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Tuesday Conversations: Your Favorite Plugins

Tuesday Conversations 19 Comments »

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My old site was all about me writing stuff.  Don’t get me wrong, I love writing, but I know that I’m not the only guy out there doing this – I love learning from other people about things that I’d never known about otherwise.  Unfortunately, StumbleUpon is devoid of good WordPress articles (lots of theme pimping, though), and sometimes you just want to learn, you know?

So, starting with this post, I want to start getting input from you guys!  I want to bounce ideas and get some cool new thoughts from you guys – my readers.

I call it a “Tuesday Conversation” – every week, a new question with new answers and a possible end of the day recap to sum it all up.

Today’s question is simple, to start things off:

What plugins can you not live without on your WordPress site?

And bonus points for the more obscure ones – I’m all about discovering new plugins that do old stuff better (or that do things I never knew they could!)

Submit your plugins below in the comments.

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Dave Delaney

Hi Mitch. Here's a few of my favorites.

Disqus Comment System - the best commenting system
Exclude Page from Navigation
Blackbird Pie for embedding Twitter tweets
PostRank for sharing popular posts via their widget
SNV Facebook Like Button (of course!)
W3 Total Cache
WordPress Editorial Calendar is a godsend!
WP Greet Box is a fun way to personalize a reader's experience
WPtouch the best way that I've found to make my blog mobile ready
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Thanks!

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Tzaddi Gordon

Ooh, liking this thread for new things to check out. Thanks!

Here are my likely suspects:
Subscribe to Comments (I don't like Disqus)
Broken Link Checker
Cookies for Comments +/or Bad Behavior - I would use Akismet but I set up a lot of sites for clients and explaining how to get their key is a pain.
WP DB Backup
NextGen Gallery
Headspace
...and so many more depending on the site. Though, I do prefer to keep some things to functions.php such as limiting post revisions.

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Dave Delaney

Hi Mitch. Here's a few of my favorites.

Disqus Comment System - the best commenting system
Exclude Page from Navigation
Blackbird Pie for embedding Twitter tweets
PostRank for sharing popular posts via their widget
SNV Facebook Like Button (of course!)
W3 Total Cache
WordPress Editorial Calendar is a godsend!
WP Greet Box is a fun way to personalize a reader's experience
WPtouch the best way that I've found to make my blog mobile ready
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Thanks!

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Jeffrey Davis

I use Disqus, blackbird pie, and post rank too Dave. I've been toying with the idea of implementing WP Greet Box, but can't decide if readers would find it intrusive or not. Do you use it at the top of ur content?

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Dave Delaney

Yes, I use it at the top. I haven't heard anyone complain about it. So I think it's ok.

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Tzaddi Gordon

Ooh, liking this thread for new things to check out. Thanks!

Here are my likely suspects:
Subscribe to Comments (I don't like Disqus)
Broken Link Checker
Cookies for Comments +/or Bad Behavior - I would use Akismet but I set up a lot of sites for clients and explaining how to get their key is a pain.
WP DB Backup
NextGen Gallery
Headspace
...and so many more depending on the site. Though, I do prefer to keep some things to functions.php such as limiting post revisions.

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Jeffrey Davis

I see lots of ppl saying contact form 7 here. I used to use that one but then discovered Fast Secure Contact Form. I find its functionality and usability much superior to that of CF7.

Also, does anyone have any recommendation for some great backend admin plugins for multi-author sites?

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Amber Weinberg

Contact Form 7...it's used in almost every site I do

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Dougal Campbell

Dashboard: Scheduled Posts
Plugin Info

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Chris Houchens

The SNV Facebook Like Button plugin rocks ;-)
That and the TweetMeme plug-in are both essential for sharing /spreading your content across the biggest social nets.
I also think the other two "must haves" are All in One SEO Pack and Akismet

The only I'd like to see burn is Hello Dolly. I hate having to delete it every time I do a WP update.

