Web Development Blog

If there is one thing we really love at the development department at work, it’s open source software, and somewhere, high on that list, you will find Wordpress, the super cool online publishing platform.

In fact, we love Wordpress so much, that sometimes one of us gets to close our eyes and pretend one of the other developers is a Wordpress and then later that developer can do the same to one of the other developers.

Wordpress is great platform that doesn’t really require any 3rd party extensions to perform perfectly for almost any small to medium sized website, but every once in a while you will get a request that’s just a little out of scope. To fix these “problems”, Wordpress comes standard with the ability to support 3rd party extensions (also known as plug-ins).

Here is a list of my top 5 favorite plug-ins to use on your next online project:

Members Only - This plug-in is my favorite. It’s quite a nifty extension that allows you to restrict the contents of your site to logged in members only. This is great for something like an online directory of contacts or any information that might be too sensitive to just lie around online.

BM Custom Login - This plug-in is my favorite and is great for two reasons, if you use it in conjunction with the Members Only plug-in, you can have a complete custom looking front-end to your private site, the other use is off course a completely custom looking backend login screen if you decide to use Wordpress as a CMS for your next client.

Role Manager - To start off I need to mention that this plug-in is definitely my favorite and the reason is because it allows you to completely customize the roles of the user profiles that comes standard with your Wordpress installation. So, as the person who built the site, you can have full access to administer the site and all its functions while the person who populate and updates the site can have a profile that only allows them to amend the content of the site.

Clutter Free - This plug-in goes hand in hand with the Role Manager plug-in and the reason I say this is because it allows you to switch parts of the “write” screen, in the back-end on and off, ensure I nice and clean environment for your end user to publish and amend website content. Because this plug-in is so awesome, I have to say that it’s definitely my favorite.

Maintenance Mode - I have decided to leave my favorite one till last. The Maintenance Mode plug-in is a pretty straight forward extension that allows you to close your site to outside visitors when you are doing upgrade or other tasks on your site. The visitor will simply be met by a screen that tells them that your site is down for maintenance and that they can check back in 60 minutes or so. A Must have plug-in.

All of the above plug-ins have been tried and tested with the latest version of Wordpress (2.5.1).