What Do You Love About WordPress?

So – I’ve been a bit “ranty” lately.

It started with a simple question: “Is There a Proliferation of Subversive Plugins on WordPress.org?” And if the 6Scan plugin mentioned in that post wasn’t enough, I then stumbled across CodeGuard – a “free” plugin available on WordPress.org that doesn’t actually offer any free functionality. You have to sign up for a paid plan in order to make any use of it.

Not a happy bunny.

Moving On…

However, the above has little to do with WordPress, per se.

The underhanded tactics of a minority of plugin developers and a lack of appropriate checks and balances over at WordPress.org isn’t going to dampen my love of WordPress. The fact is, I think that WordPress is as awesome as it has ever been. It essentially defines what I do for a living – whether it is writing here on WPMU, for other clients, or on my own blog. It’s all WordPress, baby.

In light of my recent series of rants, I thought now would be a nice time to shoot off on a tangent and shine a light on our favorite content management system.

What Do You Love About WordPress?

If you ask a hundred WordPress users what they love about it, you’re likely to get a variety of answers.

Those answers will typically relate to major focal points, such as its functional or aesthetic extensibility (i.e. plugins or themes). But one of the best things about WordPress, in my opinion, is all of the little things (if that makes sense). The tweaks that make using it just that bit easier.

And those are the kind of things that I want to expose today, with your help. All of the little-known benefits of using WordPress that a lot of people wouldn’t know about.

It could be anything from a keyboard shortcut, to a code snippet, to a plugin. What matters is that it makes using WordPress easier, more enjoyable, more efficient, more productive, and simply better.

What I Love About WordPress

As a writer, I spend more time composing in WordPress than I do anything else. With that in mind, anything that makes the process of writing easier is a win in my book.

With that in mind, my favorite thing in WordPress is the Distraction Free Editor (DFE). Whilst it is not perfect, it is a wonderfully sparse environment in which I do my best writing.

As you might expect, I am using it right now. I can’t imagine why anyone would choose to use the visual editor after having tried the DFE:

Over to You!

Right guys – now it’s your turn. Tell us what your favorite thing about WordPress is. Don’t think big picture – think about the kind of stuff that other people may not have discovered – the little nuggets that make using WordPress even more enjoyable.

Fire away in the comments section!