If you feel you’re not that tech-savvy to add the carousel yourself, we can suggest you template solutions with jQuery elements already inside them.

* * *

Circular Content Carousel with jQuery

* * *

Elastislide – a Responsive jQuery Carousel Plugin

* * *

CarouFredSel – a Flexible and Powerful jQuery Carousel Plugin

* * *

jQuery Infinite Carousel Plugin

* * *

jQuery UI Image Carousel Plugin

* * *

AnythingSlider jQuery Plugin

* * *

Moving Boxes

* * *

Supersized jQuery Plugin

* * *

Moodular

* * *

WOW Slider

* * *

TN3 Gallery

* * *

Slides – a Slideshow Plugin for jQuery

* * *

bxSlider jQuery HTML Content Slider

* * *

jQuery Carousel

* * *

Awkward Showcase – a jQuery Plugin

* * *

Cloud Carousel – a 3D Carousel in Javascript

* * *

jsCarousel V2.0

* * *

jQuery – Carousel Plugin

* * *

jCarousel Lite

* * *

dualSlider

* * *

Spacegallery – jQuery Plugin

* * *

Rcarousel

* * *

GalleryView

* * *

Coin Slider

* * *

jCoverflip

* * *

Galleria

* * *

jQuery Liquid Carousel Plugin

* * *

Agile Carousel JQuery Plugin

* * *

3D Carousel

* * *

Skitter

* * *

Barousel

* * *

Tiny Carousel

* * *

Infinite Carousel jQuery Plugin

* * *

jQuery Cycle Plugin

* * *

Step Carousel Viewer

* * *

iCarousel

* * *

jQuery Feature Carousel

* * *

jQuery 3D Carousel

* * *

Monte

* * *

Roundabout

* * *

Roundabout Shapes for jQuery

* * *

No matter what kind of website or blog you own, you’ll definitely find something that will make your site better. Just like with clothes some plugins are one size fits all, and other are quite specific. Almost every blog will encounter spam, security concerns and will want to expose their content to the largest audience possible. This two article series focuses on the most essential and useful WordPress plugins every blog will find useful. Whether you’re bored with the default comments platform, want to try custom fonts or just add neat social sharing options, continue reading to find the best WordPress plugins out there. The plugins are sorted into categories and only a few of them have the same features so you can find the very right ones for you.

The first part will cover optimization, forms, comments, site backup, posts, security, design & theme customization and media. Stay tuned for part 2 which will contain even more specific and targeted WordPress plugins.

The second part will cover ecommerce, SEO, social media, marketing and lot of great miscellaneous plugins.

Optimization

1. WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache is a very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.

2. WP-Optimize

WP-Optimize is a WordPress 2.9++ database cleanup and optimization tool. It doesn’t require PhpMyAdmin to optimize your database tables. It allows you to remove post revisions, comments in the spam queue and un-approved comments within few clicks.

3. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache improves the user experience of your site by improving your server performance, caching every aspect of your site, reducing the download times and providing transparent content delivery network (CDN) integration.

Forms

1. Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail content flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.

2. Fast Secure Contact Form

A super customizable contact form that lets your visitors send you email. Blocks all automated spammers. No templates to mess with.

3. Gravity Forms (Premium –  $39)

Gravity Forms is hands down the best contact form plugin for WordPress. Build and publish your WordPress forms in just minutes. No drudgery, just quick and easy form-building.

4. AJAX Contact Forms (Premium – $10)

This is a jQuery based AJAX powered HTML / PHP contact form with Twitter Direct Messaging, easily integrated into WordPress via shortcodes and functions.

Comments

1. Disqus Comment System

Disqus, pronounced “discuss”, is a service and tool for web comments and discussions. Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community.

2. GD Star Rating

GD Star Rating plugin allows you to set up an advanced rating and review system for post types and comments in your blog using single, multi and thumbs ratings.

3. Wizzart – Recent Comments

This plugin offers a highly customizable widget to show recent comments of your visitors in your sidebars.

4. Facebook Comments

Full Facebook Comments moderation and management for your WordPress site. Quick and easy to set up. Insert automatically or via a shortcode.

5. Thank Me Later

Automatically send a ‘thank you’ e-mail to those who comment on your blog. This plugin engages visitors by reminding them to check back for new comments and interesting content.

6. Disable Comments

Allows administrators to globally disable comments on their site. Comments can be disabled according to post type.

7. WP Customer Reviews

WP Customer Reviews allows your customers and visitors to leave reviews or testimonials of your services. Reviews are Microformat enabled (hReview).

Site Backup

1. WP-DBManager

Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of back ups, optimizing and repairing of database.

2. BackUpWordPress

BackUpWordPress will back up your entire site including your database and all your files once every day.

Posts

1. Editorial Calendar

The Editorial Calendar makes it possible to see all your posts and drag and drop them to manage your blog.

2. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site.

3. SimpleReach Slide

The Slide recommends related posts from within your site on a widget that “slides” in at the bottom of the page.

4. WordPress Popular Posts

WordPress Popular Posts is a highly customizable sidebar widget that displays the most popular posts on your blog. You can use it as a template tag, too.

5. Raw HTML

Lets you use raw HTML or any other code in your posts. You can also disable smart quotes and other automatic formatting on a per-post basis.

6. Auto Post Thumbnail

Automatically generate the Post Thumbnail (Featured Thumbnail) from the first image in post or any custom post type only if Post Thumbnail is not set.

Security

1. Akismet

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.

2. SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam

Adds CAPTCHA anti-spam methods to WordPress on the forms for comments, registration, lost password, login, or all. For WP, WPMU, and BuddyPress.

3. Secure WordPress

Secure WordPress beefs up the security of your WordPress installation by removing error information on login pages, adds index.html to plugin directories, hides the WordPress version and much more.

4. BulletProof Security

WordPress Website Security Protection. Website security protection against: XSS, RFI, CRLF, CSRF, Base64, Code Injection and SQL Injection hacking att

Design & Theme Customization

1. Widget Context

Widget Context allows you to specify widget visibility settings – you can choose to display them only on certain posts, front page, category or tag pages etc.

2. WP Google Fonts

The WP Google Fonts plugin allows you to easily add fonts from the Google Font Directory to your WordPress theme.

3. WP Maintenance Mode

Adds a splash page to your site that lets visitors know your site is down for maintenance. Full access to the back- & front-end is optional.

4. Genesis Simple Sidebars

This plugin allows you to create multiple, dynamic widget areas, and assign those widget areas to sidebar locations within the Genesis Theme Framework

5. Shortcodes Ultimate

With this plugin you can easily create buttons, boxes, different sliders and much, much more. Turn your free theme to premium in just a few clicks.

6. All In One Favicon

Easily add a Favicon to your site and the WordPress admin pages. Complete with upload functionality. Supports all three Favicon types (ico,png,gif).

7. Font Uploader (Premium – $10)

This plugin lets you upload your own font files and apply them to any element of your website without requiring a knowledge of html or css.

8. WPtouch

WPtouch: A simple, powerful and elegant mobile theme for your website. WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress website into an application-like theme.

9. Widget Logic

Widget Logic lets you control on which pages widgets appear using WP’s conditional tags. It also adds a ‘widget_content’ filter.

10. WP Content Slideshow

WP Content Slideshow is the perfect Slideshow for WordPress. It displays up to 5 Posts or Pages with Tile, Description and Image for every Post.

Media

1. Easing Slider

The Easing Slider comes with various options that allow you to choose different sources to get the images from and also multiple styling options so that you”ll never have to edit any files directly & with ease. Create your own unique elegant slider.

2. NextGEN Gallery

NextGEN Gallery is a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with dozens of options and features.

3. flickrRSS

Allows you to integrate Flickr photos into your site. It supports user, set, favorite, group and community photostreams.

4. WordPress Video Plugin

A filter for WordPress that allows easy video embedding of supported sites. Support for 65 different video sites.

5. oQey Gallery

oQey Gallery is a premium grade plugin for managing images and video, creating photo slideshows with music, photo & video galleries that works fantastic.

6. uBillboard (Premium – $20)

uBillboard is a Premium Slider for WordPress. It is a jQuery based slider with a multitude of transitions and options so you can customize it all you want without being overwhelmed with options you never wanted or needed.

