6 Spanking New WordPress Plugins You Haven’t Seen
WordPress fans might have heard about the WordPress Plugins competition held at WeblogToolsCollection blog. Out of the 30 entries (+6 that haven’t submitted their final code), I have chosen 7 WordPress Plugins that I think are really useful for enhancing WordPress functionality.
Let’s see what they are and why they made my list in no particular order.
- WordPress Automatic Upgrade
This plugin will be a welcome relief for a lot of bloggers who are jittery about upgrading their WordPress installations. Even for the seasoned bloggers, the steps offered by this plugin is nice so you don’t have to worry about forgetting to do a little thing in between an upgrade.
Read through the linked page to understand how it works before you start upgrading with this plugin. A backup before an upgrade is still highly recommended. A clear winner for making WordPress upgrades blogger friendly. - OneClick Install
A second plugin that is going to make self hosted WordPress installations more popular among bloggers. With this plugin, you just point to a URL or a downloaded zip file of a theme or a plugin and it installs it in ONE click! How cool is that?
Plus, check out these neat features:- Forget the hassle of ftp-ing, unzipping theme & plugin files
- Comes with a Firefox extension to do this - forget going to the Dashboard
- Helps non-techie bloggers as well as people with Firewall restrictions
- Updates itself
- ContactNG
ContactNG is simply a contact form done right. A contact form is essential for any blog and there is no reason it should look shabby. Use skins of your choice with this customizable form, even generate your own buttons. It sports intelligent and unobtrusive anti-spam features. Comes with support for the language plugin, Polyglot. - MyDashboard
If you have used Netvibes or iGoogle like interface, you’ll love what this plugin does to the WordPress Admin interface. You get gadgets that you add/remove, drag and drop and rearrange, change skins and if it’s your cup of tea, add your own gadgets with the API. It comes with standard gadgets that mimic the standard information in the Admin Panel like LatestComments, LatestPosts, IncomingLinks, etc.
I am looking forward to seeing more community developed gadgets for MyDashboard with the API provided with it. - WP Plugins Tracker
Another usability plugin that helps plugin management. Anyone who has been running a WordPress blog will know the hassle of finding out if the plugin they have is up to date or not. This plugin lists in a nice visual list of current version and the latest version of all plugins (including inactive) installed in your blog. Only caveat is that the plugin has to be listed in wp-plugins-db.org repository. But, I found that 90% of my plugins were indeed listed. - Simple Tagging
If you like tags, you are probably using, the very able, Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin. Simple tagging addresses UTW’s shortcomings like poor performance, absence of auto-complete as you type, tag management, feeds for tags, etc. Check out the full list for an array of impressive features offered by this plugin.
Check out these plugins as well as the others in the list. I picked out the ones that will be most useful for a majority of bloggers and the rest are not inferior by any means.
Use the comment section to sound off your thoughts and if you like any and why you like them.
I write about more technology related topics at ShanKri-la - where technology meets daily life!. My goal is to make your life on the Internet a little bit easier, a little bit manageable and a little bit more enjoyable.
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August 13th, 2007 at 4:05 am
[…] 6 Spanking New Wordpres Plugins - I know I just included Blog About Your Blog in my link love last week, but I couldn’t resist linking them again. These are some pretty shnazzy new plugins I must say. Check out the OneClick install. Nice! […]
August 13th, 2007 at 4:45 am
Great post. I must check that automatic update plugin, it would save me a bit of hassle every 3-4 weeks on my blogs!
Thanks,
BeckyS
August 13th, 2007 at 6:05 am
Well I’ve seen some of these
The plugins tracker is getting better every day: When I first installed it, it only covered about 50% of my plugins, now it’s more like 95%.
I like the sound of 1 & 2 but haven’t used them yet - I’ll let other people be the beta testers….
August 13th, 2007 at 6:24 am
Chris, I apologize for the overbearing title. Let’s just say I was low on caffeine yesterday.
I have tried the OneClick Install and it works great most of the times but sometimes it has trouble reading the zip file. I have to investigate further or follow up with the author. Especially, this plugin also comes as a Firefox extension which is going to be huge convenience to not even log in to the WP Admin paenl.
August 13th, 2007 at 10:03 am
@Becky.. thanks for the comment! I just manually upgraded to WP 2.2.2 when it released. So, my next upgrade will probably be with this plugin.
August 13th, 2007 at 10:23 am
There are definitely a few plugins here that I should be able to use…
August 13th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Glad you found it useful, Chris!
August 13th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Great plugins! Thanks for the list!
August 13th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
[…] = ‘http://seoaware.com/2007/08/13/a-must-read-article-on-6-new-must-have-wordpress-plugins/’; 6 Spanking New WordPress Plugins You Haven’t Seen- […]
August 13th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I submitted it to sphinn, its a nice little article. I always enjoy your weekly
http://sphinn.com/story/2800
August 13th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
[…] 6 Spanking New WordPress Plugins You Haven’t Seen […]
August 13th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Melissa.. thanks for the link love! Glad you liked them..
Matt.. thats kind man! Cheers.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:00 am
I like that automatic update plugin, thanks for that!
August 14th, 2007 at 5:14 am
Thanks for making a poor blogger’s life a little easier!
Great plugins.
August 14th, 2007 at 7:39 am
[…] WordPress fans might have heard about the WordPress Plugins competition held at WeblogToolsCollection blog. Out of the 30 entries (+6 that haven’t submitted their final code), I have chosen 7 WordPress Plugins that I think are really useful for enhancing WordPress functionality. 6 Spanking new Wordpress Plugins you havent seen […]
August 14th, 2007 at 10:20 am
You are welcome, Urban Kudos!
@Patricia.. you can vote for these plugin authors if you’d like to show appreciation for their work. I just merely mentioned it here.
August 14th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
[…] About Your Blog posts the 6 brand new WordPress plugins that have made the cut in the WordPress Plugins competition. They sound […]
August 20th, 2007 at 9:57 am
[…] 6 Spanking New WordPress Plugins You Haven’t Seen by K-IntheHouse made it to the front page of sphinn. This sent a nice flow of traffic. It was only the second article I submitted to sphinn, I just found this website. (not to mention the article also got 11 delicious saves, as well as several stumbles!) […]
November 25th, 2007 at 6:35 am
I’m really finding the mydashboard pretty nifty!
December 15th, 2007 at 7:33 am
Great post! Thanks for sharing. I’m downloading the plugins now!
December 15th, 2007 at 11:25 am
@blueforgx, glad to know you love it!
@Julius.. you are very welcome. If you liked this, you would enjoy this post of my mine, even more.