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7 Useful WordPress Plugins
Here are 7 great plugins from WordPress that can add some cool features and extra customization to your WordPress site. Some are easy to use and some are more advanced.
WP – Choose Thumb – This is a cool plugin that allows you to add a thumbnail to any post or archive page by adding a simple line of code to your index file. You do however, need to go back in to all of your posts and select the the thumbnail you would like to show as your thumbnail. That can be time consuming. If you’ve already uploaded an image in your post, it won’t show unless it’s selected. Other than that, I like the styling of it. I like this better than the Thumbnail Excerpts plugin.
Exclude Pages – Great plugin because it shows a check box in all of your pages to allow you to easily exclude any page from any listings in your page navigation menus.
Custom Excerpts – Do you use the template tag <?php the_excerpt(”) ?> in your theme? Did you ever notice all formatting is stripped out? Custom Excerpts allows you to set a custom excerpt text, length, and to choose HTML tags to allow. This is a very easy way to format your code without messing with the core files. Finally, your links will show in an excerpt. The only problem I’ve come across it when using the <!–more–> code. It strips out the automatic permalink that can say “Click Here to Read More” (or whatever you call your link). || Read more »
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Some of the best online tools
Here are a few links to some of the best online tools and resources I’ve found on the Web. They’re actually useful!
Google Analytics – http://www.google.com/analytics/
A free tool for web designers. It’s a remotely hosted traffic statistics system that’s easy to install on any page of your website.
htaccess Tools – http://www.htaccesstools.com/
This site has different generators to create .htaccess files for blocking IPs, hotlink protection and more. For those who don’t know what an .htaccess files is, they’re invisible text documents that configure Apache web servers.
Browsershots – http://browsershots.org/
Check browser compatibility, cross platform browser test your site. If you use the free version, don’t count on getting all of your requested screenshots in a short period of time and your limited to how many times you can que the system. It’s worth it to pay $29.95 per month for priority processing if you’re a designer.
COLOURlovers – http://www.colourlovers.com/
This is still one of my favorites. Colour lovers influences and monitors color trends by rating, commenting and sharing palettes, and patterns. One of my favorite features is the ability to download the Adobe Illustrator swatch of the palette I make. The only drawback is it’s only 5 colors. But it’s still easy to add new colors to my swatch once in AI.
WordPress Codex - http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page
Everything you need to know about using and installing WordPress. You also find information on working with WordPress, design and layout, advanced techniques, developer documentation and more. It’s the essential bible for anyone developing a WordPress site.
