
Smashing Magazine we smash you with the information that will make your life easier. really.
Wordpress Plugins & Tutorials: Your Pick
By Smashing Editorial, June 29th, 2007 in Developer's Toolbox | 195 Comments | Forum
Depending on your needs and professional skills, the choice of an optimal weblog engine can be quite time-consuming. There are many options, and selecting the best engine, you should know exactly what you’d like to have and which level of flexibility you’d like to achieve.
Among dozens of options, Wordpress remains the most popular weblog engine out there. It is simple, powerful, extensible and flexible. There are literally thousands of plugins, themes, tutorials and related articles describing the ways to optimize Wordpress for publisher’s needs and achieve the best possible performance of the blog.
You know them, because you use them and because you’ve searched for them once you needed them. In this post we’d like to give you an opportunity to share your knowledge and help us to create the essential list of Wordpress life-savers - plug-ins, ideas, tips and useful tutorials you need to have ready to hand developing web-sites upon Wordpress.

Begin: Date: 29.06.2007. Time: 08:00:00 EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) / 14:00 CEST (Central European Summer Time).
End: Date: 30.06.2007. Time: 08:00:00 EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) / 14:00 CEST (Central European Summer Time).
Folks, it’s your turn now. You have 24 hours.
How can I contribute?
Submit your best suggestions in comments. Please share one or more life-savers you use permanently using our comment form. Select the best ones, the ones you really couldn’t live without. Please provide the URL, the problem it solves and a brief description of the tool.
We’ll update this post permanently over the next 24 hours. During the next 24 hours we’ll scan through each and every one of the comments, select the best suggestions, add them to the list and provide a brief description of the tools (with or without screenshot). Of course, we’ll also directly link to the person who has submitted the suggestion.
We need your support. To make sure this post will provide web-developers with the best possible hints, we need your support. Please vote for us using the buttons at the top of this post, making sure this article reaches as many web-developers as possible and therefore offers the highest quality. Spread the word in your weblog.
Contribute: helping other developers, you help yourself. Please share your knowledge. Help us to help developers seeking for solutions you’ve already found once you needed them. And get solutions from other developers, ready to contribute to this post as well as you do.
You can submit your own work. You can also recommend plugins you’ve written and ideas you had, as long as they are useful. However, please don’t provide us with lists of Wordpress plugins and tutorials - we know them already.
Spam will be blacklisted. Every comment spam will be blacklisted manually, so the link will never appear on Smashing Magazine again.
Share your knowledge, folks. We’ll do the rest.
Wordpress Functional Plugins
- Include AdSense and YPN ads automatically. AdSense-Deluxe offers advanced options for managing the automatic insertion of Google AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) ads to your WordPress posts. (TheBlogJoint.com)
- Use a lightbox. Lightbox 2.0 overlay images on the current page for WordPress. You can turn it on and all images are now working with it. This version of lightbox – Lightbox version 2.0 uses Prototype JavaScript Framework and Scriptaculous Effects Library. (Yehia Nada)
- Use an instant comments editor. WP Ajax Edit Comments allows users and admins alike to edit comments on a post. Users can edit their own comments for a period specified by the admin, and admins can edit all post comments. What better way to show reader appreciation than letting the readers edit their own typos? (AJ)
- Use a code cleaner. HTML Purified will not only remove all malicious code (better known as XSS) with a thoroughly audited, secure yet permissive whitelist, it will also make sure your documents are standards compliant, something only achievable with a comprehensive knowledge of W3C’s specifications. (Edward Z. Jang)
- Use an audio-player. Audioplayer makes it very easy to play mp3 files within your posts. (Yehia Nada)
- Use an enhanced admin interface. Admin Drop-Down Menu transforms admin menu in a quick drop-down menu; you can reach any admin page in one click, instead of first clicking on the first level link (”Manage” for example) and then only on a submenu link (”Comments“). (ozh)
- Use an enhanced comment form. PXS Mail Form creates a mail form with multipart verification, various messages and an auto redirect on successful send. It is much more easy to contact with website author. Alternative: Contact Form v2.0. (TheBlogJoint.com)
- Use a post star rating. Post Star Rating enables users to rate posts of your weblog.
- Use a search-and-replace tool. Search Regex adds a powerful set of search and replace functions to WordPress. These go beyond the standard searching capabilities, and allow you to search and replace almost any data stored on your site. In addition to simple searches you have the full power of PHP’s regular expressions at your disposal. (Sassan)
- Use a spam-filter to prevent spam in your comments. Spam Karma 2 Akismet Plugin is a standard solution for preventing spam comments. (Cory Miller)
- Use a stylesheet switcher. CSS Ajax Switcher combines the power of Server Side processing and DOM scripting to swap style sheets on the fly with the power of Ajax. If JavaScript? is disabled - UDASSS degrades gracefully to improve your website accessibility. Needless to say, it is very sexy indeed. (Dan Cameron)
- Use a tagging system. Simple Tagging is a smart, quick and powerful tagging plugin with high performance and low server requirements.
