Plugins in CampusPress-hosted WordPress

In 2023 Middlebury will be migrating our managed WordPress hosting to CampusPress. The supported plugins after the upcoming migration are listed on the CampusPress site:

https://plugins.campuspress.com/

Plugins in Middlebury-hosted WordPress

Alphabetical List

This plugin allows users to display their posts in alphabetical order. This is useful for sites with a large number of posts that need to be navigated more easily.

Configuration

After activating the plugin, go to Settings/Alphabetical List and select the categories you want in order.

AStickyPostOrderER

This plugin allows users to manually create order within posts. Posts are traditionally displayed in chronological order with the most recent posts displaying first. However this plugin allows users to set different order rules using post tags and categories.

Configuration

After activating the plugin go to Tools > AStickyPostOrderER to manually choose how you’d like all of your posts to be displayed. More detailed help is available on this page.

Categories to Tags Converter

This plugin allows users to selectively convert categories to tags. To learn more about the difference between categories and tags please visit this site.

Configuration

Activate the plugin and then go to Tools > Import and select Categories and Tags converter. Make the appropriate selections to convert your categories to tags.

Display Widgets

Widgets are a powerful feature of WordPress that allow you to easily add dynamic features to your site sidebars like tag clouds, a list of authors on your site, links to other resources, search forms, and social media features. Sometimes, though, you only want a widget to appear on a specific page of your site and by default adding a widget to a sidebar will make it show up everywhere.

Configuration

Activating the Display Widgets plugin on your site will allow you to control where widgets appear. Once activated, your widget settings screen will contain a list of pages with checkboxes. You can choose to either show or hide each of your widgets on the selected pages. With this, you can do things like tailor a list of resource links to a particular topic page, or only show your Facebook like button on the homepage.

Duplicate Posts

The Duplicate Post plugin is used to clone entire posts or pages on your site. In the admin panel (such as when you click on ‘Edit page’), you have the option to clone a post or page, or save it as a ‘New draft’. The ‘Clone’ option creates an exact copy of the post/page you chose and publishes it automatically. The ‘New Draft’ option takes you to a draft of the cloned post so that you can edit it further before publishing.

Configuration

To enable this plugin, find 'Duplicate Post' on the plugins list and activate it. Click on Settings to find configuration options. These include copying the exact date of the original post, including or excluding attachments, taking excerpts, etc. Once you’re done updating the settings, just click save and everything should be working. You should see 'Clone' and 'New Draft' options under the 'Edit Pages' section of your site.

Midd Post Thumbnails

Set a featured image for your posts and this plugin will allow you to see thumbnails of those featured images in a new "Thumbs" colmun on your All posts page in the dashboard.

Note: If you haven’t set any featured images or added any media to your posts, this plugin won’t change anything. If you have added images but not set a featured image, the first image of the post is considered the featured image by default and displayed in the Thumbnails column when this plugin is active.

More Fields

This plug-in allows users to add more fields to the Write/Edit page. This could be useful to categorize/describe posts. The documentation provides an example of its utility: if you were blogging about books, it might be useful to add fields to each post that include author / title / publisher information.

Configuration

First, activate the plugin from the Plugins page. Then enter “Settings”. The settings page allows you to define “boxes” that act as containers for fields. Boxes have a name and some amount of input fields. Click “Add new field” to add a field to the box. There are many types of field you can add: text, radio buttons, etc. Once you’re made your boxes and fields, they should appear on Write/Edit pages.

Issues to be aware of

The plugin hasn’t been updated in a long time. It seems to work fine at the moment (11/4/2014), but its future functionality is not guaranteed.

NextGen Gallery by Photocrati

This plugin provides a number of different photo gallery types. Once you upload the photos you want in your gallery, you can display them in 6 ways: thumbnails, slideshow, image browser, tag cloud, compact album, and extended album. This plugin is good for those who upload batches of images often and want a variety of ways to display them at once, as well as the capability of saving them for future use.

