WordPress Themes, Plugins, Tutorials, Tips And More...

Tag: WP

Reviewed – AJAX WP Query Search Filter

You completed your first WordPress website but still wondering what you actually left out with. Answer is simple a website never get completed unless and until it got a powerful search engine to fuel it up. While we talked about many WordPress search plugins in the past, but today we felt that it would be better if we got the things to some specific turns. That’s why with this article, we are going to review the search plugin name AJAX WP Query Search Filter.

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Ajax WP Query Search Filter is a powerful AJAX search engine that let your user perform more precisely search by filtering the search through post type, taxonomy and Meta field. Moreover, you do get an option to customize the plugin as per your own choice, or else you can have the search plugin your own styling mantra.

Features

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  • Admin are free to choose whether the search go through post type, taxonomy, meta field or even all of them.
  • Multiple Search Form Supported.
  • Search form support checkbox, radio and dropdown fields.
  • Using Ajax to display result in the same page complete with pagination.
  • Plugin extendable with hooks.
  • Using shortcode to display the search form.

Download, Installation & Configuration

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  • Upload ajax-wqsf folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
  • Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
  • Create your search form in the Advance WQSF.
  • Using [AjaxWPQSF id={form id}] to display the form.

Summary & Review

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The question lies here only that what I required? Or what’s the option I am looking for? Since the plugin offers the site owner to have different search filters on board so that one can search via post type, taxonomy and Meta field making it a perfect choice for anyone. I say yes for the plugin and suggest site’s owner to give AJAX WP Query Search Filter plugin a try.

Note:

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WordPress 3.6 Finally Arrives, Brings New Blog-Centric Theme, Built-in HTML5 Media Player, More

WordPress 3.6

WordPress.org today finally announced the release of much awaited next instalment of WordPress version – the WordPress 3.6. The release is called “Oscar” in honor of Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. The new WordPress version brings in a new blog-centric theme, better post locking, built-in HTML5 media player along with other features.

You can download the new release directly from WordPress.org/Download (file size: 5.2MB) or if you are already having WordPress installed with you, then you did saw an update message rolling in your dashboard, asking you to update the WordPress installation.

User Features

  • The new Twenty Thirteen theme inspired by modern art puts focus on your content with a colorful, single-column design made for media-rich blogging.
  • Revamped Revisions save every change and the new interface allows you to scroll easily through changes to see line-by-line who changed what and when.
  • Post Locking and Augmented Autosave will especially be a boon to sites where more than a single author is working on a post. Each author now has their own autosave stream, which stores things locally as well as on the server (so much harder to lose something) and there’s an interface for taking over editing of a post, as demonstrated beautifully by our bearded buddies in the video above.
  • Built-in HTML5 media player for native audio and video embeds with no reliance on external services.
  • The Menu Editor is now much easier to understand and use.

Developer features

  • A new audio/video API gives you access to metadata like ID3 tags.
  • You can now choose HTML5 markup for things like comment and search forms, and comment lists.
  • Better filters for how revisions work, so you can store a different amount of history for different post types.
  • Tons more listed on the Codex, and of course you can always browse the over 700 closed tickets.

Managing Multiple WordPress Sites From One Single Location: Top 5 Tools To Choose From

With day-to-day advancements, managing multiple WordPress sites is getting easier. If you have a number of more than one self-hosted WordPress sites or if you are managing multiple clients WordPress installations, then keeping them all up-to-date with the latest versions of the WordPress core, the plugins and the themes they are using can be a time consuming task, requiring you to login to each of site and to carry out the required jobs.

In order to make your job simple, here is a list of tool with which you can manage multiple WordPress websites from one single location. This means now you need not to worry about first logging-in to each of these sites and then update each and everything. These tools include a single WordPress dashboard from where you can manage domains, themes, campaigns and even lots more.