- Use and control RSS subscription in a smart way.. Feedburner Plugin. Forwards all feed traffic to Feedburner while letting through some important User-Agents. (Andreas)
- Use caching to reduce the server usage. WP-Cache 2.0 an extremely efficient WordPress page caching system to make your site much faster and responsive. It works by caching Worpress pages and storing them in a static file for serving future requests directly from the file rather than loading and compiling the whole PHP code and then building the page from the database. (Brian)
- Use CAPTCHA to prevent spam. Anti-Spam Image Plugin works perfectly with users who have cookies disabled, users can pick random words to display. Alternative: reCAPTCHA. (redwall-hp, Max)
- Use maths to prevent spam. Anti-Spam Image Plugin asks the visitor making the comment to answer a simple math question. This is intended to prove that the visitor is a human being and not a spam robot. (Tobbi)
- Use validation to prevent trackback spam. Simple Trackback Validation performs simple but very effective tests on all incoming trackbacks in order to stop trackback spam. (Tobbi)
- Use comments subscription for your posts. Subscribe to Comments is a robust plugin that enables commenters to sign up for e-mail notification of subsequent entries. The plugin includes a full-featured subscription manager that your commenters can use to unsubscribe to certain posts, block all notifications, or even change their notification e-mail address! (redwall-hp)
- Use feeds to write posts in a smart way. WP-o-Matic allow you to create posts automatically from feeds. With its simple interface, you just type in the feed url, select in which categories you want to create the posts, and you’re ready to go. (Charlie Park)
- Use head meta tags for search engines. Head-Meta Description provides an automatic meta description tag for your blog, inserting a dynamic description depending on the query-type (i.e. page you’re on). Some search engines are supposed to love this tag, so I guess we should, too.
- Use the search functionality. Search Everything adds search functionality with little setup. Including options to search pages, attachments, drafts, comments and custom fields (metadata). (Dan Cameron)
- Provide an enhanced RSS-feed.. Feedburner Plugin. Forwards all feed traffic to Feedburner while letting through some important User-Agents. (Andreas)
- Create and manage Custom Fields on the fly. Better Feed allows you to enhance your feeds with several highly customisable features. (ozh)
- Create archives in a smart and sexy way. Extended Live Archives implements a dynamic, AJAXified way of digging into the archives of a blog. (TheBlogJoint.com)
- Create data backups on the fly. WordPress Database Backup setups your backups to occur at almost any imaginable frequency. (Yehia Nada)
- Create various profiles for your users. Role Manager allows you to define and manage multiple subscriber profiles - called Roles and their Capabilities. Also you can create new Roles and Capabilities. (Saioa)
- Define and execute your own functions in your posts. Code Markup makes it easy to include program code samples in your posts. You can even include HTML markup in the code sample; Code Markup magically knows which characters should be displayed as code and which should be rendered as HTML. (Dan)
- Execute php-commands in your posts. Exec-PHP. The Exec-PHP plugin allows
<?php ?>tags inside the content or excerpt of your posts and pages to be executed just as in usual PHP files. - Generate Google Sitemaps automatically. Google Sitemaps Generator generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. This format is supported by Google, YAHOO and MSN Search. XML-Sitemaps can help you to get indexed by the major search engines. (Cory Miller)
Displaying Data with Wordpress
- You can display popular posts. Popularity contest lets you automatically highlight your best posts to your readers. It keeps a count of your post, category and archive views, comments, trackbacks, etc. and uses them to determine which of your posts are most popular. (Staska)
- You can stick a post. Adhesive allows you to easily mark certain posts as “Sticky”. Sticky posts appear at the top of the page when WordPress displays several posts. (Staska)
- You can help landing users find what they need. Landing sites 1.3 highlights search queries users were using in search engines to find your site. When visitors is referred to your site from a search engine, they are definitely looking for something specific - often they just roughly check the page they land on and then closes the window if what they are looking for isn’t there. Why not help them by showing them related posts to their search on your blog? (TheBlogJoint.com)
- You can use enhanced pagination. WP-PageNavi. This plugin adds a more advanced paging navigation your WordPress blog. Example: Pages (17): [1] 2 3 4 » … Last ». (Chris)
- You can show similar and related posts. Similar Posts. This plugin displays a list of posts which are related or similar to the current post. Alternative: Related entries. (Chris)
- You can create archives in a smart way. Smart Archives for WordPress will allow you to display your archives in a much “cleaner” format. You can see it in action on my archives page. You’ll notice that everything on the page is hyperlinked (years, months, posts) and that all of the respective links are future-proofed. (redwall-hp)
- You can create footnotes in your blog posts automatically. WP Footnotes lets you create footnotes in your blog “on the fly”. Also paginated posts are supported. (Chris)
- You can create sidenotes automatically. fQuick enables the user to add small custom quicklinks to the sidebar. With RSS feed for easy syndication. Tutorial. lets you create footnotes in your blog “on the fly”. Also paginated posts are supported. (TheBlogJoint.com)
- You can have more control over title presentation. Optimal Title mirrors the function of wp_title() exactly, but moves the position of the ’separator’ to after the title rather than before. This allows you to have your blog name tacked on to the end of the page title instead of having it appear first.
