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30+ Helpful WordPress Tricks And Hacks

cosmos — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:00:21 +0000

As an experienced WordPress user, we keep ourselves updated with the development of the core, plugin releases and useful WordPress tips and tricks shared by developers and enthusiasts. In today’s post, we’d like to share with you updated WordPress tips and tricks and plugins that are interesting and useful. Without further ado, here’s another 30+ More Useful WordPress Tricks & Hacks.

Full list after jump.

Antivirus for WordPress

AntiVirus for WordPress monitors malicious injections and warns you of any possible attacks.
Digg/bury blog comments like Digg.com

This plugin will allow users to digg / bury every thread of your comments, thus find out the most valuable comments as well as the human-spammers.
Spell, Style and Grammar check with After the Deadline

Smart plugin that uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing technology to find your writing errors and offer smart suggestions.
Detect Adblocker and display alternative

Anti-AdBlock WordPress Plugin detects if a regular visitor to your blog (10 visits by default) has AdBlock software enabled. If so, it will display a floating notification message on the 11th visit to your visitor.
Insert anything into WordPress Blog Post – WP-Insert

An allrounder wordpress plugin which takes care of it all be it your ads, your feeds, your tracking codes even the way you edit your posts!
Improved web typography in WordPress – WP-typography

A one stop shop for improved web typography in WordPress. Ability includes:
- Hyphenation
- Spacing control, including: gluing values to units, widow protection, and forced internal wrapping of long URLs & email addresses.
- Intelligent character replacement, including smart handling of: quote marks ( "foo" ), dashes ( foo - bar ), ellipses ( … ), trademarks ( ™ ), math symbols ( 1024×768 ), fractions ( 12/23 ), and ordinal suffixes ( 3rd )
- CSS hooks for styling: ampersands (class "amp"), acronyms (class "caps"), numbers (class "numbers"), initial single quotes (class "quo"), and initial double quotes & guillemets (class "dquo").
Improve page load time – WP Minify

Once enabled, this plugin will combine and compress JS and CSS files to improve page load time.
Disable Comments in Old Posts via PHP

Simply set the desired number of days by changing the number “30” to whatever you would like. As is, this script will close comments, pingbacks and trackbacks on all articles posted more than 30 days ago.
Custom ‘Read More’ and Thumbnailed Recent Posts

Display a customized Read More message and display related post in Thumbnails by manipulating WordPress custom fields.
Add shadows to a range of objects

WordPress Shadows plugin is a plugin to add shadows to a range of objects. Currently supported are images, divs and blockquotes.
Implement E-Commerce Shopping Cart – WP e-Commerce

State-of-the-art e-Commerce platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards and usability. Similar plugin: MiniCart
Alternative way to display dates – WP-RelativeDate

Change date displays to ‘Today’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘2 Days Ago‘, ‘2 Weeks Ago‘, ‘2 ‘Seconds Ago‘, ‘2 Minutes Ago‘, ‘2 Hours Ago‘.
Vote Post Up/Down

This plugin adds voting functionality for posts. This function is similar to Reddit or Digg, in that visitors can vote for and against.
WordPress Thread Comment

An enhancement for WordPress’s comment function. It enables users to reply on a exist comment, and the discussion will be displayed threaded or nested.
Add private notes to WordPress blog post

How to leave admin-visible notes on a public visible blog posts.
Customized Greeting Messages – WP Greet Box

This plugin lets you show a different greeting message to your new visitors depending on their referrer url. For example, when a Digg user clicks through from Digg, they will see a message reminding them to digg your post if they like it. Similar plugin: Referrer Detector
Allow users to upload and share photos at ease – PhotoSmash Galleries

PhotoSmash Galleries makes it easy to create photo galleries in posts or pages that your users can upload images to. Click here for a demo.
Thank your commentators with Thank Me Later

Automatically sends out thank you emails to readers after they post a comment. By default, it will send emails out after 1 day to remind readers of their comments and to get them engaged with future discussion and your blog. Comment Relish is another similar plugin worth a mention.
Paginated Comments

