The wonderful community of WordPress developers constantly provides us with interesting new themes and plugins. I have scanned the most recent WordPress plugin releases and came up with a list of 10 plugins definitely worth taking a look at.

Keep in might that these are new releases and so, their stability and status should be considered as BETA. You might want to test them on a backup server before going live. The descriptions listed here are those submitted by the plugins’ authors and do not necessarily express my views.

1. WP Content Slideshow

WP Content Slideshow shows up to 5 Posts in a very nice and powerfull Javascript Slideshow. On the left side of the Slideshow it displays an image for every post. On the right side, there are all the titles (and a small description under the title) of the posts. The Slideshow highlights the active post and repeats automatically after getting to the 5th post. You have a powerfull Administration Area to adjust the category, the number of posts, the width and height, and many colours for the Slideshow!

Download: WP Content Slideshow
Compatibility: 2.6+

2. Sidebar Generator

Now you can create as many sidebars as you need for any page you want. Thats right, page/post specific sidebars. You can easily seperate your site into sections, or make every single page have specific sidebar content on it. Great for CMS sites.

Download: Sidebar Generator
Compatibility: 2.8.0+

3. WordPress Tabs Slides

Tabs and Slides (in post/page) Plugin gives you the ability to easily add content tabs and/or content slides. The tabs emulate a multi-page structure, while the slides emulate an accordion-like structure, inside a single page!

Download: WordPress Tabs Slides
Compatibility: 2.5+

4. Custom Login Page

With the Custom Login Page, you can change the background image of your login page, the background image/color of your login form div, the main logo image of your login page, and add custom CSS. All through a simple interface. Remember to view the Help tab at the top of the settings page of the plugin.

Download: Custom Login Page
Compatibility: 2.0.2+

5. Featured Page Widget

Allows you to feature pages on your sidebar using an excerpt of the page and a text or image link to the page.

Download: Featured Page Widget
Compatibility: 2.8 – 2.8.4 (maybe 2.8.5)

6. Ecwid Shopping Cart

Ecwid is free full-fledged shopping cart that can be easily add to any blog. It offers the performance and flexibility you need, with none of the hassles you don’t.

Download: Ecwid Shopping Cart
Compatibility: 2.7+

7. SubHeading

This plugin uses a custom field to allow subheadings to be added to both posts and pages. The custom sub heading field is re-positioned so that it is displayed directly below the main title.

Download: SubHeading
Compatibility: 2.8.2+

8. ShowTime Slideshow

Displays all pictures attached to a post/page as a slideshow. Simple setup. This plugin requires Adobe Flash, reverts nicely to default WordPress gallery if Flash is not found. Choose among high quality transitions. Ken Burns (pan&zoom) and many other effects. Full Screen mode.

Download: ShowTime Slideshow
Compatibility: 2.7+

9. Quick Adsense

Quick Adsense is an Ads management Wordpress plugin. It offers a quicker & flexible way to insert Adsense or any Ads code into a blog post. Besides, it can randomly place the Ads anywhere within a post. It comes with a simple setting page, and it does not overwhelm you with complicated customizable options.

Download: Quick Adsense
Compatibility: 2.5 – 2.8.4 (maybe 2.8.5)

10. Members

Members is a plugin that extends your control over your blog. It’s a user, role, and content management plugin that was created to make WordPress a more powerful CMS. The plugin is created with a components-based system — you only have to use the features you want.

Download: Members
Compatibility: 2.8+

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Recently I came across a relatively young WordPress plugin that allow WordPress users and designers to use basically any TrueType font you have on your computer on your WordPress blog, replacing post titles, widget titles, links and so on with automatically generated SEO-smart images using your desired font. The plugin is called AnyFont and it has been developed by Ryan Peel

The generated images have a very good level of clarity, way better than the classic SWF replacement and the plugin is really easy to administrate and customize.

AnyFont plugin management

See for yourself how easy it is to set up the output style:

And the output is really good:

As I said, the output is SEO friendly, each image being given an ALT and TITLE attribute that either automatically take content from the original text, or you can set your own values.

The plugin also uses an image-caching system to ease the server load.

Click here to go to the AnyFont plugin download page.

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While working on a couple of WordPress projects these days, I’ve been on the look out for some new WordPress plugins. During my searches I’ve come across some really cool and useful plugins that you might want to check out too.

