Play With The Code Using These WordPress Code Editors

Majority of WordPress users hate messing with code. But, there are those, (developers, but certainly not limited to) who can’t get enough of it and consider spending countless hours of coding simply child’s play. Here are some of these code editing “toys” you can try to get your fill of code poetry heaven.

Shift Edit

This online editor allows you to: access files from various sources (FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Dropbox, Google Drive, or Amazon S3), autocomplete code for HTML tags, CSS and PHP code assist, highlight syntax errors and automatically fix them, do live editing and see realtime updates as you tweak your code, step back to a previous version of the file, open and save files when using the chrome app.

“The online IDE is one of the final frontiers of apps ported to the web. I would like to be able to develop from any computer or operating system and have the same experience without having to install software or configure anything.” – Adam Jimenez (founder)

Codeanywhere

Codeanywhere is a code editor in a browser with an integrated ftp client, and all popular web formats are supported (HTML, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, and XML). It lets you code from anywhere, without the need to bring anything along with you. Just log on to Codeanywhere with any computer or smartphone, and all your servers (FTP, SFTP and Dropbox), files, everything is waiting for you, even the files you left open will be open when you login again. Key features include: syntax highlighting, code folding, smart indentation, full internationalization, displays line number, word wrap, code indention (Tab key), unlimited undo/redo, etc.

BluePen Editor

BluePen Editor is a PHP-powered CSS editor that can be installed to any static or dynamic website and makes live CSS editing possible. It’s an online visual CSS editor and a “must have” web developer tool which makes a difference in styling online content: it runs in a browser (it’s an online application), it makes you see the changes immediately (Real-time editing), it’s a stylesheet editing software (CSS styling).

Advanced Code Editor

Advanced Code Editor enables syntax highlighting in the integrated themes and plugins source code editors. This plugin supports PHP, HTML, CSS and JS. Effectively edit your themes or plugins when you only have access to a browser, by enabling syntax highlighting in WordPress integrated source code editors. Other features include: mixed language syntax highlighting, smart search, full screen editor, multiple undo and redo, ajax create/delete file, ajax create new directory, auto format and indenting code, and so much more.

WP Editor

WP Editor is a plugin for WordPress that replaces the default plugin and theme editors as well as the page/post editor. Using integrations with CodeMirror and FancyBox to create a feature rich environment, WP Editor completely reworks the default WordPress file editing capabilities. Using Asynchronous Javascript and XML (AJAX) to retrieve files and folders, WP Editor sets a new standard for speed and reliability in a web-based editing atmosphere.

Better File Editor

This plugin replaces the boring, clunky, and difficult to use theme and plugin editor with a full-featured code editor using the Ajax.org Cloud9 Editor. Adds line numbers, syntax highlighting, code folding, and lots more to the theme and plugin editors in the admin panel.

Not Your Usual WordPress SEO Plugins To Try

WordPress as a Content Management System, in itself, is already a good platform for SEO goals because of the way it is structured. But you can always make a good thing better if you want to. Check out these fresh SEO plugins that you might not have heard of but might help make your SEO efforts yield even better results.

Premium SEO Pack for WP

This plugin in gives you a whole array of tools to help you optimize your site’s visibility in internet searches. The plugin includes monitoring tools like Google Analytics, SERP tracking, On-Page and Off-Page optimization tools, the premium Mass Optimization feature that allows you to optimize all your posts and pages at once. Another cool on page feature is Local SEO. This allows you to rank your pages based on the geographic locale. Other noteworthy on page features are: title & meta format, sitemap, SEO slug optimizer, SEO feature optimizer and google authorship. The SEO pack also includes Link Builders, Backlink Builder, Social Stats, Page Speed Insights, Smush It, and also an SEO code insert feature.

WordPress SEO Post-Optimizer

WordPress SEO Post-Optimizer plugin assists you in optimizing page rank posts. This plugin checks your posts againsts SEO criteria, checks for keyword density (the right amount of keywords in a post), and autochecks for the SEO score of your post every 15 seconds. The SEO scores are expressed in percentage. A real time check on the amount of words is also done in recognition of the fact that search engines usually prefer content with more than 300 words. The plugin also checks if the post has images or not and also if there are links to older posts on your blog to improve your internal content structure. The Post Optimizer plugin also checks for internal links, the usage of h-tags and alt-tags, and bold, italicized, or underlined keywords in your post.