Plugin that gives you the ability to break your comments into a number of search engine optimized pages. Particulary useful if you have a lot of comments on blog posts.
Check for Broken Links

This plugin will monitor your blog looking for broken links and let you know if any are found. It also works for images.
Manage who sees the ads

Advanced ad management plugin that lets you decide who will see your ads, depending on user defined conditions. Click here to see a demo.
WordPress Download Counter

Shows the current download count and even refreshes the count every 15 seconds automatically.
Add Post Thumbnails with ease – Simple Post Thumbnails

With the Simple Post Thumbnails plugin, adding thumbnail images to your posts is as easy as uploading any image (no editing required) and clicking the “Update Post” button. Upon upload, the plugin will re-size and crop the selected image according to whatever parameters you specify within the plugin configuration.
Display Thumbnails for Related Post

How to increase pageviews by adding thumbnails to related posts using the popular YARPP plugin and WordPress custom fields.
Link Codes to 33 Social Bookmarking Sites

If you prefer to manage and control your own blog posts’ permalinks to their respective social bookmarking sites instead of using plugins, these WordPress link codes will come in handy.
Display Random Posts from Category

List random posts from a chosen category. You can choose how many posts to display, and whether to show the excerpt or the full content in addition to the post title.
Mass manage WordPress custom fields

Useful plugin to help people who use WordPress to manage their post’s custom fields with ease.
Create beautiful blogroll down-drop (without Javascripts)

Title says it all. Click here for a demo.
Automatically insert content after each post

If you have something you’d like to insert in every blog post, this trick will save you from manually inserting them to each post one by one.
Better commenting functions and management with Intense Debate

A great commenting module that makes the default WordPress module looks really dumb. Read more about what Intense Debate can do.
Better WordPress Search Page

By using a template file you can completely control the look and feel of the search results page.
Filter content by country

This plugins allows you to control the visibility of WordPress elements depending on the users country of origin. You can hide or show certain elements of a page or some sections of a post from users browsing from a particular country.
Create your own private Twitter site using WordPress

Turn your WordPress blog into Twitter alike site.

24 Helpful WordPress Security Plugins and Some Tips and Tricks

cosmos — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:19:13 +0000

After putting in all of the time, and perhaps money, into your WordPress website or blog, its now time to secure and protect it from outside enemies and general bad guys: hackers, spammers and all round tossers.
If your WP development knowledge is limited, your best option is to download and install plugins. They are easy to install and manage and will give you all the power and security you could ever hope for. Of course, no plugin is powerful enough to protect you from everything, we can only minimize the possible intrusions.
Below, we have twenty plugins that will help you protect your WordPress installation.

1、Invisible Defender

Invisible Defender Homepage & Download »
This plugin protects registration, login and comment forms from spambots by adding two extra fields hidden by CSS.
The idea behind Invisible Defender is simple: SPAMBOTs either fill every form field they find (generic spambots) or fill WordPress-specific fields only (spambots which will recognise WP or are targeting WP only). Therefore it is sufficient to add two extra text fields to form (one empty and one with predefined value), and check their value after the form is submitted. The first field (the empty one) will be filled by generic spambots, and the second will not be filled by spambots targeting WP only. With these two simple checks, all spambots can be easily detected, so WP can return error "403 Forbidden" for them.
Requires WP 2.7 or higher, compatible up to WP 2.8.4.

2、Maximum Security for WordPress

Maximum Security for WordPress Homepage & Download »
The powerful Maximum Security plugin for WordPress is packed with strong protection that makes your site extremely secure. It guards against intrusion; tracks a plethora of events; blocks malicious content that could harm your readers and your search engine ranking; and includes a strong Web application firewall along with a full blown intrusion prevention system.

3、WP Security Scan

WP Security Scan Homepage & Download »
The regularly updated WP Security Scan scans your WordPress installation for security vulnerabilities and suggests corrective actions.
It checks for vulnerable passwords, file permissions, database security, it hides the WP version, WordPress admin protection/security and it removes the WP Generator META tag from the core code. Powerful plugin.
Requires WP 2.3 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.8.

