Webmaster 9 » wordpress tips http://www.webmaster9.com Free Webmaster Resources Sat, 31 Jul 2010 06:54:06 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 21 Great Plugins to Manage Multi-Author WordPress Blogs http://www.webmaster9.com/2009-12/21-great-plugins-to-manage-multi-author-wordpress-blogs.html http://www.webmaster9.com/2009-12/21-great-plugins-to-manage-multi-author-wordpress-blogs.html#comments Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:33:18 +0000 Webmaster9 http://www.webmaster9.com/?p=352 1. Role Manager

WordPress Version 2.0 introduces the concept of Roles. Each Role is allowed to perform a set of tasks called Capabilities. This Plugin allows you to define and manage multiple subscriber profiles – called Roles and their Capabilities. Also you can create new Roles and Capabilities.

2. Co-Authors

When you have a blog that is being run by multiple authors, there are times that more than one person contribute to an article. One way of displaying that is when you show something like we do by claiming post is written by Editorial Staff. Another way of going about this is showing co-authors and linking to their profile individually. Co-Author Plugin lets you do just that.

3. Author Exposed

Author Exposed is a simple WordPress plugin that allows your visitors easy and elegant way to see more details about the post author. This plugin does the same thing as the_author() tag only this time it’s linked to hidden layer (div). By clicking on the author link the layer pop’s up with author info gathered from the profile page, plus gravatar photo, if author email is assigned with one.

4. Userextra

On Blogs that have multiple authors, it is wise to assign authors to specific categories to avoid confusion. This plugin limits the user to publishing into the categories he/she is assigned.

5. Author Advertising Plugin

This plugin allows blog admins to create a revenue sharing program utilising one of the many advertising programs out there i.e Yahoo, Google Adsense, Amazon, Allposters etc. Admin has complete control over:

  • The percentage of author adverts to admin adverts.
  • The user level that an author has to be before they get to participate in the revenue sharing program.
  • Whether to randomise author ads on the front page of the blog.

6. Pre-Publish Post Reminder

Always forget to insert your signature, thumbnail or maybe a category image? Or need a place to store your code where you can conveniently copy and paste into your post? Need to leave a note for co-authors? This is what this plugin is for – a handy reminder list on your Post Admin page. Go through the list before confidently pressing the Publish button. Now you only need to remind yourself to read the Reminder list.

7. Hide Dashboard

This plugin lets you hide dashboard features from some users. The title just say it all.

8. Post Avatar

This plugin simplifies including a picture when writing posts by allowing the user to choose from a predefined list of images. The image can be automatically shown on the page or output customized with the use of a template tag in themes.

9. User Photo

Allows a user to associate a profile photo with their account through their “Your Profile” page. Admins may add a user profile photo by accessing the “Edit User” page. Uploaded images are resized to fit the dimensions specified on the options page; a thumbnail image correspondingly is also generated. User photos may be displayed within a post or a comment to help identify the author.

10. Post By Author

This plugin will show the last X posts by the current author either at the bottom of every post, or where you manually specify in each post. Using the built-in options page, you can choose the number of posts to show, set the header text, choose to show the post dates, select the format of the date, and choose whether or not to include the current post in the list.

11. List Authors Widget

This plugin display a list of authors in your WordPress Sidebar Widgets linking to the authors.php page.

12. Quick Notes on WP Dashboard

If you blog with multiple persons, you can leave a message for the others. In the plugin file, you can determine, what capabilities a user must have to read the notes, and what capabilities he must have to write/modify them. By default, Authors and higher can write, and every registered user can read.

13. Post Reminder

Posts reminder notifies you when you forget to write a post on the current day. It notifies you at 22:00 to the email you specifiy on the options page.

14. Send Private Email

This plugin lets you send email to all registered users to your blog, you can change it to editors or which role if you choose. To prevent abuse this powerful mass mailing functionality is available only to users with Administrator role. This can be changed quite easily if need be, for instance to allow all Editors or greater to use the plugin.

*You must Email the Author to obtain a copy of this plugin.

15. Our Todo List

A simple todo list plugin to share ideas/todos with blog members. All members work together to manage the todo list under “Manage” section in WordPress administration interface.

16. Report Posts

Adds the ability for your users to report a post as innappropriate or incorrect. Reported posts then appear in the manage section of the admin console. Add the link to report the post by calling report_post_link(). Edit the report_posts-popup.php to put the desired text in the popup window.

17. Author Comment WordPress Plugin

This plugin is like Author Highlight. It requires authors to login, but when they make a comment it is posted with custom styles.

18. Audit Trail

Audit Trail is a plugin to keep track of what is going on inside your blog. It does this by recording certain actions (such as who logged in and when) and storing this information in the form of a log. Not only that but it records the full contents of posts (and pages) and allows you to restore a post to a previous version at any time.

19. Future Posts Calendar Plugin

This plugin adds a simple month-by-month calendar that shows all the months you have future posts for (and the current month no matter what), it highlights the days you have posts for, and as an added bonus if you click a day the Post Timestamp boxes change to that day, month and year.

20. Get Author Profile

Get Author Profile is a pretty basic WordPress plugin that lets you manually access an author’s (i.e. user’s) profile. The main purpose is to let you provide author information outside The Loop, such as for a sidebar intro of the blog owner or to list contributors to your blog.

