Happy New Year – here’s a listing of some of the plugins I added to my blog in recent months and have fast become some of my favorites to recommend to WordPress users:
Different Posts Per Page – Set default value for each different page in WordPress. For example, without this plugin, if you have 1 post set to be viewed on your front page – then only 1 post will show on your archives, search, categories and tags pages. But, you may want more of a listing on those internal pages. With this plugin – you can set values for each of those pages, completely bypassing the setting in Options/Reading in your WordPress administration panel.
Single Click Plugin Updater – A very handy plugin that extends the plugin notification system, introduced in WordPress version 2.3. This plugin also provides an ‘update automatically’ link that, when clicked, will automatically download and install the new version on your blog.
SideBlog – makes it easy and painless for you to add “Asides” to your blog. For an example of “Asides” – you can see an example on my personal blog. On the right side of the site, you’ll see a green area with the title “On the side…snippets of stuff” – - kind of a nice way to have a ’side blog’ on your main blog to post small snippets of info that don’t necessarily require a full-blown blog post. Good for announcements and such.
Post Notification – a plugin that sends out notifications to registered users of your blog whenever you update with a new post.
Smilies Themer – a fun plugin that allows you to use smilies (emoticons) themes (or packs) to replace the wordpress default ones.
Hi Lisa,
I had a question and didn’t know where to put it, so I’m throwing it up here. I am adding a Terms of Service to my website. Do you know of a WP Plugin that I can use to 1) have visitors register and 2) accept the TOS? It would be nice if it were a widget (I think that’s the correct terminology) that could be placed at the top right of my page somewhere. As always, many thanks for your help.
Sounds like that would require some custom alterations of the registration process within Wordpress – - I’m not aware of an existing plugin that would tie the registration to a TOS acceptance.