Plugins

Better, Faster WordPress Search

The default WordPress search tool is fine for low-traffic sites or those with relatively limited content.  But it’s a limited system.  So limited, in fact, that even Matt Mullenweg, one of WP’s founder developers, actually uses Google Search on his own website. So if you want more relevant search results, a lighter database load, and better performance for large or highly trafficked sites then this may well be what you need.

To download and install you can either scroll down and find the download button at the bottom of this article, or you will soon be able to auto-install from the WP back-end.

Do be aware that this is quite a database heavy and complex plugin - it should work well on most installs, but it’s not for everybody and we hold no responsibility for any problems caused.  Consider taking a back-up before implementation. Read more

Spectacu.la Discussion ( Previously: Threaded Comments )

Comments have two colour modes, light and darkOnce installed this plug-in will replace your theme’s comments template with its own. Giving you threading, pagination and jQuery based roll up of subordinate comments this allows you to keep things tidy. The roll up can be told to trigger at any depth you feel is best using the comments page under appearance. Also available on the plug-in’s admin page is the option to use the other included stylesheet that’s more appropriate for dark hued themes. You can also tell it to use no stylesheet at all. This is handy if you want to roll it into your themes stylesheet to cut down the number of HTTP requests a visitor makes, useful on busy sites. Read more

Categorised as: Plugins

Search and Replace for WordPress Databases

WordPress makes, in my opinion, the sin of storing serialized PHP data in the database. In my view using databases to store non-platform-agnostic information is always dangerous, but then I spent half my career working on cross-platform code and databases, so perhaps it’s just me. Read more

Categorised as: Plugins

Spectacu.la Page Widget Plugin

To download the Plugin, please read the instructions then go to the bottom of this post and click the download button.

It’s often nice to be able to create a profile page or similar, and to display it in a sidebar. You get to use the visual editor, and you don’t necessarily need admin access. Similarly, you avoid the issue of having to work with the much more difficult text widget.

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Categorised as: Plugins