7. WP Lightbox 2

This plugin used to add the lightbox (overlay) effect to the current page images on your WordPress blog.

Commerce

1. WP e-Commerce

WP e-Commerce is a free WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin that lets customers buy your products, services and digital downloads online.

2. Jigoshop

Jigoshop is an eCommerce plugin for WordPress developed by professionals with years of experience delivering online shops for global brands.

3. WooCommerce

Transform your WordPress website into a thoroughbred online store. Delivering enterprise-level quality & features whilst backed by a name you can trust.

4. uPricing (Premium – $15)

uPricing is the ultimate and unique solution for all your WordPress related pricing page needs. Creating pricing tables has never been easier. uPricing comes with easy to use jQuery powered admin interface that lets you create and edit your pricing tables.

5. PayPal Donations

Easy, simple setup to add a PayPal Donation button as a Widget or with a shortcode.

SEO

1. All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack is the best SEO plugin out there which will automatically optimize your WordPress blog for search engines.

2. WordPress SEO by Yoast

WordPress SEO is the most complete WordPress SEO plugin that exists today for WordPress.org users. It incorporates everything from a snippet preview and page analysis functionality that helps you optimize your pages content, images titles, meta descriptions and more to XML sitemaps, and loads of optimization options in between.

3. Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog. With such a sitemap, it’s much easier for the crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently.

Social

1. Add Link to Facebook

Automatically add links to posts or pages that are being published to your Facebook wall, pages or groups. Simple one time setup and forget. The way links appear on Facebook can be customized.

2. WP to Twitter

Posts a Twitter update when you update your WordPress blog or post to your blogroll, using your chosen URL shortening service. Requires PHP 5 and cURL

3. Digg Digg

Digg Digg allows you to integrate popular social buttons into WordPress easily.

4. ShareThis

The ShareThis plugin seamlessly enables users to share your content through Email,Facebook,Twitter, Google +1, Like, Send and many more.

5. BuddyPress

BuddyPress lets users register on your site and start creating profiles, posting messages, making connections, creating and interacting in groups and much more. A social network in a box, BuddyPress lets you build a social network for your company, school, sports team or niche community.

6. bbPress

bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress.

7. The Google+ plugin

The Google + Plugin integrates WordPress with your G+ Profile and Page – now with BuddyPress and Post Format support.

8. Twitter Widget Pro

A widget that properly handles twitter feeds, including parsing @username, #hashtags, and URLs into links.

Marketing

1. Newsletter

This plug-in lets you collect subscribers on your blog with a single or double opt-in subscription process. Double opt-in is law compliant and it means the user has to confirm the subscription following simple standard instructions sent to him via email.

2. WP125

Easy management of 125×125 ads on your blog. Ads can be run for a specified number of days, and will automatically be taken down. Track clicks too.

3. s2Member

s2Member (membership with PayPal) offers powerful membership capabilities. Protect members only content. The s2Member Framework integrates with PayPal very easily and fully supports recurring billing.

4. MailPress

The WordPress mailing platform.

5. Subscribe2

Subscribe2 provides a comprehensive subscription management and email notification system for WordPress blogs that sends email notifications to a list of subscribers when you publish new content to your blog.

6. MailChimp Widget

Adds a widget that allows your users to sign up for your MailChimp mailing list.

7. Simple PopUp

A simple, attractive, extremely fast and non annoying pop up box for your WordPress Blog. It’s power lies in its ease of use.

Miscellaneous

1. WP-PageNavi

Want to replace the old ← Older posts | Newer posts → links with some page links? This plugin provides the wp_pagenavi() template tag which generates fancy pagination links.

2. Jetpack by WordPress.com

 Jetpack is a WordPress plugin that supercharges your self-hosted WordPress site with the awesome cloud power of WordPress.com.

3. Exclude Pages

This plugin adds a checkbox, “include this page in menus”, which is checked by default. If you uncheck it, the page will not appear in any listings of pages (which includes, and is usually limited to, your page navigation menus).

4. Broken Link Checker

This plugin will check your posts, comments and other content for broken links and missing images, and notify you if any are found.

5. ManageWP Worker

ManageWP Worker plugin allows you to remotely manage your blogs from one dashboard. You can read our review here.

6. Redirection

Redirection is a WordPress plugin to manage 301 redirections and keep track of 404 errors without requiring knowledge of Apache .htaccess files.

7. FD Feedburner Plugin

Redirects the main feed and optionally the comments feed seamlessly and transparently to Feedburner.com.

8. Hotfix

Provides unofficial fixes for selected WordPress bugs, so you don’t have to wait for the next WordPress core release.

9. Google Analytics for WordPress

Track your WordPress site easily and with lots of metadata: views per author & category, automatic tracking of outbound clicks and page views.

10. WP-Polls

Adds an AJAX poll system to your WordPress blog. You can also easily add a poll into your WordPress’s blog post/page.

11. Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu

The lazy and the productive will love it : all admin links available in a neat horizontal CSS driven drop down menu. No need to click on “Manage” then “Pages” to edit pages. And plenty more space on your screen.

12. Pretty Link Lite

Shrink, beautify, track, manage and share any URL on or off of your WordPress website. Create links that look however you want using your own domain name.

13. 5sec Google Maps (Premium – $8)

Integrate Google Maps into your WordPress blog easily without using API or any code.

14. Advanced Access Manager

Advanced Access Manager is a new way of controlling access to your single blog or multi-site setup. This easy to use interface is a very helpful tool for experienced WordPress users.

Conclusion

Do you know and use any other plugins besides the ones we suggested here? We would really appreciate your feedback here, but we are pretty sure this list will be very comprehensive for you and will satisfy most peoples needs!

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WordPress, as most of us experience, is so strong and flexible. It is hard to think of a website that can't be brought to life with it.

Besides this power, it is still simple which is great. This simplicity sometimes ends up in some non-existing features which would actually be nice if they were available when needed -seems like the definition of plugins: )-.

As a designer/developer who spend lots of time with WordPress, I want to share a list of plugins which I use for almost every WordPress setup and they end up saving lots of time.

First of all, of course, I'll begin with a shameless self-promotion. The first plugin (Reporteur) is developed by me but I assure you that it fits the title of this post perfectly (else, I'm sure that the editor would probably remove it without even me knowing).

Oh, I'm also going to include the author's names, especially for avoiding mix-ups. There are many plugins so closely named but so far apart on features, usefulness and quality.

Reporteur

It is a simple Google Analytics reporting tool.

If you want to get your information right in the WordPress admin instead of going to the Google Analytics website, this is for you.

The plugin gives a basic information about your website (which were useful enough for my family and friends who forced and tortured me to create this plugin).
Author: stildv

Google Analytics for WordPress

This is a stable Google Analytics code including plugin.

We all know that, things work by just copy-pasting the Analytics code to the footer. Or was it better to the header? And how do we track outgoing link clicks or downloads?

Well, with this plugin, you don't need to worry about all that.
Author: Joost de Valk

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin is good for creating XML sitemaps of your posts, categories and everything else for Google to index.

There is definitely a need for automation for this processand you need a dependable tool for that.

Also, the plugin notifies Google, Bing and Ask.com when there is anything fresh in the sitemap.
Author: Arne Brachhold

Q2W3 Post Order

This plugin was AStickyPostOrderER by AndreSC and Max Bond improved + continued developing it.

It is useful for ordering your posts when listed under different taxonomies, categories or tags. And they all can be different.

You can show a post as first under some category and as third under one of its tags.
Author: Max Bond, AndreSC

BackWPup

BackWPup is a vital plugin as you should always backup everything and never trust no computer!

If you are moving to another server, you'll use it. If you are working locally and going to deploy it, you'll use it. If you want to feel safe and don't want any data loss, you'll use it. If you want your database to be mailed to your home email every night, (it's completely not weird) you'll use it. Simply, you'll use it.
Author: Daniel Hüsken

Contact Form 7

There are several contact form plugins to choose from. On several occasions, there has been times which I've forgotten that I had a contact form setup on one of my websites, till the day that Takayuki's Contact Form sends me a mail.
Author: Takayuki Miyoshi

File Gallery

This is an extremely useful plugin, that should definitely be a part of the core.

