Clean and simple list of the plugins I use most often on my WordPress sites and some that I’ve included just because they’re too cool to not mention.
Review of the Best WordPress Plugins
Have you optimized your WordPress MySQL database lately?
Why you need to optimize your WordPress MySQL database The database is the most important component in the whole WordPress content management system. Everything you enter in the WordPress Dashboard including all the content of your posts and pages, categories, tags, settings, etc., is written to the database. WordPress and the various themes and plugins […]
Backing up your WordPress website database and files
Why do you need to back up your self-hosted WordPress site? Backing up your website is the single if not only true thing you can do to protect your site. If your site is hacked or if your web hosting server crashes, a good backup is the only fall back you have. What parts of […]
How to Choose WordPress Plugins
As of today there are 29,118 plugins on WordPress.org and counting! There are also numerous premium or paid plugins available on other sites such as Code Canyon and many other private companies. With so many choices, where do you begin? Here are some simple tips to help make your selection process easier: 1 – Start with a […]
Single Image Lightbox
Q: Is there a plugin that can activate a lightbox-style (or thickbox-style) effect for individual images? Or are they all gallery related only? Yes, Simple Lightbox is a great, free lightbox plugin that allows you to insert an image or group of images on a post or page and view them in a lightbox effect […]
Create an Image Gallery in WordPress Using a Lightbox Plugin
[Note: I updated the list of lightbox plugins below to include more current plugins on 29 May 2015. I only recommend plugins that have a high download number and ongoing support and maintenance. If you run across a plugin you really like, please comment. Thanks. ~Angela] WordPress supports image galleries without having to use any […]
Fancy Borders for NextGEN Gallery Galleries
Inspired by fancy CSS image borders on Web Designer Wall, I wanted to see if I could get the same CSS to work with a NextGEN Gallery gallery. Below are the results. If you’d like to use these borders, here’s what you need to do: 1 – Download this zip file and unzip/decompress it. 2 […]
Gravity Forms Placeholder Text that Works with IE
Surprisingly Gravity Forms hasn’t implemented the placeholder feature for Gravity Forms input elements. The placeholder allows you to show placeholder text inside the field instead of using field labels to create more concise looking forms like this: On June 22, 2011, Jorge Pedret, a freelance web developer, came up with a solution to the Gravity […]
How do I set up RSS Feeds on my WordPress website?
Q. How do I set up RSS Feeds and enable email subscription to feeds on my self-hosted WordPress website? Also, how do I promote that feed elsewhere (like on my LinkedIn account)? By default, WordPress comes with various feeds (http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Feeds). These different feeds are invoked via template tags in the WordPress theme header.php file. You […]
3 Great Plugins for Embedding Video on WordPress Post or Page
Q: How do I embed video on my website? A: The answer to this question depends on who owns the video and where it is hosted. If it’s a video you’ve created, and you want to host it on your site, then you’ll want to convert the video file (whether it’s an .mov, .avi, or […]