Configuration

Once the NextGen Gallery is activated, a new icon (a green square) appears in the website’s dashboard sidebar. This is where you can add and manage galleries and albums. This new icon also appears in the post/page editor, and all of these functions can be performed from there as well by clicking on the different tabs. In the “add gallery/images” page, you can click the “add files” button to add images, or drag them into the box. Once your images are added, you have to “start upload” and name your gallery in order to create it. You can also choose an existing gallery in the drop-down menu to add more images to it. In the “manage galleries” tab, you can add descriptions and tags to the gallery as a whole and to the individual images, as well as choose a preview image and link the gallery to an existing page of your site. If you have existing galleries, you can group them into albums in “manage albums”. To do this, enter a name for your new album and click “add”. Once it appears in the album column (on the right), you can drag any of your existing galleries into the left column to place them inside the new album. Albums serve the function of organizing your galleries so that you can navigate them easily if there are many, but galleries are what will actually display your images. To add a gallery to a post, simply click the NextGen icon in the top bar and select how you want it displayed (thumbnails, slideshow, etc).

Next Page

This plugin provides shortcodes and template tags for next/previous navigation in pages. Includes a shortcode and tag for the parent page, allowing Drupal-like book navigation.

Configuration

First activate the plugin. Once activated, you can add the following shortcodes to pages to enable next/previous page navigation: [previous] [next] [parent]. The page list is sorted by the ascending menu order. Additionally, you can customize the output for the surrounding div as well as the link themselves under Settings -> Next Page.

Onswipe Plugin

This plugin provides a beautiful app-like experience for your readers when they visit your blog from their tablet's web browser. Onswipe is fully customizable by offering thousands of layout combinations and the ability to add your blog’s branding. Features: automatically adjust the content layout according to how the reader holds their device, give the reader an easy way to save the blog to their device’s home screen, show a customized loading screen, create a beautiful magazine-like cover from the latest article, easily share the content via Facebook, Twitter and email.

Configuration

First activate the plugin. Then, you may go to Onswipe menu to adjust some elements of the plugin to your liking. More info: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/selfhosted-wordpress-blog-ipad-friendly-onswipe/

Search Everything

Adds search functionality without modifying any template pages. Options Include: search highlight, search pages, excerpts, attachments, drafts, comments, tags and custom fields (metadata). Also offers the ability to exclude specific pages and posts. Does not search password-protected content.

Configuration

Activate under the Plugins list. Click on 'Widgets' under the 'Appearance' menu of your Dashboard. Here you can configure the plugin and determine which pages or posts will be excluded from search.

Shortcodes in Text Widgets

For themes that do not natively support using shortcodes in Text widgets. This is useful for displaying content in a sidebar that is created by a shortcode.

Configuration

Activate the plugin. Then go to the "Appearance" menu and choose "Widgets". Then place a Text widget in the sidebar where you would like the shortcode-generated content to appear. Edit the Text widget and enter the shortcode. Select "Save" to be able to view the changes.

Table of Contents Plus

Automatically creates a context specific index or table of contents (TOC) for long pages (and custom post types). Can also output a sitemap listing pages and/or categories across your entire site.

Configuration

Activate the plugin. Next, go to 'Settings' and select 'TOC+' to choose the options that you would like. Click here for further details.

Visual Links

This plugin activates a widget that users can add to their site. The widget allows users to create images that link to other webpages.

Configuration

Activate the plugin from the “Plugins” section. Then go to “Widgets” and incorporate the “Visual Links” widget into a sidebar. The widget has fields for defining an image (image URL) and its destination (another URL).

WP Google Fonts

This plugin allows you to change the font family of an active theme. Users can mix and match font families (although not recommended), target specific text such as headings or paragraph text. Additional details can be found here.

Note that previews of fonts are not generated (search for font here).

Configuration

Once this plugin is activated, hover over the “Settings” navigation element located under the dashboard panel and click on Google Fonts. You can enter up to 6 different font families.

Plugins for Embedding Content

Jetpack Shortcode Embeds

Shortcodes allow you to embed various elements from different social and media sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. This is a Wordpress-specific code which allows you to attach/embed/create media on your Wordpress site.

See the link below for a list of additional shortcodes to embed a variety of tools including: video, audio, polls, images and documents.

Embedding Google Components

Google Calendar Shortcode

Allows you to embed a Google Calendar into the content of posts or pages of your WordPress site.

Note: You will need to be sure the calendar is publicly viewable. Instructions from Google.

