It’s been a while since I’ve highlighted any interesting plugins that I’ve come across so since I now have 10, I thought it would be a good time to posts a new list.
I can not vouch for these as I am not using any of them and I tend to prefer a non-plugin solution, if at all possible.
But people are writing so many unique and useful plugins that they really are worth giving a mention.
- Twitter Avatars – This plugin will show Twitter avatars in your WordPress comments. If the commentator doesn’t have a twitter account, the plugin will then search gravatar before using a default avatar. The match is based on the email address used in the comments, which is the same that gravatar does it. This is useful if a lot of your commentators use Twitter or if your blog is about Twitter.
- Custom Excerpts – This plugin gives you more control over the excerpts used on your site. Excerpts are frequently used on the archive and search pages. You can choose the length of the excerpt, implement custom excerpt text and state which html tags are used in the excerpt. The plugin also gives you the option to make links within the excerpt nofollow or dofollow.
- Gloss WordPress Plugin – Gloss assists you in creating glossaries, adding them to posts and pages and in formatting them. This could be used for tutorials, education, or any sites that are geared toward beginners.
- Post Templates – With this plugin you can save templates for posts and pages. If you frequently write posts with this the same structure, this would be very useful. For example, most of my posts have an image credit link at the end of them and it would be nice to have a template with this piece of code on it. The posts for my portfolio page also have a particular layout that could be used on a template. Personally, I think this is a feature that should be built into WordPress and not require an extra plugin.
- WP Click Track – With this plugin you can track clicks on the links in your posts and pages. It converts all links to be trackable and has an extensive reporting system. This plugin only works with WordPress 2.7+.
- WP Optimize – This plugin allows you to cleanup and optimize your WordPress database without having to use PhpMyAdmin. This plugin has only been tested with WordPress 2.7+. I would be a little nervous using a plugin like this and would rather use PhpMyAdmin on my webhost so I recommend backing up your database before using a plugin like this. This is useful for users who don’t know how to use PhpMyAdmin and would prefer to access the database via the WordPress admin.
- Public Post Preview – This plugin creates a link of a preview post to send to anyone so they can look at the preview. I really could have used this when I started blogging. I was so nervous about each article that I wanted someone to check them for me.
- Favicon Generator Upload any image and this plugin will turn it into a favicon. A favicon is the little square image that shows up next the url in the address bar of your web browser.
- MapPress This plugin makes it easy to quickly add a google map into your blog post.
- Widget Context This could be very useful for themes that use sidebar widgets rather than code. With this plugin you can designate which pages the widgets are displayed on. So, if you only want to display your archives on the home page, this plugin will make it easy to do that.
photo credit: Yukon White Light
You know that I try to stay away from plugins… following your advice. :)
Vered – MomGrind´s last blog post – Skiing In Lake Tahoe, California
Hi Vered – Very true – I just can’t resist checking what people are creating for WordPress.
Post Template would be great for me for my Fetching Friday posts, plus even my photography ones. Bonus would be if it would somehow add the padding code onto the photo images.
~ Kristi
Kikolani´s last blog post – 8 Reasons to Use Delicious for Social Bookmarking
Hi Kristi – I haven’t tested the Template plugin but I might – it would make some of my work a lot easier.
“MapPress” is exactly what I want as I am running a travel blog this would be very useful. “Wp Click Track” also sounds good. Thanks again.
Chinese Girl´s last blog post – Photo Jinan Thousand Buddha Mountain13
Hi – Let me know how MapPress works for you – I know the map plugins can be fussy and sometimes conflict with other ones.
This is a nice list Kim. You know i prefer non plugin solutions too but i like having solutions to problems and they might come on handy at some point ;)
stratosg´s last blog post – Code efficiency and Javascript in WordPress
Hi Stratos – Do you know of any way to create post templates without using a plugin or saving the template in a text file?
Well i’ll tell you this. Everything can be done by hand coding it but there is a choice of balance between doing it easy and saving the server load or using a plugin. On this particular matter i haven’t tried it and nothing comes to mind just now. So i would say plugin :P If i think of something i’ll let you know…!
stratosg´s last blog post – Code efficiency and Javascript in WordPress
wp click track looks really interesting, will be trying it out right now.
Raju´s last blog post – FREE Download – 3D Desktop Organizer for Windows – BumpTop
I tried it out and had to uninstall within 2 mins of its installation. Here is the reason – As per the author, “It’s pretty memory intensive and rigid though, so if you have poorly formed links it may cause your WordPress setup to become unstable (it’s still a beta afterall :)”
Raju´s last blog post – 4 FREE Tools to Track & Recover Your Stolen Laptop
Hi Raju – Well, that was an interesting and quick test :-) What are “poorly formed links”? And memory intensive does not sound good – you and I have both run into the excessive cpu usage problem with out hosts ;-)
Oooo nifty. I may have to give widget context a try. Thanks!
Dennis Edell´s last blog post – 9 Qualities You Should Find In A Good Web Designer
Let me know if you try it out – I would be interested to hear how it works.
You are SO becoming my WP go to person.
I think this is such a great direction you’ve taken, Kim. I enjoy getting the straight scoop on everything from plug-ins to themes.
George
Tumblemoose´s last blog post – Tumblemoose news this week
Hi George – Thanks! Sometimes I think I write about WordPress too much but it’s what I know – because I spend half my life in it ;-)
Now just don’t ask me to fix a computer – apparently I’ve been making mine worse – as you can read about tomorrow …
Another great post Kim. I always bookmark such posts. Never know when you might need some plugins like these
Madhur Kapoor´s last blog post – Read It Later Firefox Extension
Hi Madhur – I hope you don’t run into the same problem I do – I make the bookmarks but they can’t remember which one is on which list ;-)
I’m sort of cutting back on plugins as I’ve found they tend to slow things down a bit. I reckon that even to this day I am plugin top heavy but I’m finding it hard to relinquish the ones that I have.
Sire´s last blog post – Obama Girl’s Stimulating The Stimulus Package
Hi Sire,
I know that plugins can cause problems but there are still some really interesting ones being created. I think I have too many as well and don’t know which ones to get rid of.
Yeah, it’s sort of like having a big box of mixed chocolate and being told your only allowed a certain few to pick.
Sire´s last blog post – The Differences Between Male And Female
LOL :-)
Hi Raju & Kim,
The warning about memory usage isn’t applicable anymore; I was having issues during the first couple builds with the regex to extract the links being efficient but not anymore.
By poorly formed links I was referring to those that are malformed attributes (unclosed quotes and such). That too doesn’t really apply now.
wp-click-track is actually pretty stable and efficient now so I wouldn’t worry about performance. I will be removing the notice in the next release (0.5 at the end of the month).
Thanks,
Eric
(developer of wp-click-track)
Hi Eric – Thanks for letting us know about the update to the plugin :-)
hallo..
thanks for the list Kim..
its very usefull for me. but i have one question though, is there a plugin that can help us to create a table on a post or page automaticaly? i’m not very good with HTML. i read the tutorials how to make one, but i’m trying to make a big and a lot of table.. and its making me frustrated..