When you add a picture or any media to any post in WordPress, it adds a database entry to a table that attaches the media to the post.. but WordPress does not show you that.

File Gallery does. And it does not stop there. You can order the media with it or set one as a featured image.Or, you can make a theme that uses a real gallery with it including a chance to order your images and without the need to use custom fields or embedding images into your post.

Also, you can attach PDF files (any files) and list them separately from your post as related files.
Author: Bruno "Aesqe" Babic

My Category Order

You have ordered your posts but you didn't order your categories.

My Category Order allows you to set the order in which categories will appear in the sidebar by using a drag 'n' drop interface for ordering.

It also adds a widget with additional options for easy installation on widgetized themes.
Author: Andrew Charlton

Platinum SEO Pack

A complete SEO solution for your WordPress blog.

I like it because it adds automated tags and categories to the head meta blocks and when you change a permalink for your posts, it will handle this without giving you any trouble.

Again, there are several SEO plugins available, but this one makes you work less for the result you want to get.
Author: Rajesh – Techblissonline Dot Com

Regenerate Thumbnails

This plugin will save your life many times if you are the developer but not the designer of your website or you work with a customer that measures the screen with a ruler (believe me, I saw that). There is always a possiblity to change the thumbnail and medium image sizes after you coded the theme and uploaded all thousand images to WordPress.

When such an update is needed, just ask this plugin to kindly regenerate every image for every size again. Oh my, life saver.
Author: Viper007Bond

Search Everything

Let's face it, WordPress does not search everything. As the name suggests, this plugin does.

It adds search functionality without modifying any template pages: activate, configure and search.

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 or password-protected contents.
Author: Dan Cameron of Sprout Venture

W3 Total Cache

After changing two hosting providers, one because I blamed them for being so slow, other because they blamed me for using so much resource, I met this plugin.

WordPress may use server resources, that's normal. But with this plugin, you can cache everything and make static copies of the pages instead of regenerating them for every request.

It also minifies your assets and may even put them to CDN for you. That's nice.
Author: Frederick Townes

WP-PostRatings

This plugin is actually both fun and useful.

It adds an Ajax rating system for your WordPress blog's post/page. You can use it to put simple hearts or like buttons for your own blog. Or, create a rating-based website easily.
Author: Lester 'GaMerZ' Chan

WP-PostViews

Of course there is Google Analytics. But ,WP-Postviews satisfy another need; viewing the number of views each post get in real-time.

You can make a list of most visited or -my favorite- least visited posts lists for your sidebars. Because your least visited posts are the ones that actually need more visitors.
Author: Lester 'GaMerZ' Chan

WP-PageNavi

Everyone uses PageNavi as it adds a more advanced paging navigation to your WordPress blog. Enough said.
Author: Lester 'GaMerZ' Chan & scribu

qTranslate

If you need to create a multilingual website, first you need patience, than you need content in multiple languages. And, finally, you need a plugin that does not make your life a hell.

Writing multilingual content is already hard enough, why use a plugin even more complicated?

qTranslate makes creation of multilingual content as easy as working with a single language with an easy to use interface.

It supports infinite languages which can be easily added/modified/deleted via the comfortable configuration page.

All you need to do is activate the plugin and start writing the content!
Author: Qian Qin

Editorial Calendar

Do you schedule posts? Remember which post will be published for next Tuesday? What about the Friday after that?

WordPress doesn't make it easy to see when your posts are scheduled. The Editorial Calendar gives you an overview of your blog and when each post will be published. You can drag 'n' drop to move posts, edit posts right in the calendar, and manage your entire blog.
Author: Colin Vernon, Justin Evans, Joachim Kudish, Mary Vogt, and Zack Grossbart

Missed Scheduled

Ok, you schedule posts. Did you realize that WordPress sometimes misses them? This plugin fixes that. Comes to rescue and that's all it does. But, does it well.
Author: obus3000

WP Maintenance Mode

This plugin adds a splash page to your blog that lets visitors to know that your blog is down for maintenance.

Logged in users can get full access to the blog including the front-end (depends of the settings you configure).
Author: Frank Bültge

Sidebar Login

Sidebar-Login has both a widget and a template tag to allows you to have a login form in the sidebar of your blog. It lets users to login and redirects them back to "the page they logged in" rather than the backend
Author: Mike Jolley

Category Checklist Expander

If you have gazillions of categories you'll definitely love this (and the next plugin).

It increases the height of the category checklist meta box on the post editing screen so that all categories are shown. No more scrolling! All of your categories will be visible.
Author: Mark Jaquith

Searchable Categories

This plugin is actually a categories autocomplete for the admin. It will make the process quick and easy for your writers to select categories. As they type in the search box, categories will be shown and hidden in real time, allowing them to easily select what is relevant to their content without having to scroll through possibly hundreds of items.
Author: Jason Corradino

ShareThis

Let your visitors share a post/page with others. Supports e-mail and posting to social bookmarking sites. You need a publisher key if you want to view you sharing stats or getting a weekly report. That's always nice.
Author: ShareThis, Manu Mukerji

Disqus

You know you need this plugin after finding its perks one by one when you start using it.

It will definitely make your life easier by replacing your WordPress comment system with your comments hosted and powered by Disqus.
Author: Disqus

 

Author: Devrim Vardar

Devrim Vardar is a talented web developer who also writes fiction and non-fiction besides code.

He can be found at Stild.com and via Twitter.

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jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

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jQuery sliders, slideshows, and galleries are extremely common on a variety of different types of websites. Portfolio sites, blogs, e-commerce sites, and about any type of site can make use of a jQuery slideshow. Fortunately, there are a number of great plugins already coded that make it easy to add a slideshow in a matter of minutes. Each one offers different features and has it’s own style. In this post we’ll showcase 20 jQuery plugins that you may want to use for adding a slideshow in your own projects.

Slides
Slides is a jQuery slideshow plugin built for simplicity.Features include captions, multiple slideshows, and more.

jQuery.popeye
jQuery.popeye is an inline lightbox alternative with slideshow. Unlike lightbox plugins, jQuery.popeye doesn’t use modal windows to display images.

jQuery Cycle Plugin
jQuery Cycle offers several different types of transition effects to choose from, including shuffle, zoom, fade, and more.  It supports pause-on-hover, auto-stop, auto-fit, before/after callbacks, click triggers and much more.

Nivo Slider
One of the most popular options for jQuery sliders/slideshows, Nivo Slider includes 16 different transition effects, customizable settings, keyboard navigation, and it is released under the MIT license. It’s also available as a WordPress plugin (for purchase).

TN3 Gallery
TN3 Gallery is a feature-rich slideshow plugin. It is a premium plugin ($37 for a single-site license) that also offers a free Lite version. The Lite version includes features like transition effects, fullscreen options, and optional captions, but it does not include other features from the Pro version including fullscreen keyboard navigation, multiple galleries on the same page, mousewheel navigation, dynamic image sizing, and more.

Pikachoose
Pikachoose is a lightweight jQuery slideshow plugin with features like tooltips and fancybox support. Four premium themes are available for purchase.

Coin Slider
Coin Slider is released under the MIT license and includes features like unique transition effects, flexible configuration, Android and iPhone compatibility, and more.

Galleria
Galleria and its classic theme are released under the MIT license. It includes features like scaling images, touch screen support, and optional premium themes to improve the look of your slideshow.

Orbit
Orbit is a lightweight slideshow plugin from Zurb.  It features simple implementation, optional captions and links, optional bullet navigation, and more.

Supersized
Supersized is a full screen background slideshow plugin. It’s ideal for photography portfolios and other sites that rely on large images and photos.

slideViewer
slideViewer is a lightweight jQuery plugin that allows you to implement a slideshow with a simple unordered list.

Advanced jQuery Background Image Slideshow
Originally a tutorial on Marcofolio, this was later converted to a plugin.  It allows you to use a full-screen slideshow as the back for a website.

Simple Controls Gallery v1.4
Simple Controls Gallery allows you to display images as an automatic or manually-controlled slideshow.

s3Slider jQuery Plugin
s3Slider allows you to implement a simple slideshow with image captions.