Basic Configuration

1. Activate the plugin.
2. Edit the post or page in which you wish to embed the calendar in the content.
3. Either paste in the HTML provided by Google for the calendar (option # 1 below) or enter the shortcode to create the Google Calendar (option #2 below).
4. Update the post or page.

Option # 1 - Paste HTML given by Google

1. Open your calendar in Google Calendar.
2. Go to the settings page and copy the HTML.
   
3. Paste the HTML into the WordPress post or page.
4. Update the post or page and the HTML will be automatically converted to the proper shortcode.

Option # 2 - Use shortcode to embed Google Calendar

1. The basic shortcode format is [google_calendar id="xxxxx"], where xxxxx is your Google Calendar ID.
2. To get your Google Calendar ID, go to the settings page for your Google Calendar and copy it.
   

Advanced Configuration

The following parameters can be used for the shortcode.
For example, [google_calendar id="xxxxx" width="100%"] would be used to display a Google Calendar that is the full width of the content area.

• id - A single google calendar id or a comma separated list. (required)
• color - A hex color code or a comma separated list for multiple calendars. (optional, default is a blue)
• width - The width of the calendar. A percentage may be used. (optional, 100% is default)
• height - The height of the calendar. (optional, 600px is default)
• viewmode - Can be set to "month", "week", or "agenda". (optional, "month" is default)
• title - An alternate title for the calendar. (optional, default is retrieved from Google)
• show_title - Controls if the title is shown. (optional, default is "true")
• show_date - Controls if the date is shown. (optional, default is "true")
• show_printicon - Controls if a print button is shown. (optional, default is "true")
• show_tabs - Controls if tabs are shown for switching view modes. (optional, default is "true")
• show_calendarlist - if multiple calendars are being shown, gives choice of which to view. (optional, default is "true")
• show_border - Controls if a border is shown. (optional, default is "false")
• timezone - Which timezone is used. For example, "America/New_York”. (optional, default is retrieved from Google)
• show_timezone - Controls if timezone is shown. (optional, default is "true")
• weekstart - Which day of the week the calendar starts on. (optional. Default is "Sunday")
• language - Which language to use, given as a 2 or 4-letter code. (optional. Default is "en")
• bgcolor - A hex color code for the background color. (optional. Default is "FFFFFF")

Google Calendar Widget

Allows you to display information from a Google Calendar in a widget (usually in sidebar area) on your WordPress site.

Note: You will need to be sure the calendar is publicly viewable. Instructions from Google.

Configuration

1. Activate the plugin.
2. Go the the widgets area of the WordPress dashboard ( Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets ).
3. Drag the Google Calendar widget to the area that you want it to be displayed in.
4. Enter the information for the widget. The Calendar ID is given on the Google Calendar settings page for the calendar.

Google Docs Shortcode

Embeds a Google doc in your site. This plugin supports embedding documents, presentations, spreadsheets, slides, and forms.

Configuration

Enable the Google Docs shortcode plugin in your site's administration interface. You can use some shortcode like this to add your documents:

[gdoc link="LINK_TO_GOOGLE_DOC" height="600"]

Documentation on getting the link for the shortcode is available here.

Embedding Maps

Google Maps Shortcode

Embeds a Google map in your site.

Configuration

Enable the Jetpack plugin in your site's administration interface. You can use the following shortcode to add your maps:

[googlemaps insert link to Google Map here width="123" height="456"]

To locate the insert link select to share the map through the embedding feature and copy the link starting with https:// and ending with the exclamation point. Paste this into the shortcode in the location indicated above. Please note that using the full iframe link will not work.

Additional documentation on this feature.

OSM

Another way to embed maps is through the Open Street Maps (OSM). This plugin is good for people wishing to add maps and geotags to their posts and pages on WordPress.

Configuration

Activate the plugin. Note that the "Simple Facebook Connect" plugin has a conflict with this plugin, so you can't use them both at the same time.

Now when you edit posts or pages there will be two new sections: a map and controls under the main content of the post, and a map and controls under the publish and attribute controls on the right side.

To embed a map in the page, select the options you would like from the map below the content section, then copy the given shortcode to the content of the page. To embed a map that shows the locations of multiple geo-tagged posts or pages, select the "Geotagged" tab above the map, then choose the settings you would like, then copy the given shortcode to the content.