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Kenneth White

I just discovered CMS Tree Page View last year.... an AJAX document tree for your pages. It has completely changed the page management experience for my clients. http://eskapism.se/code-playground/cms-tree-page-view/

TinyMCE Advanced, Contact Form 7, Google XML Sitemaps, WP DB Backup and Reveal IDs for WP Admin are standard for me.

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Otto

I get this question a lot. I'm also one of the only people to admit that I have lots and lots of plugins on my site, and one of the only ones who'll state that more plugins is better.

I currently have 71 plugins on my site, 47 of which are active. There's quite a few I always put on most every site. Here's that list:
Akismet
Changelogger
Cookies for Comments
Debug Bar
Enable oEmbed Discovery
Gravatar Hovercards
Gravatar Retro Enabler
MediaRSS (modified by Otto)
PuSHPress
Reveal IDs
Revision Control
RSS Cloud
Simple Trackback Validation
SiteInfo
Subscribe To Comments
SyntaxHighlighter Evolved
WordPress.com Stats
WordPress Beta Tester
WP-Microsummary
WP Paypal Donate Widget R2.0
XML Sitemap Feed

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studionashvegas

I'd agree with you. The way I see it, it's the difference between putting
code in your functions.php file or just calling an include - it's going to
end up there either way and the server load is minimal at best, especially
if you cache.

Thanks for the list!

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Jeffrey Davis

exactly, ppl get all crazy worrying about the load time of numerous plugins, but if ur gonna code into functions.php anyway, what's the diff? I say let someone else do the work. ;-)

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studionashvegas

I'd agree with you. The way I see it, it's the difference between putting
code in your functions.php file or just calling an include - it's going to
end up there either way and the server load is minimal at best, especially
if you cache.

Thanks for the list!

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Catherine Sandrick

I have about a half-dozen plugins I routinely install on sites. Not all at once, but, here they are:
Contact Form 7: I hear Gravity Forms is great, and I will probably pony up for the dev pack soon, but CF7 does a great job for free.
All-In-One SEO: I install it and show my clients how to use it. I don't use it much on personal sites unless I really want to tweak titles, etc.
BackupBuddy: Payware, but worth it for migrations. Doesn't do multisite though.
WP Migrate DB: not as slick as BackupBuddy, but handles multisite better. Still need to tweak a couple things on the other end; I actually plan to fork this and add better multi-site support.
S2Member: my favorite for member sites. Open Source, easy...free as in beer.
WP-SuperCache: I feel the need for speed!
GoogleAnalyticator: Probably not the most sophisticated, but I love how it pulls selected results into the dashboard.

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Don Sceifers

All in One SEO Pack, Google XML Sitemaps, NextGEN Gallery, Simple Flash Video, WordPress Database Backup, WordPress Ultimate Security and WP System Health

These are a few of my favorite things :-)

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Jeffrey Davis

It depends on which site it is, but TinyMCE Advanced, WP to Twitter, NextGEN Gallery, jQuery Lightbox, Fast Secure Contact Form, and a featured content gallery (either smooth slider or DCG) are staples on most WP sites that function as blogs that I design and/or run. If I'm using WP in a way that isn't functioning as a blog, then this list is a lil different, obviously.

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studionashvegas

How does TinyMCE compare to the built in editor? I hear a lot of people
change to TinyMCE (I use Windows Live Writer, so I'm not in the post editor
much).

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Jeffrey Davis

tinyMCE advanced ads everything a word program would have...plus one of my fav features, the universal ctrl/cmd+k to add a link.

You can choose from countless options to add to ur editing toolbar (including a cool toggle to drop in adsense code if u want) or u can just click "kitchen sink" which gives you, of course, everything but the kitchen sink in terms of editing tools.

I also love digg digg but forgot to mention it.

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studionashvegas

How does TinyMCE compare to the built in editor? I hear a lot of people
change to TinyMCE (I use Windows Live Writer, so I'm not in the post editor
much).

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lindsey

akismet! it deals with spam comments which saves me so much time.

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