Recommended Themes and Plugins for WordPress

[Drastic]

Theme
I usually find/pick something close to what I want, hack it up and change the header, but this one is pretty slick out of the box:

http://www.flexibilitytheme.com/

Very easy to customize from the interface.
free w/footer links (somehow mine disappeared though?)

Plugins

I use many others that are site/application specific, these are mostly the regulars.

all in one seo or platinum seo pack - page/post level seo
wp database backup - backup db on schedule, to server or email
wp-pagenavi - page navigation buttons (number in a box for each page) at bottom
YARRP - related posts
sql executioner - sql access to db for quick and dirty work
Easy Link Cloaker - aff link redirect and click tracker
Use Google Libraries - uses G's files for jquery which saves bandwidth & dl time
W3 Total Cache - caches site

Yours?

[Rumbas]

Flexibilitythemes looks interesting!

Couple of things:

- for parked stuff, sites that eventually should be build, we use our own modified version of twentyten.
- thesis, www.woothemes.com or other premium themes.

Plugins:
- Wordpress SEO
- Analytics for Wordpress
- w3C total cache
- Gravity forms
- Getclicky plugin
- Transliterado
- WP touch
- Redirection

+ a bunch more depending on the current need.

[Brad]

Besides many of those already mentioned:

Plugins:

Akismet
Conditional CAPTCHA for Wordpress
Secure WordPress
Subscription Options
Simple Trackback Validation

Added: WordPress Database Backup

[Drastic]

To keep it informative, can we add a quick blurb about what the plugin does?

For example, transliterado - is that a translation plugin or?
Conditional captcha - that for comments, or contact form or anything?
etc.

[Brad]

Akismet - anti-spam whitelist
Conditional CAPTCHA for Wordpress - for comment spam, only shows a captcha if submitter fails Akismet see http://developedtraffic.com/2010/03/06/conditional-captcha-for-wordpress/ for details
Secure WordPress - does a bunch of little things to make WP more secure vs. hacking.
Simple Trackback Validation - guards against trackback spam

Added: WordPress Database Backup - backs up your DB once a day and emails it as an attachment wherever you want.  I send it to a folder in a Yahoo account. Daily off site backup.

[DrCool]

Two of the themes I have been using on most of my sites:

Thesis by DIY Themes
Genesis by Studiopress (there are 20+ child themes also)

Both of these are paid themes and are both quite customizable. Lots of CSS editing you can do.

Plugins:
CSVPig - For building datafeed sites
CloakPIG - Link cloaker
Eclipse Link Cloaker - Link cloaker
Related Posts Thumbnails - Good related post plugin
Fast Secure Contact Form - Good, versitile contact form

Some of these are paid, some are free. I am sure there are more I use but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

[Drastic]

Doc, which version of CSVPig are you using? I see the free download at wordpress and they also sell it on their site.

Is there a way to put a feed on a site, and then use CSVPig to update only new products? (price/inventory change, etc.)

[thesaintv12]

WordPress Database Backup - Backup plugin which emails you the back up.
Google XML Sitemaps - creates a new xml sitemap on every change of the blog and sends it to google, bing etc.
Dragon Design Sitemap Generator Plus - Creates a user sitemap for the site.

I use a whole host of others, but these are ones that are out of the ordinary.

Anyone ever made their own plugin?  Another job on my ever growing list.

[PaulH]

Anyone ever made their own plugin?  Another job on my ever growing list.

Made dozens, mostly involved in creating posts from data, and linking.
If you can code a little php you can make a plugin that does something useful in 10 minutes(though someone else has probably already made it for you  )

[thesaintv12]

Oh another which I came across recently - Tagaroo -  finds creative commons images from flickr to match your posts and includes a link to the source.

[thesaintv12]

Anyone ever made their own plugin?  Another job on my ever growing list.

Made dozens, mostly involved in creating posts from data, and linking.
If you can code a little php you can make a plugin that does something useful in 10 minutes(though someone else has probably already made it for you  )

I'd be interested to see what you have done in your linking plugin Paul.

