Plugin Slam!

A number of years back, when I was still quite new to the Montreal WordPress community, our local meetup group held a “plugin slam,” which was a kind of show-and-tell in which we each got to present a plugin we thought was cool to the rest of the group. It was a really fun evening that I’ve always remembered.

This week, we revisited the idea, getting together on a chilly winter night and sharing a dozen of our favourite plugins. Here’s what we looked at:

1. CMS Page Tree View – presented by Richard Archambault
   Lets you order your pages in the dashboard by dragging and dropping; particularly useful for large sites with many pages
2. Featured Image Column – presented by Richard
   Adds a thumbnail preview in the posts overview screen to let you quickly see which posts are missing a featured image
3. Multisite Toobar Additions – presented by Richard
   Adds quick links to commonly used network admin features in the toolbar; geared to super admins or admins
4. WP Gallery Custom Links – presented by Alexandre Simard
   Adds a few new fields on each image in a media gallery, including URL and link target; perfect for a gallery of logos that need links to external sites
5. SuperCPT – presented by Ziad Saab
   Allows you more easily define custom post types and custom taxonomies; uses icons from Font Awesome; Ziad is working on an extension to add repeating fields
6. Press Permit Core – presented by Elida Arrizza
   “User management on steroids”; advanced content permissions system lets you define your own roles, which can even be attached to custom post types. There’s a Pro version and extensions, including one for WPML
7. Add From Server – presented by me
   Lets you quickly add images to the media library from your server; useful for images that you’ve uploaded via FTP instead of the dashboard
8. Regenerate Thumbnails – presented by me
   Allows you to regenerate image thumbnails at all required sizes, as defined by the current theme and media settings; useful if you switch to a theme that needs different image sizes for things like custom headers, sliders, and featured images.
9. Amazon Affiliate Link Localizer – presented by Belinda Darcey
   Automatically detects all Amazon links on a site and adds your affiliate ID, detects visitor’s location and switches the link to their local Amazon storefront
10. Post Thumbnail Editor – presented by Carl Alexander
    Lets you manually crop all versions (e.g. thumbnail, medium, large) of each individual image, allowing you to use the best part of every one; great for perfectionists and photographers
11. Resize Images before upload – presented by Geneviève Gélinas
    Resizes huge images before uploading; useful for folks who don’t know how to make images smaller before bringing them into WordPress
12. Changelogger – presented by Richard
    Displays plugin changeset right on plugin overview screen in the dashboard; saves a few clicks

Got a favourite plugin? Share it in the comments!

Elida Arrizza

Twenty Fourteen makes an appearance

Richard Archambault

Montreal WordPress Community

Photos (cc) Jeremy Clarke