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Extensive Roundup of the Best WordPress Plugins You’ll Ever Need: Year 2012 Edition

Daniels Mekšs — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:00:22 +0000

Besides being a beautiful, easy to use and powerful platform by itself, WordPress is also loved because of it’s high level of customization and optimization. Plugins are the best way to optimize and enrich your WordPress blog. And it’s not limited to performance only. The plugins WordPress offers range from page speed optimization, user engagement, advanced backup, full theme modification to social sharing and search engine optimization.

No matter what kind of website or blog you own, you’ll definitely find something that will make your site better. Just like with clothes some plugins are one size fits all, and other are quite specific. Almost every blog will encounter spam, security concerns and will want to expose their content to the largest audience possible. This two article series focuses on the most essential and useful WordPress plugins every blog will find useful. Whether you’re bored with the default comments platform, want to try custom fonts or just add neat social sharing options, continue reading to find the best WordPress plugins out there. The plugins are sorted into categories and only a few of them have the same features so you can find the very right ones for you.

The first part will cover optimization, forms, comments, site backup, posts, security, design & theme customization and media. Stay tuned for part 2 which will contain even more specific and targeted WordPress plugins.

The second part will cover ecommerce, SEO, social media, marketing and lot of great miscellaneous plugins.

Optimization

1. WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache is a very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.

2. WP-Optimize

WP-Optimize is a WordPress 2.9++ database cleanup and optimization tool. It doesn’t require PhpMyAdmin to optimize your database tables. It allows you to remove post revisions, comments in the spam queue and un-approved comments within few clicks.

3. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache improves the user experience of your site by improving your server performance, caching every aspect of your site, reducing the download times and providing transparent content delivery network (CDN) integration.

Forms

1. Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail content flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.

2. Fast Secure Contact Form

A super customizable contact form that lets your visitors send you email. Blocks all automated spammers. No templates to mess with.

3. Gravity Forms (Premium – $39)

Gravity Forms is hands down the best contact form plugin for WordPress. Build and publish your WordPress forms in just minutes. No drudgery, just quick and easy form-building.

4. AJAX Contact Forms (Premium – $10)

This is a jQuery based AJAX powered HTML / PHP contact form with Twitter Direct Messaging, easily integrated into WordPress via shortcodes and functions.

Comments

1. Disqus Comment System

Disqus, pronounced “discuss”, is a service and tool for web comments and discussions. Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community.

2. GD Star Rating

GD Star Rating plugin allows you to set up an advanced rating and review system for post types and comments in your blog using single, multi and thumbs ratings.

3. Wizzart – Recent Comments

This plugin offers a highly customizable widget to show recent comments of your visitors in your sidebars.

4. Facebook Comments

Full Facebook Comments moderation and management for your WordPress site. Quick and easy to set up. Insert automatically or via a shortcode.

5. Thank Me Later

Automatically send a ‘thank you’ e-mail to those who comment on your blog. This plugin engages visitors by reminding them to check back for new comments and interesting content.

6. Disable Comments

Allows administrators to globally disable comments on their site. Comments can be disabled according to post type.

7. WP Customer Reviews

WP Customer Reviews allows your customers and visitors to leave reviews or testimonials of your services. Reviews are Microformat enabled (hReview).

Site Backup

1. WP-DBManager

Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of back ups, optimizing and repairing of database.

2. BackUpWordPress

BackUpWordPress will back up your entire site including your database and all your files once every day.

Posts

1. Editorial Calendar

The Editorial Calendar makes it possible to see all your posts and drag and drop them to manage your blog.

2. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site.

3. SimpleReach Slide

The Slide recommends related posts from within your site on a widget that “slides” in at the bottom of the page.

4. WordPress Popular Posts

WordPress Popular Posts is a highly customizable sidebar widget that displays the most popular posts on your blog. You can use it as a template tag, too.

5. Raw HTML

Lets you use raw HTML or any other code in your posts. You can also disable smart quotes and other automatic formatting on a per-post basis.

6. Auto Post Thumbnail

Automatically generate the Post Thumbnail (Featured Thumbnail) from the first image in post or any custom post type only if Post Thumbnail is not set.

Security

1. Akismet

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.

2. SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam

Adds CAPTCHA anti-spam methods to WordPress on the forms for comments, registration, lost password, login, or all. For WP, WPMU, and BuddyPress.

3. Secure WordPress

Secure WordPress beefs up the security of your WordPress installation by removing error information on login pages, adds index.html to plugin directories, hides the WordPress version and much more.

4. BulletProof Security

WordPress Website Security Protection. Website security protection against: XSS, RFI, CRLF, CSRF, Base64, Code Injection and SQL Injection hacking att

Design & Theme Customization

1. Widget Context

Widget Context allows you to specify widget visibility settings – you can choose to display them only on certain posts, front page, category or tag pages etc.

2. WP Google Fonts

The WP Google Fonts plugin allows you to easily add fonts from the Google Font Directory to your WordPress theme.

3. WP Maintenance Mode

Adds a splash page to your site that lets visitors know your site is down for maintenance. Full access to the back- & front-end is optional.

4. Genesis Simple Sidebars

This plugin allows you to create multiple, dynamic widget areas, and assign those widget areas to sidebar locations within the Genesis Theme Framework

5. Shortcodes Ultimate

With this plugin you can easily create buttons, boxes, different sliders and much, much more. Turn your free theme to premium in just a few clicks.

6. All In One Favicon

Easily add a Favicon to your site and the WordPress admin pages. Complete with upload functionality. Supports all three Favicon types (ico,png,gif).

7. Font Uploader (Premium – $10)

This plugin lets you upload your own font files and apply them to any element of your website without requiring a knowledge of html or css.

8. WPtouch

WPtouch: A simple, powerful and elegant mobile theme for your website. WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress website into an application-like theme.

9. Widget Logic

Widget Logic lets you control on which pages widgets appear using WP’s conditional tags. It also adds a ‘widget_content’ filter.

10. WP Content Slideshow

WP Content Slideshow is the perfect Slideshow for WordPress. It displays up to 5 Posts or Pages with Tile, Description and Image for every Post.

Media

1. Easing Slider

The Easing Slider comes with various options that allow you to choose different sources to get the images from and also multiple styling options so that you”ll never have to edit any files directly & with ease. Create your own unique elegant slider.

2. NextGEN Gallery

NextGEN Gallery is a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with dozens of options and features.

3. flickrRSS

Allows you to integrate Flickr photos into your site. It supports user, set, favorite, group and community photostreams.

4. WordPress Video Plugin

A filter for WordPress that allows easy video embedding of supported sites. Support for 65 different video sites.

5. oQey Gallery

oQey Gallery is a premium grade plugin for managing images and video, creating photo slideshows with music, photo & video galleries that works fantastic.

6. uBillboard (Premium – $20)

uBillboard is a Premium Slider for WordPress. It is a jQuery based slider with a multitude of transitions and options so you can customize it all you want without being overwhelmed with options you never wanted or needed.

7. WP Lightbox 2

This plugin used to add the lightbox (overlay) effect to the current page images on your WordPress blog.

Commerce

1. WP e-Commerce

WP e-Commerce is a free WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin that lets customers buy your products, services and digital downloads online.

2. Jigoshop

Jigoshop is an eCommerce plugin for WordPress developed by professionals with years of experience delivering online shops for global brands.

3. WooCommerce

Transform your WordPress website into a thoroughbred online store. Delivering enterprise-level quality & features whilst backed by a name you can trust.

4. uPricing (Premium – $15)

uPricing is the ultimate and unique solution for all your WordPress related pricing page needs. Creating pricing tables has never been easier. uPricing comes with easy to use jQuery powered admin interface that lets you create and edit your pricing tables.

5. PayPal Donations

Easy, simple setup to add a PayPal Donation button as a Widget or with a shortcode.

SEO

1. All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack is the best SEO plugin out there which will automatically optimize your WordPress blog for search engines.

2. WordPress SEO by Yoast

WordPress SEO is the most complete WordPress SEO plugin that exists today for WordPress.org users. It incorporates everything from a snippet preview and page analysis functionality that helps you optimize your pages content, images titles, meta descriptions and more to XML sitemaps, and loads of optimization options in between.

3. Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog. With such a sitemap, it’s much easier for the crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently.

Social

1. Add Link to Facebook

Automatically add links to posts or pages that are being published to your Facebook wall, pages or groups. Simple one time setup and forget. The way links appear on Facebook can be customized.

2. WP to Twitter

Posts a Twitter update when you update your WordPress blog or post to your blogroll, using your chosen URL shortening service. Requires PHP 5 and cURL

3. Digg Digg

Digg Digg allows you to integrate popular social buttons into WordPress easily.

4. ShareThis

The ShareThis plugin seamlessly enables users to share your content through Email,Facebook,Twitter, Google +1, Like, Send and many more.

5. BuddyPress

BuddyPress lets users register on your site and start creating profiles, posting messages, making connections, creating and interacting in groups and much more. A social network in a box, BuddyPress lets you build a social network for your company, school, sports team or niche community.

6. bbPress

bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress.

7. The Google+ plugin

The Google + Plugin integrates WordPress with your G+ Profile and Page – now with BuddyPress and Post Format support.

8. Twitter Widget Pro

A widget that properly handles twitter feeds, including parsing @username, #hashtags, and URLs into links.

Marketing

1. Newsletter

This plug-in lets you collect subscribers on your blog with a single or double opt-in subscription process. Double opt-in is law compliant and it means the user has to confirm the subscription following simple standard instructions sent to him via email.

2. WP125

Easy management of 125×125 ads on your blog. Ads can be run for a specified number of days, and will automatically be taken down. Track clicks too.

3. s2Member

s2Member (membership with PayPal) offers powerful membership capabilities. Protect members only content. The s2Member Framework integrates with PayPal very easily and fully supports recurring billing.

4. MailPress

The WordPress mailing platform.

5. Subscribe2

Subscribe2 provides a comprehensive subscription management and email notification system for WordPress blogs that sends email notifications to a list of subscribers when you publish new content to your blog.

6. MailChimp Widget

Adds a widget that allows your users to sign up for your MailChimp mailing list.

7. Simple PopUp

A simple, attractive, extremely fast and non annoying pop up box for your WordPress Blog. It’s power lies in its ease of use.

Miscellaneous

1. WP-PageNavi

Want to replace the old ← Older posts | Newer posts → links with some page links? This plugin provides the wp_pagenavi() template tag which generates fancy pagination links.

2. Jetpack by WordPress.com

Jetpack is a WordPress plugin that supercharges your self-hosted WordPress site with the awesome cloud power of WordPress.com.

3. Exclude Pages

This plugin adds a checkbox, “include this page in menus”, which is checked by default. If you uncheck it, the page will not appear in any listings of pages (which includes, and is usually limited to, your page navigation menus).

4. Broken Link Checker

This plugin will check your posts, comments and other content for broken links and missing images, and notify you if any are found.

5. ManageWP Worker

ManageWP Worker plugin allows you to remotely manage your blogs from one dashboard. You can read our review here.

6. Redirection

Redirection is a WordPress plugin to manage 301 redirections and keep track of 404 errors without requiring knowledge of Apache .htaccess files.

7. FD Feedburner Plugin

Redirects the main feed and optionally the comments feed seamlessly and transparently to Feedburner.com.

8. Hotfix

Provides unofficial fixes for selected WordPress bugs, so you don’t have to wait for the next WordPress core release.

9. Google Analytics for WordPress

Track your WordPress site easily and with lots of metadata: views per author & category, automatic tracking of outbound clicks and page views.

10. WP-Polls

Adds an AJAX poll system to your WordPress blog. You can also easily add a poll into your WordPress’s blog post/page.

11. Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu

The lazy and the productive will love it : all admin links available in a neat horizontal CSS driven drop down menu. No need to click on “Manage” then “Pages” to edit pages. And plenty more space on your screen.

12. Pretty Link Lite

Shrink, beautify, track, manage and share any URL on or off of your WordPress website. Create links that look however you want using your own domain name.

13. 5sec Google Maps (Premium – $8)

Integrate Google Maps into your WordPress blog easily without using API or any code.

14. Advanced Access Manager

Advanced Access Manager is a new way of controlling access to your single blog or multi-site setup. This easy to use interface is a very helpful tool for experienced WordPress users.

Conclusion

Do you know and use any other plugins besides the ones we suggested here? We would really appreciate your feedback here, but we are pretty sure this list will be very comprehensive for you and will satisfy most peoples needs!

WP-Powered Job Boards – All The Tools You’ll Ever Need!

Sufyan bin Uzayr — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:00:50 +0000

There is hardly any niche website that cannot be powered using WordPress. Of late, WordPress is being employed to power different sorts of websites — video galleries, online portfolios, information directories and, more importantly, job boards! Job boards have become one of the most popular info-commerce centric websites. In this article, we take a look at the WP resources that are required to run a job board — plugins and themes.

Plugins for Job Boards

CareerBuilder Jobs

CareerBuilder Jobs plugin lets users search for relevant jobs and browse jobs on the basis of location or category. It can also suggest recommended jobs and power the application mechanism for each job. You will need a Developer Key in order to use the plugin.

Plugin Homepage | Download

CATS JobSite

CATS JobSite can be used to power a full fledged job board. Users can search, browse and apply for jobs as well as update their resume and skill profile. The plugin is supplemented by numerous built-in widgets.

Plugin Homepage

Job Manager

Job Manager is a simple job board and job application management plugin for WordPress.

Plugin Homepage | Download

Job Manager by Smart Recruiters

This plugin enables you to post jobs and manage applicants on your website. It also supports native integration with Smart Recruiters, an open recruiting service.

Plugin Homepage

My Job Application

My Job Application creates a job database and custom job listings for your website.

Download

WP-Simply Hired API

WP-Simply Hired API lets users browse jobs, apply for specific jobs, track pay-per-click jobs and perform many other functions. However, in order to use this plugin, you will need a Job-a-matic account.

Plugin Homepage | Download

wpCareers

wpCareers lets you create an online job/resume website.

Plugin Homepage

Zartis Job Plugin

Zartis Job Plugin can be used to add secure jobs and career pages to your WP website. It also supports excellent integration with social networking websites. Its basic version lets you create only one open job, and if you need more functionality, the cheapest paid license is available at $108 per year ($9/month).

Plugin Homepage

Themes for Job Boards

Jobpress Simple (Regular License: $79)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

Job Board (Regular License: $65)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

JobJockey (Regular License: $69)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

Tapp Jobs (Regular License: $75)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

9 to 5 (Regular License: $35)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

Jobpress (FREE)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

JobRoller (Regular License: $99)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

ClassiPress (Regular License: $99)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

What do you think of WP-powered job boards? Do share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Customize WordPress With Four Easy-To-Add Scripts

Rochester Oliveira — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:00:02 +0000

Probably at some point you wanted to customize things in WordPress instead of using the “default” for every page. Like a pretty image gallery in a few posts, a syntax highlighter for your tutorial category or a demo page for your tutorials.

Well all those things break the standard, so people will see it as “impossible” to change. Should you put the following scripts on every page? No. That would be a waste of resources, since you’ll load a lot of useful things many times. Should you put them directly in your content (dear lord, please, don’t ever do this)? This would be really hard to maintain, since every simple change would be a big waste of time because you would have to make those changes post by post.

Let’s see a couple of ways to get this easily working.

1. Gallery inside any post

Let’s say you want to put galleria in a couple of posts (with no specific rule, could be any post, in any category).

Boolean custom field

Then your best option is to insert a custom field, and there just put any value, like “1″, so you’ll know that this one is a gallery post.

It’ll be something like this:

Now, little grasshopper, you may ask yourself why don’t we just put our script there, in our custom field, or even inside the content (argh!). We do it this way because if for any reason we change our script (like a plugin update, or change our theme) we can easily change it in a single place. Otherwise it would be way harder to make even small changes (like put a new color in your gallery).

Our single.php

Now we need to get this field, and then en queue our script! Just like that!