- You can enhance WordPress as a CMS. CMS Enabling Plugins: Wordpress contains almost all the features you need to get it going as a CMS out of the box. However, you’ll find that there are a few things missing that make up the final pieces of the puzzle. Here’s an overview of the five most useful plugins I’ve found, and the part they play in making Wordpress a butt-kicking CMS. (Jim)
- You can use sIFR for your headlines. CG-FlashyTitles a drop-in Plugin for sIFR 2.0 Flash-based title replacements. (TheBlogJoint.com)
- You can show your favourite books automatically. Now Reading allows you to maintain a virtual library of books. Display which you’ve read, which you’re currently reading, and which you plan to read; add metadata to describe them; write reviews detailing what you thought of them. (Chris)
- You can show your current events automatically. Event Calendar lets you manage future events as an online calendar. Display upcoming events in a dynamic calendar, on a listings page, or as a list in the sidebar. (Chris)
- You can use gravatars in your comments. Gravatars adds an author’s icon functionality in comments. (TheBlogJoint.com)
- You can use podcasts in your posts. Podpress: all-singing, all-dancing podcasting tool for WordPress. (jay mcdonald)
Wordpress Tutorials
- Separate users’ comments and admin’s comments.
Comment Styling in Wordpress and How-to style WordPress author comments. In the default of most themes, all comments look the same. There have been ways of changing the appearance before using plugins and hacks - and this is more of the same. Hopefully though it’ll give you some extra flexibility. - Paginate your articles.
Styling Page-Links. Did you know you could split a single post up into different web pages? Using the Next-Page Quicktag from the Write Post Panel, you can break a single post up into different web pages. - Use time stamps.
How to Take Full Advantage of Your Post Timestamp. In Wordpress you can set the date for something into the future—think of it as a dorky sort of time travel—so that you can write (if you wanted to) weeks worth of posts in an afternoon. Wordpress will “update” your blog by posting your content at the time you specify each day. Here’s how to do it. (Ryan Imel) - Use comment highlighting.
Author Comment Highlighting and Author Highlighting Through Theme Options provide information about styling author’s comments.
Resources, articles
- How to create WordPress theme from scratch: a series of 16 articles, which shows how to create WordPress themes from the very beginning to the very end. (Small Potato)
- Things you should know when displaying pages in Wordpress: quick guide on things Wordpress users should be knowing with listing Pages.
- Things you should know when using post excerpt: detailed tutorial on how-to use excerpt and where to use them.
- How-to turn visitors into returning visitors: various requisite Wordpress plugins to make visitors feel at ease.
- The proper way to write code in your blog posts: how to write code in posts so that the blog doesn’t break when displaying them.
- Quick shooting stats of your Wordpress blog: displaying the number of posts, comments and categories one has on his Wordpress blog.
Wordpress Ideas
- “Change the Permalinks Structure – I use this format … /%category%/%postname%/ … I use the category slug so I can optimize my post titles with keywords that I won’t or don’t include in post titles. My friend Brian Gardner puts a .htm also at the end, which I’m experimenting with as well. My theory is that in search results some people might see the .htm and think there’s actual content in that link. Jury’s still out on that one.” (Cory Miller)
Leave a Reply
Sponsors
- Advertise with us!
Smashing Links
Stay in touch
Popular Posts
- 100 Wordpress Themes
- 83 Wordpress Themes
- 80 AJAX Solutions
- 75 JavaScript Techniques
- 70 Best Photoshop Tutorials
- 70 Best Illustrator Tutorials
- 53 CSS Techniques
- 50 Blog Designs
- 50 Graffiti Artworks
- 50 Brilliant Photos
- 50 Movie Posters
- 40 Free Fonts
- 40 Creative Layouts
- 35 Beautiful Icon Sets
- Beautiful Desktop Wallpapers
- Beautiful Macro Photos
- Beautiful Underwater Photos
- Free Design Templates
- Free CSS Layouts
All Posts
- 35 Designers × 5 Questions
- 50 Designers × 6 Questions
- 404 Error Pages
- AJAX Libraries
- AJAX Solutions
- AJAX Tutorials
- Badges and Pins
- Batch Image Processing
- Black & White Photography
- Block Quotes
- Blog Designs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
- Blog Headers
- Book Covers
- Brochures and Booklets
- Browsers Round-Up
- Browser Test Suites
- Buzz-Monitoring
- Calendar Designs
- Charts and Diagrams: Tools
- Cheat Sheets
- Code Beautifier
- Copyright Explained
- CSS Coding Techniques
- CSS Designs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
- CSS Clean Code
- CSS Editors
- CSS Expert Ideas
- CSS Float Theory
- CSS Frameworks
- CSS Free Templates
- CSS Footers
- CSS Forms 1, 2
- CSS Frameworks
- CSS Galleries
- CSS Ideas
- CSS Layouts
- CSS Menus
- CSS Print-Layouts
- CSS Specificity
- CSS Styleguides
- CSS Tables
- CSS Tutorials
- CSS-Techniques
- CSS Tools
- Data Grids and Tables
- Data Visualization 1, 2
- Date Stamps
- Design Books 1, 2
- Design Magazines
- Designer's Checkpoints
- Divine Proportion
- Domain Tools
- Dreamweaver Tutorials
- Drupal
- E-Mail Delivery
- Favicons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
- Firefox Themes
- Fireworks Tutorials
- Flash Designs
- Flash Slideshows
- Flash Tutorials
- Fonts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
- Font Management
- Form Design Patterns
- Forums
- Fractals
- Gadgets 1, 2, 3
- Google AdSense
- Google PageRank
- Graffiti
- Graphics Design
- Grid-Based Design 1, 2
- Grunge Design 1, 2
- Hand-Drawing Style 1, 2
- Handwriting and Lettering
- Hotkeys
- HDR Pictures
- HTML Template Systems
- Icon Sets 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
- Icons, Templates 1, 2, 3
- Illustrator Tutorials 1, 2
- JavaScript Techniques
- jQuery
- Laptop Sleeves
- Laptop Designs
- Link Building
- Links in New Windows?
