Recommended Themes and Plugins for WordPress

[eurotrash]

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/

Actually need this bugger today.  Unfortunately, seems it is not updated and there are lots of problems with later versions of WP.  Might give it a try anyway on a demo install.

[DrCool]

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.)

I am using the most current version which I think now is 2.4.9.

You can upload a new database and have it update everything based on a certain field so if you update by Product Name or something like that if it sees a post with the same data it will only update what is new (changes in price or whatever) and then add in new posts that don't already exist.

[littleman]

Looks like most here use wordpress for a general CMS and downplay/remove the blog like features and comments.  Any tips on how to do this?  On how to use WP and not have it look/feel like a blog site?

[PaulH]

Looks like most here use wordpress for a general CMS and downplay/remove the blog like features and comments.  Any tips on how to do this?  On how to use WP and not have it look/feel like a blog site?

Really easy.
First disable all the comments and blog parts in the admin settings.
Most of the crap left behind will be in the sidebar(archives,blog roll, etc). With old themes simply edit the template file and remove the very few bits of commented code,  or with a modern theme you can remove widgets in the sidebar through the admin panel.

To cleanup all the shit in the header add these to the functions.php file bundeled with the theme/tmeplate

Code Select Expand

remove_action( 'wp_head', 'feed_links_extra', 3 ); // Display the links to the extra feeds such as category feeds
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'feed_links', 2 ); // Display the links to the general feeds: Post and Comment Feed
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'rsd_link' ); // Display the link to the Really Simple Discovery service endpoint, EditURI link
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'wlwmanifest_link' ); // Display the link to the Windows Live Writer manifest file.
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'index_rel_link' ); // index link
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'parent_post_rel_link', 10, 0 ); // prev link
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'start_post_rel_link', 10, 0 ); // start link
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'adjacent_posts_rel_link', 10, 0 ); // Display relational links for the posts adjacent to the current post.
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'wp_generator' ); // Display the XHTML generator that is generated on the wp_head hook, WP version

[PaulH]

Some good examples of using wordpress as a CMS
http://wordpress.org/showcase/tag/cms/

Until very recently http://www.discountvouchers.co.uk/ used WordPress for the whole site(lot of pages and lot of traffic).

Moved away from WP to custom cms, for scalability and performance reasons - To be fair to wordpress i don't think any other free CMS's would have coped any better.

[littleman]

Good stuff Paul, thanks.

[littleman]

Any recommendations on contact form + email list management?  There are a LOT of related plugins, but I'm trying to weed it down.

[Drastic]

Any recommendations on contact form + email list management?  There are a LOT of related plugins, but I'm trying to weed it down.

Euro recommended this one:
http://www.satollo.net/plugins/newsletter
for email, haven't yet played with it myself.

There's a couple recommendations on the first page of this thread for contact forms. I've used a couple just basic ones. wpcontactform I think it is.

[ergophobe]

Depends on what you need, but if you need a complex contact form (i.e. optional/required fields, drop downs, text boxes, etc), I love cForms II (should be a link in my previous post).

For newsletter, you could use MailChimp which plugs into WP no problem either as a form on a page, as a widget or both. I'm only just now getting it set up myself and have never done anything else with a newsletter except manually having a list and emailing, so I can't compare it to anything else.

I thought that in general MailChimp, GetResponse, Aweber and the like had better deliverability than mass mailing from your own server. Is that incorrect?

[Drastic]

wp spam free:
http://www.polepositionmarketing.com/library/wp-spamfree/

Is a spam blocker for comments & trackbacks and has a contact form built in. Just use a tag on a page to add the contact form.

[Drastic]

Looks like most here use wordpress for a general CMS and downplay/remove the blog like features and comments.  Any tips on how to do this?  On how to use WP and not have it look/feel like a blog site?

This is a good template builder for control of everything on a page level:
http://impactpagebuilder.com/


Also, I've replaced wp db back and sql executioner with one plugin that does both:
wp db manager: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-dbmanager/

It also optimizes your db, removing overhead and offers more control over your db (drop tables, etc.). Backup and optimize on schedule.

[Leona]

Any recommendations on contact form + email list management?  There are a LOT of related plugins, but I'm trying to weed it down.

Contact form 7 is the most versatile of contact form plugins newsletter the most versatile of newsletter plugins that I have found.

Regarding CMS, yes wp is handy for this because of its versatility and there are some plugins that can help you create a backend that helps with this function. To get rid of comments simply cut out the comments template tags on generally page.php and single.php. What I say to customers is use your pages for your main framework and the posts for newsletter. However you can create custom posts to help with this as well. Here are a couple to help organise/brand backend for clients.

Dashboard Heaven - excludes widgets from the dashboard based on userlevel
Fluency Admin - customisable admin, signup and login, looks good only conflict found so far is with updating thumbnails with nextgen gallery

Regarding useful plugins in general I have a large list of ones I have used or ones I have noted down to use and this file is quite frankly a mess, I need to go through it but it is one of those jobs that I never get around to. If you PM me with what you are looking for chances are I may have a plugin that does it in the list so please feel free to give me a shout.

[jimbanks]

I've spent what seems like years messing around with themes and plugins.

I really like Thesis, but it does take some getting used to, starting out as it is more of a framework than a theme.

In terms of plugins the ones I have used in the main are :

Advertising Manager - Handles the placement of ads using basic tokens, works well with OpenX (same developers built both)
Akismet - But I noticed they are charging now for commercial licenses, got in before hand looks like they have grandfathered
Backupbuddy - Saves a backup, can be remote to Amazon S3, but also exports all database features, handy if you ever get a hosting account shut down and need to move to a different server
Broken Link checker - Checks for broken links in the background
Chennai Central - You can contol bots access to your bandwidth
Contact Form 7 - Create simple forms using one line of code
GD Press Tools Pro - Like a swiss army knife plugin, does a bunch of things, like really a whole bunch of things, the thing I like is I can access file manager directly from within WP
Google Analytics for Wordpress - Does what it says on the tin
Google Sitemap Generator - Although GD Press has one, I prefer this one
Jetpack - Replaced the stats that used to come with WP. Also handles media a lot better, so good for tweeting, videos etc.
Mobile - Creates a mobile version of your site (from the same guys who do Backupbuddy)
Digitalquill Multifeed - A token based plugin that you can create a site from a product datafeed, works well with any feed
Post Corrector - Does a lot of things, but I use it to create categories in bulk, if I am not in PHPMyAdmin that is
Redirection - Identifies and manages any redirects that WP misses
Robots Meta - Obvious really, I am just lazy
W3 Total Cache - handles caching of stuff and minifying of CSS etc
YARPP - Handles related posts. I bet most people never get this one configured right, you need to drag the templates into your theme.....

No bloddy wonder servers run slow!

[nicebloke]

PlugSiteMap - generates html sitemap for WP   http://www.seosapien.com/blog/2009/04/html-sitemap-generator-for-wordpress.html

[Rumbas]

You guys are aware that a lot of the mentioned plugins are combined with Yoasts Wordpress SEO plugin - which is done the right way in terms of coding.