Leveraging Less-Known WordPress Plugins

Transcript

1. 滄海遺珠：從我第一批網 站開始就一直使用而鮮為 人知的插件 Victor K. Nip Hong Kong WordCamp Meetup #87 2025-06-16
2. Hidden Gems: Leveraging Less-Known WordPress Plugins that I Have Been Using Since My First Websites Victor K. Nip Hong Kong WordCamp Meetup #87 2025-06-16
3. About Victor K. Nip
4. Why this Topic? • The organizers of WordCamp Johor Bahru invited me to submit a topic. • They called for “beginner-friendly” topics. • What did I do when I was a beginner of WordPress? • What did I do that is beneficial to share with the community? • If I still use a plugin that I used at that time, and if it is less known, maybe it’s something worth to talk about. • I told AI what I wanted to present, and it gave me the title of the talk.
5. The Hidden Gems • Pods (free custom content type framework) • Microthemer (freemium visual CSS editor) • qTranslate-XT (free multilingual framework)
6. Installation of Plugins
7. https://github.com/qtranslate/qtranslate-xt https://github.com/qtranslate/qtranslate-xt
8. https://github.com/qtranslate/qtranslate-xt https://github.com/qtranslate/qtranslate-xt
9. https://github.com/qtranslate/qtranslate-xt https://github.com/qtranslate/qtranslate-xt
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17. Choose a classic theme that supports classic menu
18. Pods
19. Pods • The Pods is a Content Development Framework for WordPress • Pods lets you • Extend existing content types • Create custom content types (custom post types and custom taxonomies) • A post type managed by Pods is called a Pod. • Highlight: Pod Template with Magic Tags to display posts of different post types
20. Why Extend Existing Post Type? • Add fields to an existing post type • E.g., add a “brand” field to Product (CPT of WooCommerce) • Customized archive of existing post types
21. Example
22. Extend Post Type “Post”
27. Create Post
28. Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqZsoesa55w Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqZsoesa55w Create Post
31. Create Pod Template
34. {@field_name}
35. {@field_name}
36. {@field_name}
38. Link Template to Pod
42. https://wcjb.gotta.party/uncategorized/most-viewed-youtube-video/ Embedded YouTube video added Featured Image hidden
43. Customized Post Archive • Create a template to list the blog posts with the following features • Show the thumbnail • Show the title • If either is clicked, go the to blog post
44. Create Template
45. Create Archive Page
49. Custom Post Type (CPT) • CPT is a post type defined to suit the specific content need. • Examples: • Products of WooCommerce • Artwork and artist on an art gallery website • Customers or suppliers on a company branding website
50. https://curator.artracx.com/artwork-listing/?aid=17234
51. https://lis.hk/en/business-parters/
52. Create Pod
56. Create Fields
57. Create Template
58. Create the Content with Multiple Posts
59. Create Listing Page with Pods Shortcode
61. Pods Framework: Pros and Cons Pros • Free • Pod Templates with Magic Tags • Compatible with other CPT plugins Cons • Recents changes make thing more complicated; e.g. • PHP codes not directly allowed on templates • More options to handle for the sake of security
62. Microthemer
63. What is Microthemer? • A plugin to style web page elements visually • Supports over 150 CSS properties, including Google Fonts, gradients, shadow, etc • Supports responsive design • Supports CSS variables
64. Why you need to write CSS codes in WP Websites? Maintain consistency of looks of objects created by different plugins (e.g., fonts, text input box) 01 Fix visual CSS flaws of themes and plugins 02 Style your own HTML elements 03
65. https://wcjb.gotta.party/blog/
73. https://wcjb.gotta.party/wp-admin/admin.php?page=tvr- microthemer.php
74. Free Version vs Paid Version Free: Lite Version Paid: Pro Version Number of selectors supported 15 groups Unlimited Functionality Support for CSS grid, flexbox, stock SVG mask images, transform, animation, and transition disabled No limitation
75. Disclaimer: I am not an affiliate of Microthemer
76. Disclaimer: I am not an affiliate of Microthemer Easter Pricing
77. Microthemer: Pros and Cons Pros • Great UI • Style visually • Instant response • Many functions Cons • Not totally free
78. qTranslate-XT
79. What and Why? •qTranslate-XT is a multilingual plugin •For multilingual websites •Highlights •Free •Flexible multilingual information representation
80. Evolution of qTranslate-XT qTranslate • 2009 – 2015 • On WordPress.org qTranslate-X • 2015 – 2016 • On WordPress.org qTranslate-XT • Since 2018 • On GitHub only
82. Use Language Switching Buttons (LSB)
88. -> #qtransLangSwLM?title=Language &flags=none#
89. https://wcjb.gotta.party/english-subject/ https://wcjb.gotta.party/english-subject/
90. https://wcjb.gotta.party/english-subject/ https://wcjb.gotta.party/english-subject/
93. Editor Raw Mode
95. Anatomy of Multilingual Information Language Tags
96. Anatomy of Multilingual Information [ Language Tags
97. Anatomy of Multilingual Information [: Language Tags
98. Anatomy of Multilingual Information [:en Language Tags
99. Anatomy of Multilingual Information [:en] Language Tags
100. Anatomy of Multilingual Information [:en] English Texts Language Tags
101. Anatomy of Multilingual Information [:en] English Texts Language Tags [:zh] 华语文本
102. Anatomy of Multilingual Information [:en] English Texts Language Tags [:ms] Teks bahasa Melayu [:zh] 华语文本
103. Anatomy of Multilingual Information [:en] English Texts [:] Closing Tag Language Tags [:ms] Teks bahasa Melayu [:zh] 华语文本
105. https://lis.hk/service/wealth-management/
106. https://lis.hk/en/service/wealth-management/
107. Multiple Multi-Lingual Information
108. qTranslate-XT: Pros and Cons Pros • Free • Unlimited languages • Works with all properly written plugins in the frontend • Editing of contents of all languages at once possible Cons • Not on WordPress.org (manual installation, manual updating) • Limited support with Gutenberg (Single Language Edit mode only without Classic Editor) • Switching to another multilingual plugin/ uninstalling can be complicated • Frontend language parsing may fail for some contents if a plugin/theme is not written properly • No auto-translation options • Unsure if it survives WordPress updates
109. https://github.com/qtranslate/qtranslate-xt/releases 624 days in between
110. Before I talk about WCJB… • The plugins have many functions and we have limited time. • Hope you find these plugins useful for your websites.
126. Q&A