Manual Related Links

Tired of the old and sometimes irrelevant automated “Related posts”. This new WordPress plugin allows you to hand pick the links to be displayed at the end of your posts. Also works with off site links. Some might think that it’s a waste of time, other like me will see the value in giving the reader really relevant, hand-picked links.
Download hereWP Version: 2.7+
Author: Aaron D. Campbell

WP htaccess Control

No need to access the FTP or the cPanel anymore to add rules to your .htaccess file. With WP htaccess Control you get to do that from the comfort of your WP Admin screen.
Download hereWP Version: 2.7+
Author: António Andrade aka Dardna

Magazine Columns

This is a cool WordPress plugin for all you “magazine-style” fans out there. Ever wanted you posts to be displayed split into 2, 3 or more columns, just like in a newspaper? By adding a shorttag – <!–column–> into your posts you’ll be able to do so. Easy to use, nice result.
Download hereWP Version: 2.7+
Author: Chris Bavota

Pretty Links

“Pretty Links” is a nice little plugin that allows you to setup custom URLs on your blog to act as either short URLs or affiliate marketing links. Also features click statistics.
Download hereWP Version: 2.7.1+
Author: Blair Williams

Template Tag Shortcodes

Justin Tadlock, author of the cool Query Posts plugin gives us yet a new useful tool for our blog. The “Template Tag Shortcodes” does exactly what the name says. It takes WordPress’ template tags that you usually use in your hardcoded templates and transforms them into shortcodes that you can also use in you blog posts and pages, in the admin screen. Really cool, and supports over 40 template tags and growing.
Download hereWP Version: 2.5+
Author: Justin Tadlock

Post Snippets

This plugin comes in handy when dealing with post series and recurring snippets of code and text in your blog posts. Setup new snippets of HTML code via the plugin admin page, then call them in you posts through a small button that’s added to you post edit TinyMCE editor.
Download hereWP Version: 2.7+
Author: Johan Steen

Important

As all of these plugins are recently released, I would advise some testing before going live. If you have access to a local server of test version of your blog, try using these plugins there first.

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Hey friends, as you might have noticed, yesterday I’ve released the 1.2 version of the Latest Posts by Category WP Plugin. As the time was short and the update was needed, I decided to leave the localization of the plugin for the next update.

As I’m typing this, the plugin is set to English as default, and I’ve already created the Romanian translation file.

How can you help?

If you’re proficient in any other languages than English and Romanian – like Spanish, French, German – and you’re willing to give me a helping hand in translating 19 short phrases, contact me via email. Tell me which language are you willing to help with and I’ll send you a text file with the required translations.

Not to be picky, but native speakers would be preferred, as each language has its own little tricks.

Each translator will receive a link to his/her website on the plugin download page and in the info files in the download package.

Already in the works: Croatian, German, Spanish, French, Bulgarian.

Thank you!

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Today I’ve exchanged a few emails with one of Simple Balance’s users which made me think about several things that users could do to help out WordPress themes and plugins developers.

This article is written purely for the purpose of giving you an idea on how to give back to those that invest time and knowledge to give your free quality WordPress resources.

So, here are a few things you can do to help them out:

Offer to test out their themes and plugins

If their project is still in Beta stage, ask to join the testing group or register we’re this is permitted. Test out the product in whatever environment you have available and report bugs and unusual behavior to the designer / developer. They are only humans and most of the time work on too many project and might miss out things, being so closely involved in the project. An outsider could observe things that they can not.

You can also test the projects after the official release. Help is welcome anytime.

Advice: Before reporting a bug, make sure that it is a bug and not something that you’re doing the wrong way. Read the documentation and be sure of what you’re doing, otherwise, the so-called bug could turn into a time-loss for the developer, instead of a helping hand.

Give feedback, ideas and solutions for improvement

Do you think that a theme or a plugin could benefit from a feature that has not yet been introduced? Talk to the developer. Present them your ideas and argument them. If you also have a solution in mind, present it to them. Feedback and the collaboration between developers and users has always been the backbone of open-source and freeware.

Spread the word

It takes a few minutes to write a short post about the resource you enjoy. Do a quick tweet about it or submit it to your favorite social media websites. Help the resource and the developer gain exposure. The more help and feedback he receives, the better the chances for the resource to become even better with future releases.

Financial support

Most of the times, the developers of free WordPress themes and plugins don’t count on any financial income from their work. In most of these cases, they only rely on backlinks from their branded themes or announcement posts on others blog.

To some (those that don’t make a living out of this) that might be enough, but for others it’s not. I know that the economy is not great this times and I know that many don’t have the possibility to make a donation with PayPal or in any other way that the developer could accept.

But from where I stand I also know one thing. If I come across a resource that improves the way I blog, that makes me more efficient, that resource deserves my donation. You choose the amount, as long as it keeps you financially safe and the developer financially happy.

