Extend WordPress. Choose and install the best plugins, optimize your settings and links, and other details you need to know.

• Setting up your Analytics
• Optimizing sign up forms and other response forms
• Adding Social Media and other sharing links.
• Affiliate Marketing with WordPress.
• Simple eCommerce with WordPress.

Delicious hot lunch (Domino’s Pizza) and snacks (chips/cookies) will be served.
Also, includes admission to afternoon WordPress Meetup

Presented by Tony Cecala, Ph.D. WordPress consultant, meetup organizer, and web developer.

Admission includes free ticket to the WordPress Meetup at 2PM, featuring a WordPress Theme Frameworks Presentation.

When: May 19, 2012
Seminar Runs: 9:30AM-1PM.

WordPress Plugins are like candy. Once you taste one, you want more. I like to use WordPress plugins to make my clients WordPress sites more functional, more capable, and more connected. Plugins, of course, habe their downsides, they can slow down your website, they can be incompatible with future versions of WordPress and they can be just plain buggy. Despite these downfalls, I believe that plugins will make your life easier. The trick of course is to just eat…I mean install…only those that you understand and can manage.

Summary:

• installing plugins is fun and easy
• it’s easy to go overboard with plugins
• install only the plugins you trust, understand, and can configure

B. Finding Plugins: Searching the WordPress Plugin Repository

The WordPress repository holds over 15,000 plugins. That’s a lot to sort through! Luckily, if you know the plugin that you want you can usually find it by searching for it’s name, or using a keyword/keyphrase.

Summary:

• search the repo from within the WordPress Admin
• search the repo at WordPress.org
• search the repo using Google e.g. “akismet site:WordPress.org“

C. Choosing Plugins: Understanding the Plugin “Repo”

Plugins vary in quality. That’s pretty clear to anyone whose tried to find and use a good plugin. But overall, the plugin repo has been cleaned up over the years. There are rules and regulations about spammy links in plugins and all plugins in the repo are required to be GPL licensed.

Summary:

• quality signals: downloads, rankings, updated, bug reports
• if all else fails…check the support forums, check google for issues

D. Installing Plugins

You can install a WordPress plugins directly within your WordPress admin site. You can also download them from WordPress.org and then install them from your computer by uploading into your admin, or by copying the plugin files directly into your site directly with FTP. Each of the methods is more complex, but for developers these methods are sometimes easier because they can bulk upload and install many plugins at once.

Summary:

• you can install a plug-in within the WordPress Admin
• you can install a plug-in with FTP

E. Updating Plugins

Generally, the WordPress Admin will alert you when a plugin has been updated. It can do this for plugins that live in the repo, but if you have a third-party plugin. You may not get a notice that it needs to be updated unless the authors have written that functionality into the plugin.

For instance, BackupBuddy and GravityForms are third-party plugins that will notify you of updates and you can update and upgrade to the latest version if you still have a valid license for these.

F. 10 Essential Plugins

With so many plugins to cover, let’s place them into 4 categories to make it easier to think about. Some plugins add new functionality to your site (like Social Media connections), let’s call these Functionality plugins. Some plugins do things in the  background, like make your site run faster, these are Utility plugins. Some plugins make your home page fancy with a nice slider or widget, let’s call these Theme Enhancement plugins. Other plugins help you to use the WordPress Admin a little easier, you guessed it Administration plugins.

Functionality

Social Login

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/oa-social-login/

SharePress

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sharepress/

CryptX

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/cryptx/

WordPress SEO

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/

Utilities

Akismet

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/

Remote Images Grabber

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/remote-images-grabber/

W3 Total Cache

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/

WP Maintenance Mode

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-maintenance-mode/

Theme Enhancement

NextGen Gallery

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/

Related Posts Thumbnails

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/related-posts-thumbnails/

Visual Recent Posts

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/visual-recent-posts/

SlideShare for WordPress by Yoast

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/slideshare/

Comprehensive Google Map Plugin

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/comprehensive-google-map-plugin/

Widget Logic Visual

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/widget-logic-visual/

WPtouch

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wptouch/

Administration

Editorial Calendar

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/editorial-calendar/

Broken Link Checker

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/broken-link-checker/

WP System Health

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-system-health/

Duplicate Post

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/duplicate-post/

Black Studio TinyMCE Widget

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/black-studio-tinymce-widget/

P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler)

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/p3-profiler/

Rockstar Plugin Authors

Joost de Valk
http://yoast.com

Alex King
http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress

Vladimir Prelovac
http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir

WordPress Tips and Tricks (DFW Meetup) – Presentation Transcript

Tips and Tricks, Stephanie Leary sillybean.net @sleary

Who am I?
• sillybean.net
• uwc.tamu.edu
• @sleary
• slideshare.net/stephanieleary

Importing
I’ve imported from…
• Blogger
• Joomla
• Movable Type
• Drupal
• Textpattern
• Twitter
• LiveJournal
• Gallery2
• WordPress.com
• Delicious
• CSV files
• HTML files
Uncommon Imports http://codex.wordpress.org/Importing_Content

HTML Import

Secrets of Happy Importing

Preparation
• Back up
• Prepare to undo
• Import on development server
• Or turn on maintenance mode
• Turn off crossposting plugins
• Use absolute URLs for linked files

Plugins
• DB Backup http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/
• Mass Page Remover http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mass-page-remover/
• WordPress Reset http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-reset/
• Maintenance Mode http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/maintenance-mode/