- Macro Photography
- Mascots
- Moleskine Art
- Motion Graphics
- Motion Blur Photos
- Movie Posters
- Music Videos
- Navigation Menus
- Newspaper Designs
- Online Converters
- Online Generators
- Packaging Design
- Pagination
- PDF Magazines
- Photoshop Actions
- Photoshop Tutorials 1, 2
- Pixel Art
- Podcasts
- PNG Transparency
- Portfolios
- Pricing Tables
- Product Designs
- Rain Photography
- RSS Best Design Practices
- RSS Feed Icons
- Screencasting
- Screensavers
- SEO Tools
- Shopping Carts
- Short Movies
- Slideshows & Lightboxes
- Smoke Photography
- Source Code Editors
- Splash Pages
- Start Pages
- Stock Icons
- Space, Nebula wallpapers
- Tab-Based Interfaces
- Tag Clouds
- Textures
- Textures & Backgrounds
- Texture Design
- Tooltips Scripts
- Tutorials
- Typefaces 1, 2
- Type Setting Principles
- Typographic Posters
- Typography In Motion
- Typography Showcase 1 2, 3
- Underwater Photography
- Usability Books
- Usability Glossary
- Usability Nightmares
- Usability Principles
- User Interfaces
- Version Control Systems
- Vintage & Retro Posters
- Vintage & Retro Designs
- Vintage & Retro Tutorials
- Wallpapers 1, 2, 3, 4
- Web 2.0 Tutorials
- Weblog Engines
- Whitespace & Simplicity
- Wordpress Plugins
- Wordpress Themes 1, 2, 3, 4
- Wordpress Toolbox
- WYSIWYG Editors
Fresh Bookmarks
25 Beautiful Logos with Sequential Concept
Sequential logos maybe is a new trend among logo designers.
Designing a blog with HTML5
Much of HTML 5’s feature set involves JavaScript APIs that make it easier to develop interactive web pages.
20+ CSS Data Visualization Techniques
Get inspired.
CSS3 – a big storm is coming
With CSS3 media queries and multi-column layouts it will be a whole new ballgame.
Woodgrain: A Free Social Media Icon Set
With 18 social networks represented alongside astandard RSS icon in PNG format,
Webdesign: Five Minute Upgrade
Making Your Design Pop.
45 Stylish Typographical Desktop Wallpapers
These beautifully designed wallpapers are not solely about typography.
The Light CMS Trend
A new trend in CMSs I’m calling “light” CMSs.
10 Impressive JavaScript Animation Frameworks
Create stunning and eye-grabbing animation and transition effects.
Linux System Monitoring Tools Every SysAdmin Should Know
Need to monitor Linux server performance?
Blogroll
- Bittbox
- CatsWhoCode
- Colorburned
- Design Disease
- Designm.ag
- Deziner Folio
- Dr. Web Magazin (.de)
- Dr. Web Shop (.de)
- Freshome Blog
- FudgeGraphics
- I Love Typography
- MakeUseOf.com
- Naldzgraphics
- Noupe.com
- Pro Blog Design
- Search-This
- Six Revisions
- SmileyCat
- Spoon Graphics
- Typesites
- Usability Post
- Walyou
- Webdesigner Depot
- Weburbanist
- Wellmedicated








redwall_hp (June 29th, 2007, 8:42 pm)
Link [www.webmaster-source.com]
AJ (June 29th, 2007, 8:50 pm)
Link [www.devlounge.net] - A series of articles, 12 in total, with full steps for creating your first Wordpress plugin.
Link [www.raproject.com] Released by the Reader Appreciation Project, WP AJAX Edit Comments requires no code editing, but allows admins and users the ability to edit their comments for a set amount of time.
andy (June 29th, 2007, 9:02 pm)
I have no tutorials so here is some advice for wordpress users, dont use wordpress!
Andreas (June 29th, 2007, 9:04 pm)
A couple plug-ins I find valuable:
- Forwards all feed traffic to Feedburner while letting through some important User-Agents.
Link [www.arnebrachhold.de]
Chris (June 29th, 2007, 9:04 pm)
Plugins:
Link [www.siolon.com]
Google Sitemaps Generator
Installer
Similar Posts
WP-PageNavi
ImageManager
Footnotes
Edit Comments
Custom Admin Menu
Subscribe To Comments
Comment Email Responder
My Link Order
My Page Order
FAlbum
Now Reading
Event Calendar
Will (June 29th, 2007, 9:20 pm)
Link [www.tomorrows-laundry.com] - A collection of four blank Wordpress themes which only have their basic layout complete. These are a perfect resource for Wordpress theme makers as they save a lot of time when creating your theme.
Edward Z. Yang (June 29th, 2007, 9:34 pm)
This is a fairly new plugin, but since it uses HTML Purifier, it’s awesome in its own right. :-)
Link [urbangiraffe.com] - Replaces kses with HTML Purifier, enhancing XSS protection and ensuring standards compliance
Hafiz (June 29th, 2007, 9:44 pm)
Plugin: Link [wp.uberdose.com].
WordPress already provides good SEO out-of-the-box, but this plugin pushes that achievement even further. Can be used to write excerpts, tweak titles, defining meta keywords, and more.