Final considerations

None of the above are mandatory, and each one of you could do all, one, or none of them. What I can guarantee you is that doing them will get you in return the developers respect, and in most cases, even better support than you would receive from premium developers.

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The Latest Posts by Category Archive WordPress plugin has been updated to version 1.2.

This is a major update as from now on, the plugin is also available as a widget for your widget-ready areas and comes with new styling options dedicated to customize the output of the widget.

The styling options are well documented and the documentation can be found as PDF and HTML files in the download package.

Download the 1.2 plugin version from the original post.

Please report unusual behaviors or bugs via this posts comments section.

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By popular demand, the Latest Posts by Category Archive WordPress plugin has been updated to version 1.1 which currently includes the option to also display post dates, via hardcode or shortcodes.

Also, for WordPress 2.7+ users, a dashboard widget has been added that keeps track of the version in used and compares it to the most recent version available, for you to know when it’s time for a new update.

The updated plugin can be downloaded here.

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After posting the Latest Posts by Category Archive tutorial, I’ve received requests to transform the code into a WordPress plugin.

Update: Version 1.2 has been released. Read about the changes below, in the “Version History” section.

The Features of ‘Latest Posts by Category Archive’ WP Plugin

Here’s the list of features currently available:

• Can be used via hard-coding inside page templates;
• Can be used as a widget in your widget-ready areas;
• Can be used via shortcodes inside pages’ or posts’ content;
• Can be used either inside or outside the loop;
• Can limit the archive to certain categories, or exclude certain categories;
• Can display or hide post dates;
• Can display or hide post excerpts and adjust their length in words;
• Can set the number of listed post from 1 to ‘all’.

Version history

Version 1.2

• The plugin is now available as a widget for your blog’s widget ready areas;
• The widget’s output can be easily customized using a few newly added CSS classes. Information about the widget is available in the plugin documentation, which is also included in the download package;
• Fixed the dashboard area that notifies WP 2.7+ users on the latest plugin version available.

Version 1.1

• Added option to display post dates;
• Added dashboard widget for plugin version tracking (Only available for WP 2.7+ users).

Documentation

The plugin documentation is available for download in PDF format: LPBC Documentation (2268)

For further information and plugin updates, please refer to this page, as it will be edited with further improvements.

Live demo

The following list has been generated by the use of the next shortcode within this post’s content:

[lpbc posts="3" categories="1,3,23" more="Archive of %name%"]

Enjoy the plugin!

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The flexibility of WordPress has always been its strong point. The fact that you can tweak and twist it to your own will with just a bit of knowledge and an extraordinary support from a large community of developers and blogger transformed what initially was a blogging tool into a powerful website CMS, may it be a blog, photoblog, portfolio or simple presentation website.

And since its flexibility is undisputed, the folks at Instinct, a New Zealand development company, took it a little further with their WP e-Commerce plugin.

Here’s what they have to say about their plugin:

The WordPress e-Commerce plugin is a state-of-the-art e-Commerce platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards and usability. It is both free and priceless at the same time.

Let’s see about that!

The Good

If your coding knowledge is limited, you have the chance of getting your own online store up and running in about 5 minutes, including the download. That’s a big plus.

If offers a wide range of settings for your products, including extra custom fields, product variations, promotions, coupon codes and downloadable products. Again something worth having.

There are many payment gateways that you can use, including PayPal and Google Checkout, and transactions are made safely through SSL connections. To that you can also add downloadable CSV sales reports.

Subscriptions with recurring billing are also available with the purchase of an upgrade module called Gold Cart. Individual bloggers can get a license for $25, while businesses have to check their pockets for $195. Although they are not very specific about these licenses, I suspect that the “business license” simply allows more installations.

And to top all the good features, this plugin is free, which is really great.

Until now it sounds like a dream, I know, but let’s check out the downside.

The Bad & the Ugly

The easy part is to install the plugin, but what comes after can prove to be a real nightmare if your knowledge is limited or if you’re a perfectionist.

With the free license, you only get one way to display products in category view, similar to a list. If you need a grid view, you’ll have to get the cash rolling and buy an upgrade. Let’s say that this being a customization, you either do it yourself, or support the developers by buying the grid module.

But what it you decide to do it yourself? Tough luck. You’ll bump into poorly organized code, with insufficient comments. If you’re used to WordPress’ logical file naming structure, you’ll get a headache trying to figure out what goes where. But you’ll get to it… in time.