Rankie

Rankie is a WordPress Rank Checker plugin that helps you keep track of WordPress rankings on Google keeping a close eye on each keyword position. The plugin allows you to track an unlimited number of keywords on Google and keeps updating these ranks daily. You can also check out ranking trends per week, month or all time. The plugin is also a great keyword research tool that helps you generate keyword lists by suggesting possible alternatives to keywords of interest. You can track unlimited number of keywords ranking on Google and keep updating these ranks daily as it works as a WordPress SERP plugin, generate ranking reports per month, per year or by all time letting you know how ranking is going up or down with details on every single position change for each tracked keyword, including many other helpful tracking functions.

Ultimate Video SEO Plugin

Ultimate Video SEO Plugin is an advanced stand alone plugin for WordPress which covers all aspects of Video SEO. It automatically fetches video SEO details from videos of all major video hosting providers and submit it to a video sitemap. What can it do? It supports self hosted videos in all WordPress supported video formats. It notifies search engines whenever a sitemap is updated or generated. It supports video embedded through shortcode or metabox (created by third party plugins or theme). It supports self hosted videos embedded using default WordPress media gallery. It adds schema.org video object markup to all your video posts/pages. It shows snippet preview of video search results within your post editor.

Meta Tags Optimization

Meta Tags are keywords used by search engines to find useful information. A lot of times the title and nature of the content may not be associated with the right meta tags. The Meta Tags Optimization plugin advices the admin whether the page is optimized correctly, by highlighting with green and red colors the Meta Tags that are found on the page. While the plugin will not tell us what tags to add or eliminate, it will highlight with red the incorrect inputs. This plugin gives useful information to the writer by highlighting meta tags on the page that may not be the best suited for the content. This plugin also lets you optimize meta tags for posts/pages by providing you clear instruction to repair your meta tags.

Best WordPress Themes 2021

UPDATED April 12, 2021: 2021 is sure to be another great year for WordPress Theme development. Like the millions and millions of people using WordPress, we eagerly await the Themes and Plugins to be released this year, and you can …

Best WordPress Plugins to Boost Your Business Site’s Performance

Most corporate websites are extensions of real-world businesses that want to create an online presence. In the real world, these companies most likely have real-time tools and metrics in place to determine how the business is doing at any given point. Reports and analysis are part and parcel of normal operations as is marketing campaigns and feedback. Does this apply to the company’s online presence?

The online address of a company serves as a virtual business card cum portfolio cum marketing tool which the company can use to expand their reach. It is not unusual for business owners to expect that the same measurables to be derived from their corporate website. The ability to track, measure, and analyze data extracted from online activities is one of the key things a business owner needs to be able to do to be able to asses the effectiveness of the corporate website.

Here are some of the best WordPress plugins and tools you can use to enhance the efficiency of as well as measure the viability your business website.

Site Security and Backup

iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security)

iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security) gives you over 30+ ways to secure and protect your WordPress site. On average, 30,000 new websites are hacked each day. WordPress sites can be an easy target for attacks because of plugin vulnerabilities, weak passwords and obsolete software. iThemes Security works to fix common holes, stop automated attacks and strengthen user credentials. This plugin hides common WordPress security vulnerabilities, preventing attackers from learning too much about your site and away from sensitive areas like your site’s login, admin, etc. iThemes Security works to protect it by blocking bad users and increasing the security of passwords and other vital information. This plugin monitors your site and reports changes to the filesystem and database that might indicate a compromise, works to detect bots and other attempts to search vulnerabilities, and makes regular backups of your WordPress database, allowing you to get back online quickly in the event of an attack.

WordPress Backup to Dropbox

WordPress Backup to Dropbox keeps your valuable WordPress website, its media and database backed up to Dropbox in minutes and on a regular basis. Simply choose a day, time and how often you wish your backup to be performed and just wait for your websites files and an SQL dump of its database to be dropped in your Dropbox account.

Wordfence Security

Wordfence Security is a free enterprise class security plugin that includes a firewall, anti-virus scanning, cellphone sign-in (two factor authentication), malicious URL scanning and live traffic including crawlers. Wordfence is the only WordPress security plugin that can verify and repair your core, theme and plugin files, even if you don’t have backups. Key features include: real-time blocking of known attackers, two factor authentication used by banks, government agencies and military world-wide for highest security authentication, includes a firewall to block common security threats like fake Googlebots, malicious scans from hackers and botnets, block entire malicious networks, etc.