Dan (June 29th, 2007, 9:45 pm)
Link [wpcustomization.com]
WordPress Tiger Admin - doesn’t work in IE but is still a beautiful restyling.
Link [www.thunderguy.com] - allows code to be used inside
tags.Canes (June 29th, 2007, 10:02 pm)
Link [www.sandaru1.com]
Ryan Imel (June 29th, 2007, 10:03 pm)
Link [themeplayground.com] - Covers how to use the built in timestamp editing of Wordpress to post for days (or weeks!) in advance.
Link [themeplayground.com] - Various useful tips to try out when modifying your template tags, specifically your list_pages template tag.
Link [themeplayground.com] - Fairly self explanatory; use an industry-leading analytics software on your Wordpress blog. Step-by-step format.
Link [themeplayground.com] - All about creating a better user experience by customizing one of the most important pages on your site. With examples and suggestions.
Link [themeplayground.com] - You have just installed your first Wordpress site, and now you want to get started improving it. Where to start? This tutorial helps you get going.
adam (June 29th, 2007, 10:06 pm)
why do you link to wordpress.com?
you can’t use plugins there.
Brian (June 29th, 2007, 10:23 pm)
wp-cache is probably my number 1 plugin.
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (June 29th, 2007, 10:26 pm)
Updated until 9:00 pm. Please spread the word.
Cory Miller (June 29th, 2007, 10:27 pm)
These are the very first things I do to optimize my new WordPress blogs.
Marc P (June 29th, 2007, 10:31 pm)
+ Everyone already knows that custom fields are the bomb. But couple it with Link [rhymedcode.net], and your life got so much easier!
+ Link [rmarsh.com] and Link [rmarsh.com] make it easy for you to allow your visitors to browse other stories
Ryan Imel (June 29th, 2007, 10:38 pm)
Link [www.dailyblogtips.com] - An interesting look into why it may be better to build Wordpress themes with a Transitional DOCTYPE rather than a Strict one.
Dan Cameron (June 29th, 2007, 11:07 pm)
Sorry for the self promotion but this is a plugin I can’t live without when I freelance out wordpress sites.
Link [dancameron.org]
Adds search functionality with little setup. Including options to search pages, attachments, drafts, comments and custom fields (metadata).
I do have some other suggestions:
Link [dancameron.org]
Link [dancameron.org]
Yehia Nada (June 29th, 2007, 11:11 pm)
Link [zeo.unic.net.my] Overlay images on the current page for WordPress. You can turn it on and all images are now working with it. This version of lightbox – Lightbox version 2.0 uses Prototype JavaScript Framework and Scriptaculous Effects Library.
Link [www.ilfilosofo.com] Because backups are very important, this plugin can setup your backups to occur at almost any imaginable frequency.
Link [www.1pixelout.net] Makes it very easy to play mp3 files within your posts.
I have personally installed those and find them very useful.
Sassan (June 29th, 2007, 11:29 pm)
WP-Suicide ! Deletes all your posts, comments, etc.
Search-Regex ! Search and Replace whatever, everywhere !
WP-Contact
Charlie Park (June 29th, 2007, 11:58 pm)
Link [devthought.com] - a brilliant aggregator for different feeds, importing them into your blog’s database. It’s fantastic.
Saioa (June 30th, 2007, 12:15 am)
Link [redalt.com]
Plugin to manage the users views of the administrator.
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (June 30th, 2007, 12:29 am)
Updated until 10:00 pm. Thank you.
Mike (June 30th, 2007, 12:41 am)
A friend of mine wrote a couple of tutorials on styling author comments:
Link [www.nyssajbrown.net]
and
Link [www.nyssajbrown.net]
The second one follows on from the last but makes it easier to update the e-mail in use using Link [planetozh.com], another handy download for theme developers.
Max (June 30th, 2007, 12:45 am)
For Captcha you can use Link [recaptcha.net]’s wordpress plugin : “reCAPTCHA improves the process of digitizing books by sending words that cannot be read by computers to the Web in the form of CAPTCHAs for humans to decipher.”
Darren (June 30th, 2007, 1:06 am)
Self-link:
I blogged this week “Link [www.darrenhoyt.com], listing five examples for how Template Tags can extend Wordpress’s functionality as both news database and flexible CMS.
TheBlogJoint.com (June 30th, 2007, 1:13 am)
You should also check out a list that I created of some the Link [theblogjoint.com], and also another list with some of the Link [theblogjoint.com]
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (June 30th, 2007, 1:56 am)
Updated until 11:00 pm.
Hans (June 30th, 2007, 2:43 am)
Wordpress tutorials :
Link [blogosquare.com] : quick guide on things Wordpress users should be knowing with listing Pages.
Link [blogosquare.com] : Detailed tutorial on how-to use excerpt and where to use them.
Link [blogosquare.com] : various requisite Wordpress
plugins to make visitors feel at ease.
Link [blogosquare.com] : how to write code in posts so that the blog doesn’t break when displaying them
Link [blogosquare.com] : displaying the number of posts,comments and categories one has on his Wordpress blog
Bloganje (June 30th, 2007, 3:00 am)
How to exclude a post from feed/first page/archives:
Link [www.fidgeting.net]
Ben (June 30th, 2007, 3:17 am)
Wordpress Tiger Admin
Gives the admin area a much cleaner better look to it.
