WordPress Plugins and all that
I have been playing with my plugins.
I have been assured that I won’t go blind, or grow hair on the palms of my hands. My psychiatrist says it is perfectly normal.
Basically, my plugins fall into two categories – those that make the site do things I want it to do, such as spam trappers and audio players, and those that make life easier or more fun for you lot – the readers.
This latter group is important, and it’s one that a lot of site owners ignore.
Two plugins I use, and I wish everyone would use them, are Ajax Edit Comments and Subscribe to Comments. The first one allows you to edit your comment after you have posted it and clear out those little typos that always seem to creep in. The second one allows you to get notification when another comment appears on that post. I don’t know how many times I have submitted a comment on someone’s site and then accidentally forgotten about it. It is amazing how few blogs have these two installed, and it irritates the hell out of me.
One that I have installed just for amusement is Firestats. It does give interesting statistics, though I generally use the like of Google Analytics, and it takes up a fair chunk of database, but it does give those neat little flags that say where people are posting from. I could also tell you what operating system you use, but I presume you know that already?
Recently I installed one that listed the latest comments. I have taken that out again, because people tend to comment on the latest post anyway so it was a bit pointless. I have replaced it with my “Hall of Infamy”. This shows the top ten contributors on the site for the last while. I have set it for 30 days, but I will probably play around with that a bit. This is a great plugin for me as I get to see who my real friends are and can cross the rest of you off my reader and my blog roll. That should save me a bit of time in the mornings.
Two that I installed for my own amusement are Donncha’s Theme Tester [nice one, Donncha!], and TD Word Count. The Theme Tester allows me to install new themes, and only I can see them. I can then play around with them and see exactly how my site looks before consigning them to the rubbish bin. The Word Count lets me know just how much crap I have written. This will be my 804th post and I have written well over a quarter of a million words. Sad.
There are quite a few others in there, but they are boring things.
So off you go now, and install those two comments plugins.
I’ll go back to playing with myself.
Bloody hell, I’m right up there on the infamy chart. Must do more actual work.
Thrifty – You have just entrenched yourself even further at the top!
geez, I guess that’s where we differ…it just irritates the hell out of me when a site only has a “subscribe to comments” plugin and nowhere to subscribe to the feed. it also irritates me when I have 15 notifications, 15 times a day for every blog I have commented on, you get the picture. If I can subscribe to the feed then I figure I can get back to the comments, if I want to. I do like that “edit” plugin that you have, although it will be interesting to see if people actually use it or just post a comment and go on about their business. for stats, I just use sitemeter and the one on mybloglog. not totally satisfactory but free so i’m not complaining 🙂 Not sure if I want my readers to know where my other readers are coming from, what type of browser they are using and so on and so forth. can’t play around with themes too much because then I will start yet another blog to use that theme and then never get to it (prins pink diamonds, for example) It’s too bad that they don’t make an automatic correct-as-you-type plug-in 🙂 now that would be a good one 🙂 american and irish spelling, of coarse! Have a great day, Grandad!
Prin – I’m suggesting that the Subscribe should be an option [with a default of ‘off’] so you can check the box if you want a notification. If the post turns out to be extremely popular, you just click on an email link and you are removed from the mailing list. I’d like to see it as an additional option, not an alternative.
I like Ice Rocket for stats. It gives nerdy little graphs which are updated on the hour.
I’m with you on the ‘correct as you type’. Maybe I should install Word on my server?
I like the “Subscribe to comments” plugin, except for the fact that I get email notifications on something I subscribed to 6 months ago. It would be neat if the subscription expired after 30 days.
I’m going to go install TD word count and see how many words I’ve typed! 🙂
197,541 total all words from 858 posts!!! 🙂
My longest post had 3,061 words! Too much to read! 🙂
Thanks for the heads up Grandad. I wondered where you got your word stats from. 🙂
Well have fun gents! I suppose playing with your plugins on a Sunday afternoon is innocent enough…(?) Still, I was a bit startled at first to visit a site and see this ‘live’ visitor from Den Haag, Zuid Nederland in the sidebar and realise it was moi. Made me feel sort of a bit vulnerable. Don’t know why. Guilty conscience? No way! Wont catch me playing with me plugins on a Sunday!!
JD – It should be very easy to unsubscribe? Most posts don’t get coments after a few days anyway. 3,061??? My longest ever was 1,007!
Geri – I always feel uncomfortable with those sites that tell me exactly where I live [or where the system thinks I live] either. I think a country flag is harmless enough though! I’m only messing with plugins because it puts off going down for the paper!
Hi Grandad – the flag’s nice. I like the flag.
Don’t bother going down for the paper, login to news online….!
I better hurry up & comment ‘fore I get dumped on the compost heap! 😉
And then I’ll go check out the Ajax Edit Comments plugin…
I must get myself on WordPress.
You know, when other people talk about installing plug-ins it seems so straightforward. The only two I ever have installed – which went OK in itself – buggered my whole blog up for days and I had the headache of the beast trying to unravel what I did. Now I have the plug-in willies and am afeared to touch anything again. Which kinda goes along with what you were saying there about playing with yourself, Grandad. 🙂
As a self confesssed technical NON genius these things are all like Greek to me…I do not get enough comments anyway…sorry grandad…and I may not comment every day but I still visit – and if I have not been around a few days I go back and catch up on all your mutterings…but I won’t make your wall…Hmmmhhhh. 😉
The subscribe to comments is a very good addition, it’s great to see follow up comments or a response from the author.
How the bloody hell did I get on the commentators list… I’m SO going to get the sack.
Maxi – Yours is the only blog I have ever seen written with Frontpage!! You really need a blogging platform!!
Sam – I have only had a couple of small problems in the past. Usually they go like clockwork. And if they do cause problems, I just disable them again…
Natalie – You are always welcome!! actually, I was toying with the idea of dropping my blogroll altogether and just having an extended list of commentators. That way, if you want a link, just comment!! 😉
Xbox – Is your boss an avid fan of Head Rambles?
Olga – I would never dump you on the compost heap!
Thanks Grandad. Without trying to re-invent the wheel, I’m very slowly working out how to put all of the bells and whistles of a platform into my backwards little page.
It’s frustrating, but I’ll get there.
And I thought plug-ins were those little bottles of scent that you fix into a wall socket to make your house smell nice!
Whatever it is about my set-up, I just can’t make that subscribe-to-comments thing work.
On the stats thing, have a look at statcounter. It gives a nice map, but also an interesting breakdown. I recommend trying Woopra as well. It runs as an application on your PC and gives you all sorts of interesting powers, including the ability to pop up on a troll’s computer and tell him to fuck off.
I’d installed Ajax already (after seeing it here)
, I’ve subscribed to lot’s of things but rarely look at the reader (I’m more of a manual labour sort)
About plug-ins in general ……..Some slow down page loads considerably, I ditched odiogo for that reason , I’m keeping Ajax as it’s a very useful tool but it’s a creeper also!
Maxi – Go on. Ditch Front Page. You know you want to?
Bock – I have so many damn things taking stats – Google Analytics and Ice Rocket on the site, and then Webalyzer and Awstats running on the server. Might take a look at Woopra though. I like telling people to fuck off, for some reason…..
Roy – I removed Odiogo as it slowed the site to a crawl, but left the RSS so people can still subscribe to it. Of course, anything will slow down a site, but as long as it avoids external links, it shouldn’t be too bad. There are a couple of counters and things on my sidebar I’m going to ditch for that reason.
Done,
Out of frustration and an ever diminishing desire to stick it to the man platform wise!
Working on my brand new blog now!