Site Statistics and Analytics

Google Analyticator

Google Analyticator adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics logging on any WordPress blog. This eliminates the need to edit your template code to begin logging. Google Analyticator also includes several widgets for displaying Analytics data in the admin and on your blog. It supports Universal (analytics.js) and traditional analytics (ga.js), includes an admin dashboard widget that displays a graph of the last 30 days of visitors, a summary of site usage, the top pages, the top referrers, and the top searches, supports outbound link tracking of all links on the page, including links not managed by WordPress, and many other features to support Google Analytics on your site.

Google Analytics for WordPress

Google Analytics for WordPress plugin allows you to track your blog easily with lots of metadata, views per author & category, automatic tracking of outbound clicks and pageviews. This plugin uses the asynchronous Google Analytics tracking code, the fastest and most reliable tracking code Google Analytics offers. It features simple installation through integration with Google Analytics API where its as simple as authenticating and selecting the site you want to track. You can also easily connect your Google AdSense and Google Analytics accounts.

Site Content Management

Editorial Calendar

The Editorial Calendar plugin makes it possible to see all your posts and drag and drop them to manage your blog and gives you an overview of your blog and when each post will be published. You can drag and drop to move posts, edit posts right in the calendar, and manage your entire blog.

Zedity™ The Easiest Way To Create Your Content

Zedity™ is an innovative Editor to create your posts or pages amazingly easily, quickly and hassle-free with no technical skills required. It gives you total flexibility and unprecedented possibilities to create any desired design, as easily as if done on a piece of paper. Key features include: content in posts and pages that scale down accordingly to your responsive layout, additional content boxes (color box, document box, HTML5 box), audio and video embed capabilities, snap and alignment positioning, and so many other features.

WP Fastest Cache

WP Fastest Cache plugin creates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. Performance enhancement features include: Generating static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog, Minify HTML (decrease the size of page), Minify Css (decrease the size of CSS files), All cache files are deleted when a post or page is published, Enable/Disable cache option for mobile devices, Leverage browser caching which reduces page load times for repeat visitors, etc.

SEO

WordPress SEO by Yoast

WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin, designed and developed by WordPress Consultant Joost De Valk, is the most complete WordPress SEO plugin that exists today for WordPress.org users. It incorporates everything from a snippet preview and page analysis functionality that helps you optimize your pages content, images titles, meta descriptions and more to XML sitemaps, and loads of optimization options in between.

WordPress 3.9 – Jimmy Smith

If you haven’t updated your WordPress version yet, now would be the perfect time to do so. WordPress has just released WordPress 3.9 and as it has been tradition, this release was named after another music legend, jazz organist Jimmy Smith.

As was posted in a previous article, WP 3.9 includes many refinements that will improve the multimedia experience of both site owner and site visitors. Check out the features below:

WordPress 3.9 Key Features

Improved visual editing

The updated visual editor has improved speed, accessibility, and mobile support. You can paste into the visual editor from your word processor without wasting time to clean up messy styling.

Edit images easily

With quicker access to crop and rotation tools, it’s now much easier to edit your images while editing posts. You can also scale images directly in the editor to find just the right fit.

Drag and drop your images

Uploading your images is easier than ever. Just grab them from your desktop and drop them in the editor.

Gallery previews

Galleries display a beautiful grid of images right in the editor, just like they do in your published post.

Do more with audio and video

Images have galleries; They’ve added simple audio and video playlists, so you can showcase your music and clips.

Live widget and header previews

Add, edit, and rearrange your site’s widgets right in the theme customizer. Preview your changes live and only save them when you’re ready. The improved header image tool also lets you upload, crop, and manage headers while customizing your theme.

Stunning new theme browser

WordPress 3.9 comes with the beautiful new theme browser – Twenty Fourteen.

(source: WordPress.org News)

WordPress 3.9 is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard.
ETA: WordPress 3.9.1 update is now available

Web Design Trends WordPress Users Need To Know

WordPress is the most popular content management system existing today fetching 21.8% of the world’s total internet usage and capturing 60.3% of the market share as per W3tech’s latest market report. It comes as no surprise that the majority of the general web design trends predicted for 2014 are already common features available and/or integrated in most if not all WordPress themes being sold in the marketplace today. It makes you wonder whether WordPress is only a trend follower or it is actually THE trend setter to watch.