Link [orderedlist.com]
Ben
jay mcdonald (June 30th, 2007, 3:19 am)
PodPress, the all-singing, all-dancing podcasting tool for WordPress:
Link [www.mightyseek.com]
Small Potato (June 30th, 2007, 4:33 am)
Link [www.wpdesigner.com]
How to create a WP theme from scratch.
Ozh (June 30th, 2007, 4:40 am)
My own #1 must have plugin is Link [planetozh.com]. Saves me about 1000 clicks every day. Truely the first thing I install in every new WP install right before I enabled Akismet.
I also like Link [planetozh.com], a plugin I made to add a footer to RSS item with anything you want: copyright to help tracking content stealers, related posts, technorati links, “add to delicious” button, etc…
Stefan Persson (June 30th, 2007, 5:08 am)
Link [www.netconcepts.com]
Staska (June 30th, 2007, 8:07 am)
The list of 30 most popular plugins on the Net, based on real blogger experiences:
Link [www.staska.net]
António Dias (June 30th, 2007, 8:38 am)
Here’s two I like and haven’t seen mentioned yet:
Link [sporadicnonsense.com]
Sitemaps generator
oh, and a third: Link [tantannoodles.com] that complements nicely akismet by preventing most spam comments (say 95 to 99%).visit the entry to see how it works.
Chris (June 30th, 2007, 10:23 am)
Oh, I forgot some tutorials I wrote.
Link [www.siolon.com]
Link [www.siolon.com]
And… (more shameless self promotion)
Link [www.siolon.com]
scenespotter (June 30th, 2007, 10:25 am)
must have plugin for wordpress: google sitemap, related articles, ca custom title/seo title
thanks for the list anyway
Jim (June 30th, 2007, 12:04 pm)
Link [www.blazenewmedia.com]
Nice overview on some good plugins to use if you want to turn Wordpress into a decent CMS solution.
Freakitude (June 30th, 2007, 2:11 pm)
Link [www.freakitude.com]
Tobbi (June 30th, 2007, 4:14 pm)
Math Comment Spam Protection
asks the visitor making the comment to answer a simple math question. This is intended to prove that the visitor is a human being and not a spam robot.
Simple Trackback Validation Plugin
stops trackback-spam
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (June 30th, 2007, 5:56 pm)
Updated until 1:00 am. Thank you, folks.
paradoxist1 (June 30th, 2007, 6:28 pm)
Check out the oneclick plugin:
it allows installing plugins without using any FTP whatsoever.
Installation of a plugin or theme becomes a 10 second job. A must have
Link [anirudhsanjeev.org]
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (June 30th, 2007, 6:51 pm)
Updated until 3:00 am.
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (June 30th, 2007, 7:17 pm)
Updated until 6:00 pm. One hour to go.
aka (June 30th, 2007, 7:21 pm)
I think the best plugin for comment spam fighting is Link [blog.mxchange.org] and trackback spam fighting is Link [blog.mxchange.org]. I stopped using SpamKarma2 since I installed them.
Plugin for licence (Creative Commons): Link [www.g-loaded.eu]
It shows Commons Deed in META in header/post/feed.
Ankesh Kothari (June 30th, 2007, 8:37 pm)
Buy Me a Beer Plugin
A cool way to ask your readers to donate money via PayPal. It adds a beer or a coffee icon under all posts and in the sidebar and links them to a secure PayPal page where people can donate money to you.
Link [www.blogclout.com]
Hans (June 30th, 2007, 9:19 pm)
Link [blogosquare.com] : hiding blogtopsites images buttons(or any other type of messy images) so as not to make your sidebar/footer a clutter.
Link [blogosquare.com] : quick and easy way to make it at the top of blog directories.
Link [blogosquare.com] : quick and easy way to submit your posts to Social Bookmarking sites.
Link [blogosquare.com]
Thanks a lot for the previous mention. Hope you’ll enjoy these posts too.
Hans (June 30th, 2007, 9:23 pm)
Link [paulstamatiou.com] : Quick how-to display twitter status, popular posts for the current month, and random stats
Link [blogosquare.com]
Ozh (June 30th, 2007, 10:55 pm)
Thanks for the links, although “Create and manage Custom Fields on the fly” isn’t really appropriate as a description for “Better Feed” :)
Ankur Kothari (July 1st, 2007, 11:41 am)
Link [dev.lipidity.com] seems to have become pretty popular (>10,000 downloads). There are numerous features - too many to list, some of the popular ones are:
Uses the Digg API to display a dynamic Digg button on your site.
Automatically detects when site has been Dugg.
No template customizations or coding knowledge necessary.
Includes updated version of Alex King’s “Share This” plugin.
Everything is customizable via options page.
Etc,etc.
Celia (July 1st, 2007, 7:05 pm)
Is there a possibility of having adsense running for wordpress.com blogs?
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (July 1st, 2007, 9:43 pm)
Thank you, folks. You’ve helped us to create a really great collections of Wordpress life-savers. Thank you.
Sebastian Silfverstierna (July 2nd, 2007, 3:15 am)
Unlike Cory Miller I use /%postname%/ - nothing else. This ensures that the permalink at hand stays the same regardless of current/future modified date and/or category location.
Read More: Link [www.jimwestergren.com] by Link [www.jimwestergren.com]
Diego Ciconi (July 2nd, 2007, 6:21 am)
Another useful plugin is Link [wordpress.i-jeriko.de]. The name itself tells what it does. It gives you the option to have the comments posted into your feeds.