ManageWP

ManageWP includes one-click access, monitoring, backup, deployment, publishing, and security features. With one click, you can update all of your plugins, themes as well as your core WordPress software. Moreover your will get uptime monitoring, traffic alerts, SEO analysis, Google Analytics and lots more.

ManageWP

Free Features:

  • One-click updates
  • All sites in one dashboard
  • One-click automatic login to your WordPress sites
  • Install and manage plugins and themes
  • Remove spam comments, post revisions, optimize databases
  • Pageview site traffic statistics
  • Email notifications for available updates
  • IP address access restriction
  • Two-factor login authentication via email

Premium Features:

  • Bulk add new posts and pages (all packages)
  • Manage and add users and define their roles as you would from inside your sites own WordPress dashboards (Professional and Business)
  • Traffic change alerts to notify you spikes in visitor number (Professional and Business)
  • Create backups including delivery to S3, Dropbox or Google Drive (all packages)
  • Scheduled online backups (Professional and Business)
  • Google Analytics Widget to view your site stats according to Google (Professional and Business)
  • Search Engine Rank Tracker to see where your sites are ranked in the search engines (Business)
  • Clone or migrate your sites to other locations on your list of managed sites (Professional and Business)

Pricing: Free plan for up to five websites; with paid plans, choose how many websites you want to manage.

iControlWP (formerly Worpit)

iControlWP allows you to update WordPress plugins, themes, core WordPress itself. The greatest feature to talk about is pricing and flexibility. Once you singup, you will get unlimited 30 days free trial. You simply pay one small price per site and you get all the features.

iControlWP

Standard Features:

  • Full bulk and individual plugin/theme updates. Bulk updates by site and by plugin/theme.
  • A full reflection of your WordPress site and its configuration in your control panel – you can view all plugins/themes installed, server and hosting environment configurations.
  • Option to search and install from the WordPress.org repository for plugins and themes
  • Option to install new plugins/themes by URL or by uploading custom files.
  • Reset Authentication Keys and Salts for your WordPress sites
  • Integrated Sucuri Scanner
  • Rename WordPress database table prefix
  • Change the database user password.
  • Turn on/off the WordPress disallow file editing setting
  • Turn on/off the WordPress SSL login setting
  • Turn on/off the WordPress SSL admin setting
  • Optimize the WordPress database
  • Clean up spam/post revisions/post drafts
  • Manage WordPress comments
  • Login to WordPress site as any user – not just administrator  😉
  • For websites where there are file system restrictions, you can save your FTP details and we’ll automatically use those to perform WordPress/plugin/theme updates.
  • Weekly updates digest email
  • Two-factor login authentication
  • IP-restricted account access
  • mobile-friendly (responsive) interface

Premium Features:

  • WorpDrive Premium Backup – Reliable, FTP-based WordPress backup.
  • Website Cloning using FTP or cPanel.
  • WordPress Installer Tool (using FTP or cPanel).
  • Coming soon: site monitoring, white labeling, auto-upgrades

Pricing: 30 days free trial, 5 minimum sites requires with per WordPress site per month cost $0.60.

InfiniteWP

Just like ManageWP, InfiniteWP allows you to manage multiple WordPress sites from one single master login location. The basic features are free while for premium features you have to pay for it. Currently, the service offers a total of 13 add-on packages, ranging from client reporting to manage comments and so on.

InfiniteWP

Free Features:

  • One-click updates for the latest version of WordPress
  • Install and manage themes
  • Install and manage plugins
  • The ability to restore, download, and delete backups

Premium Features:

  • Install WordPress
  • Clone a WordPress installation
  • Schedule automated backups
  • Back up to repositories
  • Manage WordPress users
  • Save and run custom PHP code on multiple sites
  • Brand the InfiniteWP plugin with your company name or hide the plugin altogether
  • Integration with Google Analytics
  • Manage posts and comments on multiple sites
  • Bulk create Posts, Pages, and Links

Pricing: Basic features are free, while add-ons (premium features) starts from $49.