To geo-tag a post or page, use the map on the right side below the publish and attribute controls.

Embedding Timelines

Timeline JS

Use the Middlebury iFrame plugin to embed a presentation that you have already created using Timeline JS.

A sample shortcode looks like this:

[iframe src='https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1xuY4upIooEeszZ_lCmeNx24eSFWe0rHe9ZdqH2xqVNk&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650' width='600' height='600']

To get the value needed for the shortcode, go to http://timeline.knightlab.com/, and paste your Google spreadsheet URL into the generator box. Copy the iframe embed code and change the first < and ></iframe> to [ and ] respectively.

WP JQuery Timelinr

Creates a Javascript-based slideshow like timeline. Each “slide” holds the name of the event followed by a description

Configuration

Simply activate the plugin from the plugins menu on Wordpress. A link called "Timelinr" should appear when it is activated, from where you can configure this plugin on your site.

Embedding Images

Flickr Widget

This widget allows Flickr users to seamlessly integrate and display their Flickr photos on their WordPress site. This option is great for users who have a very image-heavy WordPress site, or for users who simply have many photos from Flickr that they would like to show.

Configuration

First, make sure that you have your own account on Flickr because this Flickr page has your specific Flickr RSS link which is used to connect your photos to your WordPress account. Next, search for Flickr under the Plugins tab. Select and activate the option called "Flickr Widget." Now that that’s done, click on the “Appearance” tab on your Dashboard menu. This leads you to a list of Plugins you can choose to add to your site! Search for the “Flickr” widget, and once you find it press on ADD. You can add your personal Flickr URL and adjust which sidebar you wish to display the media on your page. You can also specify how many photos you want visible, then click save!

Piktochart Shortcode

Allows embedding an infographic created at https://magic.piktochart.com.

Configuration

Enable the plugin. Next, create an infographic at https://magic.piktochart.com. Then choose "Publish". Just below "Paste HTML to embed in website" in the resulting window is a snippet of HTML that begins with <iframe>. Copy the snippet to the post or page on your site that you would like the inforgraphic to appear on. When you click "Update", the plugin will automatically convert the snippet to a shortcode. You can then view your page to see how it looks.

Embedding Sign-Up Sheets

Sign-Up Sheets Pro

This plugin allows users to add sign-up sheets to pages and posts. The plugin is useful for organizing events: it allows event organizers to define time, location, and capacity for their events (meetings, music lessons, etc), and allows participants to register for a specific registration slot using a web browser. Organizers can monitor the sign-ups for their events.

Configuration

First, activate the plugin from the Plugin list. A “Sign-up Sheets” item will appear on the left sidebar of the dashboard. Clicking it will take users to a central page where users can create, view, and modify their sign-up sheets. Clicking “Add New” creates a new sheet, which is given a name, date, category, and any number of time slots. A sheet’s date should be given the date of the event (or the deadline for signing up); the sheet will become inaccessible to viewers after this date. Categories can be defined in the “Categories” page accessed by hovering over the “Sign-up Sheets” icon on the dashboard sidebar and selecting “Categories”. They can be used to display a certain subclass of sign-up sheets on a page or post. Sheets can be associated with any number of categories. Once a sign-up sheet is created, insert it into a page by using the shortcode “sign_up_sheet” (surround the text between quotes with [ ]). To display sheets from a certain category only, users can add the additional argument “category_id = categoryidnumber“, where the category’s id number is the number associated with the category (these numbers can be viewed from the “Categories” page).

Embedding Audio and Video

Jetpack

The Jetpack plugin provides shortcode embeds for bandcamp, blip.tv, dailymotion, flickr, soundcloud, ted, twitchtv, vimeo, vine, and youtube among others. More-detailed usage instructions can be found on the Jetpack site.

Spotify Embed

This plugin is designed to allow users to integrate Spotify links into their posts. Playlists will be displayed in your posts in the form of a Spotify player.

Configuration

First, you must have a Spotify account. Under your dashboard menu tabs, find the “Plugins” and activate the Spotify Embed plugin. Now you can copy any link for a Spotify playlist into your posts and the player and playlist will appear in the published version.

VoiceThread Auto Embed

Adds auto-embed support to WordPress for VoiceThread content.

Configuration

After activating this plugin, you will be able to embed content from VoiceThread just by pasting the link into your post or page. More info.

