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Images and galleries are a vital part of WordPress blogging. If you’ve used the native WordPress galleries then you may have run into some limitations from time to time when trying to change how your images are displayed.
I’d like to introduce you to the Photonic Flickr+Picasa+500px Gallery plugin. It’s a long name for a plugin that delivers heaps more functionality to the native WordPress galleries as well as the ability to pull in photos from 3rd parties.
The ever-popular Gravity Forms plugin is on a roll with version 1.6 in beta and due out any day, loaded with improvements upon 1.5. If you haven’t heard of Gravity Forms, then you need to check it out right now. The WordPress community absolutely loves this plugin due to how easy it makes building and publishing WordPress forms. If you’re already using Gravity Forms, check out some of the free add-ons available in the plugin repository for extending it even further.
Gravity Forms Directory & Addons
If you like blogging with post formats, then you’re really going to love the latest theme to hit the WordPress Theme Directory. Pink Touch 2 comes to you from WordPress.com, as the team at automattic has now released it for use on self-hosted WordPress sites.
This theme includes support for nine post formats, including standard, quote, aside, image, gallery, chat, audio, link, and video.
Personalize the theme with your own header image, background, three widget areas and custom menu.
Now that BuddyPress 1.5 is officially out, a few theme authors have had the chance to update their themes. You’ll be glad to know that there are at least 10 themes out there that are ready for BuddyPress 1.5. These themes will allow you to take advantage of all of the latest features of the platform.
Frisco
It can be rather overwhelming when you are first introduced to WordPress. Although the user interface is highly intuitive, the sheer power of the system and number of options is enough to initially confuse even the savviest of bloggers. Beyond the user’s initial experience with the user interface, the first potential stumbling block is plugins.
Once in awhile the WordPress Theme Directory surprises you with a decent theme that you might actually consider using on your website. thetalkingfowl is a new one that caught my attention today.
It’s a minimalist theme that integrates the HTML5 Boilerplate and the 960 grid CSS framework. The theme incorporates built-in Flickr and Twitter feeds without the use of plugins.
The post templates include only the bare minimum, which gives a strong focus on content.
Features include:
Custom pull-down tab menu
Timeline post page
Translation-ready
Theme options menu
Plugin-free Twitter and Flickr feed
Check out a live demo of thetalkingfowl, which is also in use on the theme’s homepage.
Designmoo is a design community for discovering and sharing free PSDs, vectors, textures, patterns, fonts, and yes, even WordPress themes.
Did you know that Designmoo was built using WordPress and BuddyPress? It’s a shining example of just how flexible the BuddyPress platform is for building any kind of community.
Recently Designmoo members have posted a couple more free WordPress themes, bringing the total count to five:
Flexi-Canvas features a jQuery-powered sliding gallery and a theme options page. It’s compatible with WordPress 3.2.
Download Flexi-Canvas
Launch Effect is a brand new free WordPress theme on the scene. It’s a one-page theme that lets you create a viral campaign for a soon-to-be launching website. This is no ordinary “Coming Soon” page. Launch Effect packs some powerful sharing features into the theme:
Here’s how it works:
1. Visitors to your website sign up using their email.
2. Upon signing up, the page generates a special URL for them to share with their friends.
3. Use the URL to track your most active referrers and reward them for spreading the word.
The live demos are absolutely stunning:
Posting a link on Facebook is pretty awesome. You can’t really beat the way that Facebook parses a link, feeding through the image and description of that link. Like this:
Wouldn’t it be nice to do just that on your WordPress website? Or even across your Multisite Network? Well, now you can – and easily, with the WPMU DEV Status plugin. Check it out in action!
Install the plugin and check out the new widget on your dashboard:
Insert your link to see it parsed:
Check it out on your blog:
You can download it now for free from WPMU DEV!
Status Premium
Having a separate staging environment for your WordPress site is important when you need to test and roll out some major changes. It can also be a lifesaver, if the staging environment is a decent copy of the production state. I’d like to introduce you DeployMint, a system for staging and deployment that was specifically created for use with WordPress Multisite.