Where you have:

You’ll replace with:

post->ID;
		$has_galleria = get_post_meta($post_id, "galleria", true);

		if ( ! empty($has_galleria) ) {
			echo '';
			echo "\n ";
		}
	}

	get_header(); ?>

Our images

Now we just make sure that all our images meet galleria’s specifications. You could even upload all your images via custom fields and use a shortcode to put them in place (so you won’t need to change the HTML at all). But for now we’ll do it with HTML:

2. Syntax highlighter inside tutorial category

Let’s say that just like 1WD you publish a few cool coding tutorials every now and then. So it’s good to have a syntax highlight plugin, right?

If you just put it in your header.php every single post will have syntax highlight plugin files, even the non-coding ones. Like this:

Category testing technique

Our solution this time is to use a simple category test. Let’s say that your coding category is “WordPress”. Then all you have to do is check if the post uses “word press” category, and then you’ll add syntax highlight scripts.

	add_filter('wp_head','syntax_script');

function syntax_script(){
	global $wp_query;
	$post_id = $wp_query->post->ID;
	$has_cat = in_category( "wordpress", $post_id );

	if ( ! empty($has_cat) ) {
		echo '';
		echo '';
		echo '';
	}
}

3. Demo inside tutorial itself

Another cool thing that you can do is to add demos directly inside your page. In order to get them working properly you may want to use iframes, so you ensure that the scripts and styles of your site won’t conflict with the ones from the demo.

URL custom field

What you need to do here is to add a simple meta with your demo URL:

And then you’ll just check in your single if there is anything in your demo-url. If there is anything it’ll show this url in an iframe, if not, it’ll just ignore and go on. Put this in the end of your loop (or any other place you want to display demo):

ID won't work
	$demo = get_post_meta($post->ID, "demo-url", true);
	if ( ! empty($demo) ) {
		echo 'Sorry about that. Your browser does not support iframes.';
	}
//now you can finish your loop!

4. Custom ads for every post

Well, despite of Google’s algorithm to recognize your post’s main topic and serve ads related to it, sometimes you may want to show different ads for different kinds of posts. For instance, you may serve affiliate links for “reviews”, Technorati ads for “funny” and google ads for “tutorials”.

This can be done with get_template_part function. With this function you can include external files inside your loop. So you just need to create a folder called “ads” in your template, set up your main files with the same name of your category slog.

Then at some point, your code will check which template part will be included, this way:

$cats = wp_get_post_categories( $post->ID );
foreach($post_categories as $c){
	$cat = get_category( $c );
	get_template_part( 'ads/'.$cat->slug );
}

So if you have a post that is “funny” and “review”, you’ll show 2 ad blocks.

Now it’s your turn!

So, what do you think? Could you think of other places, or different ways, to use these scripts? Hope you enjoyed my article!

15 WordPress Plugins For A Better Facebook Experience

Jenna Scaglione — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:00:32 +0000

With hundreds of millions of users accessing Facebook on a daily basis, it’s important to take advantage of everything the social network has to offer. Facebook plugins give businesses the ability to create an enhanced experience for their audience so users can share content easily and effortlessly.

Facebook plugins are centered on users and their experience with your website, blog or Facebook Page. Plugins make interacting and communicating with your content simple by providing users with many reasons to share and interact, receive friend’s recommendations or “like” your Facebook Page.

Below are 15 of the top WordPress Facebook plugins in use today:

1. WPToFacebook

WpToFacebook can transfer your WordPress content (manually or automatically) directly to one or more tabs in Facebook.

Some features:

Unlimited connections to Facebook
Options to make content visible or invisible to fans
Order content by title, date or in descending or ascending order
Choose pre-existing templates or create your own
Multi-language capabilities

2. JSL3 Facebook Wall Feed

This WordPress plugin displays a snippet of your Facebook wall on your website via a widget.

3. Add Link to Facebook

This plugin automatically posts your content from WordPress to a location on Facebook, whether your fan page, a group, or profile wall. You can customize the way links appear and choose to add your own image to the post on Facebook. If you do not choose an image, the plugin will display a default image.

With this plugin you can also display “Likes” for the post on the original content from WordPress and link comments from the two locations together. The comments and likes on the post in Facebook will appear on the blog post in WordPress.

This plugin also allows for remote posting from Android or iOS devices or by using Windows Live Writer, BloGTK or Blogilo.

4. Cardoza Facebook Like Box

The Cardoza Facebook Like Box is a visual box displayed on your website that introduces visitors to your Facebook Page. The box will showcase how many people “like” your page while showing your visitors which of their friends like it as well.

You can customize the Like Box to include your recent posts and allow visitors to “like” your page while remaining on your website.

5. Facebook Comments for WordPress

Your blog visitors may refrain from leaving comments because they do not want to take the time to register a new login for your site. This plugin will make commenting easier for your visitors by giving them the option to login and comment on your posts with their Facebook or Yahoo! account. If readers are logged into Facebook, they will automatically be able to leave comments using their Facebook profile without any extra effort.

You can customize the order of the comments, their visibility, and the manner in which you will receive notification when a user publishes a comment. The user will also have the option to publish the comment to their Facebook wall which can help to grow your business as well.

6. WP Greet Box

This plugin will help to increase awareness and readership for your blog. It targets visitors based on where they came from before landing on your website. With a greeting message you can customize it depending on the referring url. For example, if a visitor arrives from Twitter, you can create the welcome message about Twitter and include a link to follow or interact with you there as well. You can also set a default greeting message that is not connected to any referring url.

Some features:

Auto-insert greeting messages at different locations in your post
Customize user settings and whether or not user can close the greeting
Plugin automatically detects visitor’s searched keywords and displays related posts under or above the greeting message
Customize settings so visitors will only see the greeting message once, regardless of how many times they visit your site.
Customize rules to exclude specific referrer urls
Greeting message box is completely customizable (with CSS)
Plugin includes long list of referrers with the ability to easily add more as you please

7. Facebook Share Button – NEW

This Facebook Share Button plugin is a new version of the old plugin. It allows blog owners to add a Facebook Share button to any blog post and now provides a count as to how many times your content is shared.

You can position the share button before or after your post or page by using the shortcode [fbshare] or by manually inserting it in the code. You can also customize the button using CSS and choose to opt out of displaying the share count. The plugin works with the Google +1 and Tweetmeme buttons as well.

8. Wordbook

Wordbook is a Facebook plugin that allows you to automatically post your blogs to your Facebook wall for your friends to view from their news feeds. Friends can also comment on your posts directly from Facebook.

9. JanRain Engage

The JanRain plugin allows your visitors to login to your blog via many social networks such as Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, MySpace ID, Windows Live ID and OpenID (18 supported networks).

The users’ icons will be seen alongside the comments and users can also easily share the content with their friends on their social networks. Optional displays include share buttons on each comment or at the beginning or end of posts.

The plugin also collects email addresses if the login does not pass a verified email check. Existing users can also login with their current account details.

10. Simple Facebook Connect

Simple Facebook Connect is a robust plugin that allows your visitors to comment on your content using their Facebook profile. In addition, you can automatically publish posts to your Facebook profile, fan page or an application.

Some other great features as listed on the plugin page:

Enables your site to connect to Facebook with JS SDK
Implements OpenGraph tags, entirely automatically
Comment using Facebook credentials (with Facebook avatar support)
Automatically Publish new posts to Facebook Profile or Application or Fan Page
Manually Publish posts to FB Profile or Application or Fan Page
Integrate comments made on Facebook back into your own site
Login with your Facebook credentials, optionally using Facebook avatars instead of Gravatars
New user registration with Facebook credentials (using the Facebook Registration Authentication system)
Facebook Photo Album integration in the Media uploader
Like Button and shortcode
User Status Widget and shortcode
Live Stream Widget and shortcode
Fan Box Widget and shortcode
Fan Count Chicklet and Widget
Activity Feed Widget
“Share” button and Shortcode (reworked version of Like button, as Share button is no longer supported by Facebook)

11. Facebook Fan Box

This plugin is another popular Facebook Like Box for your WordPress website. Display your fan page updates in real-time on your blog for your visitors. It also shows the number of fans and gives you the ability to customize the appearance, dimensions, stories and number of fans displayed.

12.WP-FB-AutoConnect

The FB Auto Connect is similar to Facebook’s registration plugin. The plugin offers registration and login templates so your visitors can easily connect with your site. Users can login to your blog with either their Facebook account or WordPress details.

