I’ve tried to find plugins that aren’t as well known so hopefully you’ll see something new and cool you can use.

I’ve tried and tested most of these plugins on WordPress 2.5.1 and they all worked great at the time of testing.

As always, the comments are open and is great place for you to share the plugins that make Wordpress work as a CMS for you.

WP Help

WP Help is a plugin that allows an administrator to create a help and or instructions page in the WordPress admin for new users. It creates a top-level menu item that presents a page of content you define to all WordPress users who can access the admin section.

It is very helpful if you create a lot of WordPress sites for clients and you want to give them some simple instructions they can quickly refer to on how to use the site or a particular plugin.

http://pressingpixels.com/wp-help/

Admin Management Xtended

This is a cool little plugin that lets the admin user edit properties of posts and pages quickly without having to open up each individual post/page.

You can change page order via drag-and-drop, change posts/page title, change tags, change comments status and much more.

http://www.schloebe.de/wordpress/admin-management-xtended-plugin/

WP-Add Quicktag

WP-Add Quicktag allows you to quickly and easily add your own custom quicktags to the write panel. I’ve used this to create a button for myself to add in custom classes for images but could easily be used to insert custom code for client installs as well.

http://roel.meurders.nl/wordpress-plugins/wp-addquicktag-plugin-for-adding-quicktags/

FormBuilder

While not as complex or feature rich as some other form creating plugins for WordPress, the FormBuilder plugin is very easy to use and may be exactly what a client install needs.

The Form Builder Plugin for WordPress allows you to build complex forms in the WordPress administrative interface without needing to know PHP or HTML.

http://truthmedia.com/wordpress/formbuilder/

Flexible Upload

Flexible upload enhances the image upload functionality built into WordPress and brings in some much needed features.

It will re-size pictures to upload at the size you specify, insert captions, include watermarks, and will create custom sized thumbnails.

http://blog.japonophile.com/flexible-upload/

Page Category Plus

Page Category Plus allows you to assign categories to WordPress pages, which WordPress in it’s natural state does not do.

This is a great plugin if you need to be able to customize your installation just a little bit more. It gives you the hook in your templates to be able to call pages by category which opens up all sorts of new possibilities when creating themes and sites.

http://www.stuff.yellowswordfish.com/page-category-plus/

Tags 4 Page

Like the Page Category Plus plugin, this plugin brings a feature only in posts to pages.

With the Tags 4 Page plugin you can apply tags to pages. Again, this gives you another hook to use in your development and will bring back additional results when a user is searching.

http://www.michelem.org/wordpress-plugin-tags4page/

Search Custom Fields

If you just want your default WordPress search to search custom fields, then you will be happy with the Search Anything Plugin. But if you want to display a form that will specify what custom field to search by you will want to check out this plugin.

This plugin automatically creates a form with select boxes for each custom field you have created. All of the values for the custom field will be in the select box. You can add and remove the fields it uses in the plugin.

*Warning* The site I originally got this plugin from has been listed on search engines as a dangerous site that contain malware. I’m not sure if this is true or if the site just got hacked. Either way the site is not up anymore.

You can download the plugin here at your own risk. I am currently using it on a site and have had no problems. I have checked the code with the knowledge I have and it appears safe. If any other experienced coders want to give it a clean bill of health that would be helpful.

Again, I’m using the plugin on a large site and have not had any problems.

http://pressingpixels.com/projects/wp-plugins/search-custom.zip

WP CMS

This plugin strips out all the blog functionality of WordPress and leaves admin users with just the ability to create and manage pages.

This could be a great plugin for very simple sites with very simple people needing to manage them.

http://www.gilbertpellegrom.co.uk/wp-cms/

Role Manager

This is a very poplular plugin and no list of WordPress CMS plugins would be complete without it.

WordPress Version 2.0 introduces the concept of Roles. Each Role is allowed to perform a set of tasks called Capabilities. This Plugin allows you to define and manage multiple subscriber profiles – called Roles and their Capabilities.