4、AskApache Password Protect

AskApache Password Protect Homepage & Download »
This plugin doesn’t control WordPress or mess with your database, instead it utilizes fast, tried-and-true built-in Security features to add multiple layers of security to your blog. This plugin is specifically designed and regularly updated specifically to stop automated and unskilled attackers attempts to exploit vulnerabilities on your blog resulting in a hacked site.
The power of this plugin is that it creates a virtual wall around your blog allowing it to stop attacks before they even reach your blog to deliver a malicious payload. In addition this plugin also has the capability to block spam with a resounding slap, saving CPU, Memory, and Database resources.
Requires WP 2.6 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.9-rare.

5、Admin SSL

Admin SSL Homepage & Download »
Admin SSL secures your login page, admin area, posts, pages – anything you want – using Private or Shared SSL. The plugin forces SSL on all pages where passwords can be entered and it can also work with both Private and Shared SSL.
A great feature of this plugin is that it can be installed on WordPress MU to force SSL across all of the blogs (only works if you have a Private SSL certificate installed).
When installing this plugin, please, make sure you set your Shared SSL URL correctly, or you will render your blog admin pages inaccessible.
Requires WP2.2 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.7.1.

6、Secure WordPress

Secure WordPress Homepage & Download »
As the title says, Secure WordPress, helps to secure your WordPress installation by removing error information on login pages, adds index.html to the plugin directory; removes the WP-version, except in the admin area.
Requires WP 2.6 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.9-rare.

7、ChapSecureLogin

ChapSecureLogin Homepage & Download »
Whenever you try to login into your website, you can use this plugin to process your password encrypted. The encryption process is created by the Chap protocol; this is particularly useful when you can’t useSSL or any other kinds of secure protocols. By activating the ChapSecureLogin plugin, the only information transmitted unencrypted is the username, the password is hidden by using a random number generated by the session – and transformed by the MD5 algorithm.
In the first login there will be an error, but don’t worry this is only a technical error. In the secong login’s operation, if the values are correct, there will not be any errors, and you will achieve a smooth login.
Requires WP 2.5 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.7.1.

8、TAC – Theme Authenticity Checker

TAC – Theme Authenticity Checker Homepage & Download »
TAC stands for Theme Authenticity Checker. Currently, TAC searches the source files of every installed theme for signs of malicious code. If any bad code is found, TAC displays the path to the theme file, the line number, and a small snippet of the suspect code. As of v1.3 TAC also searches for and displays static links.
The real value of this plugin is that you can quickly determine where code cleanup is required.
Requires WP 2.2 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.8.

9、HTTP Authentication

HTTP Authentication Homepage & Download »
The HTTP Authentication plugin allows you to use existing means of authenticating users for WordPress. This includes Apache’s basic HTTP authentication module and many others.
Requires WP 2.5.1 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.8.4.

10、Login LockDown WordPress Security

Login LockDown WordPress Security Homepage & Download »
Login LockDown records the IP address and timestamp of every failed WordPress login attempt. If more than a certain number of attempts are detected within a short period of time from the same IP address, then the login function is disabled for all requests from that range.
This helps to prevent brute force password discovery. Currently, the plugin defaults to a one hour lock out for any IP address block after three failed login attempts within a 5 minute period. Admisitrators can release locked out IP ranges manually from the panel.
Requires WP 2.5 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.8.4.

11、Stealth Login

Stealth Login Homepage & Download »
This plugin allows you to create custom URLs for logging in and logging out of the WP administration area. Instead of displaying your login url on the homepage, you can create a url of your choice that can be easier to remember than wp-login.php, for example you could set your login url to http://www.myblog.com/login for an easy way to login to your website.
You can also enable "Stealth Mode" which will prevent users from being able to access ‘wp-login.php’ directly. You can then set your login url to something more cryptic. This won’t secure your website entirely, but if someone does manage to crack your password, it can make it difficult for them to find the actual login page.
Requires WP 2.3 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.7.1.

12、AntiVirus for WordPress

AntiVirus for WordPress Homepage & Download »
AntiVirus for WordPress is a smart and effective solution to protect your blog against exploits and spam injections. Some of its features include: monitors possible platform vulnerabilities, virus injections, malicious links, etc. It can also send you email notifications and whitelisting.
Requires WP 2.6 or higherand is compatible up to WP 2.8.4.