Some additional features:

Full support
Facebook profile pictures for avatars
Fast page load time since connection with API is not needed after login is complete
New user accounts retained even if you remove the plugin
Notifications when user connects with Facebook
Easy to customize

13. Gigya Socialize

Gigya Socialize gives users the ability to connect with your blog through many different accounts such as:

Facebook Connect
Twitter
MySpace ID
Google
Yahoo
AOL
LinkedIn
Any OpenID provider

You can also update your social sites and invite friends to visit your content via the plugin. It is easily customizable and helps visitors stay on your blog longer by giving them an array of easy login options. It also makes sharing your content very easy, which will help to increase blog traffic.

14. Fotobook

Fotobook imports your photos and your albums from Facebook. You can import photos from multiple Facebook accounts, insert single photos in posts or display photo albums on a WordPress page. The admin panel is easy-to use and widgets displaying random photos can be easily added to the sidebar.

15. Facebook Share Statistics

This is a great plugin to help you track your visitors’ activities on Facebook. The backend panel displays statistics and charts of the posts that have been shared or “liked” as well as the number of comments and visits from Facebook.

Do you use any of these plugins or have any other recommendations? Please share!

Mouthwatering Collection Of jQuery Plugins And CSS3 Tricks

Costin Găman — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:00:31 +0000

I’m sure that at one point or another you were designing a website and thought it could use a little something extra. That bit of something that adds extra functionality or enhances what it already has, making it not only easier for the user to receive the information they seek, but also present it in a neat package.

In no particular order, I give you a handpicked collection of jQuery plugins and some CSS3 tricks to top it off. Surely, with these in your designer arsenal, your creations will stand out more than ever before.

jQuery

1. Fly-out menu

Excellent when using enlarged text for emphasis along with visual content.

2. Grid portfolio

A very elegant way of displaying items with the possibility of quickly previewing the content.
Suggestion: use with other resizing elements so that the user can see them rearrange.

3. Slide out contextual tips

Expanding tool tips with a smooth animation, revealing extra content only when the user wants it.
Suggestion: use with images that display several products (e.g. furniture) or when explaining the highlights of a design in your portfolio.

4. Quicksand – reorder and filter

Organise and reorder items to make it easier to find exactly what you need. Click once and just watch everything slide into place.

5. Sunday morning – translation plugin

A little old, but still awesome. It adds a simple and appealing way of translating a website or just parts of it.

6. jVectorMap

Interactive map with the possibility of expanding for other uses. Includes the world map, US, Europe and Germany.

7. Shuffle letters effect

An interesting effect that can be added to make text elements more eye-catching. Basically, it shows random characters as it reveals the actual text.
Suggestion: use sparingly so as not to make everything confusing.

8. Mosaiqy – picture shuffle

Display pictures in a simple grid that shuffles the elements in a Rubik’s cube fashion.

9. Sponsor wall flip

Although the title says “sponsor wall flip”, that’s just one of the many uses for this plugin. Show visual elements and put bite-sized information on the back.
Note: contains a little PHP.

10. Colourful jQuery clock

Add a colourful and modern clock to your design or perhaps even adapt it into a countdown for when launching a new website!

11. MopTip2

MopTip2 is a plugin that lets you add customizable tooltips to various elements. The tooltips can close automatically or be manually closed and they may also display images.

12. Grumble

Another tooltip plugin with the added bonus of being able to use virtually any CSS styles and transform them into whatever you may want.

13. jQuery Timelnr

Timelnr is a stylish timeline gallery with the option of placing it horizontally or vertically, and having it play automatically.

14. Flexible nav

By just marking certain elements in the HTML, this plugin will automatically create a navigation menu for you, acting like small bookmarks placed neatly on the side of the window.

15. Deck – HTML presentations

Ever thought PowerPoint or Keynote presentations were cumbersome? Then look no further! With Deck you can create online HTML presentations with a multitude of uses, perhaps enhancing an e-learning product.

16. Apple-like Retina effect

Enhance your content by letting users see the finer details with this Retina-like plugin.

17. jQuery pageSlide

Simple and effective, pageSlide reveals information by pushing the entire page to the side, thus not disrupting the positions of other elements.
Suggestion: it could be used to hide a vertical navigation, leaving room for full-page content.

18. jqFancyTransitions

A simple and sleek gallery with strip transitions and several formats.

19. Panning slideshow

A more interesting slideshow which pieces together the slides and pans through them with a slightly elastic effect.
Suggestion: given the effect, the slides could actually be parts of one big image for something more special.

20. jqZoom

Similar to the Retina plugin, jqZoom can be customized in more ways and has more zooming options, such as drag-zoom or through simple mouse-over.

21. 3D tag cloud

Add a little creativity to your tag cloud by turning it into a tag sphere! Just click and drag to rotate it and use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. The plugin simply transforms all divs that have the class “tags” and contain an unordered list with links inside.
Suggestion: since all it needs is a div, why not be creative and apply it to a navigation?

22. JEffects

JEffects is a plugin containing more effects that can be applied to various elements within your website. For instance, it can be applied to input fields to create a very pleasant effect.
Note: not free.

23. PhotoShelf

PhotoShelf is an elegant gallery that allows you to scroll through a collection of images and zoom in on portions of the selected image. It can also add separators in the stack to organise your items.
Note: not free.

24. Grid accordion

A double accordion, if you will. It smoothly expands to an easier to read width and makes room for subcategories, also displayed inside an accordion.

25. Latest tweets tooltip

A very interesting plugin that lets you display the latest tweets about a certain topic inside a resizeable tooltip.

Bonus: a few CSS tricks

1. CSS3 Transitions, Transforms and Animations

Everything you wanted to know about CSS3, plus some tutorials on how to create some nifty enhancements.
Note: some tutorials contain some JavaScript.

2. Pure CSS Accordion

As the title implies, this simple but versatile effect is made with pure CSS transitions, taking advantage of anchors.

3. OS X dock

Create an OS X dock with CSS3 properties, including reflections to make your design stand out.

4. CSS media query

Learn how to hide and display elements according to the size of the screen. A step towards responsive web design.

5. CSS3 multi column

With just one line of code you can split a text container into columns, lending itself nicely to dynamic content.

Top 10 Places to Put an Opt-In Form

Eugene — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:00:54 +0000

An email list is the lifeblood of any internet based business. If you are running a blog or website for the sake of making money, an opt-in list is an absolute necessity. After all, “the money is in the list.” But after you design an opt-in form, one of your main decisions becomes where to actually place the form. Here is a list of 10 places that are great for an opt-in form (and remember, you can choose more than one).

1. Above the Header

If one of your top priorities is to build your opt-in email list, wouldn’t it make sense for the form to be the first thing that people see? Since the header is the first thing that most visitors look at when visiting a site, placing an opt-in form right above the header puts in a position of gaining maximum exposure.

There are a few ways to put an opt-in form above your header, but using a simple WordPress plugin is the easiest way to go. The Hello Bar and ViperBar are two of the more popular tools for this purpose.

On my website I prefer to use ViperBar because it has split testing capability. Some visitors will see a message that says “Free updates and access to all my ebooks…it’s like a dream come true!” and some will see “Get free updates from Reality Burst…No-spam Ever! EVER!”

2. Inside the Header

Another great place to put an opt-in form is within the actual header. In the image above I have social media icons inside my header, but could have placed opt-in links or forms instead. I chose not to do this because I already have a form above the header.

This is an awesome location for the same reason as the above-the-header form…it will get a ton of impressions.

3. A Feature Box

A feature box is a content box located right below the header. It is usually used to highlight some of your best or most popular posts, but why not use a feature box to highlight your opt-in form instead?

John Paul Aguiar uses a feature box beautifully. This essentially extends your header with a sub-header and places a great looking opt-in form above the fold before the reader even gets to any content.

4. Top of Sidebar

One of the most popular locations to place an opt-in form is the top-right of the sidebar. As you can see, Brian Clark’s copyblogger uses this location for the opt-in form.

You should be careful with this location. The top-right corner has been shown to be a blind spot. Using design features (like color) to make the form stand out is a good idea.

In this case, the opt-in form is a dark (bringing in the header colors) over a light background:

5. In the Middle of Your Post

People often forget that you can actually place an opt-in form within the body of your content. This is a great location because you already have the reader’s attention. And while you have their attention, you can politely remind them that they can subscribe to your list.