Kanopy Shortcode

The Kanopy Shortcode plugin allows you to embed Middlebury Kanopy streaming videos into your WordPress site.

Configuration

• Activate the Kanopy Shortcode plugin for your WordPress site.
• Locate the Kanopy video that you wish to stream. You can browse videos available at Middlebury here: middlebury.kanopystreaming.com
• Select the Embed option below the video and copy the URL that begins with "http" and ends with "/embed/number"
• Go the the WordPress post or page where you would like to embed the video and enter the following code:

[kanopy width='###' height='###']URL[/kanopy ] For the example a URL should look similar to this: http://ezproxy.middlebury.edu/login?url=http://middlebury.kanopystreaming.com/embed/130824

• Publish or update the page to view the embedded content.

Important Note: If you embed a Kanopy streaming video from Middlebury's collection and the user attempts to access the link from a non-VPN connection off campus they will need to log in to see the video. This is because Kanopy streaming videos are limited to members of the Middlebury College community.

WordPress Video Plugin

The WordPress Video Plugin supports more that 60 video hosting sites. Detailed instructions and a list of sites can be found in its documentation.

Example:

[brightcove 1234567890 640 480]

Additional notes:

• The archiveorg short-code can take an additional stream parameter to allow the embedding of media served from the https://archive.org/stream/ URL rather than the https://archive.org/embed/ URL used for video. Example:

  [archiveorg aberpa.longfellowhw.1845.nightvoices 600 400 stream]

Featured Videos Plus

Featured Videos work like Featured Images: Paste a video URL into the designated new box on the post edit screen and the video will be displayed in place of a post image. More information is available on wordpress.org

IX Show Latest YouTube

The plugin provides a shortcode and a template tag to embed the latest video or current live stream of one or more YouTube channels. It comes with an options page to let you set the default options for YouTube ID(s), width, height, autoplay and count of latest videos to embed. You can customize these parameters with the shortcode and template tag if needed.

This also works great with YouTube Live, by following this fallback progression.

• If you're currently live, display the live video.
• If you're not currently live, display the next upcoming live event.
• If there is no upcoming live event, display the text from Settings > Ixiter Show Latest YT > Show message if not broadcasting.
• If there is no "not broadcasting" message, show the most recent YouTube video(s) from your channel(s).

More information is available on wordpress.org

 

 

Middlebury iframe

The Middlebury iframe plugin allows users to embed iframes from approved URLs into their sites. In most cases users should utilize one of the other plugins for embedding content (above) for videos, documents, presentations, and other interactive elements. In cases where existing plugins are not sufficient, ITS will review requests for additional iframe sources to ensure the security of the sites.middlebury.edu system.

Example:

[iframe src="http://cat.middlebury.edu/~mco/mbhpowerstatus/" width="100%" height="600px"]

Current approved URLs:

• https://airtable.com/embed/
• https://maps.arcgis.com/
• https://middlebury.maps.arcgis.com/
• https://*.maps.arcgis.com/
• https://www.arcgis.com/
• https://art19.com/
• https://forms.middlebury.edu/
• https://forms.miis.edu/
• https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/ For Timeline JS presentations. For more details see Timeline JS
• https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/ For StoryMap JS presentations.
• http://cat.middlebury.edu/~mco/
• https://www.nbcnews.com/widget/video-embed/
• https://noep.shinyapps.io/
• https://slides.com/
• https://view-awesome-table.com/
• https://quizlet.com

Please submit a HelpDesk ticket to request a security review of additional sources or discuss other options. Note that by default iframes will be displayed in sandbox mode which disables javascript, forms, and pop-ups. If the page you are trying to embed uses these features please note that in your request.

JetPack Plugin Features

WordPress is an open-source, community-built platform, but it also has a company behind it that coordinates activity and runs WordPress.com. This company Automattic, has released some of the most popular features of WordPress.com as a plugin they support named Jetpack. By connecting your site with a WordPress.com account, you get access to many additional features.

Activating the Plugin

You can activate Jetpack as you would any other plugin in the WordPress administration interface for your site. After you activate the plugin, you need to connect it with a WordPress.com account. These are free to register on their site, but if you do not wish to create an account, let us know and we can connect it using one of ours. It is important to note at this point that all features of Jetpack are currently free to use, but some may require an additional payment in the future.

