I’ll be updating this blog post from time to time with my list of essential WordPress Plugin’s. These are the plugins that I find myself using time and time again on different sites because they are reliable.
Divi Builder from Elegant Themes
See https://www.elegantthemes.com
This is a great page builder for easily creating professional websites. There are alternatives but I’ve found that the Divi Page builder has a good support eco-system online and Elegant Themes are constantly developing and adding new features.
Child Theme Configurator By Lilaea Media
See https://wordpress.org/plugins/child-theme-configurator/
When working with third party themes it’s essential that you don’t directly change the vendors theme files because any changes you make will be wiped out when you receive updates.
The correct method of making local customisations is to create a child theme. You can do this manually but I find it really helpful to use this great little plugin.
These days we try to avoid using HTML tables for layout purposes but there are times when a table is absolutely the right answer, for example when laying out a set of data points, pricing information or other structured data. Yesterday I was helping my son with a blog post using WordPress and told him to insert a table only to find that by default these days the WordPress editor doesn’t actually have an Insert > Table or Insert > Table > Row function. We were in a hurry at the time and we needed to get the job done so I just popped into the HTML view and entered the code. I’m happy to do this as I’ve been writing HTML and the like since the dawn of time… but it’s not acceptable or a great experience for people starting out or those who just don’t want to get into that detail.
This picture shows the default WordPress editor without an Insert Table button
Today I’ve had a bit more time to research this and I’ve found that the WordPress Insert Table and WordPress Insert Table Row editor functions can easily be added back via a very popular plugin.
This graphic shows how to locate the WordPress Table Editor plugin.
To add the WordPress Table editor function, click on Plugin’s on the left hand navigation menu. Then in the keyword search box in the top right enter “MCE Table Buttons”. You should then see a plugin called “MCE Table Buttons” (shown here top right). As you can see it’s very popular with over 100,000 active installations. Just click the Install Now button and then activate the plugin.
This graphic shows the WordPress editor after we have enabled the Table Editor functions that allow you to add tables, columns and rows to your HTML tables in WordPress.
Once you have installed the MCE Table Buttons plugin you will then find the missing Table Editor button in the WordPress Editor.
If you have any questions about HTML tables or using the Table Function in the WordPress Editor just leave a question in a comment below and I’ll try and get straight back to you.
I’ve been busy today helping a number of clients upgrade their WordPress sites to 2.8.4 which is the latest release at the time of writing. In case you haven’t heard hackers have discovered a serious security flaw in versions earlier than 2.8.4 which allows them to take over your site. It has been reported that a worm has been released onto the web which is now systematically working through WordPress sites running earlier releases and taking them over, so it is essential that you upgrade your WordPress software immediately.