13、NoSpamNX

NoSpamNX Homepage & Download »
NoSpamNX is the successor of Yawasp (Yet Another WordPress antispam plugin) and is a plugin to protect against automated comment spam (spambots). While Yawasp changed the names of the form fields in the comment template, NoSpamNX works without these modifications, but is equally effective. By eliminating the need for modifications within the form field maximum compatibility with other WordPress plugins or browsers is ensured.
When calling the comment form NoSpamNX adds extra fields (hidden before the “normal” user) automatically to your comment template. When a comment is saved, these fields are checked. For additional protection, the order and the values of these fields change periodically, so that no spambot can adapt to a specific blog adapt.
Requires WP 2.7 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.8.4.

14、Akismet

Akismet Homepage & Download »
Akismet is quite possibly the most important and useful plugin you will ever install. It has been developed by the actual team behind WordPress, if that is not enough of a seal of of approval and a guarantee, I don’t know what is.
In a nutshell, Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s "Comments" admin screen.
Requires WP2.0 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.8.4.

15、SI CAPTCHA for WordPress

SI CAPTCHA for WordPress Homepage & Download »
SI CAPTCHA adds CAPTCHA anti-spam methods to WordPress on the comment form, registration form, or both. In order to post comments, users will have to type in the phrase shown on the image. This prevents spam from automated bots. It works great with Akismet.
Requires WP 2.6 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.8.4.

16、AntispamBee for WordPress

AntispamBee for WordPress Homepage & Download »
AntispamBee protects blogs from digital rubbish. It is made up of sophisticated techniques and analyzes comments including pings. Also, for reasons of data privacy, the use of AntispamBee is a safe solution, as it is anonymous and registration-free.
Requires WP 2.1 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.8.4.

17、BackUpWordPress

BackUpWordPress Homepage & Download »
BackUpWordPress is a Backup & Recovery Suite for your WordPress website. This Plugin allows you to backup database tables as well as files and comes with a rich set of options.
You can choose from either EasyMode or AdvancedMode, depending on your level of WP knowledge.
Requires WP 2.1 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.3.1.

18、WordPress Database Backup

WordPress Database Backup Homepage & Download »
WordPress Database Backup creates backups of your core WordPress tables as well as other tables of your choice in the same database. Once the database is backed up you have the option of either emailing the backup to yourself, saving it your hard drive or saving it on the server.
This plugin is not as feature rich as BackUpWordPress (above), but if you want a quick backup, this is for you.

19、WordPress EZ Backup Plugin

WordPress EZ Backup Plugin Homepage & Download »
WordPress EZ Backup is an easy to use plugin that allows you to quickly create Backup Archives of your entire Site (not just WP Installations, any part of your site or webspace) and allows backup archives of any MySQL Database you choose.
Requires WP 2.8.2 or higher and is compatible up to: 2.8.4.

20、WP Sentry

WP Sentry Homepage & Download »
This is a simple plugin, not necessarily for security, but certainly for privacy, that allows for access-restricted posting, allowing bloggers to discuss sensitive subjects without Google or the world finding the post.
After plugin activation, an administration panel is added to your "Users" and "Plugins" tabs, allowing you to create user groups and manage WP Sentry’s other options. The creation of user groups is completely optional, although it does make things a little easier.
Requires WP 2.5.0 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.8.4.

21、10 Steps To Protect The Admin Area In WordPress

This article focuses on defending the administration area of WordPress, meaning all those pages in the wp-admin folder (or http://www.yourblog.com/wp-admin/) that are displayed after a user is verified. It should be explicitly understood that only a simple query stands in the way of an evil hacker and the powerful admin area of your whole blog. The latter is only as strong as the passwords that are generated.
To help make an attack more difficult, this article outlines ten steps to follow to protect your WordPress installation. These solutions do not guarantee 100% security, but you can create an effective wall on a hacker’s way to the administration area.
10 Steps To Protect The Admin Area In WordPress »