Jermayn Parker (July 2nd, 2007, 2:37 pm)
Have to disagree with Cory Miller. This does not allow you to modify your categories if needed at a later date. I personally use year/ month and if a blog use date and the ’slug’…
MerovingiaN (July 3rd, 2007, 1:04 am)
So, What’s the result ?
You said that “you’ve 24 hours,folks” when you published this article.
Since the deadline is finished almost two days have been passed….
Yvo (July 3rd, 2007, 1:44 am)
I am too late, but the lists misses the WordPress Theme Generator. For blog beginners, create your own unique theme in a few clicks: Link [www.yvoschaap.com]
Maujor (July 3rd, 2007, 4:48 am)
@MerovingiaN
As the author said on comment #57 the result is a:
Thanks Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz for this bookmarked article.
Mark Simpson (July 3rd, 2007, 4:04 pm)
I note that you recommend Lightbox 2 by Lokesh Dhakar. Why not use the significantly lighter clone, Slimbox instead.
Slimbox runs on the excellent library, mootools.
I have used it to great effect on many sites. Check out a demo at Link [www.digitalia.be]
That said, I’m not a WP man, Joomla being my poison of choice. Much better offerings to be had there… like the rokzoom viewable when you click on any of the images at Link [demo.rockettheme.com]
Note to moderator: I am a paying member of Rockettheme, but otherwise have no affiliation with them. Feel free to edit my post to remove any reference to rokzoom if you believe it violates your policy on spam/advertising or will not interest your readership.
Tommy Holiday (July 3rd, 2007, 6:24 pm)
bad link in subscribes to comments!
loops (July 3rd, 2007, 9:40 pm)
I’d like to add a few (not so basic) plugins:
Link [www.inmypad.com], which is a nice plugin for offering downloads on your site and keeping tab on the stats (quite easy to extend if you know some php/mysql).
Link [erik.range-it.de], handy to check if a page is a child of another page (I use it to make navigation links active for subpages of the parent)
Link [mattread.com], lets you change the amount of posts for individual types of archive pages.
Webmaster (July 4th, 2007, 5:42 am)
Link [blue-anvil.com]
Link [blue-anvil.com]
Link [blue-anvil.com]
eduo (July 4th, 2007, 5:11 pm)
Adhesive keeps being included in these lists. The thing hasn’t been updated in years and isn’t even available for download in the pages it’s usually linked to. It hasn’t even worked for me ever.
Vinod (July 10th, 2007, 8:10 pm)
I have a blog post on :-
Link [www.vinodlive.com]
Night Rabbit (July 13th, 2007, 9:12 am)
A super-basic, step-by-step instruction on how to post for people with zero web/wordpress knowledge:
Link [tips.jadedcabaret.org]
benz (July 15th, 2007, 6:19 pm)
i like it.it quite helpful.
Vic (August 3rd, 2007, 11:46 am)
Thanks for such a great list of plugins, this list are so helpful for the new guy.
Thanks
Vic
wordpress quickstart guy (August 12th, 2007, 10:10 pm)
awesome information here. I will definitely bookmark your site and give my comment regularly here.
especially this resource “How to create WordPress theme from scratch: a series of 16 articles, which shows how to create WordPress themes from the very beginning to the very end. ”
Thank you!
mahesh (October 5th, 2007, 1:28 pm)
i want to add images gallery into into my wordpress template where can i get this plgin
Zaidimai (November 23rd, 2007, 2:38 am)
Nice work, where i can see more something likes this plugins?
kartaz (December 10th, 2007, 2:18 am)
Amazing work
Web Site Çevirisi (January 13th, 2008, 8:39 am)
Thanks
T. (January 17th, 2008, 8:13 pm)
Very Good! thanx!
Xander (January 25th, 2008, 9:15 am)
I am completely confused. I hope someone can help me. I started a wordpress blog on my own server recently and loved it. The plugins, themes, etc. it was just awesome. I had some server issues so I decided to go ahead and move my blog from my own server to wordpress.com. This has been a nightmare to say the least. No plugins, I can only use their crappy themes and what is the deal with not being able to use embed code? What exactly is the purpose of the
tags if you can't actually put any code in between them?? I am just so confused and frustrated by all this. Can anyone explain a thing or two to me? PLEASE!!!!Thanks!
Xander
shardul (February 5th, 2008, 12:38 am)
andy (June 29th, 2007, 9:02 pm)
I have no tutorials so here is some advice for wordpress users, dont use wordpress!
wordpress it the best !!
Authority website (February 16th, 2008, 1:54 pm)
I hear that there are 6 plugins for Wordpress that can be used to start a product review blog but… I’ve tried to do a Google search to find them myself but I only managed to find 1 of them:
1) The DG Review Site (DGRS) plugin for WordPress
can anybody help here?
Doug (February 22nd, 2008, 8:38 am)
Here is my spam blocker, it stops spam before it starts so you do not have to moderate all those comments. Here is my write up on it.
Link [www.amazingwordpressthemes.com]
Sim Kamsan (February 26th, 2008, 11:16 pm)
Thanks for tutorials list.
zeroideas staff (March 5th, 2008, 7:29 pm)
Its amazing, only that I want to say, ah-!!! dont forget… visit us in Link [www.zeroideas.wordpress.com] Design blog, but ofcorse smashingmagazine,,, you are the best in all web.! yes!
