This site is managed by <a href="http://fishcakesmedia.com" target="_blank">Fishcakes Media</a>.</p>
                  </td>
               </tr>
            </table>
         </div>
      </td>
   </tr>
   <tr><td><hr /></td></tr>
</table>

Flexible Upload

  • Flexible Upload — Automatically resize/crop picture at upload, create thumbnails, add watermark, picture alignment, lightbox, picture caption (not when using tinyMCE), multiple file upload. Author's Support Page. 5 stars, 23 ratings. — This is an excellent plugin.
  • Signature path — wp-content/plugins/flexible-upload/signature.gif

Google XML Sitemaps

  • Google Sitemap Generator — will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML Sitemap. A.K.A Google XML Sitemaps. 5 of 108. Great plugin!
  • Create the following empty files in the WordPress root with permissions 666:
    • sitemap.xml
    • sitemap.xml.gz
    • robots.txt
  • Open Options > XML-Sitemap config page and build the sitemap the first time, ticking the box to include the robots.txt file.

Login Style

  • Login Style — Login Style lets you restyle your login page with a custom CSS file. 5 of 4. To install:
    1. Upload the folder login-style to the plugins folder, then activate.
    2. Modify the file login-style/login-style.css to suit.

Postie

  • Postie — post to your site via email, including attachments. Replaces the wp-email function. Just works. See also FAQ page.
  • Create the following folders in the WordPress route with permissions 777:
    • wp-filez
    • wp-photos
  • You must login as admin to configure this plugin! If this account doesn't exist then create it.
  • Add an iFrame to your theme's footer.php trigger the plugin: 
<iframe src="http://ourmams.com/wp-content/plugins/postie/get_mail.php" name="mailiframe" width="0" height="0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="" style="visibility:hidden;"></iframe>
  • Set the starting characters for your signature so it's removed from the post.

Postie Email Guidelines

  • Message Processing — control where message starts and stops, or add delay to posting:
    • :start — message processing won't start until it sees this string.
    • :end — message processing will stop once it sees this string.
    • delay:1d2h4m — delay message by day hour minute. Example delays by 1 day, 2 hours and 4 minutes.
  • Comments — control if comments are allowed on post:
    • comments:0 — comments closed.
    • comments:1 — comments open.
    • comments:2 — comments registered users only.
  • Category Handling — assign the post to a category or categories:
    • [1] — Subject: [1] My New Post — assigns to category ID 1.
    • [1] [4] — Subject: [1] [4] My New Post — assigns to category ID 1 and ID 4.
    • Please note that there are other options, but easiest to stick with one way of doing things.
  • Image Handling — image filters to control where they go and how they look:
    • #img1# — inserts the first attached image into the text. Or #img2# for second attached image...
    • rotate:90 — rotates the image 90°. Should also rotate to any other number.
  • Subject — if posting from mobile and can't add subject, then use:
    • #your subject here# — add to start of message.

qTranslate

  • qTranslate — multilingual content support for Wordpress. See also qianqin.de/qtranslate plugin homepage. Requires manual installation of WordPress .mo language files.

qTranslate Installation

  • See qianqin.de Installation Guide and download English Language .mo file.
  • See also WordPress in your Language for list of languages and .mo files.
  • Visit WordPress i18n page to download .mo files.
    • en_US.mo — English (US)
    • bg_BG.mo — Bulgarian
    • zh_CN.mo — Chinese
    • hr_HR.mo — Croatian
    • cs_CZ.mo — Czech
    • da_DK.mo — Danish
    • nl_NL.mo — Dutch (Netherlands)
    • et_ET.mo — Estonian
    • fi_FI.mo — Finnish
    • fr_FR.mo — French (France)
    • de_DE.mo — German
    • hu_HU.mo — Hungarian
    • is_IS.mo — Icelandic
    • it_IT.mo — Italian
    • lv_LV.mo — Lithuanian
    • nb_NO.mo — Norwegian
    • pl_PL.mo — Polish
    • pt_PT.mo — Portuguese (European)
    • es_ES.mo — Spanish
    • sv_SE.mo — Swedish

Other Translation and Multi-language / Multi-Lingual Plugins:

Search Pages

  • Search Pages — allows you to search both posts and pages. No ratings. — Just works.

