Wordpress is an absolutely fantastic piece of software that allows for extreme functionality & customization. Given that the system is entirely open source & gpl’d with thousands of contributors there are plugins, themes and extensions galore available for the system. In our first topic about wordpress, I introduced the system and explained a few of it’s features and functionality. In this post I’ll cover ‘extending’ wordpress using plugins and themes.

“That is the beauty of free software, free meaning not only price but also the freedom to have complete control over it.”

The included features are more than sufficient to get anyone started with blogging on the web. Take a peek at the wordpress features page for more information. Now with all that in mind, let’s take a peek at some of the plugins, extensions and themes available to expand on the foundation that the open source project has laid.

Wordpress Plugins

Plugins for wordpress allow you to extend the functionality by adding additional features that offer things like Flickr integration, RSS feeds and even more advanced systems like Wordpress caching systems that turn your Wordpress frontend into static content to allow your site to load faster and reduce load on your server.

A couple of the more popular Wordpress plugins like Akismet, spam-blocking software for blogs, forums and more. We even use Akismet on our web hosting community because we’ve got enough Viagra and Cialis to last a lifetime. Gallery plugins, forums and all sorts of integration & extendability is available and of course best of all it’s all entirely free.

Wordpress Themes

Wordpress themes allow you as the end-user to change the entire look of your site from typography, css and graphics. With thousands of themes available for Wordpress, it’s difficult not to find several that you like. There’s numerous sites dedicated to Wordpress themes like Themeshaper run by one of our clients.

There’s many, many resources out there where wordpress themes could be had including the Wordpress theme directory. I’d personally recommend perusing sites like Smashing Magazine for more options when it comes to Wordpress.

In my next topic, I’ll delve into wordpress themes a bit more with some excerpts from a discussion regarding Wordpress, the GPL and ‘premium’ or pay2play themes. These first few posts were simply introductions into Wordpress and what it offers.