6. End of a Single Post

The end of a single post is also a good position for an opt-in form. By placing the form here, you are not distracting the reader while they are going through your content, but intercepting them as they are finishing reading. It provides a natural flow into the opt-in form without breaking their concentration on the content.

This can be done by hard-coding it into your WordPress. Or there are a few alternatives that do not require coding on your part. Specifically the AddSig and End Content plugins allow you to add an opt-in form code to the end of your post with a simple copy-and-paste.

7. The Footer

By placing a form in the footer you can intercept those curious visitors that scroll all the way to the bottom of the screen. The great thing about the footer opt-in form is that it will be visible on every page.

The vast majority of visitors will never make it down to the footer. But those that do are displaying interest. It would be a shame not to remind them at this point that they should subscribe.

8. A Lightbox Pop-up

Ahh, the dreaded pop-up. Yes most people find it annoying. But the thing is…they still work, and that is why they are still around. The conversion rates for sign-ups through pop-ups are too high for them to go away (especially if there is a good, convincing offer).

9. Signatures (Email, Forum, Etc)

While most people focus on opt-in form placement for their websites/blogs, it is important to remember the only source of possible subscribers!

Most email marketing service providers offer an opt-in link option. This allows you to provide a simple link that leads to an opt-in form.

The options here are limitless. Place a link in your email signature. If you are active in forums, place a link in your profile signature there. Every time you sign off in a communication is an opportunity to promote your mail list.

10. Social Media Pages (Facebook, Twitter)

This one is similar to signatures. Why not use your social media account to drive some potential list subscribers?

You can add a shortened link to your Twitter Bio. Add links to your Facebook profile. Or even create an actual opt-in form on your Facebook fan page with iFrames.

And don’t forget you can send out Facebook messages and tweets with these links as well! :)

As you can see, there is no shortage of locations to place your opt-in forms. You can choose multiple places or play around with them one by one. It is important to remember that there is no one-size-fits all solution and that each person’s results can vary with each variation. This post should give enough ammo to go play around and experiment!

Designer Toolbox: Top 20 Widgets for Your Macbook

Rachel Arandilla — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:00:42 +0000

When it comes to the age old Mac-vs-PC argument, among the most innovative features that sets the Macbook apart is the Dashboard. The Dashboard a virtual toolbox where every Mac user can place their tools or weapons of choice. Whatever type of user you are – a designer, writer, businessman or a student – you can benefit greatly from the Dashboard. The Dashboard is essentially a semi-transparent layer that hosts mini-applications called ‘Widgets’.

Widgets are small applications in the Dashboard designed to perform a single task. Widgets can be useful, productive, necessary or just plain fun. Here are the top free widgets we collected for every kind. They can be rearranged, deleted and added according to the user’s preference. Aside from the Dashboard, you can also place widgets on your Apple Desktop.

For the Web Designer

Dashboard widgets are a great help to web designers and web developers for they greatly increase time efficiency and productivity. They make things faster and easier, a kind of ‘cheat sheet’ for the designers.

SiteStatus

This widget is handy for all web developers to check if the server or the site is currently online or not.

CSS Cheat Sheet

displays the essentials of CSS coding from the CSS Cheat Sheet.

Loremify

A sleek Lorem Ipsum generator that instantly copies to your clipboard in one click. It has an HTML mode and toggle HTML tags.

HSLider

Awesome widget for the CSS web designer, the HSLider generates the selected color into a CSS–hex, RGB and HSL.

Symbol Caddy

The Symbol Caddy is a useful tool for getting common special characters and HTML codes in a flash. The Keyboard mode copies characters to your clipboard while the HTML mode copies the HTML code. This makes the work process a lot faster.

HTML Tidy Widget

The widget cleans up your HTML code right from your dashboard. Simply enter your HTML code on the space provided, click, and your HTML is tidied up, getting rid of the errors and warnings and turning it into a valid HTML, XHTML or XML code. Pretty awesome tool if you ask me.

For the Businessman

Businessmen are always moving and on the go, thus their Dashboard should be matched by equally fast and informational widgets to aid them in their business.

iStocks

A great widget for businessmen, investors, even speculators, who want to see instant quotes on international stocks, indices and currencies.

The Wall Street Journal Online

Always be in the know of the latest business financial news through Wall Street Journal Online.

RevenuSense

RevenuSense is especially useful to the entrepreneurs and businessmen engaged in online marketing and e-commerce. It keeps track of your Adsense reports for the day and for the whole month.

Currency Converter

Provides quick calculation of over 200 currencies in the world, even the old currencies like the Italian Lira or the French franc. Very necessary widget especially when doing international business transactions. The widget automatically updates the exchange rate every time the computer connects online.

For the Everyday User

The Weather Channel Widget

Checking the weather before planning on that family fishing trip this weekend. Aside from relying on the local weather news, you can download this handy widget. The widget displays the weather conditions on your selected area.

Happy Birthdays!

This widget shows all the birthdays of your contacts in your address book, their birthday, the number of days to go, and their age. There’s no excuse for you to forget a birthday ever again.

Twidget

The Twidget is everybody’s favorite widget, since everybody now has a Twitter account. It’s fast, it’s reliable and it’s awesome. Plus, it’s free.

Delivery Status

Delivery Status is an all-in-one delivery tracker. Simply key in your tracking number and it will automatically update where your package is and when it’s arriving. Now you’ll never have to check the various websites to track your package again and again. Being an avid online shopper, this is one of my most necessary widgets on my dashboard.

Milk The Cow

Everyone needs to-do lists. Everyone. So, the ‘Milk the Cow’ widget is perfect for adding your tasks and to-dos in one simple Mac widget.

For the Constantly Bored

Warning: These fun widgets can be addicting, resulting in decreased productivity and time.

Xbox Live Friends

Xbox displays your online Xbox friends even while you’re at work doing something else. It displays the online status, game score and the game they’re playing.

Tigergotchi

Wouldn’t it be cool to have your own pet tiger? Now you can have a tiger as a virtual pet in your Mac. Feed them with food, water and love and they will happily live in your Dashboard.

Sudoku

Sudoku is a logic puzzle, commonly a 9×9 grid divided into 9 3×3 sub-grids. Just like a Crossword, it’s a great way to pass time if you’re bored and have nothing to do, which might come in handy during long waits, flight delays, etc.

Pirate Translator

Translate boring English into Pirate language. It’s a totally nonsense and silly widget, but it’s hilarious.

Scenario Poker

Simply a Texas Hold ‘em Poker widget with three rounds and 27 simulated opponents. If you win, you advance to the next round. If you run out of chips, you lose. A great way to keep yourself entertained during lunch breaks.

50 New And Crazy Cool jQuery Plugins From Year 2011

Daniels Mekšs — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 11:00:57 +0000

With 2011 a little over half over it’s the right time to look at, and uncover, the current trends of web design and development. It’s sure been a helluva ride for jQuery and it’s growth just doesn’t stop. With more than 40% of websites using jQuery now it’s no longer possible to ignore this efficient, powerful and lightweight tool.

jQuery gives developers the chance to enrich websites with amazing elements without the need to write dozens of lines of code. This article presents 50 advanced, cutting-edge yet simple jQuery plugins that will enhance your web experience drastically.

1. jbar

jbar is a jQuery plugin that transforms an unordered list

2. e24TabMenu

e24TabMenu is a plugin written for scriptaculous. It is a tab menu that expands and collapses smoothly.

2.1. RoyalSlider – Touch-Enabled jQuery Image Gallery

RoyalSlider is easy to use jQuery image gallery with animated captions and touch support for mobile devices. Easily add unlimited number of slides and captions. Use it as image slider, image gallery, banner rotator, banner ads, or even presentation.

View Demo

3. Simple jQuery Fluid Thumbnail Menu Bar

The idea of a fluid thumbnail bar is simple: create a list of thumbnails within a space where the overflow can be flipped through page by page.

4. Accordion Multilevel Menu

The plugin has a boolean initialization option accordion. If you set this value to “true” the menu behaves as an accordion menu. The irrelevant menu items are closed while the relevant slides open.