22、12 Essential Security Tips and Hacks for WordPress

WordPress being open source means that the chances of malicious attacks being successful are higher because the project’s source code can be easily obtained and studied for vulnerabilities.
However, the good news is that there are steps that you can take to give your WordPress sites an extra layer of security.
This article highlights several tips and hacks that you can use to secure and lock down your WordPress site and to fortify it from attacks.
12 Essential Security Tips and Hacks for WordPress »

23、WordPress Security Tips and Hacks

In this article there are 10 security tips that are very easy to implement, but very important, tips and hacks on your WordPress blog.
WordPress Security Tips and Hacks »

24、Top 10 ways to stop spam in WordPress

Spam is a nuisance, and as bloggers, we have all experienced a flood of spam every now and then. Not only is it a pain, but it can slow down your blog and use up your resources. In this post you’ll look at ten ways to combat spam.
Top 10 ways to stop spam in WordPress »

30+ Most Wanted WordPress Tips, Tricks and Hacks

cosmos — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:15:22 +0000

Apple Flashy Accordion Sidebar

Use the Accordion plugin in jQuery UI to create an Apple-alike WordPress sidebar.
Adding Tabs to Sidebar

Creating tabs on WordPress sidebar with Yahoo! UI Library
Sidebar With Dynamic Contents

Every blog visitor has different habits, but many tend to ignore sidebars because they are always the same. Mixing things up and keeping the contents of the sidebar relevant to the post can make them a bit more likely to be noticed.
Allow Users To Submit Blog Post

This plugin allows you to add highly customisable forms to your website that allows non-registered users and/or subscribers (also configurable) to submit posts.
Paginated Comments

Give you the ability to break your comments into a number of search engine optimized pages.
Image Caption

Extracts the title or alt attribute from images within your blog post and generates a neat caption directly underneath those images. Supports custom CSS styling for captions.
Random Redirect

Allows you to create a link to yourblog.example.com/?random which will redirect someone to a random post on your blog, in a StumbleUpon-like fashion.
Google Syntax Highlighter for WordPress

Easily integrates the Google Syntax Highlighter by Alex Gorbatchev into WordPress. Image below show how codes look like in WordPress with Google Syntax Highlighter.
Facelift Image Replacement (FLIR) for WordPress

FLIR allows you to convert text and title into images (better display quality) on the fly without hassle. Now this FLIR WordPress plugin make things even easier for bloggers.
del.icio.us for WordPress

del.icio.us for WordPress displays your latest del.icio.us bookmarks in your WordPress blog.
Create Your Own PopURLs Within WordPress

Like the way how PopURL display contents? Now you can create similar inside WordPress.
Exclude certain categories from being displayed

2 ways to hide posts from certain categories to be displayed on the blog. You can either put this code inside the loop
2. if ( have_posts() ) : query_posts($query_string .‘&cat=-1,-2′); while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
3. ?>
or you can use Advanced Category Excluder.
Another Date Image Hack
Create a calendar view of your article post date.
Styling Individual Posts

Styling one post a little different from the rest with the use of the_ID.
How To Avoid Duplicate Posts

Duplicated contents are pretty bad and they somehow affects how search engine weights your site. Here’s how you can avoid getting duplicated contents on your blog.
WordPress ‘Page Redirect‘ template

This template lets you specify a single URL as the page content, then as the page loads, the template automatically redirects the page to this new location, and that includes category or any tag pages you specify.
Delicious Save Buttons

Add badges that encourage people to bookmark your website or blog
DesignFloat Buttons, Website & Blog Integration

Give your website or blog visitors the option to submit your stories to Design Float and "Float" them
1. "text/javascript">submit_url = ‘Your URL Here’;"text/javascript" src="http://www.designfloat.com/evb/button.php">
1. "text/javascript">submit_url = ‘Your URL Here’;"text/javascript" src="http://www.designfloat.com/evb2/button.php">
Read here for more.
StumbleUpon Buttons & Tools

Add a Stumble It! button to your site to make it easy for your visitors to submit your content to StumbleUpon.
Dynamic Highlight Menu

This allows you to theme/style and control the currently selected menu tab in CSS by adding a class="current" on it.
1. "nav">
2. if ( is_home() || is_category() || is_archive() || is_search() || is_single() || is_date() ) { echo ‘ class="current"’; } ?>>"#">Gallery
3. if ( is_page(‘about’) ) { echo ‘ class="current"’; } ?>>"#">About
4. if ( is_page(‘submit’) ) { echo ‘ class="current"’; } ?>>"#">Submit
```
  >Gallery
  >About
  >Submit
```
Line 2:

If Home, or Category, or Archive, or Search or Single page is selected, class="current" will be included in
Line 3,4:

If Page with page slug about or submit is highlighted, class="current" is added.