Additional Shortcode Embeds

Jetpack provides additional shortcode embeds for a variety of web services. Visit this site to view the full list and additional instructions.

Beautiful Math

Allows for users to embedded syntax to generated mathematical functions that are typically difficult to express in plain text. For example, can be almost impossible to express with plain text.

Configuration

Once Jetpack is activated, make sure Beautiful Math is activated under Jetpack settings. If you are unfamiliar with LaTex, click here to learn more about LaTex for WordPress and here for the general Latex sytax.

Contact Forms

The Jetpack plugin adds a feature for collecting simple feedback and information from visitors to your site through a custom form. Before we start, here are some things that these forms are not good at:

• Collecting sensitive or personally identifiable information. This should never be done in our WordPress or Drupal sites. If you need to collect this type of information, please contact LIS so we can work on finding an appropriate solution.
• Reporting. There’s no export feature for the data these forms collect. If you need to download the form data to Excel, consider using the Webform module in our Drupal site instead.
• Complex form logic, branching, and advanced survey fields like scales and grids. These forms have only a few basic field types available and everything needs to be on the same page. Advanced survey features are available through our KeySurvey application and you can contact LIS for access.

But if you just want to add a basic feedback form or a poll to your blog or site in WordPress, this can be a handy tool.

Configuration

1. To add a new form to a post, click the form button to the right of the Add Media button while editing the post. This will bring up an interface with some example fields.
2. Modify that sample form to suit your needs and click the “Add this form to my post” button. This will put a bunch of shortcode text into the body of your post, but when you Publish the post visitors to your post will see the form.
3. When people submit the form, the results will be stored in the “Feedbacks” section available in the left sidebar of your site’s Dashboard.

Extra Sidebar Widgets

Jetpack adds three extra widgets that you can add to site sidebars:

• Twitter: show the latest tweets from your account to encourage people to follow you on Twitter.
• RSS Links: add a link to the RSS feeds for the posts and/or comments on your site.
• Image: add an image to your sidebar for extra visual appeal.

Mobile Theme

This plugin allows you to "optimize your site with a mobile-friendly theme for tablets and phones". To activate access the Jetpack option on your Dashboard and search for Mobile Theme.

More Image Galleries

While we have the NextGen Gallery Plugin for advanced image galleries, with Jetpack you get access to two more simple image gallery layouts: Tiled Galleries and Carousels.

Site Icon

Changes the favicon of the website. A favicon is an icon rendered next to the title of a website in the browser.

Configuration

1. From your Dashboard, enable the Site Icon module under Jetpack > Settings.
2. Navigate to Settings > General, and scroll down to Site Icon.
3. Click the Add a Site Icon button. Click the Choose File button to select the desired icon.
4. Click the Upload Image button.
5. Crop your image. You can use the Preview section on the right to see what your image will look like in its final form. Click the Crop Image button and your site icon is complete.

Please note that the desired icon must be an image that is larger than 512px by 512px. It is also strongly recommend that the image have a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio (square shape).

Site Stats

Jetpack can be used to collect information about the people visiting your site and display that data in an interface that is significantly easier to use than Google Analytics. This allows you to see which of your posts were the most popular, how people are finding your site, and the geographic distribution of visitors to your site. To view these stats click on the menu item titled Jetpack > Site Stats on your dashboard.

Plugins for Content Delivery

Co-Authors Plus

The Co-Authors Plus plugin lets you assign multiple authors to a single post or page. Each of these authors will have access to edit the post. This makes it a helpful tool for collaborative writing or reports from group projects.

If you’re using a theme that supports it (which all of the Middlebury-produced “Translucence” family of themes do), each author will also appear in the byline of the post. If you’re using a theme that doesn’t support this, submit a helpdesk ticket to request its addition to your theme.

The newest version of Co-Authors Plus also lets you add Guest Authors to your site. This is helpful if you want to have a post appear from a guest blogger who doesn’t have an account in the Middlebury system, or to post primary source material in the original author’s name. This can also be used on department or office sites to have posts appear under the name of the group, rather than a single person. Guest authors don’t have any privileges on the site, the post simply appears as if authored by them.