5. DropKick

Creating custom dropdowns is usually a tedious process that requires a ton of extra setup time. Oftentimes lacking conveniences that native dropdowns have such as keyboard navigation. DropKick removes the tedium and lets you focus on making the menu look good.

6. jQuery Resize And Crop

jQuery Resize And Crop (jrac) is a jQuery plugin that build a viewport around a given image permitting a person to visually resize an image and place a crop. Then it is
possible to use the coordinates data for any purpose.

7. Cloud Zoom

Cloud Zoom is a jQuery image zoom plugin, a comparable alternative to products such as Magic Zoom. Compared to the popular jQZoom plugin, Cloud Zoom is smaller, has more features and more robust compatibility across browsers.

8. Simple jQuery Image Hover Effect

This is a simple technique to animate an image when hovering using jQuery’s animate() effect.

9. Easy Image Zoom

Easy Image Zoom gives you the opportunity to see large details of the product while moving the cursor over a medium sized image.

10. ImageLens

Use this jQuery plug-in to add lens style zooming effect to an image,

11. ImageSelect

ImageSelect is a jQuery plugin that allows the user to select an image by means of a nice looking dropdown.

12. jQuery Mapz

With Mapz you can easily create draggable image maps by just calling one function and by using some simple and clean HTML mark-up.

13. jQuery Image Gallery

Image Gallery with Lightbox effect and slideshow functionality for jQuery UI.

14. JbhSlider

JbhSlider is a fully customizable slider. You can add/remove navigation or pagination. You can set the effect, the duration and the functions after/before.

15. jQuery.slideBanjo

jQuery.slideBanjo is a plugin, that shows pretty slides on your site. Supports background loading of pictures, simple to customize, full documentation. Compatible with IE7 and higher.

15.1. Estro – jQuery Ken Burns & swipe effect slider

This jQuery plugin uses unobtrusive javascript to transform a block of simple HTML markup into a gorgeous elegant slider, which can be completely customized using HTML5 data attributes. The markup is valid HTML5 and SEO optimized, with all content always being available to search engines. When using this plugin, your page layout will be consistent even if javascript has been disabled.

This slider includes a smooth and powerful Ken Burns effect which is completely configurable and compatible with all major browsers (including ie7 to ie9, Firefox Chrome, Opera, Safari) and mobile platforms like iphone / ipad. If the Ken Burns effect is not your thing, that’s OK because the “Estro” slider also includes a 2-way “Swipe” mode with configurable transitions.

View Demo

16. Slides

Slides is a slideshow plugin for jQuery that is built with simplicity in mind. Packed with a useful set of features to help novice and advanced developers alike create elegant and user-friendly slideshows.

17. jShowOff

jShowOff is a jQuery plugin for creating a rotating content module. It works by creating ‘slides’ from the child elements (eg.

) inside a specified wrapper element (eg.

WordPress Plugin Development – Relate Posts as a Series – Part 1/2

Rochester Oliveira — Wed, 11 May 2011 10:00:16 +0000

Today our task is to create a simple WordPress plugin to relate posts as a series. With this, when you create a new post it is automatically listed in your series, so if a user is reading any post of the series he can jump to others, even posts created after that one he is reading.

It may seem a bit too simple, but with this we can learn a lot about:
1. Custom post types
2. Custom fields
3. Metaboxes
4. Actions
5. Shortcodes
6. Basic plugin structure for WordPress
7. Little bit of jQuery
So, let’s rock!

Step 1 – Planning

Before any coding, we need to know what we want to create, so we don’t get lost in the process. There are a lot of tools and ways to use them to help us. The most important thing is to ensure that you at least know the minimum requirements for the project you’re working on, what you can add or cut down, and how things must work.

Our plugin functions list is:

Create a new series, with title, description and posts assigned to it
Add / remove current post to series (from post edit screen)
Theme – Show other posts from series via shortcodes
Theme – Show other posts from series via function (so you can use in your theme)
Create fake series items, for future posts
Edit title of the post when listed in series (it doesn’t have to be post’s WordPress title)

As long as we are using a CMS with a lot of built-in functions we won’t need to worry about external tables, SQL and many other functions that could take a little more time to create.

We can use custom post types to store data, by creating a simple custom post type structure and assign meta fields to it, so we don’t need any additional tables, or any complex changes, we will just use WordPress’ built-in functions. Just write a few lines and you are ready for it.

(Actually I’ve stolen Gilbert Pelegron’s idea, who has explained it much better than me. So, to dig a little deeper, check his post )

With this in mind, we can start to think more specifically about which data we will store and process. At this point we create a simple representation of how data should be stored, so we have all the data we need, without redundancy (so we just get the data from one point). There are a lot of ways to do it, but my idea is to save most data in our series entity, so when we get the series all needed data comes together (without additional calls). In this model, our post entity will just have to store which series it belongs to, and the rest is with the series.

As a simple way to represent it, I’ve made an entity-relationship diagram, with a little help from gliffy.

As you can see, our post type series will store almost all data, for a better performance. And its attributes is:

ID - Given by WordPress, when we create a series post.
Name - Title, saved as common WordPress’ post title.
Description - Little text about series. We will user WordPress’ description for this.
Open? - It is useful to know if a series is still open, so is much easier to assign a post to series when you have 1.000 series but just 3 open (you have posts to write for it in future).
Posts[], PostsScreenName[], SeriesSize – As we will use custom fields, I think the better way to store posts is create “fake arrays”. Let’s say we have one series with 3 posts, so we will have Post_1 = 10, Post_2 = 15, Post_3 = 32 and PostScreenName_1 = “Hello World”, PostScreenName_2 = “Hello World – Again”, PostScreenName_3 = “Hello, Hello World”. As we have 3 posts, our SeriesSize must to be 3.

Now, we can get started on coding.

Step 2 – Create our plugin and custom post type

Let’s create a folder inside our WordPress install (I recommend you do a blank 3.1.2 install, this is the version that I’m working with). Our folder name will be 1WDSeries and our plugin file will be 1WDSeries.php.

Plugin Basic Structure

Just open this blank file and write something like this:

php
/*
Plugin Name: 1WD Series
Plugin URI: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/
Description: Creates "Series" custom post type, and makes possible relate normal posts inside one series
Author: Rochester Oliveira
Version: 1.0
Author URI: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/author/rochester/
*/
?>

Those lines are required WordPress data for plugins. Just put a name, URI, Description and it will de shown in wp-admin, when users manage plugins.

Create post type

Before we start creating anything you must have in mind that any function we create here can be called in WordPress after (if this plugin is activated, for sure) AND any WordPress function can be called from this plugin. So we have to put a prefix in all our functions, to ensure that we will not have any conflict with other plugins or WordPress functions.

Our magic function to create custom post types is register_post_type($name,$args). Let’s see how it works:

php
 function wd_registerPostType() {
 //for better understanding when create / edit series we change some default labels
 $labels = array(
 'name' => _x('Series', 'wd_series'),
 'singular_name' => _x('Series', 'wd_series'),
 'add_new' => _x('New Series', 'wd_series'),
 'add_new_item' => __('Add New Series'),
 'edit_item' => __('Edit Series'),
 'new_item' => __('New Series'),
 'view_item' => __('View Series'),
 'search_items' => __('Search Series')
 );
 $args = array(
 'labels' => $labels,
 'public' => true,
 'publicly_queryable' => true,
 'show_ui' => true,
 'query_var' => true,
 'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'series', 'with_front' => false ),
 'capability_type' => 'post',
 'menu_position' => null,
 'supports' => array('title','editor', 'custom-fields')
 );
 register_post_type('wd_series',$args);
 }
 add_action("init", "wd_registerPostType");
?>

The first block set’s up our labels, for different cases for this plugin. That $args part is pretty important because it defines how this custom post type will behave. Important things:

public – whether display or not this post in front-end, admin menu
rewrite – overwrite permalinks structure for this post
capability_type -If it is more like a post (hierarchical and “fixed”), or more like a page (categorized and time-oriented)
menu_position – Set its order in admin menu.
supports – Which common fields this post will have

