WordPress Cookbook

I have been dis­cov­er­ing so many plu­g­ins lately, and I don’t always remem­ber where I have used them, or what they are for. There­fore, I am start­ing this plu­gin cookbook–on the same con­cept as O’Reilly’s famous Perl Cook­book, which spawned many imi­ta­tors. In the cook­book for­mat, you orga­nize things based on a task you want to accom­plish. You then pro­vide the solu­tion, fol­lowed by a descrip­tion of why the solu­tion works, or how the solu­tion is applied.

We’ll start with plu­g­ins, but I am sure other things could evolve as well.

Dis­play your own most recent Deli­cious bookmarks

del.icio.us for Word­press, rick.jinlabs.com/code/delicious/

Inte­grate Twit­ter and your blog

Twit­ter Tools, alexking.org/projects/wordpress

Cus­tomize dis­play of cer­tain wid­gets to show up only on cer­tain pages

Wid­get Logic, freakytrigger.co.uk/wordpress-setup/

Dis­play results from a Twit­ter search

WP-TwitterSearch, paperkilledrock.com/projects/WP-TwitterSearch

Speed up the dis­play of Word­Press pages

WP Super Cache, ocaoimh.ie/wp-super-cache/

Add a flex­i­ble, pow­er­ful con­tact form to a con­tact page

Con­tact Form 7, contactform7.com/

Pro­tect Emails from Spammers

Email­Shroud, www.somethinkodd.com/emailshroud/

See also: Trans­pose Email, www.ajaydsouza.com/wordpress/plugins/transpose-email-plugin/

Use trans­par­ent PNGs with Inter­net Explorer 6

HITS– IE6 PNG­Fix, www.homeitsolutions.ca/websites/wordpress-plugins/ie6-png-fix

Eas­ily and con­ve­niently man­age the order and dis­play of all pages on your site

page­Mash, http://joelstarnes.co.uk/pagemash/

Enable tag­ging for pages

Page Tag­ger, http://www.hiddentao.com/code/wordpress-page-tagger-plugin/

Eas­ily set up redi­rec­tion for any links

Redi­rec­tion, urbangiraffe.com/plugins/redirection/

Include all text in searches

Search Every­thing, redmine.sproutventure.com/projects/show/search-everything

Cus­tomize WYSIWYG edit­ing win­dow boxes

TinyMCE Advanced, www.laptoptips.ca/projects/tinymce-advanced/

Apply curly quotes, em-dashes, and many other typo­graph­i­cal niceties automatically

wp-Typography, kingdesk.com/projects/wp-typography

Opti­mize the SEO for your site

All in One SEO Pack, semperfiwebdesign.com/

Define pre­ciese per­mis­sions and roles based on cat­e­gory, page type, etc.

Role Scoper, agapetry.net/news/introducing-role-scoper/

Hide work on site from the pub­lic, before it is ready to “go live”

Main­te­nance Mode, sw-guide.de/wordpress/plugins/maintenance-mode/

Dis­play upcom­ing events, with ones com­ing soon­est appear­ing first, and dis­ap­pear­ing after they are done

Events Cal­en­dar, www.wp-eventscalendar.com/

Exe­cute PHP code within a post

ExecPHP, bluesome.net/post/2005/08/18/50/

Aggre­gate posts from one or more RSS feeds, and include them in your blog stream

Parteibuch RSS Aggre­ga­tor, www.mein-parteibuch.com/blog/parteibuch-aggregator/

Include con­tent from mul­ti­ple posts within a page

Inline Posts, aralbalkan.com/wordpress

Include sophis­ti­cated image gal­leries and slideshows

NextGen Gallery, alexrabe.boelinger.com/?page_id=80

Eas­ily include free, com­pelling pho­tos in your blog posts

Photo Drop­per, http://www.photodropper.com/wordpress-plugin/

Make it easy for peo­ple to socially book­mark your post

AddThis Social Book­mark­ing Wid­get, www.addthis.com/

Pro­vide a sim­ple Google Sitemap file that is auto­mat­i­cally updated

Google XML Sitemaps, www.arnebrachhold.de/redir/sitemap-home/

Pro­vide a but­ton for peo­ple to “Tweet This” blog post

Tweet­Meme Retweet But­ton, tweetmeme.com/about/plugins

Allow post title to be dif­fer­ent from what appears in the menu

WP Title 2, blog.ickata.net/wp-title-2/

Auto­mat­i­cally dis­play related posts along with your blog post

Yet Another Related Posts Plu­gin, mitcho.com/code/yarpp/

Pro­vide stats track­ing for your site

Ulti­mate Google Ana­lyt­ics, www.oratransplant.nl/uga

Pre­vent com­ment spam

Akismet, akismet.com/

WP-SpamFree, www.hybrid6.com/webgeek/plugins/wp-spamfree

Other plu­g­ins …

Auto-hyperlink URLs, www.coffee2code.com/wp-plugins/

CMS-like Admin Menu, reciprocity.be/cms-menu/

Cus­tom Admin Brand­ing, pressingpixels.com/wordpress-custom-admin-branding

Embed Iframe, blog.deskera.com/wordpress-plugin-embed-iframe

Feed­Burner Feed­Smith, Feed­Burner FeedSmith

Flut­ter, flutter.freshout.us/

wp-Typography: also see: Smar­ty­Pants Typog­ra­pher, www.michelf.com/projects/php-smartypants/

What Would Seth Godin Do, www.richardkmiller.com/blog/wordpress-plugin-what-would-seth-godin-do

Word­Press Data­base Backup, www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup

Word­press Port­fo­lio Plu­gin, Word­press Port­fo­lio Plugin

Wor­Press Goodreads Book­shelf, thoughtcramps.com/wordpress-goodreads-bookshelf/

WP-CMS Post Con­trol, wp-cms.com/our-wordpress-plugins/post-control/

Syn­tax­High­lighter Evolved, www.viper007bond.com/wordpress-plugins/syntaxhighlighter/

AWe­ber Reg­is­tra­tion Inte­gra­tion, wordpress.org/extend/plugins/aweber-registration-integration/