21. WordPress Gravatar Plugin for Authors

WordPress plugin that allows you to display author Gravatar in the post written by that specific author.

via www.wpbeginner.com. You may also interested in 35 Tips Tricks To Manage and Handle Multi-Author Blogs

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]]> http://www.webmaster9.com/2009-12/21-great-plugins-to-manage-multi-author-wordpress-blogs.html/feed 0 13 Tips for Working with WordPress on Client Sites http://www.webmaster9.com/2009-08/13-tips-for-working-with-wordpress-on-client-sites.html http://www.webmaster9.com/2009-08/13-tips-for-working-with-wordpress-on-client-sites.html#comments Sat, 15 Aug 2009 14:22:38 +0000 Webmaster9 http://www.webmaster9.com/?p=258 1. Take Advantage of WordPress’s Built-In CMS Capabilities

Over the past few years WordPress has consistently improved the experience and ability to use it as a full-fledged CMS, rather than just a blogging platform. The options of having a static front page and the blog posts on a specific page make it possible to use WordPress for a lot of different purposes. Additionally, options like using different page templates can help to make a site that looks less like a typical blog.

2. Talk to the Client About Upgrades Ahead of Time

Part of working with WordPress and using it as a CMS is the inevitability of the need to upgrade. Upgrades either bring new functionality or features, or they fix security holes, so they’re not a bad thing, but from a client perspective they may bring added maintenance to the site. If the client is not comfortable doing the upgrade themselves they’ll have to hire someone to do it for them (maybe you). Upgrading is not that big of an issue and shouldn’t be a deal breaker, but the client should be aware of the need to upgrade periodically before jumping in to the project.

3. Be Prepared to Train the Client on How to Use WordPress

For those of us that spend a lot of time with WordPress of other CMSs, it may seem pretty simple. However, many clients, especially those who are not very tech-savvy, will have no idea what to do without some instruction. For most sites, it won’t require hours of your time, but you will need to spend some time with most clients walking them through the process of editing and adding content. Be sure to account for this when you’re estimating how long the project will take.

4. Find Out Who is Currently Hosting Their Website

This is probably something you would want to find out up front anyway, but it’s more important when you’re dealing with WordPress. Most major hosting companies by now are offering an easy installation of WordPress (such as through Fantastico), but it’s a good idea to make sure that their web host offers this option. If not, you may want to charge a little more for a manual installation of WordPress, or ask them to move to a new hosting company. One option is to become a reseller of a particular host. Then you could get as many clients as possible to use your own hosting and you would be working in a familiar environment most of the time (plus you could make some extra money on the hosting).

5. Minimize Plugins When Possible

One of the best things about being a WordPress user is the excellent community and all of the resources available, including plugins. However, plugins are a potential source of problems when it comes time to upgrade. I’m not suggesting that you use no plugins, but if a client site isn’t upgraded frequently, excessive plugins can lead to extra work. If you stick to plugins that are actively being updated by developers you should be fine. Additionally, if there are other plugins that can accomplish the same thing, you’ll always have some alternatives if a plugin causes problems following an upgrade.

6. Minimize the Use of Custom Fields

Custom fields are a great feature of WordPress and they open up all kinds of possibilities. But in my opinion, many clients get overwhelmed if they need to use custom fields. In many cases it really comes down to what the client wants and needs. For some things you may not be able to accomplish something specific without the use of custom fields.

7. Consider Purchasing a Developer’s License of Premium Themes

Many premium themes offer developer’s licenses that sell for two or three times the cost of a single license. If you do a lot of client work on WordPress, you may want to consider purchasing some of these. It could save you a little bit of money (you could still charge a client the cost of a single license if you have paid for a developer’s license), plus it will allow you to get very familiar with some specific themes. Editing an existing theme can often be faster and more cost effective than building a theme from scratch, and many premium themes include additional functionality from the dashboard.

8. Use Child Themes if You’re Customizing Existing Themes for Clients

If you want to make modifications to an existing theme for a client, theme upgrades could be difficult or impossible depending on just how much you change the theme. Child themes can allow you to edit the theme while keeping the upgrade process very simple. Admittedly, this is an area that I need to work on for myself.

9. Have a Development Blog

If you do much work at all on WordPress, this is probably something that you already have, but still worth mentioning. You’ll want to install WordPress somewhere that will allow you to work on client themes (and test) without the public being able to find it. With a development blog you can keep multiple themes and switch back and forth whenever you want to work on one.

At the start of a project you may prefer to code it in static HTML and CSS before implementing it into WordPress, but there are sometimes going to be slight changes to how things will appear once it’s in WordPress. For this reason, it’s preferable to get into WordPress earlier rather than later to avoid re-doing things.

10. Keep Your Development Blog Updated with Every New Release of WordPress

Updating WordPress is a good practice in any situation, but especially if you’re developing new themes. If you’re developing a theme for a client that will be using a new installation of WordPress, they’ll be using the latest version. The last thing you’re going to want to find out is that something in the theme doesn’t work quite right on the client’s site because your development blog is not up-to-date.

11. Use Different Page Templates

Page templates can be very useful for a few different reasons. First, they allow you to have pages look and function in different ways, rather than everything using the same blog sidebar for example. Also, and equally important, page templates can allow you to “lock down” certain elements of the design that might otherwise be unintentionally altered by the client. Using the WordPress editor makes it easy for clients to accidentally delete something that might have a significant function in the design. By keeping these items as part of the page template you can ensure that nothing important is deleted or changed.

12. Consider Using PSD to WordPress Services

PSD to HTML services are obviously very popular right now, and they can save you some time in development. There are also some, like WP Coder, that specialize in converting PSDs to WordPress themes. In the right situation, this type of service could make your process easier and free up some of your own time.

13. Set the Client Up with a Database Backup Plugin

Most of your clients won’t think about backing up their database, so it can be helpful if you install a database backup plugin and show them how to use it periodically, it could save tons of headaches later.

via

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