That last line is what calls the function, every time we call WordPress.
Step 3 – Post functionality
Creating our metabox
Now we need to add a metabox in the post edit screen. A metabox is a panel in our edit mode, in this case with fixed custom inputs. Thus the user doesn’t need to know the field name to add it (via default custom fields insert), moreover we can do some custom actions with this data (create a post series when we have a field “new series”, for example).
The function we need to call is add_meta_box, and it has some simple parameters. We will call it inside a function, so when we create our series metabox (surely it will need one too) we put it all together.
php
 function wd_call_meta() {
 add_meta_box(
 'series-data', // id of the metabox
 'Series setting', // Title
 'wd_post_options', //callback function that will "echo" the contents
 'post', // which post types will have it (page, post, link, wd_series)
 'side', //positioning: side, advanced
 'low' // positioning: low, high
 );
 }

 if (is_admin()) {
 //register metaboxes
 add_action('admin_menu', 'wd_call_meta');
 }
?>

The first block is our magic function, that says to WordPress “hey, when you edit a post, add this box, with these parameters!” The second function, says “hey, when you are in wp-admin don’t forget to call this function”.
We will now create our wd_post_options function, that defines what we have in our metabox. It is a simple HTML,  that we will just add some CSS to make it prettier. But we have to pay attention to get default values so if we are editing a post (not creating) we show the correct current data to the user (if our post is part of series_id 11, for example, we have to show this to the user).
php
 //posts meta
 function wd_post_options() {

 global $post;
 $custom = get_post_custom($post->ID);
 $exist_series = $custom["series_id"][0]; //it comes as array, we have to get the index 0 value
 $order_series = $custom["series_order"][0];
 $closing = $name = "";
 if(!empty($exist_series)) {
 $open = get_post_meta($exist_series, "open", true);
 if ($open == "no") {
 $size = get_post_meta($exist_series, "size", true);
 if ($size == $order_series) { //so, we have the last post in a closed series, this post is the "closing" series post
 $closing = "checked = 'checked'"; //html value that we add to checkbox, to 'check' it, by default
 }
 $key = "name_".$order_series;
 $name = get_post_meta($exist_series, $key, true);
 }
 }
?>
 php echo $name; ?>" />
 
 
 Add to Series (leave blank to remove)
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 Order in series (leave blank to be last)
 
 php echo $order_series; ?>" />
 
 
 
 Close series?
 
 php echo $closing; ?> /> Yes
 
 
 
 Display name in series
 
 
 
 

php
 }
?>

Creating the inputs itself, doesn’t save any data. It is just an input that WordPress ignores when saving default post data, so we need to change it. This is a job for our fantastic add_action function.
Save all this data with custom function
We need to run a function every time we have a post saved or edited. At this point, we have just $_POST data so we need to add our custom fields, and create our custom post type when this post is the first of its series. At this point we will deal with some series custom fields (because it stores almost all data), so it may seem quite strange now, but in the end it’s gonna be all right  :D
php
//saves our post custom data
 function wd_meta($post_id, $post = null) {
 /*
 Custom Fields in posts: series_id
 */
 if ($post->post_type == "post") {
 $title = get_the_title($post_id);

 $old_series = get_post_meta($post_id, "series_id", true);
 //compare old series data, and see if it needs to be rewritten
 $exist_series = (int) @$_POST["wd_exist_series"];
 $new_series   = @$_POST["wd_new_series"];
 $order        = @$_POST["wd_order"];
 $name         = @$_POST["wd_name"];
 $closing      = @$_POST["wd_end"];

 if(!empty($new_series) && $new_series != "New Series Name") {
 //our series have changed, let's delete this post from old series and "resave" it!
 $key = "order_".$post_id;
 $old_order =  get_post_meta($old_series, $key, true);
 delete_post_meta($old_series, $key);

 $key = "post_".$old_order;
 delete_post_meta($old_series, $key);

 $key = "name_".$old_order;
 delete_post_meta($old_series, $key);

 //update old series size
 $old_size = get_post_meta($old_series, "size", true);
 $old_size--;
 update_post_meta($old_series, "size", $old_size);

 //we have a new series, so let's create it, dude!
 $args = array(
 'post_title'  => $new_series,
 'post_status' => 'publish',
 'post_type'   => 'wd_series'
 );
 $series_id = wp_insert_post( $args );

 if (empty($name)) {
 //we don't have any name, so let's use post name
 $name = $title;
 }
 //add this post to series_id and its wd_order and wd_name
 update_post_meta($series_id, "size", 1);
 update_post_meta($series_id, "post_1", $post_id);
 update_post_meta($series_id, "name_1", $name);
 $key = "order_".$post_id;
 update_post_meta($series_id, $key, 1);

 update_post_meta( $post_id, "series_id", $series_id );
 }
 elseif (!empty($exist_series)) {
 // we have a series, let's see if it is still the same
 if ( $exist_series != $old_series) {
 //our series have changed, let's delete this post from old series and "resave" it!
 $key = "order_".$post_id;
 $old_order =  get_post_meta($old_series, $key, true);
 delete_post_meta($old_series, $key);

 $key = "post_".$old_order;
 delete_post_meta($old_series, $key);

 $key = "name_".$old_order;
 delete_post_meta($old_series, $key);

 //update old series size
 $old_size = get_post_meta($old_series, "size", true);
 $old_size--;
 update_post_meta($old_series, "size", $old_size);

 //update series size
 $size = get_post_meta($exist_series, "size", true);
 $size++;
 update_post_meta($exist_series, "size", $size);

 if (!empty($new_order)) {
 //we do have a new order to set, so let's follow it
 $order = $new_order;
 } else {
 //we don't have any order to set, so let's check it as last item
 $order = $size;
 }
 $key = "post_".$order;
 update_post_meta( $exist_series, $key, $post_id );

 if (empty($name)) {
 //we don't have any name, so let's use post name
 $name = $title;
 }
 $key = "name_".$order;
 update_post_meta( $exist_series, $key, $name );

 $key = "order_".$post_id;
 update_post_meta( $exist_series, $key, $order );

 //save new series on this post
 update_post_meta( $post_id, "series_id", $exist_series );
 }
 }
 //closing if needed
 if (!empty($closing)) {
 update_post_meta( $series_id, "open", "no" );
 } else {
 update_post_meta( $series_id, "open", "yes" );
 }
 }
 }
 //add custom meta when we save posts
 add_action("wp_insert_post", 'wd_meta', 10, 2);
?>

Are you hungry yet?
I think we’ve had enough fun for today. In our next post, we add our series meta box, deal with its data and show all this stuff in our theme (via functions and shortcodes). It will be amazing :D
As I know you are a good padawan, and want to know more about all this stuff we worked with here, so here are some good links for reading:

Custom post types
Custom Fields
Add meta box function reference
Action reference (our add_action possible parameters)

WordPress eCommerce: Pros & Cons, Resources & Tools

Faiza — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:00:25 +0000

With advances in technology, the world truly has become a global village. One of the major advancements in recent years that has brought us even closer is eCommerce; eCommerce enables individuals to purchase anything from any part of the world at any time. One just has find what they want online and from there you’re almost assured to be able to buy that item from the comfort of your own home. eCommerce can be made effective by good marketing strategies, kick-ass advertisements, great product endorsements, and awesome plug-ins.

One of the leading CMS’s today for online businesses is WordPress. There are many WordPress eCommerce shopping plug-ins and themes available that you can use to build an online business in no time. This article will help you to find some great shopping plug-ins and themes for your WordPress site.

Pros And Cons

WordPress is popular amongst developers of eCommerce websites for a number of different reasons. One of the major reasons is that it offers applications that are easy to learn and use. These applications are generally quite affordable, and some of them are even free. The majority of the plug-ins and themes supplied by WordPress are open source and light weight in terms of size in comparison to Magento and other famous e-commerce solutions. The only major disadvantage is that it can’t be used for sites with a lot of sales due to heaviness of database queries.

Famous E-commerce Shopping Plug-ins

1. YAK for WordPress

YAK is a solid choice if you are interested in adding an open source shopping cart plug-in. This WordPress plug-in is beneficial for those sites which offers their users software products online. These products may also include e-books as well as other software in zip-files. Customers can purchase your product through any purchasing option provided by the YAK plug-in like cheque, credit card form, Google Checkout, PayPal, PayPal Payments Pro, and Authorize.net. The only thing required is php5 to make your YAK plug-in work properly.