It allows you to specify what exactly each person can do administratively. There are a number of other plugins that work in conjunction with the role manager plugin as well.

http://www.im-web-gefunden.de/wordpress-plugins/role-manager/

Hide Dashboard

The Hide Dashboard plugin removes the dashboard from the admin. When users log in they will see their profile instead.

Users with Administrator credentials will still see the dashboard.

http://www.deepwave.net/articles/hide_dashboard/

My Dashboard

The MyDashboard plugin is designed to replace the standard, but limited, WordPress dashboard with something a bit more useful, extendable and skinnable.

It is based on the igoogle, Pageflakes and Netvibes style of home page and is designed to be easily extendable and skinnable.

Features include: Drag and drop gadgets, CSS style chages, and standard gagets.

http://dev.clearskys.net/Wordpress/MyDashboard

My FTP

My FTP is a file management Plugin for WordPress that enables a blog administrator to (much like an FTP client) navigate folders and files on the server where their WordPress installation is hosted.

The administrator can then edit, delete or upload files on the fly from within the WordPress administration panel.

It is also possible to create new folders and upload complete directory structures.

I’m not sure how safe this plugin is so use at your own risk.

http://trialsoftwarez.com/wordpress-myftp/

Upload Plus

This plugin let you clean file names from unwanted characters while you upload them.

If you are building a site for clients that requires the uploading of pictures or other files they often will upload stuff with the wackiest file names known to man. This plugin cleans all that up so that there are no problems related to file names.

http://pixline.net/wordpress-plugins/upload-plus/en/

I’ve been using WordPress for client’s sites for quite sometime and most of the time I have to explain how to use the software at least 2 or 3 times – especially if I’ve implemented features using custom fields or special plugins. It would be great if there were a resource that they could always refer to easily while they are in the process of creating.

I came across a plugin that did this but is was not easily updatable and had some issues with a couple of installations. So I’ve improved on it and here is WP Help inspired by Sam Burdge’s wp-instructions.

I have plans to make the editing area more useful. I would love to implement TinyMCE but it doesn’t seem to play well. If anybody knows how to do this please leave a comment.

I’ve also include a sample text file of How to Create a Post in WordPress for you to try out. Just open the text file and copy and paste to the configuration screen.

Download

Wordpress 2.5 v1.0

Installation

1. Download, unzip and upload to your WordPress plugins directory.
2. Activate the plugin within you WordPress Administration Backend.
3. Go to the ‘Help & Instructions’ options page in the ’settings’ menu.
4. Type in the title that you would like to appear on the Help & Instructions page.
5. Enter the content you would like your users to see. You can enter html if you like.
6. Click the ‘update options’ button and you are good to go.

Advanced Options

How to change the title of the main menu tab

1. Open up the plugin file ‘wp_help_config.php’
2. On or about line 16 you will see this code:

   add_menu_page('Help & Instructions', 'Help & Instructions'
   

3. 3. Change the text in the quotes to what you would like your new tab to read.
4. Example: If you want your tab to just say ‘Help’ your line would look like this:

      add_menu_page('Help', 'Help'

5. Save the file and upload back to your plugins folder if necessary

If you would like the help page to be in a sub-menu like ‘manage’ or ‘design’

1. Open up the plugin file ‘wp_help_config.php’
2. On or about line 16 you will see the code:

   add_menu_page('Help & Instructions',

3. Change the text ‘add_menu_page’ to ‘add_management_page’ for the ‘manage menu’ or change the text to ‘add_theme_page ‘for the presentation menu’

Screenshots

And for all you counters out there, I know there are actually twelve but the last two aren’t free and 10 sounds much more round in the title…

Admin Menu Drop Down

Hate clicking around to get to an option page buried deep in the Wordpress Admin soil? Me too.

This is typically the very first plugin I install. When developing with Wordpress you spend a lot of time jumping back and forth in the WP admin menu and this plugin saves you a lot of clicks. And if you are behind a slow corporate firewall it saves you a ton of time from the unnecessary page loads. Get this plugin!