Easy Slider
Easy Slider, from CSS Globe, is a versatile plugin that allows options like manual controls, vertical sliding, continuous sliding, and more.

ColorBox
ColorBox is a lightweight, customizable lightbox and slideshow plugin.

simpleSli.de
simpleSli.de is lightweight slideshow plugin that comes in two versions, Big Boy (15KB) and Mini (6KB).

Skitter
Skitter allows you to implement a slideshow with a simple unordered list.  It includes several animation types, navigation options, and more.

ResponsiveSlides.js
ResponsiveSlides.js is a lightweight responsive slideshow plugin. You can use it to create a slideshow that automatically fades from one photo to the next, or you can include manual controls.

Sideways
Sideways is a simple, elegant full-screen image gallery plugin.

For more resources please see:

• 25 Useful jQuery Tooltip Scripts
• 35 jQuery Animation Tutorials
• 25 jQuery Drop Down Menu Scripts
• 25 Excellent jQuery Slider Plugins and Tutorials
• jQuery Resources for One-Page Portfolios

  

CSS is a beautiful language but it can also be frustrating at times. Certain CSS solutions don’t work on certain browsers (cough Internet Explorer cough) and much of your time can be spent debugging code.

Thankfully there are lots of great CSS snippets available online that fix common problems and design issues. In this article we have listed 30 CSS snippets that we think you will find very useful.

The Code

1. Chris Poteet’s CSS Browser Reset

Resetting your CSS style allows you to stop cross browser differences. Chris Proteet’s reset code doesn’t work in IE6 however this shouldn’t be a concern any more with use of the browser dropping below 1% in the USA.

/*

Reset Default Browser Styles
- Place first in the listing of external style sheets for cascading.
- Be sure to explicitly set margin/padding styles.
- Styles are not reset that have to do with display (block, inline) are not reset.

By: Chris Poteet & various influences

*/

* {
vertical-align: baseline;
font-family: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
border: none;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
body {
padding: 5px;
}
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, pre, blockquote, form, ul, ol, dl {
margin: 20px 0;
}
li, dd, blockquote {
margin-left: 40px;
}
dt {
font-weight: bold;
}
table {
border-collapse: collapse;
border-spacing: 0;
}

2. Eric Meyer’s CSS Reset

Eric Meyer’s CSS code resets is one of the most popular CSS snippets. It even found it’s way into the Blueprint CSS Framework.

/* http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/
   v2.0 | 20110126
   License: none (public domain)
*/

html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe,
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre,
a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code,
del, dfn, em, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp,
small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var,
b, u, i, center,
dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li,
fieldset, form, label, legend,
table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td,
article, aside, canvas, details, embed,
figure, figcaption, footer, header, hgroup,
menu, nav, output, ruby, section, summary,
time, mark, audio, video {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
	border: 0;
	font-size: 100%;
	font: inherit;
	vertical-align: baseline;
}
/* HTML5 display-role reset for older browsers */
article, aside, details, figcaption, figure,
footer, header, hgroup, menu, nav, section {
	display: block;
}
body {
	line-height: 1;
}
ol, ul {
	list-style: none;
}
blockquote, q {
	quotes: none;
}
blockquote:before, blockquote:after,
q:before, q:after {
	content: '';
	content: none;
}
table {
	border-collapse: collapse;
	border-spacing: 0;
}

3. How to Create Multiple Borders in CSS3

A cool technique using the box-shadow property that allows you to create multiple borders around an object.

box-shadow:
    0 0 0 2px #000,
    0 0 0 3px #999,
    0 0 0 9px #fa0,
    0 0 0 10px #666,
    0 0 0 16px #fd0,
    0 0 0 18px #000;

4. Tucked Corners

This CSS code will give you the cool ‘tucked corners’ effect that is used on the Gravatar home page.

div.tucked-corners {
	    background: #f6f6f6;
	    height: 380px;
	    margin: 50px auto;
	    padding: 10px;
	    position: relative;
	    width: 580px;
	    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 7px hsla(0,0%,0%,.2);
	       -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 7px hsla(0,0%,0%,.2);
	            box-shadow: 0 1px 7px hsla(0,0%,0%,.2);
	}
	span.tucked-corners {
	    background: #c4453c;
	    display: block;
	    height: 380px;
	    position: relative;
	    width: 580px;
	    -webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 0 10px hsla(0,0%,0%,.25);
	       -moz-box-shadow: inset 0 0 10px hsla(0,0%,0%,.25);
	            box-shadow: inset 0 0 10px hsla(0,0%,0%,.25);
	}

	/* Top Corner Effect */

	.top-corners:after,
	.top-corners:before {
	    background: #e6e6e6;
	    content: '';
	    height: 50px;
	    position: absolute;
	    top: -25px;
	    width: 100px;
	    z-index: 10;
	    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 6px 9px -8px hsla(0,0%,0%,.5);
	       -moz-box-shadow: 0 6px 9px -8px hsla(0,0%,0%,.5);
	            box-shadow: 0 6px 9px -8px hsla(0,0%,0%,.5);
	}
	.top-corners:after {
	    left: -50px;
	    -webkit-transform: rotate(-45deg);
	       -moz-transform: rotate(-45deg);
	        -ms-transform: rotate(-45deg);
	         -o-transform: rotate(-45deg);
	            transform: rotate(-45deg);
	}
	.top-corners:before {
	    right: -50px;
	    -webkit-transform: rotate(45deg);
	       -moz-transform: rotate(45deg);
	        -ms-transform: rotate(45deg);
	         -o-transform: rotate(45deg);
	            transform: rotate(45deg);
	}

	/* Bottom Corner Effect */

	.bottom-corners:after,
	.bottom-corners:before {
	    background: #e6e6e6;
	    content: '';
	    height: 50px;
	    position: absolute;
	    bottom: -25px;
	    width: 100px;
	    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 6px 9px -8px hsla(0,0%,0%,.5);
	       -moz-box-shadow: 0 6px 9px -8px hsla(0,0%,0%,.5);
	            box-shadow: 0 6px 9px -8px hsla(0,0%,0%,.5);
	}
	.bottom-corners:after {
	    left: -50px;
	    -webkit-transform: rotate(-135deg);
	       -moz-transform: rotate(-135deg);
	        -ms-transform: rotate(-135deg);
	         -o-transform: rotate(-135deg);
	            transform: rotate(-135deg);
	}
	.bottom-corners:before {
	    right: -50px;
	    -webkit-transform: rotate(135deg);
	       -moz-transform: rotate(135deg);
	        -ms-transform: rotate(135deg);
	         -o-transform: rotate(135deg);
	            transform: rotate(135deg);
	}

5. iPad-Specific CSS

Change the general layout of ipad screens and portrait and landscape modes.

@media only screen and (device-width: 768px) {
  /* For general iPad layouts */
}

@media only screen and (min-device-width: 481px) and (max-device-width: 1024px) and (orientation:portrait) {
  /* For portrait layouts only */
}

@media only screen and (min-device-width: 481px) and (max-device-width: 1024px) and (orientation:landscape) {
  /* For landscape layouts only */
}

6. Style links depending on file format

A short CSS snippet that changes the styling of external links, email links and links to pdf documents.

	/* external links */
a[href^="http://"]{
    padding-right: 20px;
    background: url(external.gif) no-repeat center right;
}

/* emails */

a[href^="mailto:"]{
padding-right: 20px;

background: url(email.png) no-repeat center right;

}

/* pdfs */

a[href$=".pdf"]{
padding-right: 20px;
background: url(pdf.png) no-repeat center right;

7. Drop Caps

A great cross-browser snippet that lets you make the first letter of a paragraph stand out.

.firstcharacter { float: left; color: #903; font-size: 75px; line-height: 60px; padding-top: 4px; padding-right: 8px; padding-left: 3px; font-family: Georgia; }

This can also be achieved using CSS3 however it doesn’t work on IE9.

p:first-child:first-letter { float: left; color: #903; font-size: 75px; line-height: 60px; padding-top: 4px; padding-right: 8px; padding-left: 3px; font-family: Georgia; }

8. CSS Sticky Footer

Create a sticky footer for your page. The solution works on all major browsers including Google Chrome and IE8.