Configuration

The Co-Authors Plus plugin can be enabled if you are an Administrator of a WordPress site in the Plugins section of the dashboard. Guest Authors can be added in the Users section.

Liveblog

Liveblogging is the practice of covering an event as it happens on your blog. Rather than a composed post that covers your thoughts on a subject and is published once, a live blog post is updated with snippets of your thoughts on the event as it occurs. Common uses of liveblogging are covering a speech, television show, or sporting event. The practice allows the author to interact with their readers in real time via comments on the live blog post.

Configuration

Activate the Liveblog plugin in the Dashboard and you’ll be able to mark certain posts as live blog posts. This will add an interface for the author to make short posts to the live blog without having to use the normal back-end WordPress editing interface. Readers will see updates appear on the post page without needing to refresh their browsers. This video covers how to use the plugin in practice.

Social Plugins

Facebook Plugin

This plugin allows you to connect your personal Facebook profile or another Facebook page you own with your WordPress site. This plugin would be useful for those in search of a way to branch out in the social media world. It's a great way to promote pages and posts to friends on your public profile.

Configuration

Go Into “Plugins” in your Dashboard side menu. After clicking on “Plugins,” type in “Facebook” in the search bar. When Facebook shows up, click on the empty box next to it, and then below the list will be a toggle bar with the options to “Activate” make this your preference and then click Apply. Once Facebook has been activated, a new tab for “Facebook” will appear in the Dashboard side menu. Click on the “Facebook” tab under the Dashboard and you will be able to manage all of your customizable options, such as adding 'like,' 'follow' and 'share' buttons.

IM Online

Provides a widget with icons for IM clients (Skype, ICQ, AIM) you use, displaying your availability on each. Good for users who want readers to be able to reach them through multiple services.

Configuration

After activating the IM Online plugin, go into “IM Online Options” under Settings in your Dashboard. Here, you can add instant messaging accounts (by choosing the service from the drop-down menu and entering your username) as well as choose how often your online/offline status is checked and updated on the website. You may also need to add the “IM Online” widget to your page by going to Appearance > Widgets in the dashboard.

ShareThis

The ShareThis plugin is a great tool for increasing the presence of social media outlets on your site. During the configuration process, the user has access to 120 social channels to link to his site (including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest). The ShareThis plugin is an attractive alternative to using JetPack. One downside is that you need to have a ShareThis account to activate the plug-in.

Configuration

The process of configuring the ShareThis Plugin is fairly simple. First you must go to the list of available plugins and activate it. Then go to Settings > ShareThis. Afterwards, the plugin walks you through a 6 steps in activating the plugin and choosing the size of the buttons, which services you want, their location on the page. Finally you have an option to create a free account to get your publisher’s key. This is not too difficult.

Simple Instagram

This plugin allows you to connect your Instagram profile with your WordPress site. This plugin would be great for users who wish to have an interactive/picture experience. For social media purposes this plugin would be very beneficial for Instagram users.

Configuration

First, go into your Dashboard on your WordPress site. Find the “Plugins” tab and click on that. Once that is open, search for “Instagram” on the search bar. Once you find Simple Instagram, click on the empty square to the left of the title and then on the toggle bar below the list, switch it to “Activate” and press APPLY! Once you press “apply,” a little “settings” link will appear under the title. Go ahead and click on that. Once you’ve clicked on the settings, a series of instructions will appear so that you can set up the plugin with your Instagram account.

Storify

Activating Storify and connecting it to Facebook and/or Twitter makes it easy to embed stories from social media into WordPress. This way, if multiple people have tweeted or posted about an event, you can unify them into one story. The story doesn’t show up as a wordpress post but instead shows up in the storify account. From there you have to go onto storify and click on “Embed” in order to get a link into a wordpress post. More info: https://wordpress.org/plugins/storify/

Configuration

You need to create a Storify account or be willing to let wordpress access your facebook/twitter accounts to be able to embed stories. Also, the embed code doesn’t directly embed the story into a post – it puts a link in that says “view this story on Storify.” Activate Plugin. On the left sidebar of the dashboard, a “Storify” button appears. Click on the button and log into storify from here to start creating stories. It’s pretty simple to search a keyword and then choose a social media platform in order to create a story. The interface is the same as that on the actual Storify website.