If you are looking at putting categories as menu tabs, here’s how to make the menu dynamic:
1. "nav">
2. if ( is_category(‘css’) ) { echo ‘ class="current"’; } ?>>"#">CSS
3. if ( is_category(showcase) ) { echo ‘ class="current"’; } ?>>"#">Showcase
```
  >CSS
  >Showcase
```
Line 2,3

If category with category slug of css or showcase, class="current" is added.
DZone Buttons

Let your website’s users vote for our links on DZone without leaving your site.
1. "text/javascript">var dzone_url = ‘[url]‘;"text/javascript">var dzone_title = ‘[title]‘;"text/javascript">var dzone_blurb = ‘[description]‘;"text/javascript">var dzone_style = ’1′;"javascript" src="http://widgets.dzone.com/widgets/zoneit.js">
1. "text/javascript">var dzone_url = ‘[url]‘;"text/javascript">var dzone_title = ‘[title]‘;"text/javascript">var dzone_blurb = ‘[description]‘;"text/javascript">var dzone_style = ’2′;"javascript" src="http://widgets.dzone.com/widgets/zoneit.js">
More on DZone Buttons, Tools and Widgets
Reddit Buttons

Similar to the rest, place a reddit button on your site to promote blog post.
1. ‘text/javascript’>reddit_url=‘[URL]‘‘text/javascript’>reddit_title=‘[TITLE]‘"text/javascript" src="http://www.reddit.com/button.js?t=1">
1. ‘text/javascript’>reddit_url=‘[URL]‘‘text/javascript’>reddit_title=‘[TITLE]‘"text/javascript" src="http://www.reddit.com/button.js?t=2">
1. ‘text/javascript’>reddit_url=‘[URL]‘‘text/javascript’>reddit_title=‘[TITLE]‘"text/javascript" src="http://www.reddit.com/button.js?t=3">
Source.
Archive that works

Noura of Noupe.com shows various ways you can style your WordPress Archive page. Techniques and guides includes:
- Listing all Posts
- Display monthly or Yearly Archive
- Archives Ordered By Category
Read this entry.
Add Breadcrumbs to Your WordPress Blog

Breadcrumb trails are a good supplementary navigation system that aid in site usability. This plugin allows you to add breadcrumbs to your theme.
Landing Sites / Pages

When visitors is referred to your site from a search engine, they are definitely looking for something specific – often they just roughly check the page they land on and then closes the window if what they are looking for isn’t there. Why not help them by showing them related posts to their search on your blog?
WordPress Exploit Scanner

This WordPress plugin searches the files on your site for a few known strings sometimes used by hackers, and lists them with code fragments taken from the files. It also makes a few checks of the database, looking at the active_plugins blog option, the comments table, and the posts table.
Buy Me a Beer

Allows your readers to donate money to you via PayPal. Not something new, but worth knowing.
Display Feedburner Subscriber Count In Text

How to display feedburner subscriber count in text instead of using chiklets.
Notifixious – Notify Users via IM

This plugin allows you to notify your readers on their Instant Messaging (AIM, MSN, GTalk, ICQ…), Email or SMS when you publish new posts.
Installing Xampp and WordPress

Guide to setup Xampp and run WordPress locally on your machine. You can also install plugins, upgrade to the latest nightly and virtually anything else confident in the knowledge that if it goes wrong, there is no impact on your actual site.
Create an Ajax-based Auto-completing Search Field

Why not helping your visitors to find what they’re looking for on your blog, by using a cool auto-completion on your search field?