CSS

/*
Sticky Footer Solution
by Steve Hatcher 

http://stever.ca

http://www.cssstickyfooter.com

*/

* {margin:0;padding:0;} 

/* must declare 0 margins on everything, also for main layout components use padding, not
vertical margins (top and bottom) to add spacing, else those margins get added to total height
and your footer gets pushed down a bit more, creating vertical scroll bars in the browser */

html, body {height: 100%;}

#wrap {min-height: 100%;}

#main {overflow:auto;
	padding-bottom: 150px;}  /* must be same height as the footer */

#footer {position: relative;
	margin-top: -150px; /* negative value of footer height */
	height: 150px;
	clear:both;} 

/*Opera Fix*/
body:before {/* thanks to Maleika (Kohoutec)*/
content:"";
height:100%;
float:left;
width:0;
margin-top:-32767px;/* thank you Erik J - negate effect of float*/
}

/* IMPORTANT

You also need to include this conditional style in the 

HTML

<div id="wrap">

	<div id="main">

	</div>

</div>


<div id="footer">

</div>

9. Image Replacement Technique

A handy way of replacing a text page element with an image. The snippet addresses a problem from another solution in which Firefox users noticed a dotted border that goes to the left of the screen.

a.replacement
{
  background: url(dotted-border.png) no-repeat;
  height: 44px;
  width: 316px;
  display: block;
  text-indent: -9999px;
  overflow: hidden;  /*Add this line to the image replacement method*/
}

10. Set body font-size to 62.5% for Easier em Conversion

If you want to have a more flexible layout, you should use em instead of pixels or points. By setting your font size at 62.5% you can easily set your font using em as the value will be a tenth of pixel value.

body {
  font-size: 62.5%; /* font-size 1em = 10px */
}
p {
  font-size: 1.2em; /* 1.2em = 12px */
}

11. Vertically Align Text

If you set the line-height of your paragraph as the same size as it’s parent division you can easily center the text vertically.

div { width:100px; height:100px; }
div p { line-height:100px; }

12. How to Create 3D Text With CSS3

Using the text-shadow property, this snippet will help you create 3D text using CSS only.

p.threeD
{
	text-shadow:
		-1px 1px 0 #ddd,
		-2px 2px 0 #c8c8c8,
		-3px 3px 0 #ccc,
		-4px 4px 0 #b8b8b8,
		-4px 4px 0 #bbb,
		0px 1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,.4),
		0px 2px 2px rgba(0,0,0,.3),
		-1px 3px 3px rgba(0,0,0,.2),
		-1px 5px 5px rgba(0,0,0,.1),
		-2px 8px 8px rgba(0,0,0,.1),
		-2px 13px 13px rgba(0,0,0,.1)
		;
}

13. Wrapping Long URLs and Text Content with CSS

This snippet will stop long lines of text extending over the content area by making sure the content wraps to fit the content width.

pre {
	white-space: pre;           /* CSS 2.0 */
	white-space: pre-wrap;      /* CSS 2.1 */
	white-space: pre-line;      /* CSS 3.0 */
	white-space: -pre-wrap;     /* Opera 4-6 */
	white-space: -o-pre-wrap;   /* Opera 7 */
	white-space: -moz-pre-wrap; /* Mozilla */
	white-space: -hp-pre-wrap;  /* HP Printers */
	word-wrap: break-word;      /* IE 5+ */
	}

14. Fancy Ampersand

Make your ampersands stand out using this short snippet. Simply change the font-family to suit your preference.

.amp {
font-family: Baskerville, 'Goudy Old Style', Palatino, 'Book Antiqua', serif;
font-style: italic;
font-weight: normal;
}

15. Pull Quotes for Improved Reading

Make your quotes stand out more by floating them to the right or left hand side of your content and wrapping content around it.

.pullquote {
width: 300px;
float: right;
margin: 5px;
font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
font: italic bold #ff0000 ; }

16. Rounded Borders Around Images

With CSS3 you can easily place rounded borders around your images using this snippet.

img {
-webkit-border-radius: 25px;
-moz-border-radius: 25px;
border-radius: 25px;
}

17. Image Preloader

Load a small gif in the background of an image first so that it is showed before the main image loads.

img
{
    background: url(img/preloader.gif) no-repeat 50% 50%;
}

18. CSS3 Opacity

By using the opacity property, which lets you see through an element, you can create a layered textured background.

div.L1 { background:#036; opacity:0.2; height:20px; }
div.L2 { background:#036; opacity:0.4; height:20px; }
div.L3 { background:#036; opacity:0.6; height:20px; }
div.L4 { background:#036; opacity:0.8; height:20px; }
div.L5 { background:#036; opacity:1.0; height:20px; }

19. Highlight links that open in a new window

This snippet allows you to easily distinguish links that open in new browser/tab windows by styling them different from other links.

a[target="_blank"]:before,
a[target="new"]:before {
margin:0 5px 0 0;
padding:1px;
outline:1px solid #333;
color:#333;
background:#ff9;
font:12px "Zapf Dingbats";
content: "\279C";
 }

20. The New Bulletproof @Font-Face Syntax

A cross-browser CSS snippet that lets you define your font faces.

@font-face {
	font-family: 'MyFontFamily';
	src: url('myfont-webfont.eot?#iefix') format('embedded-opentype'),
	     url('myfont-webfont.woff') format('woff'),
	     url('myfont-webfont.ttf')  format('truetype'),
	     url('myfont-webfont.svg#svgFontName') format('svg');
	}

21. Flip an Image

A CSS snippet that lets you flip an image. This is particularly useful if you want to flip icons such as arrows.

img {
        -moz-transform: scaleX(-1);
        -o-transform: scaleX(-1);
        -webkit-transform: scaleX(-1);
        transform: scaleX(-1);
        filter: FlipH;
        -ms-filter: "FlipH";
}

22. Email Link With An Image

A quick way of automatically adding a mail image to all of your email links.

a[href^="mailto:"] {
     background: url(images/email.png) no-repeat right top;
     padding-right:10px;
}

23. Beautiful Blockquotes

A neat way of styling your blockquotes to add a bit more punch to them.

blockquote {
     background:#f9f9f9;
     border-left:10px solid #ccc;
     margin:1.5em 10px;
     padding:.5em 10px;
     quotes:"\201C""\201D""\2018""\2019";
}
blockquote:before {
     color:#ccc;
     content:open-quote;
     font-size:4em;
     line-height:.1em;
     margin-right:.25em;
     vertical-align:-.4em;
}
blockquote p {
     display:inline;
}

24. Browser CSS hacks

A large list of browser hacks to make sure your website looks consistent across all browsers.

/***** Selector Hacks ******/

/* IE6 and below */
* html #uno  { color: red }

/* IE7 */
*:first-child+html #dos { color: red } 

/* IE7, FF, Saf, Opera  */
html>body #tres { color: red }

/* IE8, FF, Saf, Opera (Everything but IE 6,7) */
html>/**/body #cuatro { color: red }

/* Opera 9.27 and below, safari 2 */
html:first-child #cinco { color: red }

/* Safari 2-3 */
html[xmlns*=""] body:last-child #seis { color: red }

/* safari 3+, chrome 1+, opera9+, ff 3.5+ */
body:nth-of-type(1) #siete { color: red }

/* safari 3+, chrome 1+, opera9+, ff 3.5+ */
body:first-of-type #ocho {  color: red }

/* saf3+, chrome1+ */
@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) {
 #diez  { color: red  }
}

/* iPhone / mobile webkit */
@media screen and (max-device-width: 480px) {
 #veintiseis { color: red  }
}

/* Safari 2 - 3.1 */
html[xmlns*=""]:root #trece  { color: red  }

/* Safari 2 - 3.1, Opera 9.25 */
*|html[xmlns*=""] #catorce { color: red  }

/* Everything but IE6-8 */
:root *> #quince { color: red  }

/* IE7 */
*+html #dieciocho {  color: red }

/* Firefox only. 1+ */
#veinticuatro,  x:-moz-any-link  { color: red }

/* Firefox 3.0+ */
#veinticinco,  x:-moz-any-link, x:default  { color: red  }

/* FF 3.5+ */
body:not(:-moz-handler-blocked) #cuarenta { color: red; }

/***** Attribute Hacks ******/

/* IE6 */
#once { _color: blue }

/* IE6, IE7 */
#doce { *color: blue; /* or #color: blue */ }

/* Everything but IE6 */
#diecisiete { color/**/: blue }

/* IE6, IE7, IE8 */
#diecinueve { color: blue\9; }

/* IE7, IE8 */
#veinte { color/*\**/: blue\9; }

/* IE6, IE7 -- acts as an !important */
#veintesiete { color: blue !ie; } /* string after ! can be anything */

/* IE8, IE9 */
#anotherone  {color: blue\0/;} /* must go at the END of all rules */

25. How To Change The Default Text Selection Color on your Blog

Change the color of highlighted text by adding this little CSS snippet to your stylesheet.