WP Remote

A free and simple solution which allows you to take care of few basic tasks related to managing your WordPress sites. The features include an addition of unlimited number of sites, organizing your sites for quick search, monitoring and updating of core WordPress, themes and plugins.

WP Remote

Features:

  • Bulk update all WordPress installations
  • Create off-site backups
  • Update plugins that can be updated via the WordPress plugin page
  • Update themes that can be updated via the WordPress themes page

Pricing: Free

CMS Commander

CMS Commander lets you manage your multiple WordPress sites from one single location. Not only this but it also allows you to manage Drupal, Joomla and phpBB websites also. Plans start at $4.95 per month for up to five websites.

CMS Commander

Features:

  • Plugin management (update, activate and deactivate)
  • Theme management (update, activate and deactivate)
  • Automatically create site backups
  • Clone a site
  • Automatically insert affiliate links
  • Post management (view recent posts, approve/delete drafts, etc.)
  • Comment management (review, approve or put comments in spam)
  • User management
  • WP Settings management
  • Categories management
  • Autoblogging and bulk posting (not available for free accounts)

Pricing: Plans start at $4.95 per month for up to five websites

7 Best Free Backup Plug-ins For WordPress

Building a huge WordPress website, but still in doubt on how to keep it safe. There are numbers of things that can be happened, like of server error, accidentally irreversible problem or even may be a hacked. What have to be done well in advance to ensure the safety of your WordPress website? The answer is simple you do require a backup solution that not only keeps an eye on your website but also create instance (regular backups) from time-to-time.

Since, the time from when the WordPress begins making huge part in our lives, the community also grows huge widely. There are large number of backup (and yes, they are free) plug-ins available which help you effectively keep the backup of your website as well as not only this, but also help you keeping ready well in advance for any of future problems that might comes into existence unpredictably anytime.

But also now what still keeping you away from to opt for such a backup plug-in, it is actually which particular plug-in you think of opting for? As I mentioned above, there are a large list of plug-ins available ranging from keeping just the backup of your WordPress website database to the entire website. In order to help you out, with this article, I tried to bring the seven such free backup plug-in for you which I strongly feel would be your savior when you find yourself in such a situation.

BackUpWordPress

1. BackUpWordPress

Using the BackUpWordPress plug-in means you have been opting for keeping the back up of your entire site, including that of your website’s database and all other files on a schedule that you select according to your convenience.

Features:

  • Manage multiple schedules
  • Super simple to use, no setup required
  • Uses zip and mysqldump for faster back ups if they are available
  • Works in low memory, “shared host” environments
  • Option to have each backup file emailed to you
  • Works on Linux & Windows Server
  • Exclude files and folders from your back ups
  • Good support should you need help
  • Translations for Spanish, German, Chinese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Lithuanian, Italian, Czech, Dutch, French, Basque

More Info | Download

XCloner – Backup and Restore

2. XCloner - Backup and Restore

Designed for PHP/MySQL websites, XCloner is a Backup and Restore component that can work as a native plug-in for WordPress. The plug-in generate and store the backups, move the backup as well as restore script to the new location and even restore the backup by launching the XCloner.php restore script.

Features:

  • Backup and Restore any PHP/Mysql application
  • Create custom backups
  • Generate automatic backups based on cronjobs
  • Restore your backups anywhere
  • Share your custom backups with your clients

More Info | Download

Online Backup for WordPress

3. Online Backup for WordPress

The plug-in provides protection for your WordPress website and their data. It allows you to easily backup your WordPress website with encryption to email, download or free 100 MB secure online storage.

Features:

  • Easy to use
  • Configuration checklist to help you get started
  • Schedule daily or weekly backups to email or free online storage
  • Download on-demand backups in ZIP file
  • Backup only files that have changed since the last backup
  • Full AES encryption support
  • Exclude files and folders
  • Exclude comments in trash or marked as spam
  • Backup the WordPress parent folder if your WordPress blog is only part of your website
  • Free online storage available in secure data centres
  • Support forum is actively monitored to help users with any issues

More Info | Download

WP Complete Backup

4. WP Complete Backup

WP Complete Backup plug-in will backup the WordPress entire database as well as the file system. It is an easy to use, complete backup solution for WordPress. The plug-in offers users the ability to backup both the database as well as complete file system.

