DUE Wednesday, Apr 04 – 4 points
(Thursday NOON deadline)

This week, we will spend quite a bit of time talking about WordPress plugins: how they work, what all they can do, where to find them, and even how to write one.

• WordPress Codex > Plugins
  A short description of what WordPress plugins are and other basic information from the official WordPress documentation site, the “codex.”

• CoreBloggers > Best WordPress plugins
  Many WordPress users have written blog posts about their favorite WordPress plugins. I searched through way too many such posts and found this one (by someone named “Nimit”) with which I more or less agreed. It’s a little old now, so be sure to check the date a plugin was last updated and what version of WordPress it is compatible with: a few of these plugins have been abandoned, but most of them are still active.

• Your First WordPress Plugin
  This is a short video showing how to write a simple WordPress plugin.

• Other Plugins You Might Need
  After talking with you all about your sites, I put together a list of plugins that some of you will want to use. I don’t think any of you will need all of these, but every one of these plugins will be needed by one of you. The quiz questions will come from the description page of the plugin listing on the WordPress repository, to which I have linked directly. Most of the descriptions are less than 100 words.

  • WordPress SEO
  • WP-PageNavi
  • PixoPoint Menu Plugin
  • Search Unleashed
  • Subscribe to Comments
  • FD Feedburner Plugin
  • Feedburner Subscription Widget
  • Maintenance Mode
  • WP Google Analytics
  • Analytics360
  • Twitter for WordPress
  • Twitter Tools

Once you have watched or read these materials, you will need to take a quiz of ten true-false questions. (These questions will be randomly selected from the questions below. You can retake the quiz up to five times. Don’t stress about getting 100% on these quizzes: if you get 80% or better, you will be ready to proceed to the next activity and I will give you full credit.)

All questions should be prefaced with an understood, “According to the author / presenter …”:

1. T/F? Plugins are software tools that extend the functionality of another piece of software (such as WordPress).
2. T/F? The WordPress project teams wants WordPress to have as many features as possible built into the core code, so plugins are only necessary in rare circumstances.
3. T/F? All WordPress plugins can be found in the Official WordPress Plugins Repository.
4. T/F? WordPress comes with four plugins by default.
5. T/F? One of the plugins that come with WordPress by default deals with preventing comment span on your blog.
6. T/F? Nimit mentions a plugin to that gives your site visitors the option to rate your posts.
7. T/F? WordPress Related Posts is a WordPress plugin that is good for search engine optimization because it provides links between your posts.
8. T/F? WP Super Cache is a WordPress plugin that makes it easy for you to sell advertisements on your blog.
9. T/F? Creating a WordPress plugin is a time-consuming process; even the simplest plugins require at least 60 minutes to code.
10. T/F? WordPress plugin files go in the wp-content/plugins folder.
11. T/F? WordPress plugins are written in a custom programming language called WP-PHP.
12. T/F? In his demonstration video, Mark Jaquith wrote a simple plugin that added the text “Hello Dolly” at the end of every blog post.
13. T/F? In his demonstration video, Mark Jaquith used the PHP function that comes with WordPress add_filter() to change the content and title of every blog post.
14. T/F? WP-PageNavi provides a way for you to add top-level page navigation to your site if your theme does not include it.
15. T/F? Search Unleashed hides all search functionality from your theme.
16. T/F? Subscribe to Comments allows visitors to subscribe to an RSS feed with comments for individual posts.
17. T/F? After installing the FD Feedburner plugin, you will need to modify your theme files to point to the Feedburner URL.
18. T/F? After installing the FeedBurner Subscription plugin, the only configuration setting you need to provide is your Feedburner ID.
19. T/F? The FD Feedburner plugin and the FeedBurner Subscription plugin are both written by the same author(s).
20. T/F? The Analytics360 plugin and the Twitter Tools plugin are both written by the same author(s).
21. T/F? The Maintenance Mode plugin adds a splash screen to your site letting your visitors know your site is down for maintenance.
22. T/F? Twitter for WordPress and Twitter Tools can also create tweets in your Twitter account every time you publish a post in WordPress.

DUE Wednesday, Apr 04 – 4 points
(Thursday NOON deadline)