3-22: Working with Plugins Video Lecture | WordPress for Beginners - Software Development

hello and welcome back in this video we
are going to be talking about adding new
functionality to your website through
the use of plugins part of the reason
why WordPress is such a powerful
platform is because of its extensibility
plugins allow you to add extra
functionalities that do not come
standard with WordPress there are
thousands of free plugins available at
wordpress.org and you're also able to
purchase premium plugins from other
sources from the dashboard click the
plugins menu
within the plugins menu there are three
sub panels installed plugins add new and
editor
we are currently browsing the installed
plugins sub panel the installed plugins
sub panel shows a summary of the plugins
currently installed on your site the
status text just below the add new
button shows how many plugins you have
installed in out of those how many are
inactive or recently active much like
the management of posts and pages the
plugins sub panel comes with a bulk
actions menu you're able to activate the
activate update or delete multiple
plugins at once to perform a bulk action
simply check the relevant plugins choose
an option from the drop-down then hit
apply each plug-in you have installed is
on a separate row you can activate edit
or delete the plug-in and you can also
view a summary of the plugin as well as
the version number author and additional
details we'll go ahead and activate
Hello Dolly and when activated you'll
randomly see a lyric from Hello Dolly in
the upper right corner of your admin
screen
hello dolly is a simple plugin therefore
do not offer additional settings and
options when activated let's also
activate a kismet which is one of the
best ways to stop comment spam
because our kismet offers additional
functionality to your site activating
the plug-in will enable additional
settings that can be accessed by
clicking on settings in this sub panel
or by hovering over the settings menu
and then clicking on Akismet to activate
this plugin you'll need an API key which
can be obtained by visiting our kismet
comm
to deactivate a plugin simply click the
activate
the add new subpoena is where you browse
and install plugins from the WordPress
plug-in directory
you can view featured and popular
plugins the search function on the right
allows you to find a plug-in by typing
in the plug-in name author or tag at the
bottom of the screen is a list of
popular tags the larger the font the
more popular the tag if you have
downloaded a plug-in you can upload the
zip file by clicking upload plug-in on
the top left and then choose the zip
file you want to upload
or add a subscription plugin that offers
visitors the option to subscribe to your
site by entering their name and email
we'll use the keyword subscribe to
search for a suitable plugin
the email subscribers plugin is the one
we are going to use clicking on more
details will bring up an information
panel showing additional details you can
view the full description of this plugin
a summary showing important facts in
ratings
you can view installation instructions
screenshots of this plugin in action
change log frequently ask the questions
in reviews when you are good to go
click install now WordPress will
download and install this plugin
when installation is complete we can
activate the plugin
in the list of plugins email subscribers
is now installed and active you can
access plug-in settings by clicking on
the new email subscriber menu
for now we are going to leave these
settings as is and go to the widgets sub
panel under the appearance menu
you'll notice the plugin has added a new
widget called email subscribers I'm
going to insert the subscribe widget
into the right sidebar
into a widget title description then hit
safe
visit the site and we'll see there is
now a sign-up form in the sidebar to
allow visitors to subscribe to your blog
as you can see plugins can do wonders
for your site from adding subscription
widgets to adding contact forms from
adding discussion forums to e-commerce
the possibilities are endless feel free
to experiment with various plugins after
all the worst that could happen as a
plugin doesn't fit your requirements
then in that case simply delete the
plugin to delete a plugin go to
installed plugins sub panel find the
plug-in you'd like to delete then click
delete finalize the deletion by clicking
on yes delete these files and before you
proceed you have the option of viewing a
complete list of files that will be
deleted
after deletion you'll be taken back to
the overview subpanel it's worth noting
you cannot delete a plug-in that is
active so make sure to deactivate a
plug-in before trying to delete it now
that you're familiar with working with
plugins will move on to comments
you