Features:

  • Automatic backup restore tool
  • One-click button to clear all stored backups
  • Option to delete backups individually
  • Complete user guide in PDF format
  • Access to community support forum
  • Randomized server storage locations

More Info | Downloads

WordPress Backup to Dropbox

5. WordPress Backup to Dropbox

The plug-in allows you to keep your valuable WordPress website, its media files and database backed up to Dropbox within minutes. WordPress Backup to Dropbox plug-in all it asks you to choose a day, time and backup scheduling. Soon, the backup completed, the plug-in will send you back the website files and database SQL dump directly into your Dropbox.

Features:

  • Dropbox gives you 2GB of space completely free of charge
  • The plug-in allows you to create automated backups and store them in your Dropbox folder
  • You can choose the time of day and regularity of your backups as well as which directories should/shouldn’t be included
  • A complete secure plug-in

More Info | Download

WordPress EZ Backup

6. WordPress EZ Backup

The plug-in is an administrator plug-in which allows the easiest most feature rich method for creating backup archives of your entire site & database. As soon as installed, the plug-in allow you to create a custom backup schedule from the admin panel letting you choose the time and regularity of the backups.

Features:

  • An automated backup and restoration tool
  • Backup your sites database and file structure as per the schedule set within the admin interface
  • Allows you to restore your site from the last created backup with ease

More Info | Download

BackWPup

7. BackWPup

The BackWPup plug-in can be used to save your whole of WordPress website, media files and other content into one location and the time when need arise just with the single backup .zip file you are able to restore an installation.

Features:

  • Database Backup (needs mysqli)
  • WordPress XML Export
  • Generate a file with installed plugins
  • Optimize Database
  • Check and repair Database
  • File backup
  • Backups in zip, tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2 format (needs gz, bz2, ZipArchive)
  • Store backup to directory
  • Store backup to FTP server (needs ftp)
  • Store backup to S3 services (needs curl)
  • Store backup to Microsoft Azure (Blob) (needs PHP 5.3.2, curl)
  • Store backup to RackSpaceCloud (needs PHP 5.3.2, curl)
  • Store backup to Dropbox (needs curl)
  • Store backup to SugarSync (needs curl)
  • Send logs and backups by email
  • Multi-site support only as network admin

More Info | Download

WP Super Cache Vs W3 Total Cache – Which One You Choose?

WP Cache

You always be wondering as well as finding the ways by which you can increase the speed of your WordPress blog. The easiest way of doing so is to install a WordPress cache plugin. These plugins are available for free and work towards increasing the speed of your blog. These two are the most popular WordPress cache plugins as they both are easy to use and easy to configure.

In this article I will tell you about two of the best WordPress cache plugins: WP Super Cache (WPSC) and W3 Total Cache (W3TC). First if you do not know much about these plugins, then to tell in brief, WP Super Cache plugin will convert dynamic pages from your WordPress blogs into static HTML files but it lacks many of important features that W3 Total Cache plugin offers. W3 Total Cache plugin includes page caching, minify, database cache, object cache, browser cache and CDN support.

For mine two of publications, I2Mag and JustWP.org, I have been using both of these cache plugins and I will share the results of both with you. To start with, I will tell you that for I2Mag, I have been using WP Super Cache plugin while for JustWP.org, I have been using W3 Total Cache, and so it lets me give you a clear idea on which one is the best and to decide with which one to go with.

How Does A WordPress Cache Plugin Works?

If you have a cache plugin installed and configured on your website, the plugin will generates a static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. As soon as an html file is generated, your webserver will server that file to visitors instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts which in turns also increase the speed of your blog.