Search Unleashed

  • Search Unleashed — extend search with a full text search across everything (posts, pages, comments, authors, meta-data), with the output from plugins included in the search. Search phrases are highlighted, as are incoming searches from Google, Yahoo, and most other search engines. Excellent but doesn't work with multi-language sites.

Share This 

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://w.sharethis.com/widget/?tabs=email%2Cweb&amp;charset=utf-8&amp;style=default&amp;publisher=c18d1ae7-b99d-45fc-b384-2b7aeca4f140&amp;headerbg=%23666666&amp;linkfg=%23a80101"></script>
  • To add the ShareThis button to a page, use: 
<?php if (function_exists('sharethis_button')) { sharethis_button(); } ?>

Sideblog

  • Sideblog — adds an Asides post to your theme's sidebar. Doesn't work with multi-language sites.
  • Installation for sidebar enabled theme:
    1. Upload the file sideblog.php to /wp-content/plugins folder, then activate.
    2. Go to Manage > Categories and create an asides category (usually, asides).
    3. Go to Options > Sideblog and select the asides category and set number of entries to display.
    4. Go to Presentation > Widgets then drag and drop the Sideblog 1 widget onto your sidebar container.
    5. Click on the icon and give it a title and select a category.
    6. Create a post and put it in your asides category
  • Installation for non-sidbar theme:
    1. follow directions as above, but add the following to your sidebar.php file: 
    <?php sideblog('asides'); ?>

See also

  • codex.wordpress.org Adding Asides — guide to manually adding Asides to a theme.
  • AsideShop — allows you to show aside posts on your blog's front page in a different way without theme template modification. Doesn't work for multi-language sites.
  • MiniPosts — small blog posts that live outside of the usual hierarchy of postings. Doesn't work for multi-language sites.

Sphere Related Content

  • Sphere Related Content — displays icon link at the end of blog posts which finds related blogs and media articles. See also sphere.com.
  • To disable the automatic linking and add the Sphere link by hand, edit file wp-content/plugins/sphere-related-content.php:
    • Set line 42 to 
$auto_sphereit = FALSE;
  • Then add the following to your theme's index.php and/or single.php: 
<?= get_sphereit_link( get_permalink(), $post->post_content ) ?>
  • Or, format using: 
<?= (enableSphereItLink($post->post_content) ? '<p class="sphere">'.get_sphereit_link(get_permalink(), $post->post_content).'</p>' : '') ?>
  • To add a Sphere link to a page or post in the Editor, use: 
<!--sphereit-->

Templatedia

TinyMCE Advanced

  • TinyMCE Advanced — adds 16 plugins to TinyMCE: Advanced hr, Advanced Image, Advanced Link, Context Menu, Emotions (Smilies), Full Screen, IESpell, Layer, Media, Nonbreaking, Print, Search and Replace, Style, Table, Visual Characters and XHTML Extras. 4 1/4 stars, 9 ratings. — Excellent plugin which gives you a better editor.

Viper's Video Quicktags

  • Viper's Video Quicktags — allows easy and XHTML valid posting of YouTube, Google Video, IFILM, Metacafe, MySpace, FLV, Quicktime, and generic video files into posts. Great Plugin!

WordPress Database Backup

WordPress Mobile Edition

  • WordPress Mobile Edition — automatically creates a mobile edition by adding secondary them. Must install both plugin and theme:
    • Put the file wp-mobile.php into wp-content/plugins.
    • Put the folder wp-mobile into wp-content/themes.
  • Once installed, edit the theme to suit your site:
    • comments.php — edit for layout
    • index.php — edit for layout
    • style.css — match your site's stylesheet

Test site with OperaMini.com Demo.

WordPress.com Admin Bar

  • WordPress.com Admin Bar — adds Admin Bar to website like wordpress.com. No ratings. wpcom_adminbar_v1.0.3.zip — This one actually works with. Problems: edit goes to new rather than current page; doesn't display properly in IE Windows. See also viper007bond.com. You must have the following in your footer.php: 
    <?php wp_footer(); ?>

WordPress.com Stats

  • WordPress.com Stats — simple, concise stats with no additional load on your server by plugging into WordPress.com's stat system. Requires API key.