If your patience runs out you’ll probably look for documentation. Aside from the information you’ll get on how to manage your store, containing most of the plugin’s screens there’s not much to see. There little info on development and integration. And I meen LITTLE.

The community lacks of real official support and most times users do their best answering each other’s questions.

Considering the four years (or so they say) spent developing this solution, I think they should have took a bit to invest into documenting it right, which apparently they did not.

And, after four years, there’s no built-in search capability, at least with the free package. If you try using your regular WordPress search box you’ll get no results, as product entries are stored in a different set of tables, other than WP’s regular ones.

There’s also not widget to simplify the search and if you go into developing themes with WP e-Commerce support, you’ll notice the lack of “template tags”. There are 4 or 5 of them, but mostly not very useful. One template tag per year of development doesn’t seem OK to me. Ohh, but you can have a product search box if you buy the Gold Cart upgrade. It figures.

Conclusions

While the WP e-Commerce WordPress plugin might satisfy the needs of a not so picky user, after 6 hours of continuous tweaking I decided to let it go. I can get a new (not so spectacular, but from scratch) WP Theme up and running in a maximum of 2 hours, so I hate “tweaking” a plugin for almost 6 hours, only to discover more things that need tweaking.

I’m not saying it might not be right for you. I’m just saying that you have to have an open pocket to upgrade and a lot of patience to adjust.

If I were to rate it, I’d say that it is far from being a “state-of-the-art e-Commerce platform” as claimed, but rather a solution for those with low expectations. 3.5 out of 5 stars would be fair for this WordPress plugin, and mostly because of the poor community support and documentation.

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Everyone gets all excited about WordPress when they find that nearly any feature they could want can be added through a plugin system, but there are issues with depending on plugins that people should consider before loading up on additional features.

Delays in Releases

One of the biggest issues that occurs in the WordPress plugin world is that the plugin developers can’t keep up with the developments in the WordPress core. A great example of this is PodPress, a very popular podcasting plugin for WordPress that still, after two months, does not have a new release to work with WordPress 2.6.

Dropping support

One day the plugin that you enjoy using might just disappear. The developer giving up on supporting it, and if it isn’t very popular in the wider circles, then there will most likely not be anyone there to pick up where they left off. This looked like it was going to happen to the very popular All in One SEO plugin, but at the last minute, someone else committed themselves to furthering the plugin.

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting performance issues is nearly impossible if you are like myself and install multiple plugins all at once. Then to find where the bottleneck in performance came from you have to deactivate them. Sometimes though, issues don’t arise until a combination of plugins are active, or you do certain things that they weren’t developed for.

An issue I had on College Crunch, a WordPress powered blog, was that I had made many pages, rather than posts, and in doing so, a plugin that effected how I managed pages started having issues, causing the page management screen to be blank. I deactivated every plugin that I thought interacted with pages, but it was one that was related to searching and SEO. I didn’t realize this until someone else turned it off resolving the issue immediately. I would have never guessed, and so I had blamed WordPress, the web host, and everything else. I definitely felt like I had egg on my face after that, and will definitely endeavor to blame WordPress plugins before anything else.

Conclusion

The more plugins you add to your WordPress blog, the more chances you’ll have to expose yourself to one of the many downsides of a community oriented plugin system. I love WordPress because of its plugins, but I have had my share of frustrations due to them as well.

About the author

David Peralty is the owner the “eXtra For Every Publisher” blog, also know as XFEP. He’s got a strong background in the online environment gathered while working with companies such as Splashpress Media and PicApp. He’s currently a Project Manager over at CollegeCrunch.org. If you still haven’t subscribed to his blog, you’re really missing out on things that you shouldn’t miss.

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As you might remember, a while ago I’ve recommended you the plugins developed by GeekyWeekly: My Link Order, My Page Order and My Category Order.

I’d still recommend them to everyone how wants to organize his blog easier and better, even if recently I’ve found out that the My Link Order plugin generates an XHTML validation error, specifically: it creates an ID duplicate for each blog roll category that you add.

The validation error could look like:

ID "mylinkorder" already defined

or

anchor "mylinkorder" already defined

My Link Order Fix

So, how to fix this? Actually it’s pretty simple.

1. Navigate to your plugins folder and open for editing the mylinkorder.php file;

2. Find this line of code:

'category_before' => $before_widget, 'category_after' => $after_widget,

Depending on the plugin version, it should be between lines 180 and 200.

3. Comment the like by adding 2 slashes at the beginning, so the end result would look like:

//'category_before' => $before_widget, 'category_after' => $after_widget,

4. That’s it! Upload the file and enjoy your valid ordered blog.

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