For the longest time I tinkered with my WordPress theme to get it just right, including the functionality. That was great for a while, until I wanted to update my site’s look. Suddenly I was faced with this huge problem. I’d customized my WordPress theme so much that simply throwing together a new design meant I’d lose all the modifications I’d made to my existing site–unless of course I invested all sorts of time re-tinkering with the new one.
I decided to pay closer attention to the WordPress plugins directory. Lo and behold, the WordPress I once knew had grown and evolved to this hyper-automated behemoth of efficiency. For starters, all the tinkering that I’d once done was now available as a set of different plugins (in fact several different ones doing the same thing) hosted on the WordPress site. So all I had to do was download and install a plugin without having to do any of the coding myself. And then, just to sweaten the deal, WordPress now automatically downloads, unzips and installs plugins so all you have to do is click a couple of links and you’re done! I was in heaven.
The first thing I did was to replace my Google Analytics code with the Ultimate Google Analytics plugin. Not only did it mean that I didn’t have to mess with the template files in order to install it, but I could be sure that if ever I changed templates, the Ultimate GA code wouldn’t be affected in any way. The same went for Akismet, AdSense, WordPress.com Stats, FeedBurner FeedSmith (though that one’s not hosted), OpenID Server, and my very own (unreleased) Halmos plugin.
Suffice it to say that as a result, I’m a totaly plugins convert. Thanks WordPress!
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