Useful WordPress Additions

Although WordPress was initially designed as a tool for publishing blogs it is great for building all sorts of web sites. As an all purpose Content Management System (CMS) it is the most popular tool on the Internet. For constructing web sites I have moved from hand coding HTML, to Dreamweaver and then Joomla!, before settling on WordPress (as well as my own simple ↓markdown↓ CMS). WordPress has a couple of negatives against it. It has become so sophisticated that it needs regular maintenance to keep it up to date. This is because its popularity makes it a target for hackers and spammers. As a blogging and CMS system it's great out of the box, however, a few extras does give it more flexibility. In this article I list the useful WordPress additions that have provided extra functionality over the years.

Plugins

This list of plugins is in the form link to plugin - link to plugin home page (if available).

• Jetpack – Jetpack
• Better Search – Better Search Home Page
  
• Solve Media CAPTCHA – Solve Media
• SAM Pro (Free Edition), previously Simple Ads Manager – SimpleLib
• Crayon Syntax Highlighter - GitHub
• Bad Behavior - Bad Behaviour Home
• Redirection - Redirection's Home Page

Note eShop by quirm.net has been removed as the download is no longer available.

Theme Moding

When customising WordPress it is important to use child themes. Dig around the tutorials at Voodoo Press for some info.

Site Index aka Site Map

Once a WordPress based website has more than a few posts and pages an A to Z Index is useful. See the article A to Z Index and Site Map for WordPress, the code can be downloaded.