2.5 compatible: Yes
Plugin page: http://planetozh.com/blog/my-projects/wordpress-admin-menu-drop-down-css/

One Click Install

If the Admin Drop Down Menu plugin the first thing I install this plugin is a close second and sometimes first…

This is an amazing plugin that can eliminate the downloading, unzipping, uploading circus that one must go through for each plugin he wishes to install. With One Click you can copy the link to the zip file, paste it in the admin page, click go and your plugin is uploaded, unpacked and installed. You just have to activate it. Get this plugin!

2.5 compatible: Yes
Plugin page: http://anirudhsanjeev.org/oneclick-plugin/

Activate All

If you have a directory of plugins you use all the time for specific installs it may actually save you time to upload all at once and use this plugin.

Once this plugin is activated it takes a stroll around the plugin folder and activates everything it can get its hands on with no additional work for you.

2.5 compatible: Yes
Plugin page: http://mass-automation.com/2006/10/19/activate-all-of-your-wordpress-plugins-with-one-click/

The download page on the site doesn’t seem to be working at the moment so I’ll post my zip file of the plugin here. Please check the authors site first before using this one. If the authors download comes back I’ll remove this link.

Plugin Central

If this plugin and the One Click Install plugin could mate and have a love child, Wordpress plugin life would be sweet indeed.

Plugin Central allows you to automatically update all of your plugins and install new plugins from the dashboard. It also generates a list of all plugins and active plugins from its settings page.

The only downsides to this plugin is that there is a giant author credit right at the forefront of the dashboard which may not be professional for some client installs. And in order to install plugins automatically they must be in the Wordpress plugin repository.

(Update) The plugin has been updated. The newest version has removed the author credit and allows you to install files from the url (any zip file should work).

2.5 compatible: Yes – And only WP 2.5
Plugin page: http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/wordpress-plugins/plugin-central

PHP Info

If you need to know if your eAccelerator is enabled this plugin is for you.

It also gives you other pertinent php and Wordpress specific information.

2.5 compatible: Yes
Plugin page: http://wordpress.designpraxis.at/plugins/phpinfo/

WP-Debug

If you are into writing a lot of php and need to do some debugging because your code just doesn’t seem to work this plugin may help.

(update) The plugin has Krumo bundled with it and you don’t need to be a hard core php developer to use this. The author uses it a lot for theme design. This could be a very valuable time saving plugin.

2.5 compatible: Yes
Plugin page: http://www.siolon.com/2007/wp-debug/

Diagnosis

If you are an information junkie and need to know-it-all, this plugin is for you. It displays all sorts of technical data about the server Wordpress is installed on.

2.5 compatible: Yes
Plugin page: http://nlindblad.org/wordpress/diagnosis

DB Backup

Before you start screwing around with stuff too much you might want to do a database backup.

Don’t come to this site crying when your really cool modified version of the Hello plugin wiped out all your posts from the last 10 years.

2.5 compatible: Yes
Plugin page: http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup/

PHP My-Admin

After you screwed up your database from your awesome new plugin you created you’ll need to access it to delete all of the entries it made.

This would normally be a pain but if you have the phpMyAdmin plugin installed its easy access from your Wordpress admin.

2.5 compatible: Yes
Plugin page: http://wordpress.designpraxis.at/plugins/wp-phpmyadmin/

Site Unavailable

As you are developing the next Bloggie worthy site you probably don’t want the whole world peeking in.

This plugin hides the site and lets the user know it is down for maintenance. The plugin includes a style sheet so you can pretty up the default screen.

The author also credits himself on the unavailable screen which might be unprofessional for some client installs.

2.5 compatible: Yes
Plugin page: http://thefunzone.awardspace.com/wordpress/?page_id=51

Auto-Installer (not free)

While not free this plugin looks like it could be very useful to the right person. WP Auto-Installer allows you to easily create Wordpress blogs with just a few clicks.

