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It’s episode #71, and we’ve got plugins to help with thickbox content, font plugins, username changer, appointment managers, and a new way to search your wordpress site using HTML5! All coming up on WordPress plugins A-Z

This Podcast Can now be found at WPPluginsAtoZ.com

John’s Rant

Wow its been an off week, I have been working at closing out projects so no new plugins for clients. I simply had to do some research on some random plugins. It sure can be hard to choose when you do not have a specific goal in mind.. But I did come up with some.

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New ‘radically simplified’ WordPress is on the way

10 Things You Need to Know About WordPress 3.4

Plugins Reviewed by John

Username Changer 1.3

Version: 1.3
Author: Dan Griffiths
Last Updated: 8 days ago
Requires WordPress Version: 3.0 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.3.2
Downloaded: 121 times
WordPress.org Plugin Page »

The Lowdown:
There are times when you wish you could change your username and in the past it was only possible by hacking directly into the database. But this plugin changes all that it is simple and golden. Just install activate and changing names is a breeze.

Rating 4 Dragons

Web Fonts 1.1.5

Version: 1.1.5
Author: Nick Ohrn of Plugin-Developer.com
Last Updated: 60 days ago
Requires WordPress Version: 3.3 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.3.2
Downloaded: 10,125 times
WordPress.org Plugin Page »
Plugin Homepage »

The Lowdown:
Installed nicely all you need after that is an API key from Google simple to get, that is where the simplicity ends as far as I could tell. While it makes choosing your fonts easy it does not make applying them to your content easy.
Rating 2 dragons

WP Google Fonts v2.7

Version: v2.7
Author: Adrian3
Last Updated: 65 days ago
Requires WordPress Version: 2.0.2 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.3.2
Downloaded: 201,004 times
WordPress.org Plugin Page »
Plugin Homepage »

The Lowdown:
Pretty easy install and set up, you need to visit the google web font directory to find the font you crave. This plugin provide 6 choices for fonts meaning you can change up to 6 fonts for your site. Simply choose your font then apply it to either an h tag or block quote or paragraphs even lists. So coverage is pretty complete. While it does properly apply the font chosen be aware as I discovered that your theme css may override some application places.
Rating 3 Dragons

Plugins Reviewed by Marcus

ThickBox Content
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/thickbox-content/

Author: Max Chirkov
Requires: 2.6 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.1.4
Last Updated: 2011-4-18
Downloads: 16,921

ThickBox Content provides a quick and easy way to insert any type of content into a thickbox (via page/post editor). It supports thickbox iFrame, Ajax

This plugin adds a button to the text editor’s toolbar and allows to display your content in a thickbox effect. The plugin can include any inline content, iFramed or Ajax content located on other pages. Great addition to the editor when you want to display iframed content in a thickbox!

Rating: 5 Dragons

HTML5 Search for WordPress

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/html5-search-box-for-wordpress/installation/

Author: C hristopher Ross
Requires: 3.0.0 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.4.0
Last Updated: 2012-5-24
Downloads: 15

Replaces the built in WordPress search form with an HTML5 search form complete with auto lookup. To install the plugin, please upload the folder to your plugins folder and active the plugin. The plugin has no settings. Lazy search plugin!

I found this to be a real cool way to emulate some of Google’s popular real time search query “auto populate”. Looking forward to see where this plugin goes, as well as the addition of other, similar html5 plugins for search.

Rating: 4 Dragons

SetMore Appointments

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/setmore-appointments/

Author: David Full

Requires: 2.0.2 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.3.2
Last Updated: 2012-5-22
Downloads: 60

The SetMore plugin enables your customers to book appointments with you online via your WordPress website.

SetMore helps you manage appointments, schedules and customers, all through an easy to use use web application. Your customers can book online, and pick their favorite staff, service and time-slot without picking up the phone. Learn more athttps://setmore.com. Signin g up is easy, fast and you don’t need a credit card to get started. Once you have an account you’ll be ready to take appointments.

I found this plugin to do very nicely for a dental center site that I help develop. Letting patients schedule their own times out of a block of availabilities is a great tool to keep things running offline when the office is closed. Only drawback is that it’s 3rd party rather than native WordPress.

Rating: 3 Dragons

BONUS LAZY PLUGIN!

Email Author on Publish

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/email-author-on-publish/

Author: Coen Jacobs
Requires: 3.0 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.4
Last Updated: 2012-5-21
Downloads: 67

Emails author when pending post is published. This can be useful for sites with multiple authors where editors publish content written by authors.

For me, this is one of those plugins that just makes sense. Ive had so many occasions where a missed schedule or fail happened on a post I set to publish in the future. This is a nice little “wave” from wordpress that let’s you know that new content was just published.

Rating: 4 Dragons