WordPress core developers, theme and plugin developers and authors, and the WordPress community in general are some of the most passionate people on the planet. With only ten years tucked into its belt, WordPress has emerged as one the most dynamic and cutting edge platforms today primarily because of the commitment of its community.

In a recent business article on eCommerce design trends for 2014, it lists trends that WordPress users already consider as familiar features. The trend list includes:

  • flat design
  • responsive design
  • less sliders
  • more user friendly navigation
  • more creative use of web fonts

These trends have actually appeared in most WordPress themes as common features in the last year or so. Even Forbes magazine, lists similar web design trends in an article that came out early this year. Although Forbes also adds “storytelling design” characterized by concise, compelling copy coupled with strong imagery as one of the significant web trends that will emerge in 2014. Guess what? A wonderful new WordPress plugin – Aesop Story Engine – in relation to the “storytelling” trend has already been generating a lot of interest lately.

For those who have been following the development path of the latest WordPress version that is to be released (April 16), there are several new features in WordPress 3.9 that could set off new “trends” in the web design world. WordPress 3.9 emphasizes more user friendly features and improved multimedia handling capabilities. A few of these significant features that are worth noting are listed below:

  • New features like live widget previews
  • a new theme installer
  • UI refinements when editing images and when working with media in the editor including the return of some of the advanced display settings for images.
  • audio and video playlists
  • new gallery support
  • The formatting function that turns straight quotes into smart quotes (among other things) underwent some changes to drastically speed it up.

More detailed features can be viewed on the WordPress core development website.

Having said all that, it is interesting to note that the thrust towards being more multimedia savvy while at the same time being more and more user friendly could be a significant WordPress feature that could set off a general web design trend. With WordPress gaining more and more influence over the whole internet population, it is possible that whatever developers, coders, designers, authors, etc. come up with to improve WordPress products and services could eventually be the standard that the web design community will use.

Who knows what WordPress will be like in the next 10 years. The innovations succeeding WordPress iterations will bring and the vast influence it will have in relation to the entire Internet population, mobile, tablet or what not together with the hardcore commitment of its core community will definitely create an impact on the way the world wide web looks and functions. Whatever it is, anything that goes on in WordPress is definitely going to be exciting and worth watching.

Moving to WordPress?

Many website owners start off as casual bloggers, typically on a free platform, and usually not expecting any life-changing thing to happen to their websites. However, life in cyber space is full of surprises and no one can really predict which site will be the next big thing. Some, are fortunate enough to find their match audience and experience reasonable success. This could mean that the free platform might not be enough to contain and sustain the increased volume of traffic and content. Migrating to a more robust and dynamic platform could be the solution.

But what about all the historical content that’s been created? Or what about a test or a private staging site you use for you or a client? If you are moving from a free platform, another WordPress site or any other platform and migrating to a self-hosted WordPresswebsite, here are some tools to help you make the transition as less hairy as possible.

All-in-One WP Migration

All-in-One WP Migration allows you to export your database, media files, plugins, and themes. You can apply unlimited find and replace operations on your database and the plugin will also fix any serialization problems that occur during find/replace operations. It is also the first plugin to offer true mobile experience on WordPress versions 3.3 and up. Features include: multisite compatible, works on Windows OS and IIS.

WP Migrate DB

WP Migrate DB exports your database as a MySQL data dump (much like phpMyAdmin), does a find and replace on URLs and file paths, then allows you to save it to your computer. It is perfect for developers who need to update their local install with fresh data from the production site, or copy their locally developed site to a staging or production server. It also takes into account serialized data (both arrays and objects) and updates the string length values. You can select the tables you want to migrate, pull production db down and replace local db, push local db up and replace production / staging db, enjoy unlimited find & replaces (free is limited to 2), Multisite support, Video walk throughs and how-tos.

WordPress Duplicator

WordPress Duplicator gives WordPress administrators the ability to migrate, copy or clone a site from one location to another. The plugin also serves as a simple backup utility. The Duplicator supports both serialized and base64 serialized string replacement. This tool is great for pulling a production site down onto your local machine for testing and validation. It also works great for developing locally and then pushing up to a production server for a first time site release. Requires above average technical knowledge and not recommended for WordPress beginners.

