I am playing around with using wordpress to set up a directory of places. I know that WordPress can be a very robust platform by using the custom fields but I don’t know much about coding and how to use advanced features of wordpress.
I found this post (from Steve Taylor who is a WordPress Designer in London) that offers some very detailed information on customfields but also links to some plugins.
Here are a few of the plugins that work with custom fields:
- Magic Fields – this plugin has lots of options and the plugin developers have provided a getting started tutorial and wiki with additional info.
- Custom Field Template – this looks like it could be very robust – but the documentation is not in English so I wasn’t able to read more about it.
- Flutter – another plugin that Steve Taylor links to – it looks like this plugin is no longer supported and has not been updated for WordPress 3.0. According to the WordPress Forums – some of the people who worked on Flutter are working on Magic Fields and there is a way to migrate from Flutter to Magic Fields
- Verve Meta Boxes – another plugin that lets you work with custom fields – provides lots of options and has some help info.
- Meta Extension – this plugin seems to be best suited to adding media and videos in the custom fields. The website did not offer lots of documentation.
Continue Reading »
Easy to install plugin that adds a Like on Facebook button to your posts. Has lots of configuration options in the admin section. Ability to add the like box at the top or the bottom of the post. Also gives you the option of adding like button to WordPress pages too. Continue Reading »
I am a big big fan of WordPress but I am working on a project where I want to set up a blog quickly and add lots of posts quickly. I will work on a more detailed blog set up a later. So the two options I am looking at are Posterous and Tumblr – each has some great features for quickly adding posts here is a comparison of some of the features I think are useful.
Mashable wrote a nice comparison of Posterous and Tumblr in June 2009 but didn’t list out some of the specific features I was interested in. After looking at both Tumblr and Posterous – I decided to add WordPress.com to the comparison.
| platform |
Posterous |
Tumblr |
WordPress.com |
| Comments |
comments are powered by Posterous. Commentors can login with Facebook or Twitter. |
Some tumblr themes let you display comment from Disqus. Disqus lets commentors login with Facebook or Twitter. |
Currently no option for a commentator to login with Facebook or Twitter. |
| Private Posts |
Posts can be marked as private. “Private posts will not show up on your Posterous page or RSS feed. You can share these posts with a select group of people by sending them the direct url.” More info about private posts on the Posterous Blog. |
Posts can be marked as private. |
Posts can be private or password protected. From the WordPress.com support page “Protected – The post is protected with a password you set. Any user that has the password can view a protected post.
Private – Posts are only visible to blog Editors and Administrators. Private posts are not visible in Blog Surfer, feeds, or in any search. A post can be private without being password protected.” |
| Ability to transfer blog to WordPress? |
Not yet. See this thread for some info – one person is working on an importer for WordPress.com |
There doesn’t seem to be an easy way to move Disqus comments on Tumblr to WordPress. |
Yes – can be exported to a wordpress.org (self-hosted) blog anytime. |
| Quick post bookmarklet? |
Posterous has a bookmarklet – more info here. |
Tumblr offers a bookmarklet for browser posting. |
Press This bookmarklet opens a pop-up window to edit and publish a new post. “Press This” is available under the Tools section of the menu. |
| Post by email? |
Each blog has a quick email address to publish posts. |
Can send multiple formats – text, mp3, photos and more to email address for posting by email. |
Post by email is available – create a secret email address. |
I like the features of both Tumblr and Posterous but I decided to use WordPress.comso that I would know I would be able to move my entire project to a self hosted WordPress blog if I wanted to in the future. I did want to use Disqus for comments but I know that I can import my WordPress comments into Disqus in the future. Continue Reading »
I have been wanting to add threaded comments to the blog so that is possible to reply to a specific comment rather than the whole chain of comments. In the past I had used the Brian’s Threaded Comment’s Plugin. There have been some changed to WordPress with 2.7 and 2.8 and Brian’s plugin has some been updated since 2008. I started to search for another solution but I couldn’t find a plugin that didn’t require me to make changes to the template.
A friend suggested Disqus as a solution. Disqus is a service outside of WordPress that allows people to create a profile which can be used whenever they leave comments on a blog that has Disqus – you don’t have to have a Disqus plugin to leave a comment on a blog with Disqus. Continue Reading »
Name Boy
One of the hardest parts about setting up a business or a blog is choosing a name. Here are a few websites that can help you find a name for your new project. I have used NameBoy before – it is a great way to quickly see what domains for key words are available.
Are there other websites you have used to help you name your business or blog?
The PhotoJojo Newsletter recently had a great post on naming your photography business – they have some good tips on what works and what to avoid that are applicable to all types of names. (PhotoJoJo is a weekly newsletter and shop with some great creative ideas on doing more with digital photography – the shop has some fun gifts for displaying photos – the site is worth a look.) Continue Reading »