2.5 compatible: Should be if you have to pay for it.
Plugin page: http://wpautoinstaller.com/

WordPress Cloner (not free)

WP Cloner scans the settings, plugins and posts of your perfectly configured blog and then allows you quickly configure any other blog with those exact details. It basically copies the configuration of one blog and pastes it onto any number of other blog.

2.5 compatible: Should be if you have to pay for it.
Plugin page: http://wp-cloner.com/

Inspired by the Custom Login Plugin by Ben Gillbanks The Custom Admin Branding Plugin allows you to not only re-brand the Wordpress login screen, but also the admin header and footer with your own custom images. The plugin has been updated for WP 2.7. Legacy versions can be downloaded as well.

It should be fairly easy to use for anyone familiar with Wordpress and has basic css and html skills. At its simplest it only requires you to activate and then replace three images with your own. Photoshop templates are included to help you with that.

Download

Latest Release – Version 1.3.5 for Wordpress 2.7
Version 1.1.2 for Wordpress 2.5 – 2.6.3
Legacy version for Wordpress 2.3.3

Donate

If you have found this plugin useful please consider donating to keep the development and support current.

Installation

1. Download the Custom Branding Plugin
2. Upload the ‘custom_branding’ folder to your plugins folder
3. Go to the plugin section in your admin and activate

Customization

Using the Photoshop templates, replace the custom images in the images folder with your own.
If you are familiar and competent (or just adventurous) with css you can customize the values in the included css files. Some of things you may wish to change are:

• The bg color, border, and text color of the button in the login screen
• The bg color and text color of the admin header (note that there are different values for regular text and links)

If you are using Wordpress 2.5 the plugin includes a custom admin color scheme. You can modify the values in the css file “custom-wp-admin.css” for a unique look. This is activated in your individual user profile.

The image in the footer can be linked as well. I use that area to put my logo for sites I’ve created for clients. If you are using version 1.1 or later of the plugin go to the options page under the settings menu. Type in the url you would like to link to, click “update” and you are good to go.

If you are using the legacy version for Wordpress 2.3 and below, to change the link you’ll need to open up custom_branding.php and change the value on or around line 43 to point to whatever url you want. You’ll also want to change the ‘alt’ value in case the image can’t be loaded.

For all versions: If you wish to use other types of images (.jpg, .gif, etc…) you can, but you need to manually change the names in the custom_branding.php file also.

Drop Down Menu Integration for WP 2.5 – 2.6.3

One of my favorite Admin plugins is the drop down menu plugin from Ozh at Planet Wordpress. The legacy versions of the custom branding plugin will work the legacy versions of drop down menus.

I’ll post an update for the drop down menu compatible version when Ozh brings it out.

WordPress Upgrades

WordPress 2.5 brought about some major changes to the structure and markup of the administration system (hence the two versions of this plugin). But as long as the markup in the core files does not change the plugin will continue to work as you upgrade WordPress. This plugin does not modify any core files.

Changelog

Wordpress 2.7

• 1.3.5
  • Updated version bug in the WordPress repository
• 1.3.4
  • Corrected a bug in the way the plugin got the username of the person logged in
• 1.3
  • Added link to main site in admin header
  • Updated css for login page
  • Updated .psd template for login page
• 1.2
  • Verified 2.7 compatibility.

Wordpress 2.5 – 2.5.3

• 1.1.2
• Updated css to work with 2.5 version of OZH Drop Down Menu.
• Verified 2.6 compatibility.
• 1.1.1
• Added custom classes to style the login button.
• 1.1
• Added a settings page to update the footer link.
• 1.0.1
• Added a priority to the style sheet to have seamless integration with the Drop Down Menu Plugin.
• 1.0
• Adjusted plugin to the new Admin for WP 2.5
• Simplified the login image
• Enlarged the main logo image for the admin header
• Added support for Ozh’s Drop Down Menu Plugin

Wordpress 2.1-.3

0.3 – Cleaned out some unnecessary code, corrected some links, and added some additional custom styles.
0.2 – Removed some whitespace in the code to eliminate some javascript and header errors.

