NSLog();

Currently I have a lot of WordPress plugins enabled. WordPress seemingly needs a lot more than MovableType to provide functionality MT provides out of the box (or via configurable settings that are somewhat well documented). The plugins are…

Akismet - For spam. MovableType had this one too (and/or SpamLookup). ((I'd link to all of these plugins, but they're easily found by Googling the plugin name "+WordPress"))

Bad-Behavior - Also for spam. I'm not sure this one is worthwhile. It puts a lot of crap in the database, may be blocking valid comments, and seems to be a bit phony: are all those people really trying to spam me and, if so, would they have gotten through akismet anyway?

Clutter-Free - Helps to make the admin area bearable by removing things I'll likely never care to look at.

DoFollow - Turns off WordPress's built-in (and annoying) over-use of the rel="nofollow" anchor tag.

Footnotes - Enables footnotes. This gets a bye as this is new functionality, not something I could do in MovableType.

Gravatar - Also gets a bye. It simplifies adding a gravatar to one call. I've actually simplified it even more. Will be removed if Gravatars aren't re-enabled soon. The guy's taking forever to get version 2.0 out the door.

Hello - a useless default plugin. It's disabled, but I keep it around in case I need an example.

Optimal-Title - Hacks WordPress to have better titles. This was done in a template in MovableType.

PageNavi - Hacks WordPress to have better page links. This was done in a template in MovableType. In WordPress, it's both a plugin and a template change (though, thankfully, changes take place immediately and without rebuilding).

Quoter - Adds functionality ("Quote Me") I didn't have in MovableType.

SearchAndReplace - Adds functionality that exists stock in MovableType.

Subscribe-to-Comments - Adds functionality that I had in MovableType. This plugin is a bit more elegant, though.

Text-Control - Gets rid of the obnoxious character encoding (curly quotes, etc.) that are standard in WordPress.

Underscore_Permalinks - Added to control the ability of WordPress to underscore permalinks instead of using dashes. A must-have for someone coming from dirified MovableType installs.

Wordcount - Added so that I could get the word count of entries. I believe this was originally a plugin in MT, then rolled into the core functionality.

WP-Admin-Tiger - An attempt to overcome some of the ugliness that is the WP admin area's default look.

WP-Cache - A must-have for WP users who expect a little traffic from time to time.

WP-DB-Backup - Currently disabled, as I back up in a different way each night.

In the End…

I suppose it only seems like WP is plugin-happy. A lot of the above added new functionality I didn't have in MovableType. Many mapped 1:1 to MovableType.

Still, I wish I didn't need plugins like DoFollow, Text-Control, Optimal-Title, and Clutter-Free. I consider those plugins "correction" plugins as they all correct something that should be part of WP itself (an option to add or not add "nowfollow," formatting options for entries, formatting options for titles, and a better admin user interface).

Each new plugin is like a new little toy. I download it, I install it, and I see if I like it. But I'm surprised at how many plugins I have installed already. And each time I try a new plugin, I carefully check the database to see if it's screwed something up, because I'm still not quite sure how this glob of code that is WP actually works.

Some day I might even get past noticing problems that need patched with plugins and get started on hacking up the damn theme. 😛

Comments RSS