::selection {
   background: #ffb7b7; /* Safari */
        color: #ffffff;
   }
::-moz-selection {
   background: #ffb7b7; /* Firefox */
        color: #ffffff;
   }

26. Clearfix

Clear floated elements easily by creating a CSS clear class.

.clearfix:after {
	visibility: hidden;
	display: block;
	font-size: 0;
	content: " ";
	clear: both;
	height: 0;
}

.clearfix { display: inline-block; }

/* start commented backslash hack \*/
* html .clearfix { height: 1%; }
.clearfix { display: block; }
/* close commented backslash hack */

27. Hide Logo Text With Text Indent

Make your logo is SEO friendly by using this snippet for your h1 tag. The snippet ensures that the logo text is not displayed on the page.

h1 {
        text-indent:-9999px;
        margin:0 auto;
        width:400px;
        height:100px;
        background:transparent url("images/logo.jpg") no-repeat scroll;
}

28. Reset all Text Colors and Background Colors

Reset all text and background colours. The snippet sets everything back to black text on a white background though you can change these colours accordingly.

* {
     color: black !important;
     background-color: white !important;
     background-image: none !important;
}

29. Multiple Background Images

Use multiple background images with this useful CSS3 snippet.

#multiple-images {
   background: url(image_1.png) top left no-repeat,
   url(image_2.png) bottom left no-repeat,
   url(image_3.png) bottom right no-repeat;
}

30. Linear Gradient

This CSS code will allow you to create a linear gradient in the background of an element. This works on all major browsers however some older browsers don’t display it properly (particularly older versions of IE).

background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #F0ECE8 0%, #D8D3C8 100%);
background-image: -moz-linear-gradient( top, #F0ECE8 0%, #D8D3C8 100%);
background-image: -o-linear-gradient( top, #F0ECE8 0%, #D8D3C8 100%);
background-image: linear-gradient( top, #F0ECE8 0%, #D8D3C8 100%);
background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0, #F0ECE8), color-stop(1, #D8D3C8) );
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr=’#F0ECE8?, endColorstr=’#D8D3C8?,GradientType=0 );

We hope that you enjoyed the post and found it as useful as we’d hoped. If you know of any other useful CSS snippets that you keep handy that we neglected, please share them with us in the comment area.

(rb)

If you don’t want to waste your time digging into this coding stuff, we can suggest you the solution you need to have it all on your website straight off. Extended Package Templates offered at TemplateMonster go packed with a range of awesome tooltip functionalities. In any design you can find three different tooltip versions such as standard, fixed & onclick tooltips that could make your site more user-friendly and attractive when hovered.

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Orbital Tooltip

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Simpletip

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Pop

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EZPZ Tooltip

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Prototip

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qTip

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Tooltipsy

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(mb)Tooltip

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Tipped

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BeautyTips

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jQuery Tools Tooltip

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jTip

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BsTip

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Easy Tooltip

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Colortip

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Simple Tooltip Powered by jQuery

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clueTip

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littleTIP

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wTooltip

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Create a Simple CSS + Javascript Tooltip with jQuery

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Administration Tools

These plugins provide CMS-like functionality to the WordPress Admin area.

• WP-CMS Post Control — Provides complete control over the Write-Page and Write-Post areas of the WordPress Admin. Enables you to hide unwanted items, disable the Flash uploader, kill post revisions, and even add a personal message.
• WP-CMS — Transforms the Admin area to focus more on page creation and less on post creation. Designed to simplify the whole process for your newbie clients. You can even disable the blog functionality entirely.
• Flutter — Enables you to edit posts without leaving the post page and also provides custom write panels that enable further publishing functionality.
• Supple Forms — Enables you to create custom write panels, as well as format and insert values into posts using shortcodes and snippets of HTML.
• Custom Write Panel — Enables you to create additional write panels with customized input fields. Add textboxes, checkboxes, radio-buttons, dropdown menus, and more.
• Pods — Comprehensive CMS functionality, enabling you to create, manage, and display custom content types. Features automatic pagination, public-form filtering, access control, menu editing, and more.

User Role Management

• Members — Comprehensive user-, role-, and content-management plugin that was created to make WordPress a more powerful CMS. Provides more control over your blog with an extensive collection of component-based features.
• s2Member — s2Member provides robust tools for setting up a PayPal-driven membership site, including secure members-only content with custom roles and capabilities.
• Role Scoper — Provides you the ability to specify different permissions levels for different WordPress roles. Also provides options for implementing user groups.
• Disclose-Secret — Enables you to hide specified posts from users unless they meet certain criteria.
• Page Restrict — Enables you to restrict specified pages to logged-in users.

Ordering, Filtering, Limiting and Displaying Content

• AStickyPostOrderER — Enables you to customize post-display order for category views, archive views, and even sitewide.
• Advanced Category Excluder — Provides advanced content separation and category management for WordPress. Exclude any number of categories according to your needs. Also provides control over feeds and search results.
• Custom Post Limits — Provides control over the number of posts that appear on the home page, in various archive views, and in search results.
• Custom Query String Reloaded — Rework of the original plugin, CQS Reloaded controls the number of posts displayed on just about any type of page view, including archives, months, categories, home page, search, and many more. For more information on CQS Reloaded, check out the popout in section 5.1.4.

eCommerce and Shopping Carts

• eShop — Provides shopping-cart functionality that includes customizable product listings, multiple product options, advanced payment options, basic statistics, and more.
• WP e-Commerce — Provides an “elegant and easy to use fully featured shopping cart” that claims to be the “most complete and powerful Shopping Plugin you will find for WordPress.”
• YAK for WordPress — Provides basic shopping-cart functionality that associates products with blog posts.
• Quick Shop — Adds a sidebar widget that displays cart contents to the user and enables easy item removal. Also enables you to easily add products to your posts and pages.
• Cart66 Lite — Shopping cart plugin that enables you to sell digital and/or physical products with a host of useful options. Features include advanced shipping options, custom fields for products, customizable email receipts, Amazon S3 integration, and much more.

Email Mailing List and Newsletter Plugins

• WP-Campaign-Monitor — Email newsletter and SMS functionality enabling users to send campaigns, track results, and manage subscribers. Even includes a plug-n-play sidebar widget.
• PHPList Form Integration — Enables users to easily subscribe to your newsletter or RSS feed from any page on your blog. Designed to work with PHPList, an excellent open-source newsletter manager.
• WordPress Double Opt-In Manager Widget — Enables users to subscribe to your mailing list by way of a double opt-in method that includes the email form and a confirmation email.
• MailChimp — MailChimp is a third-party email newsletter sending service. They have an official plugin to help integrate with WordPress.

Miscellaneous CMS Plugins

• ProjectManager — Manage any number of projects with recurrent datasets. Great for portrait systems, music and DVD collections, and just about anything else imaginable.
• WP-PostRatings — Enables users to rate your post content. Highly customizable. One of the best.
• User Submitted Posts — Enables visitors to submit posts and images from anywhere on your site. User-submitted posts optionally include tags, categories, post title, URL and more.

Using WordPress as a Forum

Although forum functionality is not (yet) built into the WordPress core, implementing a forum on your site is easily accomplished with the help of these awesome plugins.

