Disqus Comment System

Disqus is a third-party commenting platform that facilitates user interaction by providing a single log in for every Disqus-enabled site. They also offer various login options (Twitter, Facebook, etc) as well as content appreciation features. Essentially, it's a very simple comment system that doesn't require local registrations or theming. One of its great feature is the ability to export all the local WordPress-based comments into their database for a smooth transition.

Google Analytics for WordPress

I'm not much of an SEO person, but I'm still aware it has a definitive importance and impact to have a properly indexed website. There's a bunch of options that I don't understand, but luckily I have friends who make a living of SEO and Analytics and they insist Joost de Valk's Google Analytics for WordPress is there best option available.

Google XML Sitemaps

In June 2005, Google announced a new service called Google Sitemaps. This plugin allows webmasters to submit an index of URLs which they want to have included in Googles web search. It's free to use and helps Google to get a more complete overview of your website. More information regarding Google Sitemaps and how this plugin implements it over at Arne Brachhold's FAQ

SyntaxHighlighter Evolved

My blog can get somewhat technical when I write about WordPress, PHP, Linux or JavaScript. SyntaxHighlighter Evolved allows code to be highlighted and formatted nicely using a predefined set of language-based shortcodes.

Widget Logic

This one is kind of complicated to get your head around. Essentially, Widget Logic will add an input box inside every widget that allows you to use WordPress template tags to conditionally display (or not) the widget's content.

WordPress Admin Bar

I have to admit I found this little gem only today, and I don't know how I was able to live without it before. WordPress Admin Bar will, if configured to do so, add a nice little bar at the top your WordPress content like this giving you easy access to all your administrative functions while surfing the non-admin part of your blog. It's worth noting that WordPress Admin Bar is made by the same developer who makes SyntaxHighlighter Evolved (and who works for Automattic). For more of Alex's plugins, check out the full list on his website

WPtouch

The guys at BraveNewCode have been around ever since there was an interest for mobile-friendly versions of standard websites. It was the first mobile-rendering plugin that WordPress had, and as far as I'm concerned, it's still the very best. The only downside is that it lacks a design modification aspect - but then again, how else are you going to render if not this way? In today's mobile-crazed world, it's a pretty good idea to use WPtouch to render a mobile-friendly version to known mobile browsers.

WP Super Cache

WordPress does not come with a file caching system by default. If your blog has high pageviews, using WP Super Cache will significantly reduce the load on your server, which can then stay responsive longer because it doesn't have to call and process the files queued for serving.

Akismet

One of the very few plugin that comes bundled with WordPress by default, Akismet is a merciless spam filter for your comments. It's been pretty good to me since I've started using it. It can also be used in various independent user-input-based plugins like Contact Form 7.

WP-prettyPhoto

Obligatory self-promotion, yes, but I genuinely believe it my plugin deserves a spot on this list. Stéphane Caron did a fantastic job with his prettyPhoto jQuery plugin, (more Stéphane projects) even more so with the 3.0 release which will be implemented in WP-prettyPhoto soon. This plugin automatically makes all self-linked images open in a cute prettyPhoto inline window that supports multiple media formats, YouTube, Vimeo, QuickTime and Flash videos, external sites and even inline (textual!) content. Read up on the current version's usage instructions to get an idea of what it's capable of!

All that being said, I upgraded my WordPress from 2.7 to 2.7.1 in the middle of coding some new features for the latest release of WP-prettyphoto, 1.1. That made me realize that updating WordPress' core also updates the installed JavaScript modules, namely jQuery (among many others). When I first coded WP-prettyphoto, when things weren't working I just replaced the jQuery I had with the latest official stable release and things worked fine. I didn't give it much thought. So when I updated WordPress, all hell broke loose and WP-prettyphoto was metaphorically crying in agony because jQuery wasn't man enough for it. I then tried performing the same manual updating procedure, and without really surprising anyone -- I was alone anyway -- WP-prettyphoto was back prettyfying my stuff like a starving fat kid eats a cheesecake.

Morale of the story, I needed to code a jQuery version check in my WP-prettyphoto code, and if jQuery's version wasn't matching what I wanted, I had to replace the script with one that would make WP-prettyPhoto work the way it's supposed to. The goal's clear, the execution, however, was somewhat more obscure. Obviously, not being a WordPress plugin genius, I googled for solutions or anything that could help me achieve what I wanted. I didn't find much on how to replace a bundled script loaded by default. I found what I was looking for in a competing (and I use that term very, very loosely!) plugin for a jQuery Lightbox clone cleverly called jQuery Lightbox by Pedro Lamas. It's basically de-registering the default WordPress jQuery plugin and replacing it with one bundled with the plugin. Using native functions. Nice. Here's the code:

// jQuery - removing to make sure we're using 1.3.1
//Deregister bundled jQuery (1.2.6 as of WP 2.7.1)
wp_deregister_script('jquery');
//Registering our up to date jQuery
//$wppp_url is WP_CONTENT_URL.'/plugins/'.plugin_basename(dirname(__FILE__));
wp_register_script('jquery', ("$wppp_url/js/jquery-1.3.1.min.js"), false, '1.3.1');
//Giving WordPress our new jQuery script to enqueue (display)
wp_enqueue_script('jquery');

So there you have it. That's how to replace the version of a bundled WordPress JavaScript library.