WP Cache

  • WP Cache — an extremely efficient WordPress page caching system to make you site much faster and responsive. 4 1/2 stars, 31 ratings. — Requires a bit of serious configuration, but worth the effort. See also Author's website.

WP Cache Manual Installation

In case you don’t want to make wp-config.php writeable by the server you can install manually:

  1. Upload to your plugins folder /wp-content/plugins/wp-cache/.
  2. If you have Gzip Compression enabled turn it off (in Options > Reading).
  3. Create /wp-content/cache and make sure the web server can write in it.
  4. Make /wp-content/ writeable by the web server.
  5. Create a symbolic link from wp-content/advanced-cache.php to /wp-content/plugins/wp-cache/wp-cache-phase1.php.
    Unix command: 
    ln -s wp-content/plugins/wp-cache/wp-cache-phase1.php wp-content/advanced-cache.php
  6. Add the following line to your wp-config.php file: 
    define(’WP_CACHE’, true);
  7. Go to Options' > WP-Cache and enable the cache.

Suitable Plugins, but Not in Use

Plugins which are worth using, but which I don't currently need.

Admin Drop Down Menu

Better Comments Manager

Live Search Popup Widget

  • Live Search Popup — adds Spotlight (tm) like live search with an ajax popup to the default search box. 5 of 4. Need to retest with new theme.

Maintenance Mode

  • Maintenance Mode — adds splash page to let visitors know your blog is down for maintenance.

Mowser Wordpress Mobile

MyDashboard

  • MyDashboard — replaces existing dashboard with a more extendible Ajax version full of feed gadgets using the easy API. Can be completely "skinned" by uploading a CSS style sheet (and any associated graphics files) into the plugins skins directory. 5 of 5. Very nice. Might want to replace Dashboard Editor. See also dev.clearskys.net.

Organizer

  • Organizer — view, copy, rename, delete, resize image and get html code of files in upload folder. 4 3/4 stars. — Nice if you have loads of files, but can only resize by % and not pixels which is a shame.

PlugInstaller

  • PlugInstaller — Install and uninstall plugins from your admin interface without uploading the plugins via FTP and automatically check for plugin updates. 5 stars, 5 ratings.

podPress

Skype Online Status

Theme Switcher

  • Theme Switcher — adds menu to allow visitors to switch themes. Need to add code to sidebar.php for ALL Templates you want them to use. Can display list or dropdown: 
    • <li>Themes: <?php wp_theme_switcher(); ?></li>
    • <li>Themes: <?php wp_theme_switcher('dropdown'); ?></li>

WordPress Automatic Upgrade (WPAU)

  • WordPress Automatic Upgrade — automatically upgrade your WordPress installation to the latest version in 5 easy steps. See also techie-buzz.com plugin homepage.
  • Stuck in Maintenance Mode fix:
    1. Delete the index.php file.
    2. Rename the index.php.wpau.bak file to index.php.
    3. Change index.php file permissions to 755.

WordPress Navigation Tool (NAVT)

  • WordPress Navigation Tool (NAVT) — create, organize and manage your menus and navigation lists by logically grouping your pages, categories, users via a drag'n drop interface.

WP Polls & WP Polls Widget

  • WP Polls — adds AJAX poll system so you can easily add a poll to a post or page. See also lesterchan.net.
  • To embed a specific poll in your post/page, use [poll=1] where 1 is your poll id.
  • This looks great but it's not working for me!

WP Shopping Cart — WP e-Commerce

WP Tiger Administration

WP YouTube

  • WP YouTube — present your YouTube videos without pasting the embed-code. You only need the YouTube ID, the rest is handled by WP YouTube. 5 stars, 2 reviews. Good, but Viper's Video Quicktags is better.

