A TOUR OF MY WORDPRESS PLUGINS
January 15, 2010
I do not write most meta-posts, though we was customarily asked for the forty-seventh time which Wordpress plugin we make make make make make make use of of of of of of for this or that.
I know we not long ago said your blogging height doesn’t matter, though it’s not which it doesn’t make the disproportion at all, customarily which it’s not the primary driver of success as great as shouldn’t be the initial thing we outlay time on.
But still we take honour in my work, as great as which equates to courtesy to detail, as great as which equates to customizing the blog for both appearances and utility.
So here have been the Wordpress plugins we use, as great as why.
Can’t live though these:
- Akismet
Free comment-spam insurance from Wordpress. You’ll need the Wordpress criticism though it additionally functions upon the self-hosted blog (like mine). we get thirty spam comments per day, as great as Akismet blocks really scarcely all of it. - Comment Relish
Auto-email (once!) after someone comments for the initial time to appreciate them as great as inspire dialog. Blogging can be the one-way soap box, which is OK for the small people though not for me. This is upon the must-have list since I’ve had scores of interactions (both reduced as great as in-depth) as the approach outcome of someone attack “Reply” to this email. - Secure WordPress
Alerts we if your Wordpress designation is insecure, during slightest in the couple of usual ways. Wordpress is simply hacked! - WP Super Cache
Automatically caches plain-HTML versions of your pages. This saved me — the times I’m slammed with trade (usually Hacker News or StumbleUpon) Apache can croak. Really it’s not Apache per se — it’s which Wordpress is (famously) emasculate as great as Apache PHP threads regulating Wordpress any take up 20M of RAM, so if we have 50 coexisting connectors you’re expected to possibly run out of mental recall as great as void the server (at worst) or arrangement the “Not available” summary (at best). Since installing this plug-in I’ve had no problems with scalability.All we can do right away is goal which we get slammed with even more traffic! :-)
- Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)
This generates those “related posts” during the finish of any article. A lot of plugins which do this; this the single does the most appropriate pursuit determining what “related” equates to as great as has great options permitting me to bar certain sorts of posts (e.g. announcements).I used to consider this was customarily the nice-to-have toy, though it turns out to be the large deal. It’s most critical for brand new readers who haven’t seen aged posts — generally anything comparison than the 10-15 posts displayed by your RSS reader when we initial subscribe.
I beheld which after adding this plugin there was the poignant enlarge in kind, magnanimous folks Twittering comparison articles, typically those listed underneath “related” upon the ultimate post. Not customarily does it meant folks have been some-more intent in the blog, they’re swelling the word. Anything which helps widespread the word is good!
Nice-to-haves:
- WP Greet Box
Generates the summary nearby the tip of the page suggesting which we allow by RSS or email, tuned to the source of the trade (e.g. Hacker News, Search, Twitter, Reddit). we do not know if tuning to trade source helps, though carrying the summary during all does appear to inspire subscriptions.Although once someone upon Hacker News complained which “Hacker News readers have been intelligent sufficient to know either to allow or not, so this is insulting.” we would have suspicion it was customarily which guy, though his criticism was afterwards up-voted twenty-six times! Lesson? Pleasing the couple of people is hard, appreciative most is impossible, as great as appreciative all whilst additionally achieving your own self-interest is… additionally impossible?
- CommentLuv
Appends couple to the person’s ultimate blog post when they leave the comment. An easy approach to foster the blogs of your commentors, which equates to an easy approach to inspire some-more comments as great as to contend “Thanks for contributing, here’s my approach of automatically contributing the small back.” - Get Recent Comments
Sidebar of ultimate comments, again to thank/promote. - No Revisions
Wordpress saves the post rider each time we strike “save.” This enables “revert” though it additionally fills your database with crap, which in spin slows down the complete site. Not value it. Anyway we write all in the content editor (Notepad++) regulating Sphinx since we can write in plain-text with elementary stylistic markup instead of unwieldy HTML tags, as great as the HTML it generates is plain-Jane so it’s easy to pulp in to Wordpress, hold up, as great as report for posting.
Not even certain if it creates the difference, but…
- Google XML Sitemaps
Creates correct Google sitemap automatically. - Robots Meta
Automatically emanate the “robots” meta-tag for poke engines.
Conspicuously not the plugin
These aren’t plugins, though they’re Wordpress customizations. we did all of these in PHP, related in the “right” approach with hooks as great as filters. we additionally make make make make make make use of of of of of of the Thesis Wordpress Theme for altogether site make up as great as we used the hooks from which complement as well.
- The “Twitter me” button
Appearing during the tip as great as bottom of posts, both upon the web as great as in the RSS feed, this is the Tweetmeme symbol which millions of alternative people use. There have been plugins for this, though nothing could place the symbol in those 4 spots, nothing put the symbol where we longed for it (i.e. outward the categorical text, not word-wrapped inside), as great as nothing could hoop the use-case of traffic with alien posts from alternative blogging program (I used to be upon Squarespace). - Automatic reformatting
I similar to to make make make make make make use of of of of of of things similar to em-dashes — the extra-long dashes bracketing this word — though it’s simpler to sort dual dashes in the row. On the alternative palm we wish elementary quotes, not curly quotes. There have been plugins to do things similar to that, though we wasn’t happy with the options there so we wrote my own filter. This competence receptive to advice sparse as great as as well minute to be endangered about, though customarily since these things competence not make the disproportion to altogether success/failure, it doesn’t meant we do not take honour in creation things just so!And there’s the softened reason. HTML upon the web we can format with CSS, though HTML in RSS readers we cannot. And worse, customarily the CSS for them sucks. So for example, we make make make make make make use of of of of of of
tags for territory dividers, though in most RSS readers those aren’t even displayed bold, or the content distance is weird. So partial of my filter takes all
tags as great as brackets them upon the inside with the tag, though it does this only for the RSS feed. This approach my HTML can be elementary as great as styled, though the RSS feed functions softened in practice.
Hopes this helps the small of you. Would we similar to to see some-more posts similar to this — automatic things — or do we come here for the stories as great as the great flog in the pants? Leave the comment as great as let me know.
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- Why commercial operation blogs should concentration upon cheerleaders, not lead-generation
Written by aministrator· Filed Under business , Tags:, apache, business, design, hacker-news, how-to, people, permanent-link, php, plugin, python, source, startup, wordpress, work
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