So, JumbleCat has taken a bit of a back seat over the last few months to a few other priorities and will likely remain on the back burner for a while yet.
However, back on Feb 15th, it was 5 years since I made my first post and it seemed like a good time to provide an update on the plugins I use on JumbleCat so without further ado…
Add Admin CSS
Plugin’s Description: Interface for easily defining additional CSS (inline and/or by URL) to be added to all administration pages.
At the moment I have this installed but no CSS in it. The WordPress admin interface has come a long way and no longer needs nearly as much help.
Add Admin JavaScript
Plugin’s Description: Allows Interface for easily defining additional JavaScript (inline and/or by URL) to be added to all administration pages.
I use this to add a little JavaScript to the admin pages so that when I click on a link (either for the front end or an external site) it opens in a new tab instead of “stealing” my current session.
Admin Columns
Plugin’s Description: Customize columns on the administration screens for post(types), pages, media, comments, links and users with an easy to use drag-and-drop interface.
Some of the other plugins I use modify the post/pages page columns to add in extra information they think will be useful, however this is not always the case and in fact it can make the display quite crowded. Some plugins allow you to control what they display, others don’t, but with this plugin it doesn’t matter as you have complete control over which columns get displayed.
Admin Post Navigation
Plugin’s Description: Adds links to navigate to the next and previous posts when editing a post in the WordPress admin.
This is handy if you want to move between posts without having to go back to the post list. Just one of those little plugins that are useful in certain circumstances and probably should be part of the core WordPress install.
Advanced Automatic Updates – Removed
Plugin’s Description: Adds extra options to WordPress’ built-in Automatic Updates feature..
I’ve replaced this with Easy Updates Manager.
After The Deadline for Comments
Plugin’s Description: Makes your comments form have After The Deadline capabilities.
This plugin allows your users to use After the Deadline when writing comments, a nice touch that hopefully improves the quality of the writing!
Always Remember Me
Plugin’s Description: One year auth cookie and ‘Remember Me’ checkbox always checked. “Log in” less often..
Nuff said.
Better WordPress reCAPTCHA
Plugin’s Description: This plugin utilizes reCAPTCHA (with support for Akismet) to help your blog stay clear of spams.
In this day and age, reCAPTCHA is pretty much the only way to keep spam bots off your site.
Bing Translator
Plugin’s Description: Enable visitors to translate your site in their language in one click with the Bing Translator.
I used to use Google to auto translate my site, but since they now charge for the service I’ve moved to Bing.
Configure SMTP
Plugin’s Description: Configure SMTP mailing in WordPress, including support for sending e-mail via SSL/TLS (such as GMail).
Most hosting providers don’t let PHP directly send e-mail, this plug allows WordPress to use a specified host and user/password information to send authenticated mail. It will even use gmail if your hosting provider has no SMTP capabilities.
This is another configuration page that really should be built in to WordPress.
Contextual Related Posts
Plugin’s Description: Show user defined number of contextually related posts.
This plugin providers the list of “Related Posts” at the bottom of each article, it’s not the most accurate set of related posts, but is nice and simple and doesn’t rely on any extended information beyond what’s in the articles by default.
CYAN Backup
Plugin’s Description: Backup your entire WordPress site and its database into a zip file on a schedule.
Backing up your site is important and having some way to automatically move the backups to a remote host is nice as well.
Default Post Date and Time
Plugin’s Description: Set the default date and time when you create a new post.
I publish my blog posts on a schedule, this plugin simply makes it easier to set the schedule up for new posts.
Delete Me
Plugin’s Description: Allow users with specific WordPress roles to delete themselves from the Users → Your Profile subpanel.
This plugin allows a user to delete themselves. Simple and to the point.
Duplicate Post
Plugin’s Description: Clone posts and pages.
A very handy plugin if you tend to write similar posts quite a lot. Not so useful on JumbleCat but still nice to have.
Fast Secure Contact Form
Plugin’s Description: Fast Secure Contact Form for WordPress. The contact form lets your visitors send you a quick E-mail message. Super customizable with a multi-form feature, optional extra fields, and an option to redirect visitors to any URL after the message is sent. Includes CAPTCHA and Akismet support to block all common spammer tactics. Spam is no longer a problem.
This plugin allows for a contact form that doesn’t require a registered user to use it.