Need to Test Drive

Plugins to research and do test installations

  • BookCover — display the book cover image from ISBN. It has 3 pre-configured book store whose images are used.
  • Add Your Own Headers — allows you to add tags to the header of an individual page or post such as keywords/descriptions, custom meta tags, external style sheet links, or embedded style tags.
  • PodPress — See also mightyseek.com/podpress
  • Author Highlight — highlight's Author's comments.
  • Adsense Manager — a Wordpress plugin for managing Google AdSense ads on your blog.
  • Pages for Members Only — shows pages only to logged in users.
  • wordTube — creates your personal "YouTube" in wordpress with the Flash Media Player to show streaming videos. 4+1/4 stars.
  • Upload+ — extended file manager that can replace spaces in filenames and append with datestamp.
  • Skinner — adds extra layer to Presentation tab so you can add/edit the CSS without changing the source theme. See also windyroad.org.
  • Page Link Manager — decide which pages go into your menu.
  • GeSHi Gode Highlighter — formats code.
  • Really Simple Sitemap — generates configurable sitemap you can add to your site.

Captcha Comments and Registration

  • Cryptographp — add a captcha to protect comments from being spammed using Cryptographp library. 4 1/4 stars, 15 ratings.
  • Sabre — modular protection includes a captcha, math test or email confirmation with the registration form. 4 3/4 stars, 4 ratings.
  • WP-SpamFree — virtually eliminates automated comment spam from bots. 4+1/4 of 5.

Contact Forms

  • Contact Form 7 — Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible, with captcha. 4 1/4 stars, 8 ratings.
  • WP-Contact — adds a contact form widget to your side bar. 5 stars, 1 rating.
  • Secure Contact — drop in contact form that can be added to a page or post, with captcha. 5 stars, 1 rating.
  • WP-ContactForm — drop in contact form that can be added to a page or post, with captcha. 3 1/4 stars, 13 ratings.
  • WP E-Mail — add email to friend form to site with captcha. 4+1/4 of 5.

Image Plugins

  • WPG2 — embeds Gallery2 within Wordpress to share photos, videos and any other content. 4+3/4 stars.
  • Mini-Slides — generates a minimalistic slideshow from your uploaded images. 5 stars.
  • Slimbox Plugin — used to overlay images on the current page into neat Javascript-powered overlay popups. 5 stars.
  • SmugMug Photo sidebar widget — integrate photos from an RSS feed via a sidebar widget. 3 stars.
  • photonPWG — allows PhpWebGallery photoblog and wordpress integration. 4 1/4 stars.

Mailing List Integration

Integrate MailMan and phpList mailing lists with Wordpress.

  • WP Mailman Integration — wp-mailman integrates Wordpress with the GNU Mailman mailing list manager. 3 stars, 1 rating.
  • WP PHPList — This lightweight plugin for Wordpress 2.0 or 2.1 gives you the ability to easily allow users to subscribe to your newsletter or RSS blog feed from any page on your blog. 4 3/4 stars, 3 ratings.

See Also


Widgets

Maps

  • Geo Widget — displays a map in your sidebar that can be used to show where you live. Uses UGLY Microsoft Maps. 5 of 2.
  • WP GuestMap — Google Map widget builder, currently three major widgets are supported. 5 of 1.

RSS

  • KB Advanced RSS Widget — manage RSS feeds. Decide which RSS fields to display. Decide how to format the fields. 5 of 9.

Stats

  • WassUp — track visitor stats in real time. 4+1/2 of 13.
  • StatPress — real-time plugin dedicated to managing statistics about blog visits. Collects info about visitors, spiders, search keywords, feeds, browsers etc. 4+1/2 of 16.

Other

  • Quote Rotator — adding rotating quotes or other content on the sidebar. Adds section under Manage tab to create and edit content. 4 of 8.
  • Email+ from Grouptivity — free "email this" plugin for driving word of mouth traffic and social networking using www.grouptivity.com. 5 of 1.
  • podPress — podPress adds tons of features designed to make WordPress the ideal platform for hosting a podcast. 4 of 41.
  • Page Sidebars — enables you to have dedicated sidebar content for each page. Didn't work.