• bbPress Forum — bbPress is simple, fast, and elegant forum software from the same people who make WordPress. bbPress is focused on web standards, ease of use, ease of integration, and speed.
• Simple:Press Forum, aka Simple Forum — A feature-rich forum plugin for WordPress that fully integrates into your WordPress-powered site. Fully customizable and includes plenty of skins and icons to get you started.

More Forum Plugins

Here are two more useful forum plugins for WordPress, both include great features and look like great forum solutions.

• Tal.ki Embeddable Forums
• Zingiri Forum

What else?

Know of a sweet CMS-related plugin that needs mentioned? Shout it out in the comments to share with the community!

© 2012 Digging into WordPress | Permalink | 32 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Post tags: CMS, plugin, tips, tools

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It is a theme aimed at helping you build simple, uncluttered, useable, and mobile-friendly websites.

Skeleton has styling for typography and form elements + includes simple tabs and accordions.

The theme is based on and inspired from Skeleton Responsive Boilerplate, Theme Options Framework, Thematic Framework, Formalize and TwentyTen Theme.

P.S. There are also optional styles for bbPress and Jigoshop.

Bones

Bones is a theme following the mobile first approach that has a detailed + organized CSS, in-depth documentation with tutorials and details on every level.

There are 3 versions:

• classic
• responsive
• HTML version for projects

Many useful features exist including page navi, breadcrumbs, related posts and HTML5 video with fallback.

It is based on 960.gs, 320 and Up Extension, HTML5 Boilerplate.

Gantry

Gantry has a detailed admin interface with 65 base widget positions and 38 layout combinations that provide a huge space for customization.

There are lots of built-in features including the CSS and JS compression, speed-optimized codebase, several widgets and gizmos such as font-sizer, Google Analytics, to-top smooth slider, IE6 warning message, etc.

Starkers

Starkers is a completely naked  WordPress theme built to be a starting point for theme designers.

It’s a stripped-back version of the ‘Twenty Ten’ theme that is bundled with each WordPress download.

The theme is based on YUI Reset and it is totally unstyled.

Wonderflux

Wonderflux is a solid, easy to update and flexible platform you can use for any WordPress project.

It has location-aware template parts that allow you to concentrate on the content, not the code.

The framework comes with a fully dynamic CSS grid system, simple administration controls and over 100 display hooks.

Reverie

Reverie is a HTML5 WordPress framework based on ZURB's Foundation and HTML5 Boilerplate.

It can almost be used out-of-the-box. There are 2 widget areas; sidebar and footer and 2 menus (top navigation menu and footer information menu). Also works with bbPress 2.0.

Thematic

Thematic is a good option for using as-is or as a blank WordPress theme for development.

There are built-in with styles for popular plugins and many theme filters + hooks are available.

The theme has 13 widget areas + multiple layout options and it is strongly advised to use a child theme for customization.

Whiteboard

Whiteboard focuses on simplicity and includes only the core WP functionality.

it supports WordPress features such as manageable menus, background, and header image besides featured images, several widget areas, and more.

The framework uses LESS for mobile support and responsive outputs. The code is lightweight + well-commented and there is support for child themes.

Presswork

The big thing that separates this PressWork from others is its unique front-end editor.

Google fonts selector is integrated to this front-end editor to easily select your fonts. A PSD file is included to customize the design and it has 2 widget + 2 menu areas.

Constellation Theme

The Constellation theme is a great base for any WordPress-powered website.

It has the styles for creating responsive pages, has a HTML5 code and comes with a flexible grid system.

The theme is based on the HTML5 Boilerplate.

TwentyTen Five

This theme is an HTML5-powered version of the default WordPress TwentyTen theme.

It is cleanly coded, using the theme and integrating new features on it is pretty easy.

Elastic

There are several important stuff behind Elastic: a visual theme editor, a theme engine, and a set of protocols that link these two.

It aims to bring a new approach to editing and creating themes which both developers and end-users will find easy to work with.

Flexible

Flexible is a carefully-coded child theme of the default Twenty Ten theme and built-with any browser size in mind.

It has a Facebook FanGate integration and packed with Themekit (which is a plugin for plain simple customization via WordPress editor).

WP Paintbrush

WP Paintbrush comes with a built in front-end editor that enables anyone willing to quickly create a unique design for their website.

The editor has a drag 'n' drop interface for placing theme sections, comes with fixed or fluid layouts and much more.

Html5 Shell

mimoYmima has implemented an improved body tag that includes many valuable information about the page loaded.

There are smart sidebar disabling methods which could come handy, several @font-face examples and dynamic sidebar + custom template examples packaged with the framework

The code is commented clearly for easing the production process and it uses Modernizr + HTML5 reset css

Gantry is based on 960.gs.

Hybrid

This framework has many custom widget areas, widgets, hooks, shortcodes, page templates and many options to easily customize your website.

It is being improved continuously and has a community growing around it.

HTML5 Reset

This blank theme focuses on making a solid HTML5 compatible starting point for WordPress theme development.

It also has some additional features such as built-in analytics and starter CSS declarations for basic WP elements.

HTML5 Reset is based on digwp.com's Blank WordPress Theme, Modernizr and HTML5 Reset.

The Buffet

The framework has many SEO features including breadcrumbs and jQuery improvements such as comments form validation, SuperSleight for IE6, superfish menus or jBreadcrumb.

It is also compatible with many plugins and fully localized, ready for translation.

The theme includes 960.gs and Blueprint CSS.

Simon

This framework includes useful options such as free icons, typography, breadcrumbs and form designs.

There are also multiple post formats to ease theme customizations.

It has support for widgets, child themes and comes with a clean code.

Handcrafted WP

This one may not count as a framework, but it is an almost-naked starter theme with many useful features such as cleaner head code, integrated analytics, support for menus, post formats and custom post types.

The theme also has a widget-ready sidebar and dashboard.

Handcrafted WP is based on Toolbox Starter theme and HTML5 Boilerplate.

ToolBox

If you want to make your own theme and want it to be ready for HTML5, ToolBox may satisfy your needs.

It is a blank theme in plain and semantic HTML5 markup with almost no CSS.

Thematic-html5boilerplate

This is a WordPress theme using HTML5 Boilerplate and based on Thematic ToolBox (and other Thematic themes).

H5 Theme Template

H5 includes a full pack of theme files and folders with each file having all the latest WordPress functionality.

It is built with easy customization and personalization in mind and serves as a solid starting point for your next HTML-5-based theme.

Brave New World

This theme has no layout and styling except the modified version of Eric Meyer’s reset CSS and a baseline typography.

Although it is such a plain theme, it is built with HTML5, WAI-ARIA in mind and supports hCard + hAtom microformats.

1140 Fluid Starkers

This theme is the combination of Starkers + the 1140 CSS Grid and great for anyone looking for a responsive naked theme.

Indeziner

Indeziner is a starting point for creating websites using WordPress with no hassle.

It has a fully customizable homepage, almost every section can be enabled/disabled and bundled with a slideshow, gallery page and Flickr integration.

Blank Themes

Blank Themes offer 1, 2, 3 column blank themes to start from with the variations of sidebar locations.

There is also a blank portfolio theme that can be easily customized and used for your own portfolio.

rtPanel

rtPanel has a developer centric framework which is useful for developers willing to tweak codes with hooks and functions.

The framework also provides control over content and design for anyone who is not so familiar with coding and web-development.

Sandbox

Sandbox and various other themes from plaintxt.org provide a strong and clean structure with rich semantic classes powered by dynamic functions and microformats.

The themes are minimal and can be good starting points for new themes.

Suffusion

Suffusion is a cross-browser theme with a bunch of options.

It has 19 widget areas, one/two/three column, fixed-width and flexible-width formats, 10 pre-defined templates, 18 pre-defined color schemes, 2 customizable multi-level drop-down menus, featured posts, a magazine layout, tabbed sidebars, widgets for Twitter, social networks, Google Translate and more.

Foundation

Foundation is a blank starter theme that has all the core features needed to creating a new theme.

It is a nice kit for developing responsive websites, uses Orbit as a content slider and based on ZURB's Foundation Framework + HTML5 Boilerplate.

