Plugins posts

WordPress is a powerful and popular CMS for nearly all types of websites. But what about content creation? Writing is one of the most important aspects of a website especially for freelancers, small business owners and individuals.

WordPress is actively criticised for this part of the experience. Users frequently find themselves using other software to write and then somehow transferring it into WordPress (very often by copying and pasting). This practice isn’t productive.

Let’s see how the situation can be improved. Can we write directly in WordPress? Can it help us to...

We’re all sold on WordPress, it’s a great solution for anybody who needs to easily manage their site’s content in a user interface that even the least tech-savvy staff members are comfortable with.

But WordPress comes with a price: customizing a WordPress site to do what you need it to, simply isn’t as easy as customizing a plain old HTML file. Sure, you can poke around in the CSS a bit, but what happens...

There is no need to ask why anybody would want to write a plugin for WordPress. It’s one of the primary features that makes WordPress so flexible and a good fit for a wide range of projects. In the first part of our series we created the base for a WordPress plugin recognisible by the core. Then, in the second part we learnt how to alter the default functionality of the core. Today we’re going to look at plugin options. This is one of the most common tasks that plugins need to perform.

Commonly you will need to create a set of parameters (options) and give the user the ability to assign appropriate values to them. Values are stored in the database and can be retrieved on request. The plugin will normally perform different actions based on these values, produce different output for example.

What tools does WordPress give us to make this scenario possible? It allows us to register options with the system and retrieve them by assigned ID – The Options...

If you run your website on WordPress, chances are you use at least a handful of plugins. That’s what’s so great about a CMS like WP: rather than some huge bloated system with every feature under the sun, the use of plugins lets you add just the functionality you need, without taxing your site’s resources more than necessary.

But you may be wondering which plugins are really ressential, and which aren’t. Part of that depends on what you want to do with your WP installation. Essential plugins for a personal blog are different than those for a corporate blog, just like must-have plugins for a podcaster are different than for someone using WordPress as a CMS.

Below are more than forty fantastic plugins. Most of them would be valuable on any WordPress site, though there are a few included that are more essential only for specific niche sites. In any case, check them out and decide for yourself...

In the previous part of our series we created the base for a WordPress plugin recognisible by the core. Today we are going to learn how to actually alter the default functionality of the core.

The concept of hooks, actions, and filters is responsible for that; being the real heart of the whole WordPress plugins system.

Everything starts from the “hooks” provided by the core itself.

What is a “hook”? It is a specially...

WordPress plugins allow you to easily modify and enhance your blog by bringing new functionality not otherwise available in the base code.

Using plugins works more effectively than trying to modify the overall core programming that makes up WordPress. Defined as a program or a set of functions written in PHP, plugins add specific features that can easily be integrated with the blog through the WordPress...

A basic WordPress install offers one of the most fantastic blogging experiences available, but with a selective eye for the right plugins, it can easily turn into a really flexible and solid content management solution for an entire website.

With over 20,000 plugins available, ranging from useful visitor statistics to somewhat less useful Airplane quotes, it is not always immediately obvious which plugins are truly beneficial for...

I’m not sure whether it’s Instagram, Hipstamatic, or some other smartphone photography app that should be thanked (blamed?) for the advent of applying vintage or other effects to every photo taken, but regardless of who started it, it doesn’t appear to be a trend that’s going away any time soon.

Whether you love vintage-looking photos or not, chances are, you may need to use them in one project or another, either because a client or the project demands it.

Rather than spending...

One of the primary reasons for WordPress’ continued popularity is the ease with which it can be extended and customized with plugins.

Building a plugin may seem like an impossible task, but it’s simpler than you may think. Today we begin our “Building your first WordPress plugin” series that will cover the most important principles and how-tos of the process.

By the end of...

One can only imagine how tough it was to practice web design back when everything seemed so new — during the days of Netscape Navigator and Microsoft FrontPage. Looking back, it seems like such an archaic time in the history of web design. It was almost impossible to design something of supreme and intelligent creativity. Back then, you were seen as creative if you had an awful flashing background or colored scrollbars.

There wasn’t a ton of flexibility really when it came down to the nitty gritty of design. Many of the layouts were the same and mimicked what was seen in magazines and newspapers. I mean just think about it: not too long ago we were able to finally figure out a way to use decorative fonts online. Beforehand, it was all Arial, all Verdana and all Times New Roman — in 2012,...

It’s 2012, and more and more sites and blogs are looking for ways to further their user’s involvement, many taking example from, perhaps, one of the more polished of these sites, Buzzfeed.com.

What makes Buzzfeed different from sites such as Digg.com, which offers users a chance to vote on articles pulled from all over the web (the recent, highest rated articles, being the ones posted on the front page), is that it provides a front-end interface through which users can post their own articles, along with a similar style system to Digg, allowing you to share your ‘reaction’ on other articles.

Buzzfeed succeeds in creating a clean user experience...