Maxtr.org (March 6th, 2008, 2:55 am)
Very good…Thanks this web site..Wordpress topic and plugins detail Link []
manele noi (March 7th, 2008, 8:18 am)
Thanks for tutorials list.
John Connors (March 7th, 2008, 11:59 am)
thanks so much for the great info!
Zattara (March 13th, 2008, 2:27 pm)
Create and manage manage a virtual PageFlip with Link [pageflip.informatiquedefrance.com].
See you there :)
Gewinnspiele-Box (April 7th, 2008, 10:21 am)
Great work, it make my life easier , thanks.
IdeaLog (June 9th, 2008, 1:24 pm)
Here is one wp plugin that helps to increase the number of feed subscribers. Sure it should be used wisely.
Link [coolidea.ru]
Sufiyan Ghouri (June 13th, 2008, 8:45 am)
this is the plugin which you must add in this list
” Permalinks Redirect ” this plugin change your post’s link to SEO Friendly Links:)
Vic (June 24th, 2008, 9:38 am)
Hi there,
Know anyone how plugin to use if I want only a part of the article to be displayed? If someone want to read more there will be a “read more” link…
On my blog right now is displayed all of article content and I don’t want this…
I’m talking about the latest 10 articles displayed on the first page of my blog.
I’m using Wordpress.
Can anyone help?
Jason Frovich (July 31st, 2008, 8:14 pm)
excellent post, i found several handy pluggins.
thanks for taking the time to post them
Jason
FreddieMercury (August 3rd, 2008, 12:12 pm)
Hi, I’m new here!
Anyhow, have you seen Link [oowire.com]? It’s crazy, and there are pictures!
pablo hassan (August 5th, 2008, 3:30 am)
and that was crap advice, i think you have the dumb and cant brain today. stay away from the interweb, it will eat you
Andrew (September 10th, 2008, 2:15 am)
Hi,
I just write a new plugin WP Widget Cache, which can cache the output of your blog widgets. You can treat it as a plus to WP Cache, especially when Google is crawling your site, I think it will significantly reduce your server usage.
Will you please have a try, and add it to your list. Thanks very much.
Here’s the plugin url:
Link [wordpress.org]
windsor exports (September 18th, 2008, 1:01 am)
Manufacturer and exporter Rivet, Rivet Machine, Rivet Nut Tool, Semi Tubular Rivet, Metal Rivet, Auto motive, auto part, spare part, truck part, Screw Rivet, Fasteners.We are Trader Exporter Rivet, Maker Rivet.
whlooi (September 24th, 2008, 12:17 am)
WoW, what an extensive lists for WP user……thanks for compiling into an single page. Really appreciate that. ^^;
Kfz Versicherung (October 5th, 2008, 10:30 am)
I have bookmarked this informativ site. Thanks Kfz Versicherung
Sinergio Katarismou (November 21st, 2008, 6:36 am)
Excelent good article and blog. I wish good luck
stendicino (December 2nd, 2008, 5:42 am)
Excellent! Thanks!
Shams.1.P (January 14th, 2009, 7:10 am)
Amazing Site I like it. It Was Quite Interesting NiceWork I appreciate the information you provided Excellent post. Keep it up! Good day!
license-to-rock (January 19th, 2009, 8:43 am)
Excellent article friend!! :-)
Mixed-articles (January 19th, 2009, 8:45 am)
I enjoy reading your article friend.. its nice!!
:-}
Tamilthrill (January 19th, 2009, 5:23 pm)
Superb article friend…
Wishing you to add more articles like this!!!
Tamilthrill (January 24th, 2009, 5:43 pm)
Nice post friend!!
The Used Network (February 13th, 2009, 11:47 am)
Wow, quite a comprehensive list of plugins. Much appreciated…
Adeline (March 1st, 2009, 7:45 pm)
Another excellent list! Definitely bookmarked yet again :)
kiran (March 4th, 2009, 1:59 am)
Wow another killer post from smashingmagazine.
Nick (March 6th, 2009, 12:12 pm)
I think “HeadSpace2″ is an indispensable plugin - allows you to add and configure metadata tags both sitewide and for individual posts.
“nextGen” seems to be the best image administration plugin - ifind however the flash slideshow disappointing you need to go for “Highslide” (but don’t use the plugin, configure it manually) - actually I’d like to find a way of showing images that isn’t flash…
“TinyMceadvanced” soups up the editor and gives additional coding possibilities.
alex (April 11th, 2009, 7:00 am)
whats the comment plugin which SM using?
Adam (May 20th, 2009, 2:37 am)
Can anyone recommend a decent tool tip plugin?
Nori Silverrage (May 29th, 2009, 9:07 am)
Good post, but it’d be nice if it was updated… For the related post the best one currently is YARPP: Link [mitcho.com]
Sticky is included in WP 2.7 and adhesive wasn’t being updated anyway. For caching the best is WP Super Cache: Link [wordpress.org]
So yeah, thats about it.
Akmal Online (June 12th, 2009, 11:01 pm)
Nice Info..
Link [www.akmalonline.com]
Kuld33p (June 26th, 2009, 2:15 am)
I created a small tutorial/tip/trick please have a look at it.
2 Best Social Bookmarking Plugins for Wordpress 2.8
Link [www.revolutioners.com]