Video

  • Daiko's YouTube Widget — sidebar widget to display a defined number of random YouTube videos of your own choice. Make your own videolist in the widget-control-panel. 5 of 1.
  • Daiko's Video Widget — display Google, Myspace and YouTube videos. 3+1/4 of 5.
  • Daiko's Text Widget — Adds a sidebar widget to display text, includes php-code capability to run any Worpress PHP command. 5 of 1.
  • Riffly Webcam Video Comments — free service that easily plugs into your site allowing visitors to create video/audio comments. 4+1/2 of 6.
  • Last.Fm Records — shows cd covers from your last.fm recent playlist. 5ish of 9.
  • Last.FM Events — shows last.fm gigs list. 5 of 1.
  • Category Cloud Widget — displays your categories as a tag cloud in your sidebar. 5 of 14.
  • Add to Any Subscribe Button — Lets readers subscribe to your blog using any feed reader. 4+1/2 of 7.
  • IM Online — show your current online status via onlinestatus.org for AOL, MSN, Yahoo!, Jabber (inc. Google Talk), Skype and ICQ. 4 of 6.

Not Suitable

Plugins I've tested which either haven't worked, or just weren't suited to my needs.

  • AWSOM Pixgallery — an Image Gallery/Archive plugin for Artists or Webcomic creators to set up a portfolio of images. 5 stars.
  • ImageScaler — resamples image files that have been resized in the post editor. 5 stars. — Just couldn't get this to work.
  • JW Image Rotator — Flash module to show a couple of photos in sequence, with fluid transitions between them. — Couldn't get it to work.
  • Search Everything — Increases Wordpress' default search functionality through an options panel. Options include searching pages, excerpts, attachments, drafts, comments. 5 stars, 10 ratings. — couldn't get it to work.
  • WP Multilingual — WordPress multilingual support to allow you to publish more that in one language at a time. Not great as you must use FCKEditor.
  • WP Vivtiger Image Resizer — The Image Resizer allows you to use the existing WordPress attachment system to upload, crop, and resize an image easily. — Only seems to let you crop and not actually resize an image.

Admin Bars

  • AdminBar — adds Admin Bar to website like wordpress.com. No ratings. — Great idea, but it totally buggers my site.
  • Admin Strip 2 — Add an admin strip to bottom of your WP blog. — Nice with some good features but no display in IE Windows.
  • DashBar — adds customizable admin bar. — Nice that it can be customised, but don't like horizontal sub-menu.
  • Oceia Bar — adds Admin Bar. — Works but bit minimal. Problems: no dropdown in IE Windows.
  • MU Admin Bar — put an admin bar at the top of the page for each logged in user. — Only adds hello message to bar. Rather pointless.
  • WP Admin Links — integrates Admin menu into site menu on pages.

OneClick Installer

Post by Email / WP Email

Enables you to post directly to your site via email. This plugin is now part of the base WordPress installation.

Get Post via Cron Job

Set up a cron job to periodically view http://yourwebdomain/wordpressinstalldir/wp-mail.php using a command-line HTTP agent such as wget, curl, GET, or run the PHP command (best option): 

php /full/path/to/wp-mail.php

or: 

wget -N http://example.com/installdir/wp-mail.php

Get Post via iFrame

Insert the following code into your templates footer: 

<iframe src="<?php bloginfo('siteurl');?>/wp-mail.php" name="mailiframe" width="0" height="0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title=""></iframe>

NextGEN Gallery

  • NextGEN Gallery — a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with a Flash slideshow option. 4+1/4 stars. You must also download JW Image Rotator and copy the file imagerotator.swf to the nggallery folder — Interesting, but you have to upload the images via ftp. Does have very nice System Overview screen.

NextGen Gallery Installation

  1. Upload the files, including the image rotator, to: 
    wp-content/plugins/nggallery
  2. Create the following folder with file perissions set to 777: 
    wp-content/gallery/
  3. Activate the plugin.
  4. Add a gallery and upload some images (the main gallery folder must have permission 777).
  5. Go to your post/page an enter the tag '[gallery=ID]' or '[slideshow=ID]'.

PostMaster

The PostMaster plugin allows you to make posts-by-email with multimedia attachments. It processes all incomming email-posts, extracts the attachments, and embeds them into the post body. It currently supports image and mobile video (3g2) MIME types, with more to come in the future (hopefully). If you want to post entries from your mobile phone, then this is the plugin for you!

Really Simple Sitemap

Image:Icon Resources 20px.png WordPress Links

Official WordPress Links

WordPress Themes

WordPress Plugins

  • wp-fun.co.uk — generates an outline template for a plugin. Excellent place to start your plugin.

Unofficial WordPress Links

Excellent WordPress Sites


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