Geoff Campbell's WordCamp Hamilton 2015 Presentation.

1. Extending WordPress with Plugins
WordCamp Hamilton 2015
PLUGINS FOR THE
PEOPLE

2. WHO IS THIS GUY?• GraphicSource.ca – web since 1998
• WP since 2006
• Hamilton Ontario #Hamont

3. WHAT IS A PLUG-IN?
An extra piece of software that
adds a specific function to your
WordPress website.

4. NOT THE ONLY WAY TO
EXTEND WP

5. HOW DO I FIND ONE?
• WP Plugin Repository
• Google It
• Tidy Repo
• Free
• Freemium
• Premium

6. WENT TO THE PLUGIN REPOSITORY
FOUND 87 PLUGINS I HAD TO CHOOSE FROM
WENT TO THE PLUGIN REPOSITORY

7. DANGER / BEWARE
• Core Updates
• Plugin Updates – or lack thereof
• Plugin Conflicts

8. HOW DO I INSTALL A PLUGIN?

9. LET’S DEMO

17. Settings may appear in Different Places – you have to dig around a bit

18. THE FIRST PLUGIN YOU SHOULD
INSTALL
Plugin Central

19. MY DEFAULT INSTALL LIST
• WordPress SEO - Yoast
• WordFence
• WP3 Total Cache
• Contact Form 7 – Free

20. CONTACT FORM PLUG-INS
• Jet Pack – Enables WordPress.com functionality
• Gravity Forms – Paid
• Contact Form 7 – Free

21. GALLERY PLUG-INS
• Will be the most giant headache
• Cactus Masonry Plugin – FREE
• Global Gallery Responsive WordPress Plugin

22. ACCESSIBILITY PLUG-INS
• WP accessibility
• Gravity forms accessibility
• Accessible Twitter feed

23. WHAT ELSE CAN PLUG-INS DO?
• All kinds of widgets, photos, calendars,
• Booking systems, ecommerce, donations
• Sliders, galleries, contests, social media
• Wordpress functionality tweaks
• Site backups / moves - Duplicator
• Podcasting – Blubrry Power Press
• Blogging Tools – Inbound Writer (Premium)
• Translation / Multi Language

24. MORE PLUGINS
Maintenance – close site to outsiders while working on it
No Longer in Directory – are your current plugins?
CSV to SortTable – Sortable HTML table
Invoice King Pro
Customer Area – protected area for client files and invoices.
Image Widget
Insert Javascript and CSS
Performance Monitoring – GTMetrix for Wordpress, WP system health.

25. FROM THE SPEAKERS

26. FROM THE SPEAKERS
• Backup Buddy - PAID
• Duplicator - FREE
• Pixgridder – page grid composer – inside WP
• Sidekick – real time, voice guided training
• Adminimizer – simplify admin area
• Shortcodes Ultimate - Shortcodelic
• Responsive Menu
• Leadin - marketing automation
• Adminer – db management
• All in one schema
• Advanced Custom Fields
• Author Avatar List
• LivePress – live blogging - PAID

27. SECURITY PLUGINS
 Better WP Security
 WP Login Delay Plugin
 Brute Protect
 WordFence
 Clef – www.getclef.com

28. RULES OF THUMB FOR PLUGINS
• Careful with overloading too many plugins
• Watch site performance
• If not in use, disable
• Troubleshooting? Start shutting
them down one by one and test
• Take some time to evaluate have a plan
• Check your site after installing one
• Avoid mass installs/upgrades of
unknown plugins

29. WPPLUGINSATOZ.COM
• Podcast review of Plugins with Marcus Couch and
John Overall

30. TIDYREPO.COM

31. [SHORTCODES]
A small line of code that looks like
[shortcode_name]
And allows you to quickly add functionality
Utilized by plugins

32. ALL THIS GREAT POWER….
FOR FREE
• Leave feedback
• Contact developers about conflicts
• Make a donation to the developer

33. DON’T FEAR CODE
• HTML / CSS
• www.w3schools.com
• Why?
• Style your text
• Move things around
• Add some space around text
• Jazz it up
• <p style=“color:red; font-weight:bold;”> Hello </p>

34. BONUS DESIGN TIP
GIVE YOUR TEXT SOME SPACE

35. THAT’S ALL FOLKS…
geoff@graphicsource.ca
Twitter: @graphicsource
www.graphicsource.ca
For this presentation:
Graphicsource.ca/wch2015