This plugin places its settings under the plugin’s menu in WordPress, which seems strange, but not a deal breaker by any means.
Grey Admin Color Schemes
Plugin’s Description: Grey color schemes for WordPress 3.8’s admin area.
When WordPress 3.8 came out, the admin area changed radically and the new colour scheme wasn’t much to my liking, this plugin adds a few more options.
Highlight Search Terms
Plugin’s Description: Wraps search terms in the HTML5 mark tag when referer is a search engine or within wp search results.
Another plugin that is aptly named. If a user searches your site, this plugin highlights the search terms that were found on the page.
Inactive User Deleter
Plugin’s Description: When your project lives so long, and site got a lot of fake user’s registrations (usually made by spammers). This tool will help you to clean this mess up. You can filter, select and delete users.
Finally this plugin allows you to search for users based on various criteria and then delete them in bulk. Useful if you have a lot of spam users that register.
Just Writing
Plugin’s Description: Adds buttons to the Distraction Free Writing Mode for all kinds of extra functions.
Distraction Free Writing Mode has been completely changed in WordPress 4.1, Just Writing adds in a whole new mode that brings back the old style and expands on it.
Login LockDown
Plugin’s Description: Adds some extra security to WordPress by restricting the rate at which failed logins can be re-attempted from a given IP range.
A simple enough plugin that gives the administrator some control over anyone trying a brute force attack against the site. Another plugin that really should be part of the core.
OS Integration
Plugin’s Description: Integrate your site in to your users OS, Windows Live Tiles, icons for Apple and Android, iOS Web App!
Messing with all kinds of different favicons and other resources is a pain, this plugin makes it nice and simple.
P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler)
Plugin’s Description: See which plugins are slowing down your site. Create a profile of your WordPress site’s plugins’ performance by measuring their impact on your site’s load time.
This is a great performance tools, but I keep it disabled normally and just check the site every once in a while to make sure nothing is going wrong.
Posts by Type Access
Plugin’s Description: Adds a link to Drafts, posted and scheduled items under the Posts, Pages, and other custom post type sections in the admin menu.
A simple little plugin that expands the Posts menu in the admin console to include direct access to different post types.
Profile Links
Plugin’s Description: Adds links to each of the major sections of your profile at the top of the page.
A users profile page can get kind of long, this adds some nice jump links to the top of the page.
Rich Text Editor For Comments
Plugin’s Description: Replaces the regular dry textarea in comments with a lightweight fully customizable WYSIWYG Rich text editor.
Much like After the Deadline for Comments, this plugin enhances your users commenting life with the same kind of rich editor found when creating posts etc. This plugin seems to have disappeared from WordPress.org and the author’s site doesn’t seem to be available right now either.
RSS Syndication Options
Plugin’s Description: Allows the administrator to set the update period and update frequency parameters for RSS feeds.
Such a simple but effective plugin, anyone who wants just a bit of control over their RSS feed should have it.
Schedule Posts Calendar
Plugin’s Description: Adds a javascript calendar to the schedule posts options.
Something that has always seemed missing from the WordPress admin interface for creating new posts was a way to schedule them with a popup calendar. This plugin lets you do that and also adds a quick link to the posts list so you can reschedule a post without opening it.
Shareaholic
Plugin’s Description: Shareaholic adds a (X)HTML compliant list of social bookmarking icons to each of your posts.
A nice sharing link plugin, it has several options I didn’t find in other’s, namely printing and e-mail options.
The one thing I don’t like about the plugin is that it adds a new top-level menu instead of nesting itself under one of the existing menu’s, but it’s a small price to pay.
Shortcoder
Plugin’s Description: Shortcoder is a plugin which allows to create a custom shortcode and store HTML, Javascript and other snippets in it.
A while ago I decided to jazz up my posts with an image indicating the category they were in, but I didn’t want to hardcode the media so I use this plugin to insert the image in to the post. That way if I change a category image all I have to do is update the shortcode and all related posts will automatically be updated as well. There might be a better way to do this, but it seems to work well so I’m happy with it.
Shutter Reloaded
Plugin’s Description: Darkens the current page and displays an image on top like Lightbox, Thickbox, etc. However this script is a lot smaller and faster.
A nice little plugin to make screen shots and other images pop up over the current page instead of a new window or replacing the existing one.
