WordPress plugins are typically small scripts that allow one to add specific extra functionality to the WordPress system. Below are plugins that I have either found to be useful or created to do something that I needed for one of my sites.
I wrote the PWS Ad Manager plugin because I wanted to be able to do the following things on both my sites and clients sites:
- Display a specified number of rows or columns containing content or ads linking either off site or to wordpress posts and pages.
- Show only on site items, only off site items, or both mixed together
- Limit the items shown by post categories, post tags, ids, or authors.
- Choose whether to show only items referencing the current page or post, not show any items referencing the current page or post, or mix them in with other items as wanted
- Place extra text and/or content above or below each block of ads and/or each ad as wanted.
With the above functionality, the PWS Ad Manager plugin can be used to display affiliate ads, show videos or text related to the current post or page outside of the content area, display random ads outside of the post or page content without showing any ads for the page currently being looked at, and much more.
PWS Head Loader allows one to specify extra html and javascript to be included in the html head tag for specific pages, posts, or templates only.
PWS PHParse allows one to execute php scripts from within your posts, pages, and/or sidebars. In the Privateer Theme, one can also execute php scripts in other areas without doing any template editing.
The PWS DropDown FlyOut plugin is a series of simple plugins to allow one to place the page menu bar, category menu bar, wordpress 3.0 menus, and a category/posts menu bar within your sidebars if you are running the Privateer Theme.
The PWS Featured Content Gallery plugin is a modified version of the IE Plexus FCG plugin that has been re-written as a php class to greatly reduce the chance of conflicts with other plugins while adding a lot of error checking and reporting. It also adds some new functionality.
Sociable is a very useful plugin for placing social networking links, print buttons, and email buttons inside of posts and pages.
In the Privateer Theme, you can output sociables badges by placing %sociable% within post kickers, post bylines, and/or post footers.