StartBox

StartBox is a theme framework that makes rapid web development and WP theme creation simple for both designers and developers.

It comes pre-loaded with customizable theme options, several widget-ready areas and custom widgets, 6 pre-defined layouts and a comprehensive documentation.

Yoko

Yoko is a modern three-column blog theme and it comes with a custom social links widget and shortcodes for text columns, info boxes and highlighted text.

It also provides various post formats and uses Google Web Fonts.

Comparison Of WordPress Theme Frameworks

Themes	Capabilities
	HTML5	Responsive	Mobile	SEO	Admin Int.	Micro formats	IE Hacks	Basic Styles
Roots
Skeleton
Bones
Gantry
Starkers
Wonderflux
Reverie
Thematic
Whiteboard
Presswork
Constellation Theme
TwentyTen..
Elastic
Flexible
WP Paintbrush
Html5 Shell
Hybrid
HTML5 Reset
The Buffet
Simon
Handcrafted
ToolBox
Thematic-html5boil.
H5 Theme Template
Brave New World
1140 Fluid Starkers
Indeziner
Blank Themes
rtPanel
Sandbox
Suffusion
Foundation
StartBox
Yoko

 

Author: Devrim Vardar

Devrim Vardar is a talented web developer who also writes fiction and non-fiction besides code.

He can be found at Stild.com and via Twitter.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

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Tools for layouts

Templatr

If you don’t know HTML or CSS and want a website, Templatr can create a layout for you in a matter of seconds. There are lots of possible layouts you can choose from, upload images and other graphic elements and many, many other things. You can easily select every element on the page and customize it by choosing different options from a dropdown list, which makes modifying the page easier and quite fast. The layouts you make can be downloaded and installed using an application. Another good part is the support for several languages.

CSS Template Generator

CSS Template Generator is not as complex as templatr, but offers some nice features too. As you can see in the screenshot below, it generates a basic CSS stylesheet for an HTML page and gives you the CSS code for it, which you will need to copy/paste in your stylesheet. Obviously, you also get the code for the HTML page. A downside of this generator is the lack of a download option. The only way you can use the layouts created here is copying the code yourself.

YAML

What I like about YAML is the amount of options you have. Besides being able to select the basic information needed to create a layout, you can also go a bit more in-depth if you have enough knowledge of coding. The columns and the layout have properties, you have presets, you can play with the flexible grids, choose coding options and many others. This generator might actually be the best out of these three.

Others: Firdamatic, CSS Portal, CSS Creator, Layout Generators, CSS Layout Generator.

Tools for the grid system

Variable Grid System

Variable Grid System might be one of the best grid system tools you can find on the internet. It allows you to quickly generate a CSS stylesheet for your website and is based on the 960gs, which we will review a bit further down the road. You can customize the width of the main container, the width of the content, the column width, the number of columns and the gutter and you can preview the layout before downloading it – this actually happens automatically when you modify a value.

Gridinator

Gridinator allows the user to customize the layout more than the previous tool. You have the option of modifying colors, font size, choose pixels or em and even select popular layouts from a list on the right hand side. This tool allows you to preview the grid system before downloading the fully functional template.

960gs

960gs is not a grid generator, but you can learn a lot about grid systems from it. There are some templates you can download and you can also see some examples of websites that are built on their default stylesheets. You can find some interesting JavaScripts there – adaptive.css is incredible and beats any other similar JavaScript any day of the week – and watch how the grid works on different webpages.

Others: Blueprint Grid CSS Generator, CSS Grid Calculator, Grid Designer.

Tools for colors

Now that we have a layout and a grid system, we can start thinking about colors and color schemes. Here are some great tools you should look at.

Kuler

My personal favorite is Kuler, a tool developed and maintained by Adobe. You can find lots and lots of color schemes here you can use for your web pages and even inspiration if you need it. There are more than 11.000 color schemes available (all free of charge) and you even have the option to customize them. If you create an account there you can also start submitting your color schemes of choice and inspire others to use them on their websites. Another incredible tool by Adobe…

Color Scheme Designer

Although quite different than the first example, Color Scheme Designer is another great tool which allows you to create schemes on a total other level. You can choose a color, then one of the options above – mono, complement, triad, tetrad, analogic or accented analogic – and let the tool do its job. It is a tool you may find very useful for when you need colors for your design. And if that wasn’t already enough, you can also create color schemes for the color blind. Each scheme you create gets an ID which you can save. Later you can return to your scheme again and continue customizing it.

CSS Gradient Generator

If you don’t want to open Photoshop to create a gradient, CSS Gradient Generator will be great for you. It allows you to do the same thing Photoshop does, only it works with CSS and way faster. You can save your gradients using an unique link.

Others: Color Palette Generator, CSS Color Codes, Gradient Image Maker.

Tools for menus and buttons

CSS Menu Maker

CSS Menu Maker allows you to create your own customized CSS menus and generates them for you in a simple, HTML/CSS format, so you can download and use them right away. The tool has a fairly big gallery of menus – vertical, horizontal and dropdown – and allows you to customize them in detail. Moreover, you can also download plugins for Adobe Dreamweaver and create your own menus on your own computer. The menus are cross-compatible and will look the same in all the browsers (except maybe transitions for Internet Explorer).

This is the only CSS menu tool that really stands out, some other ones you can take a look at are CSS Menu Generator, My CSS Menu, Tabs Generator and List-O-Matic.

Button Maker Online

Button Maker Online from Dynamic Drive allows you to create and customize your own buttons, then download and use them in your designs. You can pretty much customize everything from colors, borders, size and even has some transparency options. You can preview the buttons before using them.

CSS Button

This one is very similar to the first, only you create the menus in another way: by choosing your style from several dropdown lists. It’s pretty much the same it only depends which one you are more comfortable working with.

Tools for fonts

Font Tester

Font Tester is an incredible tool which lets you preview different fonts, so that you won’t have to insert them into your CSS file and customize them there. Just customize the fonts on this web page and when you find the perfect one, get the code and use it! There are so many options I don’t even know where to begin. There’s line height, text decoration, text transform, font weight, word spacing, font stretch, white space, unicode bidi and many, many others. Just go an give it a try, you will fall in love with it.

Typester

Typester is pretty much for the same purpose as Font Tester, only it might be more popular and you can preview more fonts there – even the Google fonts. There are not so many options for customizing, but what you have should be enough to give you a preview of the typeface you wish to integrate in your design.

Others: CSS Font Style, CSS Font and Text Style Wizard, CSS Type Set.

Other tools

CSS Generator

If you wish to generate a default CSS style fast, then CSS Generator is for you. It’s similar to the tools for grid systems, only this one doesn’t really keep a grid system (you will have to code it afterwards). You can, however, generate a stylesheet with link colors, font size, margins, hover color and so on – and spare some valuable time later on during the coding.

Quick CSS

Quick CSS does the same thing, only you have even more customization possibilities, so take a look at this too. The generated CSS seems to always be validated by W3C and the process is quite fast as well, so you will be able to enjoy a half an hour of TV later instead of coding the defaults of the stylesheet.

Now I am not updated on CSS sprites tools, because I don’t use them, but some reviews recommend Spritegen Sprite Generator, CSS Sprites and CSS Sprites Generator.

If you design e-mail newsletters and need to generate tables in CSS, then this tool will do the job.

That was a list of CSS tools and generators I wanted to raise awareness about. Do you have some others you would like to recommend?

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Gridpak is an interactive web application for generating responsive grid layouts very quickly.

The width of the grid, number of columns, column padding and gutter width can all be defined which are standard features we have seen from several other layout generators.

It gets better with the ability of adding breakpoints for responsive outputs. You can change the size of the layout, click "Add break point" and there you have it.

Once you have setup the layout, a custom download is ready which includes:

• a CSS file with all the classes and properties you need to create the responsive grid layout
• a LESS file with much the same information but including variables, mixins and methods to help you.
• an SCSS file like the LESS file, but in SCSS.
• a semi transparent PNG image for each grid you have created to help with your design, or with lining things up in your front end.
• a JavaScript snippet that allows you to toggle an overlay of your grid on and off in any browser using the 'G' key.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

Advertisements:
Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)