If there is only a single visitor, then it hardly makes any difference, but since your blog have to serve hundreds of visitors daily, at that time these cache plugins plays their role by serving static html files to them. On an whole about 99% of your visitors will be served static html files, while those 1% who don’t see the static files, they will see the different cached files which too are not different and are just better than uncached. In short these plugins will work towards letting your server cope with a front page appearance.

WP Super Cache

Wp Super Cache

Key Features:

  • A plugin and hooks system. A common complaint with WP Cache was that hacking was required to make it work nicely with other plugins. Now you can take advantage of the simple plugin system built in to change how or when pages are cached. Use do_cacheaction() and add_cacheaction() like you would with WordPress hooks. Plugins can add their own options to the admin page too.
  • Works well with WordPress MU in VHOST or non-VHOST configuration. Each blog’s cache files are identified to improve performance.
  • Normal WP-Cache files are now split in two. Meta files go in their own directory making it much faster to scan and update the cache.
  • Includes this WP-Cache and protected posts fix.
  • Automatically disable gzip compression in WordPress instead of dying.
  • As Akismet and other spam fighting tools have improved, the cache will only be invalidated if a comment is definitely not spam.
  • A “lock down” button. I like to think of this as my “Digg Proof” button. This basically prepares your site for a heavy digging or slashdotting. It locks down the static cache files and doesn’t delete them when a new comment is made.
  • Supercache static files can be regenerated while serving a slightly out of date file. This will significantly lower the load on a busy server with lots of traffic and comments. Think of it as an automatic “lock down mode” for every page on your site.
  • Automatic updating of your .htaccess file. (Backup your .htaccess before installing the plugin!)
  • Don’t super cache any request with GET parameters.
  • Better version checking of wp-cache-config.php and advanced-cache.php in case you’re using an old one.
  • Better support for Microsoft Windows.
  • Properly serve cached static files on Red Hat/Cent OS systems or others that have an entry for gzip in /etc/mime.types.
  • The Reject URI function now uses regular expressions.
  • Supports the Bad Behaviour plugin if installed (Half on mode only).
  • Supports plugins that show a different theme to mobile devices.

Configuration:

  • You should have the Apache mod mime and mod rewrite modules installed and WordPress custom permalinks (Settings->Permalinks) enabled. PHP safe mode should be disabled. If any of those are missing or off you can still use PHP or legacy caching.
  • If you have WP-Cache installed already, please disable it. Edit wp-config.php and make sure the WP_CACHE and WPCACHEHOME defines are deleted, and remove the files wp-content/wp-cache-config.php and wp-content/advanced-cache.php. These will be recreated when you install this plugin.
  • Upload this directory to your plugins directory. It will create a ‘wp-content/plugins/wp-super-cache/’ directory.
  • If you are using WordPress MU or WordPress Multisite you can install the plugin in the ordinary plugins folder and activate it “network wide”.
  • WordPress users should go to their Plugins page and activate “WP Super Cache”.
  • Now go to Settings->WP Super Cache and enable caching. If you see an error message or a blank screen see the “FAQ” section later in this readme for instructions.
  • If you choose “Mod Rewrite caching”, mod_rewrite rules will be inserted into your .htaccess file. Look in your web root directory for this file.
  • After you have enabled the plugin, look for the file “wp-content/cache/.htaccess”. If it’s not there you must create it.
  • Apache must be configured to allow the modules above. If you receive a “500 internal error” when serving requests to anonymous users you need to dig into your Apache configuration.
  • wp-content/advanced-cache.php loads the caching engine. This file is generated by the plugin. It uses the constant WPCACHEHOME to load the caching engine.