WordPress Move

WordPress Move is a migration assistant for WordPress that is capable of changing the domain name in use and/or migrating your installation to another server either as is or based on your choices. You can use WordPress Move to transfer your database or create backups of your installation.

Site Push

SitePush is a WordPress plugin that allows you to have multiple versions of your WordPress site, so you can edit, develop, test without any risk to your main, live site. It’s great for developers, designers and editors or anyone who wants to be able to test changes to a site before it is visible to the world. You can easily easily move content between sites, test new themes and plugins – all in a private staging site, and you can also test and easily push new code on to a live site.

Are You Ready For WordPress 3.9?

Andrew Nacin, lead developer of the WordPress Web Publishing Platform, recently announced the release of the first beta of WordPress 3.9 and it is available for testing in anticipation of its release in April 2014. Here are some of the goodies added:

  • Widget Management -For those of you who have discovered the ease and beauty of the WordPress Customizer, you are in for a treat. WordPress 3.9 introduces the Widget Customizer. This new features allows you to edit, rearrange, and even add new widgets LIVE in the preview pane. This feature can be activated using the Widget Customizer plugin (still currently being developed). This plugin allows you to edit widgets and preview changes in the Theme Customizer, with a control for each widget form in sections added for each sidebar rendered in the preview. No more blind editing.
  • Updated TinyMCE – the software powering the visual editor, to the latest version. Expect cleaner markup and the new paste handling — if you paste in a block of text from Microsoft Word, for example, it will no longer come out terrible. This one is exciting.
  • Galleries now receive a live preview in the editor. Upload some photos and insert a gallery to see this in action
  • Drag-and-drop images directly onto the editor to upload them.
  • Improved editing images in post. Easier to make changes to an image (edit, crop, rotate) after you insert it into a post.
  • WP 3.8?s beautiful new theme browsing experience brought to the theme installer.
  • New audio/video playlists.

Just a few more weeks and this version will be out. If you can’t wait that long, sign up to be a tester and get a headstart from the rest. You can download the beta version for free on the WordPress dev site. Happy testing!

WordPress dot Org Plugins You Might Have Missed

WordPress dot org has some powerful plugins that you might not have discovered yet. Check out these cool plugins that just might be the solutions you have been looking for. Some of these plugins are still in the draft or development stage as of this writing.

Admin Color Schemes

The Admin Color Schemes plugin brings some personality to your WordPress site with 8 new extra admin color schemes. If you want to add some fun and pizzazz to your WordPress backend for that not so formal look, check out this cool plugin to create the color scheme that matches your personality.

WordPress Importer

The WordPress Importer plugin will import the following content from a WordPress export file: posts, pages and other custom post types, comments, custom fields and post meta, categories, tags and terms from custom taxonomies, authors, etc. The importer also has a couple of filters to allow you to completely enable/block certain features. Take note though that if your exported file is very large, the import script may run into your host’s configured memory limit for PHP.

Debug Bar

The Debug Bar plugin adds a debug menu to the admin bar that shows query, cache, and other helpful debugging information. This plugin is a must for WordPress developers. This plugin tracks PHP Warnings and Notices to make them easier to find when WP_DEBUG is enabled, and mysql queries are tracked and displayed when SAVEQUERIES is enabled. This plugin is extremely helpful for theme and plugin developers, just make sure that plugin is installed correctly.

WordPress Front-end Editor

The WordPress Front Editor plugin is a simple and easy to use plugin that allows you to navigate between the front and back end where you can access more advanced options such as custom fields, edit content, etc. This plugin is still in the development stage.

WordPress Front Editor

The WordPress Front Editor plugin is a simple and easy to use plugin that allows you to navigate between the front and back end where you can access more advanced options such as custom fields, edit content, etc. This plugin is still in the development stage.

Tumblr Importer

The Tumblr Importer plugin allows you to import posts, drafts, and pages including media side loading (for audio, video, and image posts) from a Tumblr blog into a WordPress blog. It correctly handles, post formats, does background importing, and will not create duplicate imported posts.

Blogger Importer

The Blogger Importer plugin allows you to import posts (published, scheduled, and draft, comments, and categories (blogger tags) from a Blogger blog then migrates authors to WordPress users.