My .Net skills are not so useful for things like this.  I'm still finding my feet with php, but adding knowledge everyday.  Maybe a plugin would make a good learning project.

[grnidone]

Atahualpa is another wordpress theme that is easy to customize (has a GUI interface)
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/atahualpa

[ergophobe]

Another Flexibility fan.

Plugins:

SEO, etc
- Headspace2 - an SEO Swiss Army Knife - http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/headspace2/
- Redirection - link cloaking/tracking - http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/redirection/
- Google XML sitemaps - http://www.arnebrachhold.de/redir/sitemap-home/ - for some reason, the Headspace2 plugin wasn't working for a while on some sites, so I used this.
- Excerpt Editor - just discovered this one - killer plugin for bulk editing Excerpts on legacy site - http://www.laptoptips.ca/projects/wordpress-excerpt-editor/

Interface Customization
- Widget Logic - show/hide widgets for certain categories, pages, users, tags - http://freakytrigger.co.uk/wordpress-setup/
- WP Greet Box - show content to users with/without a cookie - http://omninoggin.com/projects/wordpress-plugins/wp-greet-box-wordpress-plugin/
- WP Post Admin Column Filter - filters the post admin screen so that it only shows columns you want - no website as I just wrote the pre-alpha version. Very simple and currently hard-coded column selection only.
- Exclude Pages - lets you keep specific pages out of Page widgets/menus - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exclude-pages/

Spam Protection
- Hashcash - block most spam without making users deal with a captcha - http://wordpress-plugins.feifei.us/hashcash/

Ads
- Ad Injection - inject ad code or any code into posts - http://www.reviewmylife.co.uk/blog/2010/12/06/ad-injection-plugin-wordpress/
- Ad rotation - if you want something simpler than OpenX or Doubleclick for Publishers - http://code.openx.org/projects/show/advertising-manager

Image Display
- Lightbox Plus - http://www.23systems.net/plugins/lightbox-plus/
- Floatbox Plus - a paid lightbox, but very nice - http://blog.splash.de/plugins/floatbox-plus

Debug
- wp pear_debug - sort of like the Drupall devel module - krumo output for var dumps - http://www.communitymodder.com/
- Debug Bar - system info - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/debug-bar/


Contact Forms

- cForms - awesome contact form plugin that allows you to build complex forms and require specific information. Very good if you're capturing leads, taking reservation requests, that sort of thing - http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-plugin
- Contact form from Joost de Valk - simple - http://yoast.com/wordpress/enhanced-wordpress-contact-form/
- Secure and Accessible Contact Form - simple - http://green-beast.com/blog/?page_id=136

Geek
- syntax highlighting - if you post code on your blog - http://www.viper007bond.com/wordpress-plugins/syntaxhighlighter/

Third-Party Integration
- Twitter - http://rick.jinlabs.com/code/twitter - display tweets on your site... except that I never tweet

Automated Backup
- Back up file uploads and your custom stuff - http://www.blogtrafficexchange.com/wordpress-backup
- database backups emailed to you or just archived - http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/

[Torben]

Being a little late to the party I'm just going name one that hasn't been mentioned yet.

VaultPress.com

It's a backup/security solution develop by Automatic (the guys behind WordPress). Not only does it keep remote backups of your WordPress site it also scans the code to see if it has been modified by hackers

[PaulH]

lose track of all the plugins i've used - keep using some even though better ones might be around now

caching: i use hypercache

all in one seo or platinum seo pack, headspace
Used to be a fan of 'all in one SEO' but very bloated, was causing all sorts of mysterious problems on one server - Was exhausting memory, plugin alone consumed 20+mb of ram, + wordpress using about 12mb, meant when busy the server died. Platinum seo used about 1mb. (they may have fixed this now)

Recently need a plugin that allowed me to keep old posts on the same url, but change format of newer urls(didnt want to 301 old ones)
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/advanced-permalinks/

Need a google news sitemap - first one i looked at seemed pretty good
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gn-xml-sitemap/