Download

W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache

Key Features:

  • Compatible with shared hosting, virtual private / dedicated servers and dedicated servers / clusters
  • Transparent content delivery network (CDN) management with Media Library, theme files and WordPress itself
  • Mobile support: respective caching of pages by referrer or groups of user agents including theme switching for groups of referrers or user agents
  • Caching of (minified and compressed) pages and posts in memory or on disk or on CDN (mirror only)
  • Caching of (minified and compressed) CSS and JavaScript in memory, on disk or on CDN
  • Caching of feeds (site, categories, tags, comments, search results) in memory or on disk or on CDN (mirror only)
  • Caching of search results pages (i.e. URIs with query string variables) in memory or on disk
  • Caching of database objects in memory or on disk
  • Caching of objects in memory or on disk
  • Minification of posts and pages and feeds
  • Minification of inline, embedded or 3rd party JavaScript (with automated updates)
  • Minification of inline, embedded or 3rd party CSS (with automated updates)
  • Browser caching using cache-control, future expire headers and entity tags (ETag) with “cache-busting”
  • JavaScript grouping by template (home page, post page etc) with embed location control
  • Non-blocking JavaScript embedding
  • Import post attachments directly into the Media Library (and CDN)
  • WP-CLI support for cache purging, query string updating and more

Configuration:

  • Deactivate and uninstall any other caching plugin you may be using.If you have customized the rewrite rules for fancy permalinks, have previously installed a caching plugin or have any browser caching rules as W3TC will automate management of all best practices. Also make sure wp-content/ and wp-content/uploads/ (temporarily) have 777 permissions before proceeding, e.g. in the terminal: # chmod 777 /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs/wp-content/ using your web hosting control panel or your FTP / SSH account.
  • Page caching will automatically be running in basic mode. Set the permissions of wp-content and wp-content/uploads back to 755, e.g. in the terminal: # chmod 755 /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs/wp-content/.
  • The “Compatibility Mode” option found in the advanced section of the “Page Cache Settings” tab will enable functionality that optimizes the interoperablity of caching with WordPress, is disabled by default, but highly recommended.
  • Recommended: On the “Minify Settings” tab, all of the recommended settings are preset. If auto mode causes issues with your web site’s layout, switch to manual mode and use the help button to simplify discovery of your CSS and JS files and groups.
  • Recommended: On the “Browser Cache” tab, HTTP compression is enabled by default. Make sure to enable other options to suit your goals.
  • Recommended: If you already have a content delivery network (CDN) provider, proceed to the “Content Delivery Network” tab and populate the fields and set your preferences. If you do not use the Media Library, you will need to import your images etc into the default locations. Use the Media Library Import Tool on the “Content Delivery Network” tab to perform this task. If you do not have a CDN provider, you can still improve your site’s performance using the “Self-hosted” method. On your own server, create a subdomain and matching DNS Zone record; e.g. static.domain.com and configure FTP options on the “Content Delivery Network” tab accordingly. Be sure to FTP upload the appropriate files, using the available upload buttons.
  • Optional: On the “Database Cache” tab, the recommended settings are preset. If using a shared hosting account use the “disk” method with caution, the response time of the disk may not be fast enough, so this option is disabled by default.
  • Optional: On the “Object Cache” tab, all of the recommended settings are preset. If using a shared hosting account use the “disk” method with caution, the response time of the disk may not be fast enough, so this option is disabled by default.
  • Optional: On the “User Agent Groups” tab, specify any user agents, like mobile phones if a mobile theme is used.

Download

Speed Test

We had tested both of our website speeds via Google’s Page Speed Insights and the results are:

  1. I2Mag (using WP Super Cache): The page I2Mag got an overall PageSpeed Score of 80 (out of 100).
  2. JustWP.org (using W3 Total Cache): The page JustWP got an overall PageSpeed Score of 86 (out of 100)

And The Winner Is…

As per understanding the key features, configuration and our very own speed test, W3 Total Cache is the real winner. The plugin is too good to be used but also if you are just a beginner, then I advice to go for the combination of WP Super Cache with WP Minify.

If in case you don’t have any technical knowledge still you will get the best results with these plugins, just all you have to do is to install and enable them and you are done and ready for the action.

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