Google offers so much more than just search and email with services like sharing calendars, user management, webmaster tools, analytics, amazing file sharing with collaboration…the list goes on and on.
Google also prides itself on making much of its code open source (except for the search algorithm, of course), and allowing access to its massive API, which lets developers create applications to bring all that googlie goodness to other platforms.
I recently came across an article by Alex King regarding the “right way” to include a plugin into a theme. In it, Alex integrates a plugin called Social, available here, into a theme they sell called FavePersonal. I understand they want to provide a great user experience out of the box, but rather than integrating a plugin, why not just direct their user to install it from WP.org? You could even use conditional statements to limit certain functionality till it’s installed.
The world of WordPress plugins just keeps getting bigger. There are thousands of freebies available from the plugin repository, with more added pretty much every day. Hundreds, if not thousands, of premium premium plugins can also be found from a variety of sources.
With all the cool features and functionality that can be found – not to mention the fun factor – it’s often tempting to install stuff, even if you don’t really need it on your site. But, before you go installing everything that looks cool, consider the following questions:
Can you really have too many WordPress plugins on your site?
Church groups do it. Woodworking clubs do it. Even some businesses try to do it.
What is it?
They all try to save money by using one of the SMS/Text plugins in the WordPress Repository.
Rarely do I say “never” and one might argue that it’s a bit strong in this situation even. But once you read this article, give us your thoughts about whether using this type of text system is a viable strategy.
What is SMS/Text?
How many times have we all written that perfect post to our site, formatted it beautifully, and then published it only to discover a misspelled word, a comma splice, or an incomplete sentence? Then, we edit it to correct our minor mistake and update the post. Uh-Oh, their’s there’s a word that we misused. Simple, correct it again and update the post yet again. No problem, right? This activity could get your post tagged as Spam. Read on to discover how to prevent that possibility.
Why Would This Get You Tagged As a Spammer?
I have several local business clients that I write articles for their website, format them, and then publish them. I learned quickly that just getting their approval of the content was not enough to keep them satisfied; they wanted to approve the layout and formatting of the article as well. This was difficult to accomplish without publishing the article for everyone OR providing them with my login information. Difficult, until I discovered this innovative method that allows me to send my client a link to their latest article which allows them to see it just as it will appear once it’s published.
From the first WordPress website I logged in to, I thought the menu in the admin section was designed almost with the intent of making it difficult for me to use. It seemed that everything I needed to select from the menu was located toward the bottom and was usually in a menu that I had not expanded. So, I expanded ALL the menus. That just meant that I had to scroll down farther to find what I was looking for. By installing a couple of simple plugins, I was able to rearrange the admin menu section in a way that worked better for me.
Word-Press has a built-in subpage feature allowing you to organize pages in a parent-child-sibling tree and place them on the menu. What are sub-pages, why would I use them, and what plug-ins are available to use and enhance them?
Why use subpages?
The subpage feature should not be used to paginate a long page. If you simply have a long page, use the nextpage tag which paginates a long page or post. Please note that Thord thinks Pagination Is Evil and no one wants to incur the wrath of Thord! That’s not what I’m talking about.
Search “WordPress menu plugins” in Google = Eeek!
A quick search for WordPress menu plugins in Google will bring up over 32,000,000 results. Oh, dear Lord! Dozens, if not hundreds, of those results can be quite mouth-watering at first glance. But sifting through the mess of unappetizing stuff to find something satisfying can be frustrating to say the least. Even searching the WordPress plugin repository can be quite tedious.
I have a friend who’s rather clueless about WordPress.
Let’s call him Mr. Where’s My Dashboard? Or, Mr. WMD, for short. (Although maybe I should call him Sir WMD since he’s British.)
