Since I started as a front-end WordPress developer in Banbury I have already picked up some great WordPress tips and new plugins. Here is a quick summary of my favourite tips.
If there’s one word that I would use to describe the WordPress community, it’s this: huge. It should come as no surprise, then, that there are plugins being released and updated every single day. Some of them bring features that we all wish WordPress had by default. Some of them might only be useful to any given website designer once in their lifetime.
Either way, there’s a lot to explore. Here’s my latest tips and favourite new plugins.
Gravity Forms for WordPress is a full featured contact form plugin that features a drag and drop interface, advanced notification routing, lead capture, conditional logic fields, multi-page forms, pricing calculations and the ability to create posts from external forms. The forms can easily be styled using basic CSS skills and it is quite easy to customise the forms. They seem to work really well responsively in most cases I have used them.
Theme File Duplicator is the perfect tools for cloning an existing WordPress template file without the need for uploading new files via FTP. Optionally, you can add a template name, so that the new file will be automatically recognized as a new page template in the post/page editor. If using a child theme, the new file will be copied from the parent theme folder into the child theme. Definitely worth playing around with!
MK Slider is a WordPress slider with stunning, easily changeable effects. You can create any number of sliders in a matter of minutes without coding & image editing. The plugin supports shortcodes for adding your sliders to posts or pages. MK Slider also provide the slider settings to each sliders created individually. Also there is a widget if you want to add the MK Slider to the sidebar of your WordPress blog.
The Advanced Custom Fields plugin is a great plugin for all WP developers. The plugin is the perfect solution for any website which needs more flexible data like other Content Management Systems. You can create and manage fields and control how users edit sections of a website.
Change your sidebar content for different pages, categories, custom taxonomies, and WPML languages. Avoid creating multiple sidebars and duplicating widgets by adding check boxes to each widget in the admin which will either show or hide the widgets on every site page. This plugin is great for avoiding extra coding and keeping your sidebars clean.
By default, ‘Hide on checked pages’ is selected with no boxes checked, so all current widgets will continue to display on all pages.