WordPress export
• Posts, pages, comments, authors
• Uploads optional
• No settings
• No menus in 3.0 (fixed in 3.1)
• Category slug issues (fixed in 3.1)
• Skips users with no posts

Uncommon imports
• Twitter http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-importer/
• Delicious http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/delicious-xml-importer/
• Gallery2 http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gallery2-importer/
• HTML http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/import-html-pages/

Uncommon imports
• Joomla/Mambo
• 1.0 to WP 2.7x: http://tinyurl.com/joom2wp
• 1.5 to WP 3.0x: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ joomla-15-importer/
• Drupal
• 6.x to WP 2.7x: http://tinyurl.com/dru6wp2
• 5.x to WP 2.7x: http://tinyurl.com/dru5wp2
• CSV http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/csv-importer/

After importing
• Search & Replace http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search-and-replace/
• Redirection http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/
• Add Linked Images to Gallery http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/add-linked-images- to-gallery-v01/

Screen Options
Bulk Edit
Private Status
Short Links the_shortlink();

Good Permalinks
• Include any numeric code
• DON’T use: /%category%/%postname%/
• Why? http://dougal.gunters.org/?p=1431
Dashboard Feeds
Options.php

http://blog.tanist.co.uk/files/unserialize/

Hidden Feeds

Feed Default URL Clean URL /?feed=rss2 /feed Basic /?feed=atom /feed/atom /?feed=comments-rss2 /comments/feed Comments /?feed=comments-atom /comments/feed/atom Category /?feed=rss2&cat=1 /category/news/feed(ID: 1, slug: news) /?feed=atom&cat=1 /category/news/feed/atom Tag /?feed=rss2&tag=book /tag/book/feed (slug: book) /?feed=atom&tag=book /tag/book/feed/atom Tags /?feed=rss2&tag=book+dvd /tag/book+dvd/feed(slugs: book, dvd) /?feed=atom&tag=book+dvd /tag/book+dvd/feed/atom

Feed Default URL Clean URL Author /?feed=rss2&author=2 /author/joe/feed (ID: 2,nickname: Joe) /?feed=atom&author=2 /author/joe/feed/atomPost Type /?feed=rss2&post_type=page /feed/?post_type=page(page; course) /?feed=atom&post_type=course /feed/atom/?post_type=courseTaxonomy /?feed=rss2&genre=mystery /genre/mystery/feed (genre: mystery) /?feed=atom&genre=mystery /genre/mystery/feed/atom Search /?feed=rss2&s=wordpress /feed/?s=wordpress Term /?feed=atom&s=wordpress /feed/atom/?s=wordpress (wordpress)

Filters

Shortcodes in Widgets add_filter( widget_text, shortcode_unautop); add_filter( widget_text, do_shortcode); http://sillybean.net/?p=2719

List Child Pagesfunction append_child_pages( $content ) { $children = ; if ( is_page() && (empty( $content )) ) { global $post; $children = <ul> .wp_list_pages(echo=0&title_li=&child_of=.$post->ID) .</ul>; } return $content.$children;}add_filter( the_content , append_child_pages ); http://sillybean.net/?p=5246

User Contact Infofunction change_contactmethod( $contactmethods ) { // Add some fields $contactmethods[twitter] = Twitter Name (no @); $contactmethods[phone] = Phone Number; $contactmethods[title] = Title; // Remove AIM, Yahoo IM, Google Talk/Jabber unset($contactmethods[aim]); unset($contactmethods[yim]); unset($contactmethods[jabber]); // make it go! return $contactmethods;}add_filter(user_contactmethods,change_contactmethod,10,1); http://sillybean.net/?p=2714

http://sillybean.net/?p=2715

EvaluatingThemes & Plugins

Evilness
• base64()
• eval()
• links you can’t remove
• etc.
• get things from wordpress.org!

Exploit Scanner http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exploit-scanner/

New in 3.1
• admin bar
• internal links
• network admin
• sortable columns
• better theme search
New in 3.1
• post formats
• custom post type archives
• hidden meta boxes
• advanced taxonomy queries http://otto42.com/81
For Developers
• user_can
• get_users
• has_term
• single_term_title
For Developers
• get_ancestors
• set_post_thumbnail
• esc_textarea
• submit_button
Thank you. Stephanie Leary sillybean.net @sleary

Randy works as a web developer at a creative agency, and he teaches courses in web publishing at the University of Texas at Dallas. He has been working with WordPress since the early days, building websites and blogs on the platform for over six years. Randy presents about WordPress and website development at conferences and local meetups, and what free time he can find he spends studying and writing about mythology and fantasy literature.

Agenda:

Full Meetup runs from 4pm to 6pm. 

The  first 30 minutes are for plugging in, networking, announcements, and snacks.  

The presentation runs from ~4:30 to ~5:45. 

Our “networking” party takes place at  Sherlock’s Pub immediately after the Meetup.

DIRECTIONS: Parking at The Art Institute of Dallas: Use the East parking lot on the East side of 8080 Park Lane. Enter from Park Lane (drive past the North parking garage). Park on the 5th floor upward. Entrance to the building is from the 5th level walkway of the parking lot to building’s 4th floor. Take the elevator to the SECOND FLOOR.

[Simplified directions] East Parking Lot 5th Level > Elevated Walkway to 4th floor > Elevator to 2nd Floor. Room 216-217.

First timers, please note: Review the directions carefully and give yourself some extra time. It is hard to find the right parking lot.