WordPress Plugins
We've looked at how to install WordPress and how to make it pretty; today I want to look at making WP do more.
Plugins are additions to the basic WordPress functionality, which allow you make it do just about anything you can imagine, from adding polls to your posts to controlling banner ads. Find them in the official WordPress plugin directory. Like themes, they're extremely easy to add to your WP install.
The least you need to know
- Download and unzip your chosen plugin
- Upload the plugin folder or single .php file to /wp-content/plugins/
- From your dashboard, click on 'plugins', and 'activate' your chosen plugins.
- Find where the plugin management is hiding, and make any customisations you need.
Managing and updating plugins
Most plugins will come with some kind of customisability or options that you can change to suit your particular requirements. The link to manage these options might appear under "manage" on your dashboard, or under "settings". A few show up on the top of the plugin management page. Some even add their own top-level link to your dashboard. I think WordPress might do well to add a "plugin management" tab and have all plugins work from there, because as it stands, it can be rather confusing. Don't be afraid to do a little searching about if your plugin management page doesn't appear where you're expecting first-off.
Like the core WordPress install, plugins change: new features are added, security is updated, incompatibilities are ironed out. WP will tell you when one of your plugins needs to be updated: just watch out for the bubble on your dashboard. Most plugins can be automatically updated from within WordPress: there's no messing about with FTP here.
If it all goes wrong...
... don't panic. Sometimes some plugins conflict with others you already have installed; even more rarely, they're released prematurely and don't work correctly. Normally, you can just go to Plugins on the dashboard and disable the guilty party. If you can't get access to your dashboard, deleting the plugin file from /wp-content/plugins/ via FTP should resolve the problem.
