Dec
28
Posted (Van Santos) in Blogging Tools on December-28-2008

Time for another batch of potentially useful Wordpress plugins that are new to the community.  I am currently testing the following items, and have had no major issues thus far, but I cannot yet fully state they are 100% stable.

That out of the way, let’s get to it.

Phpinclude

If you are a PHP developer, I’m guessing you have had the urge to execute code in Wordpress at one point or another.  You can user an iFrame and call your PHP code but that can get a bit… well, it can be a pain to do so over and over.  While other plugins have attempted to execute PHP in the past, they never seemed to work properly – not that they were bad – they just never work right all of the time.  

Enter phpinclude.  

Thus far the plugin has performed flawlessly, and I may finally be able to successfully include PHP into the blog.

WP Post Styling 

This is a very interesting concept, one that I was interested in doing myself, but Joe Dolson got there before I did.  This plugin allows users to add custom styles to be applied to specific pages or posts.  Sweet idea and good execution.

Check them out, give them a try and thank the creators for their efforts.



 
Dec
21
Posted (Van Santos) in Blogging Tools on December-21-2008

Developers are always releasing new plugins for Wordpress.  As the blogging platform is “alive”, it’s always interesting to see what is hitting the community.  Here are some of the newest, most promising, plugins I’ve found in the last few days.

AutoSuggest Searches

You know how you go to Google and start typing in the search box and suggestions drop down, allowing you to pick from a list of potential results?  Bingo. That is exactly what you have here for your site.  

WordPress Video Solution Framework

Developed by Automattic, the group behind Wordpress, this is a solid release.  This plugin provides a video framework, including a transcoder and  and administration screen.  Note that a significant amount of configuration is required, so if you are not a “technical” person you may want to stay way

Google Custom Search Plugin for Wordpress

Now this is promising (and MUCH needed).  One reason I do not have a search function on the site is due to the poor performance of the built-in search feature.  Wordpress is a blog platform, not a search platform, so why would the development team spend huge amounts of time developing search functionality? Well, this plugin removes the old search and utilizes Google to provide search results to your readers!

I haven’t tested any of these extensions as of yet, so be warned, you may be getting a product that is less than perfect.  From what I’ve see and read, however, they really look to have promise.