Sidebar Login
Plugin’s Description: Easily add an ajax-enhanced login widget to your site’s sidebar.
The Sidebar Login plugin is a nice widget for WordPress that seems like a no brainer. It does have a small issue with the theme I use and I have to manually make a change to it each time it’s updated, but it otherwise functions flawlessly.
Simple Custom CSS
Plugin’s Description: The simple, solid way to add custom CSS to your WordPress website.
Sometimes you just need to add some extra CSS to your main site. Some theme’s have this option built in but then when you change the theme you have to hope the next one does as well. This plugin makes your extra CSS theme independent.
Simple Feed Stats
Plugin’s Description: Tracks feeds, displays subscriber counts, custom feed content, and much more.
It’s a little simple and doesn’t exclude robots from the stats, but it does provide some useful view of how many subscribers you have to your blog through RSS.
Simple Local Avatars
Plugin’s Description: Adds an avatar upload field to user profiles. Generates requested sizes on demand, just like Gravatar! Simple and lightweight.
I have been using the “User Avatar” plugin since the start of my blog and it’s a good plugin, however it hasn’t been updated for WordPress 3.8 and it was getting kind of annoying. The issue is that it uses a floated “div” to display your profile picture in your profile page and with the new admin color scheme’s layout it obscured some of the color schemes.
Simple Local Avatars does everything that User Avatar did but uses the standard WordPress API to add a section to the profile page, avoiding any conflicts in the future as well.
Simple Trackback Validation with Topsy Blocker
Plugin’s Description: Enhancement and REPLACEMENT of the original STV plugin from Michael Woehrer. Added automated blocking of topsy.com Trackbacks.
For the first 8 months of running JumbleCat I would every few weeks get ping back spam, this plugin has completely eliminated it. Nuff said.
Subscribe2
Plugin’s Description: Notifies an email list when new entries are posted.
A great plugin I use to allow everyone to subscribe to my blog via e-mail.
Subscribe Sidebar
Plugin’s Description: Adds a list of Subscribe links to your sidebar. Options include your blog and podcast feed, Twitter page, iTunes, Facebook Fan Page and more.
A simple widget that let’s you setup different subscription options for your users. Nice and clean.
SULly
Plugin’s Description: System Update Logger – Record system updates including plugins, themes and core updates.
With the automatic updates now active in WordPress it’s hard to keep track of when things have been updated. SULly keeps track of everything for you.
TinyMCE Spellcheck
Plugin’s Description: Adds a contextual spell, style, and grammar checker to WordPress 3.6+.
I used to use After the Deadline to do spellchecking but that was rolled in to JetPack and I don’t want to use JetPack so this is a fork of the code that works without linking to WordPress.com.
User Registration Aide
Plugin’s Description: Forces new users to register additional fields with the option to add additional fields other than those supplied with the default WordPress Installation.
I use this to let new users that I delete inactive accounts.
Users Registered List
Plugin’s Description: Adds sortable `Registered` column to the list of users in wp-admin area.
Pretty self explanitory.
User Avatar – Removed
Plugin’s Description: Allows users to associate photos with their accounts by accessing their “Your Profile” page that default as Gravatar or WordPress Default image (from Discussion Page).
Replaced by Simple Local Avatars.
WordPress Force HTTPS
Plugin’s Description: Forces all of the things to use HTTPS.
When I added a certificate to JumbleCat, I needed a plugin to force all of the various parts of WordPress to use HTTPS instead of HTTP, this plugin does the job well.
WordPress phpinfo()
Plugin’s Description: This simple plugin adds an option to an adminstrator’s Tools menu which displays standard phpinfo() feedback details to the user.
I had been using a plugin to do this for a while but it added a top level menu item, which as it was only a once in a while thing was a little obtrusive. This plugin adds it’s menu item under tools, which seems more logical.
WP About Author
Plugin’s Description: Easily display customizable author bios below your posts
This was one of the first plugin’s I installed and is still my favorite “about” plugin.
WP Last Login
Plugin’s Description: Displays the date of the last login in user lists.
Its nice to see when the last login for a user was.
WP Statistics
Plugin’s Description: Website statistics tracking.
I had been using BAW Post Views Count for quite a while and it does provide a good view of what posts are being read, but that’s all it does. WordPress Statistics takes it a step farther and give a detailed view of all the hits on your site.
