WordPress – Plugins/Themes

WordPress, the publishing software which runs this blog as well, is powerful because of 2 things

1. You can add additional functionality in the form of plugins.
2. You can change the look and feel of the blog just by a click and the changes are applied instantly.

Plugins

BlogJoint has compiled a list of Top WordPress plugins. You can find other posts mentioning the top plugins, only that this page mentions 80% of the plugins that I use !

These are some of the other plugins that I use and which are not listed in BlogJoints list

1. Autometa – Automatically generate and include HTML Meta Tags and Technorati Tags based on the full text of your post
2. Bad Behavior – Deny automated spambots access to your PHP-based Web site.
3. Browser Sniff – Detects web browser type and operating system. You can see this being used in the comments.
4. CoComment Enhancer – Inserts the needed javascript to improve interaction with cocomment.com of your WordPress blog. You can find more information on CoComments here.
5. Head Meta Description – Inserts HTML META description tag: excerpt/content brief for post/Page, description for category, and blog tagline for everything else. This plugin has helped in getting more traffic from search engines.
6. Google Analytics – This plugin makes it simple to add Google Analytics to your blog. Also as mentioned in my previous post, it can be used to track outbound links in your site.
7. WPVideo – Allows you to insert online videos in your post by providing the video url between the <video> tags. Also allows download the video (using Videodownloader) with a link below the video
8. SideBar Widgets – This plugin makes the management of contents in the sidebar very easy. I am not sure how BlogJoint missed this plugin !!

Themes

There are so many themes for wordpress and it makes it hard to decide on one theme. I have currently stuck to the K2 theme, and its working like a charm. Even then I am always on the lookout for much better looking themes and I am always buzy testing different themes on my local wordpress setup🙂

SilentBits has put together a pretty nice list of Top WordPress themes. I Here are the links

Best WordPress Themes – Part 1

Best WordPress Themes – Part 2

I kind of liked the ScaryLittle and fSpring theme very much and might be shifting to one of these in the coming days.

Also do check his compilation of Non blog style wordpress themes. Kiwi and Squibble really stand out 🙂