2. Cart66 Pr o

This plug-in enables you to sell digital as well as physical products from your website. If you are willing to make your web page a one stop shop then you should go for this plug-in. It is really a very powerful plug-in for WordPress because you can manage orders, sell your products, place products anywhere on your site or sell internationally. Payments can be received by PayPal Website Payments Standard, PayPal Express Checkout or Manual Checkout. It also has options for UPS real time shipping rates, membership, payment plans and coupons.

3. WordPress eStore plug -in

This WordPress e-commerce plug-in also enables you to sell your digital goods online. The best thing about the WordPress e-store is that it supports multi-site license. It also assures the security of your resources so you know you’ll always be able to provide reliable services. The payment methods are also free from third party interaction. Checkouts are also very sleek. Just as in any other plug-in, you can get your payments via PayPal, 2Checkout, Authorize.net or Manual Payment. Customers can purchase if they have credit card or PayPal account.

4. ES h o p

Eshop is another shopping plug-in for your online store. This WordPress plug-in is helpful in creating product spots because of its compatibility with custom post types. Customers can enjoy shopping by registration. You can upload as well as download product by using E-shop. It also generates automated emails. The best feature of E-shop is that it has basic control of stock and multi-site compatibility. There is an uninstall option available in the file if you don’t want it on your site you can simply use this option. It also gives discount options. Checkout is done by Authorize.net, PayPal, Payson, eProcessingNetwork, Webtopay, iDEAL and Cash/Cheque.

5. WP e-comm erce

The WP e-commerce shopping cart is good to use for selling products and services online. It can also be used to collect fees online if you choose to run a service that requires monthly or yearly fees to be paid. If you are searching for a plug- in which has a high usability factor and great looks, then WP e-commerce is perfect for you. It’s a great solution for selling your albums,crafts, art, books, almost anything really.

6. Word Press Simple PayPal Shopping Cart

This plug-in enables your customers to add items to their shopping cart. It gives your customers an option of one click shopping by providing an “Add to Cart” button in its application. You can also display a shopping cart on the bar or in any post using this plug-in. This plug-in allows the user to add or remove anything from his cart.

7. Quick Shop

This plug-in is enabled by installing a sidebar widget. It allows the user to and and remove items from their cart before purchasing it by showing their selected items in the sidebar. By adding tinyMCE button you can show your inventory list. Editing can be done easily because it integrates itself with CFormsII. You can format your widget layout from Admin–>option–>Quick Shop. It is compatible with WordPress MU.

8. Market press

This was the first plug-in which has a flawless integration with WP multi-site and BuddyPress. If you want to fully use custom post types and catalogs then MarketPress will make it easy for you. It has a number of shortcodes so that your online store can be maintained efficiently. It also provides global listing of products from all over the network of MarketPress stores. It provides well documented custom shipping and gateway modules.

9. WpStoreCart Plugin

This plug-in is also used to sell digital and physical products. This is a free version and has many of the same features that any other e-commerce shopping plug-in has. The merchant gateways include authorize.net, PayPal etc.

10. WP Inv oice

A free WordPress invoicing system. It is supported by different browsers. It includes two widgets so that the customers can view their history and awaiting invoices by signing in. Invoices are powered by paypal and superior Instant Payment Notification system. It has a powerful customizable user interface. Payments can be done by paypal or credit card which is accepted by authorize.net and MerchantPlus NaviGate. Invoice pages are viewed in SSL mode. Invoice look up can be added anywhere on your site if you are using PHP or WordPress shortcodes.

11. FoxyPress Plug-in

This shopping plug-in is similar to the EShop plug-in. It is used with foxy cart to add items on wordpress page or posts. It utilizes a WYSIWYG editor or shortcodes for adding items.

12. TikiPress Plu g-in

TikiPress plug-in is developed to allow you to sell tickets online for an event or products on your WordPress site. This plug-in is new and still in the beta phase.

13. Image Store P lug-in

This plug-in is developed to provide an online image gallery for your wordpress website without anxiety of installation of multiple plug-ins. It is integrated with wordpress database and paypal cart. It is helpful in the growth of your e-commerce website. It enables you to download CSV of sales and customers. You can upload an image through zip file. It provides dynamic editing of images and watermark functionality. It makes your online store a purchasable image gallery. It also ensures the secure access of images by prohibiting its unsafe usage. All entries can be removed by uninstalling them.

14. NoShop Product Pa ge Plug-in

This is a special wordpress plug-in which allows you to create your product list along with their pictures. The shopping cart of this plug-in does not need to have any picture installed in it, it is already present in the list. Pictures used in the list are referenced by URL.

15. GoodRelations For WP E-Commerce Plug-in

If you have an e-commerce store then this plug-in will enrich it with RDFa data for semantic web. It will make your product search engine friendly by enabling search engines to read the details of your product. This plug-in is used by many famous online shops. It is used with WordPress 3.0 and WP e-commerce 3.7.6.7.

16. WP E-Commerce W eight & Destination Shipping Modules Plug-in

This plug-in manages the database for the shipment of products. It allows you to send your shipment on the basis of weight and continent or weight and country. Quotes can be calculated by summing up the entire cart price against its configured weight bands. It can also be done by adding the individual item’s cost.

Famous WordPress E-commerce Themes

1. The Cloth es Shop

The clothes shop is a theme which is developed to enable you to create a web site for you to sell your products using images or videos. This theme has a front-end customer registration and login protected account area. It has 30 independent and 22 custom widgets. The best part of this theme is that it includes the option for a customer to create a “wish list”. It works with WordPress 3.0 and 3.1 and is cross browser compatible. The regular license is available for only $40. One can test the theme by paying in advance via bank transfer, cash at store or cash payment on delivery. It is a reasonable amount to buy a plug-in free, localized theme.

2. The Fur niture Store

The furniture store is a WordPress e-commerce theme with two localized child themes. It has 27 independent and 23 custom widgets. It also has an optional blog. It is an image based, cross browser compatible theme that you can purchase for only $45 and also includes a customer login area.

3. ViroS hop

This e-commerce theme has a built-in shopping cart plug-in and a jquery fancy slider. This theme has a product viewer, a registration area and an optional blog. The regular license of the theme is offered for $35.

4. enVira Shop

This e-commerce shopping plug-in has a built-in shopping cart and an admin theme options. There are five color themes which are available for ribbon and cart and an enhanced jquery.

5. Sofa Sho ppr

This theme has 8 built-in widgets with multi level drop down navigation. It utilizes either a jQuery slider or a flash gallery.You can display multiple prices for listed products. it is entirely customizable through theme option page. It is a available in wordpress 3.0 and 3.1 version. It’s cross browser compatible and available for $40.

6. RG BStore

It is a web 2.0 WordPress theme for shopping cart applications. The theme is available in three colors: red, green and blue. It works with wordpress 3.0. This theme is available with 6 page templates. It has a cross browser compatibility.

7. Crafty C art

It is a retro style WordPress e-commerce theme for making your site an e-shop for shirts and handmade items. This theme requires the WP e-commerce plug-in for shopping cart functionality as its design has an add to cart button and a shopping cart widget. It is a free wordpress e-commerce theme.

8. Sim ple Cart

It is a simple and powerful wordpress theme. It has a grid layout of for products and AJAX cart functionality. Images are easy to swap out and the whole theme is completely customizable.

9. wpSt ore

This theme is also available for free. It supports up to WP e-commerce 3.7.8. You can give an exclusive look to your e-commerce site by using this theme. The sidebar of the theme contains shopping cart, brands list and top products which is adjustable from product edit page.

Inspiration Gallery of Shops Made With WP

1. Worm Sig n T-shirts

2. M ythCast

3. Ecadem y Press

4. John Stei n’s Art Journal & Gallery Shop

5. Cyber Suicide

6. Recycle d Mags

7. Rub yPDF Technologies

8. Brando n Dayton

9. Macon & Lesq uoy

10. Smill asSmycken

Tutorials to Learn The Development of E-commerce Website With WP

The above list includes WordPress E-commerce shopping tools and resources that you can include in your website to increase business. Their installation links have been included in the images so that you can easily download them directly from here and save your precious time from searching them on web.

Add to Series (leave blank to remove)
Order in series (leave blank to be last)	php echo $order_series; ?>" />
Close series?	php echo $closing; ?> /> Yes
Display name in series