Screenshots

For Wordpress 2.7

For Wordpress 2.5

For Wordpress 2.1 – 2.3

This is my first Wordpress plugin so if you have any questions or comments or suggestions please don’t hesitate to comment below or let me know.

So then the debate turns to what makes a good cms? I believe a good cms at its core must be flexible enough to allow a wide range of people the ability to manage their content the way they want to manage it. And I don’t know of another application that has as large a userbase, as large of a community that is active in creating new plugins, or the flexibility to become most things to most people as Wordpress does.

So with that little soliloquy I’m presenting a list and descriptions of the plugins and techniques I have used to make Wordpress a very effective and useful content management system for a wide variety of clients.

Custom Admin Branding Plugin

This is my own plugin which allows you to re-brand the login screen, header and footer of the Wordpress admin. You can upload your own images or your clients logos to make them feel more at home.

Clutter Free

This plugin allows portions of the WordPress interface to be hidden that your client won’t use. Each author’s preferences are stored separately and can be edited in the author’s profile.

Custom Admin Menu

This is a brilliant plugin that allows full customization over the menus and submenus in the Wordpress administration area. You can create new menus, and reorder and relabel existing ones.

Custom Write Panel

What does this beauty do? In general it allows you to create your own custom fields in the write section. In reality you are creating an entirely new writing section in which you can choose specific input fields to display. You can also create custom fields that are specific to your user. If you combine this with the Custom Admin Menu plugin you can create a menu of specific forms for your end users to write with.

The documentation for this plugin is pretty sparse so look for a future post where I’ll outline how I’ve used it.

Fresh Post

This plugin is an offshoot of the Custom Write Panel. The Fresh Post plugin is essentially the same as the Custom Write Panel but has added the ability to upload files and images. This feature alone makes this plugin one of the most valuable plugins in my Wordpress Admin. It also comes with a sweet little script that automatically resizes and thumbnails images.

The only downside is that much like the Custom Write Panel documentation is pretty much non-existant so you’re going to have to play with it a bit. I’ve also discovered that this plugin is unfortunately incompatible with the podpress plugin (version 8.8 running on WP 2.3.2)

Both of these plugins do not seem to be in any sort of active development cycle but hopefully someone can pick up where these have left off because the features these plugins offer are far too valuable to leave and let lie.

[update 3.11.08 It appears that Fresh Post is alive and well and a new version will be released on 3.15.08. I'm planning to do a complete review after it comes out so stay tuned. The best plugin for the Wordpress CMS possibly just got better.]

Dagon Design Form Mailer

This is another absolutely indispensable plugin. It allows you to create custom forms and have the data emailed back to you. There is not a limit on the amount of forms you can create and the customization options for it are practically endless.

cForms II

Much like the previous plugin cforms is a highly customizable, flexible and powerful contact form plugin, covering a variety of use cases. Some of the features that distinguish this plugin are the ability to add upload fields, track data from within the Wordpress admin.

Dashboard Editor

Wipe the cluttered dashboard clean and insert your own content. Greet your clients with a personalized message, links, widgets and more.

Image Manager

If your clients will be uploading a lot of pictures this is the perfect plugin. It organizes, inserts and even does simple editing. The plugin allows your clients to crop and resize pics without leaving the admin section. It will also create better thumbnails and even integrate with Lightbox.

One Click Installer

This is more for you than your clients. This plugin simplifies and speeds up the process of installing all these other plugins. You will wonder how you lived without this one.

Post Template

This plugin allows you to create post templates in order to save time writing posts having the same structure.

Search Everything

I’m not sure why this isn’t a Wordpress default but this plugin will do what it says. It allows the search function in Wordpress to search everything including options to search pages, attachments, drafts, comments and custom fields.