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WordPress plugins, custom fields, page templates, functions.php, and more

April 13th, 2010

Just like there are free WordPress themes that can make your website look cool, there are tons of free WordPress plugins that can make your website do cool things.  WordPress functionality can also be extended in other ways like with custom fields, page templates, functions.php customization, and more.

Just like there are websites that recommend the best free WordPress themes, there are websites that recommend the best WordPress plugins (1, 2, 3).

WordPress plugins I use:

WP-DBManager: Great for backing up your MySQL database.  Just remember that this does not include the changes that you make to your theme files (html, css, etc.), so be sure to back up your theme folder before you start hacking your theme.

Pretty Link: Cool plugin for creating shortlinks which are easy to post in social networks.  Telling your friends to check out http://drho.ro/awesome is better than telling your friends to check out http://drho.ro/this-website-is-totally-awesome-check-it-out

Sharecount for Facebook, ShareThis, TweetMeme Retweet Button: Encourage people to forward your content…just don’t make it look like you’re trying too hard.

WP Super Cache: Be aware that this plugin can be troublesome if you’re customizing your theme’s html and css.

Google Analytics for WordPress: I just use the basic settings.  Google Analytics has great tutorial resources at conversion university.

SyntaxHighlighter Evolved: If you include html, css, JavaScript or other code in your blog posts this is a cool plugin.

Twitter Tools: Auto-tweet your blog posts with custom # hashtags and @ replies.  Warning: auto-posting/double-posting makes you look lazy.

All in One SEO Pack: Chapter 8 of Digging into WordPress is all about SEO.

Google XML Sitemaps: This is also an SEO plugin.  Telling the plugin where your sitemap exists (your root html directory) can be a little tricky.  For example, my sitemap.xml file for drho.ro is in the custom location: /nfs/c04/h01/mnt/85473/domains/drho.ro/html/sitemap.xml.  If you use GoDaddy the first or second line on the hosting control center’s home page tells you where your root html directory is.  Also, remember that your sitemap’s file extension is .xml, not .html.  You’ll also want to register your website with Google Webmaster, Bing Webmaster, and Yahoo Site Explorer/Yahoo Developer Network.  Keep this information handy for the Robots Meta plugin.

Robots Meta: More on duplicate content in Chapter 8 of Digging into WordPress, but add this plugin while your adding plugins.

Let me know which plugins I should try!

Custom fields:

Try to add a custom field image thumbnail to your blog posts as discussed in Digging into WordPress.

Page Templates:

I created a custom template to integrate Google Custom Search into my websites with an iframe.  This requires custom html and css, but give it a try if you’re feeling ambitious.  Or, just use the Google Custom Search plugin!

search results code:

<?php /* Template Name: Search */ ?>
<?php get_header(); ?>
	<div id="main">
	   <div id="content-body" class="clearfix">
	      <div id="cse-search-results"></div>
                 <script type="text/javascript">
                    var googleSearchIframeName = "cse-search-results";
                    var googleSearchFormName = "cse-search-box";
                    var googleSearchFrameWidth = 500;
                    var googleSearchDomain = "www.google.com";
                    var googleSearchPath = "/cse";
                  </script>
                  <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/afsonline/show_afs_search.js"></script>
           </div>
        </div>
   </div>
</body>

searchbox code:

<div id="searchbox">
   <form action="http://drho.ro/search/" id="cse-search-box">
      <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000028270302408347927:pljnopckhiy" />
      <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:10" />
      <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="UTF-8" />
      <input type="text" id="s" value="Search..." name="as_q" onfocus="if(this.value==this.defaultValue)this.value='';" onblur="if(this.value=='')this.value=this.defaultValue;" />
      <input id="search-button" type="image" value="Search" name="sa" alt="search" src="http://drho.ro/images/mag.png"/>
   </form>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box&lang=en"></script></pre>
<pre>

css:

#searchbox          {position: absolute; display: block; height: 30px; width: 333px;}
#cse-search-box	 {height: 30px; width: 333px; background: none !important; border: none !important; }
#cse-search-results {margin: 0 auto; padding-left: 50px; padding-top: 12px;}
#search-button      {position: absolute; top: 4px; left: 315px;}
#s                  {width: 333px; height: 23px; font-family: Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 23px; color: #A4A5A1; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; background: none; padding-left: 5px; }

functions.php customization:

I tried to add all of the Digging into WordPress functions.php customization recommendations to TheGlobalWineIndustry.com, but I haven’t made any changes to my drho.ro functions.php file.  Jeff Starr recently blogged about enhancing the functionality of a WordPress site through the functions.php file.

Two more weeks of WordPress–RSS (Ch6) and SEO (Ch8)!

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