Category: Plug-in Reviews

Name: Gutenberg

This Theme, like Orbit Fox, just adds a bunch of features that are too project specific, but rather can just be applied and used whenever you want. Gutenberg is WordPress’s “block editor”, and introduces a modular approach to modifying your entire site. Edit individual content blocks on posts or pages. Add and adjust widgets. Even design your site headers, footers, and navigation with full site editing support. Gutenberg offers easier picture management, for things like posts and pages. One main thing it does is add the ability to edit an image that is already in a post. Additionally it lets you format within a post, and even let you ad captions to images

This will have potential usage for making sure the images on my portfolio page are formatted correctly and cleanly, and maybe Ill even use the image captions.

It only has a 2 star rating on WordPress with 500,000+ installations

I give it 4 stars because it does not add a ton of content, but it is something I can easily keep if the background and might help in the future.

Name: WP Booking System

[wpbs id=”1″ title=”yes” legend=”yes” language=”auto” form_id=”1″]

Once Again I tested this Plugin in this post. and it works incredibly well. It uses the same familiar UI that WordPress uses for making posts/pages. So I clicked the button at the top to make and new calendar and a new form. Then right where I expected it to be, next to the “add media” there is now an “add Calendar” By clicking that I was able to select which calendar I wanted to embed and which form to go with it and just like that the calendar is on the page ready to take appointments. I even tested out the form and upon making an appointment I got a notification on the tab in WordPress.

The uses for this are self explanatory, if I have a client who needs there website to set up appointments than I can do that now.

This Plugin has a 5 star rating on WordPress with 10,000+ installations.

I give this plugin 5 stars for being intuitive and for working correctly.

Name: The Events Calendar

This Calendar was not what I was expecting but is pretty cool. It creates a separate page disconnected from your webpage that is basically more of an announcement calendar rather than an appointment calendar which is what I was looking for. All you’d have to do to connect it to your website is simply make a custom link to the page. Additionally the UI was very intuitive and even copied the look of making a post, except now you are adding an event to the calendar which displays by date.

This has a lot of usage, despite not being what I was after. This will definitely be in the back of my mind for the website of a business that does semi-frequent events.

This Plugin has a 4.5 star rating on WordPress and 700,000+ installations.

I give it a 5 star review for being simple and very effective. despite not being what I was looking for.

Name: Pretty Google Calendars

It was supposed to allow me to change the way google calendar is shown on my website but it was very difficult to setup and requires me to start a google project and find the calendar API for that. In the process of trying to do all that I hit a paywall and my journey came to an end. It was interesting to read about the ability change out of the calendar view however and this may have implications in the future.

This plugin did end up teaching me how to embed a google calendar into my post which could have uses in the future.

It is however rated 4.5 stars with just 15 reviews and 3,000+ installations.

Overall I give this plugin a 2 star review due to the mess of getting it setup as well as the lack of a UI that would make setup easier.

Name: Meow Lightbox

This is another lightbox program. Immediately it was easier to use than Simple Lightbox was. It appeared as its own tab in the WordPress menu, and explained better what it could do. Additionally it has a more intuitive UI that is easier to use than Simple Lightbox. However many things are held behind a paywall. Overall though it has just about the same free features as Simple Lightbox does upon initial testing. However it does lack in customization due to the paywall.

Once again this could be used for my portfolio website in the future. I am going to have to play around with both lightbox’s in order to see which one offers more.

Meow Lightbox has a 5 star rating on WordPress with only 7,000+ installations

Overall I give Meow Lightbox a 4 star rating because while the UI was certainly an improvement the paywall blocked some cool features I wanted to try out

Name: Orbit Fox

Orbit Fox is a plugin that adds a bunch of useful features to other enhancements. For example it allows me to apply navigation icons to the menu widgets I have applied, such as arrows that flip when the nav is being used, and other good icons. It also has theme based enhancements that add more features to the appearance and customization of certain themes. These features are integrated seamlessly and in fact so well that sometimes I didn’t know that it was an Orbit Fox modification until I looked at all of the features it added. Additionally any feature it adds is toggled, so they can be turned off at any time by going to the Orbit Fox tab.

The great thing about this plugin is that it has everyday invisible use and will definitely be in the background for the foreseeable future just for any random modifications it makes to the features.

Orbit fox is rated 5 stars on WordPress and has 200,000+ active installations

I give Orbit Fox a 5 star review for its incredible integration and simple application.

Name: Jetpack

Jetpack is a plugin that offers a wide array of tools. Some of the more notable features are for automatically backing up the site, ways to protect the site including malware scans and an integrated firewall, a log of every change made to the website and the account that made it, integration with videos, and integration with social media. Unfortunately many of the more useful aspects of Jetpack are locked behind a paywall

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Despite these issues it is very possible that I used jetpack if I everyone run my own web design company or even if I work for one it is possible I use jetpack to help me manage everything.

Jetpack has a 4 star rating on WordPress and 5 million+ installations

I give Jetpack a 4 star rating because while it could be helpful there is too many paywalls for me right now.

Name: Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a plugin for optimizing SEO on your website. It had a very simple and easy to use setup that asked for basic information, such as site name, name of the person the site represents, the logo, access to look at plugins and themes, and even social media profiles of the person represented by the website. This setup was very intuitive and I will definately be exploring the features more in the future. I did not connect any social media to my page yet because I don’t really have social media yet, but it is a really intriguing feature for SEO. Additionally there is a paid feature for $99 a year that offers even more features.

The usage for this is very clear, it just something that is free that can be running in the background of your site in order to keep track and notify of any SEO anomalies

It has a 5 star rating with 5 million+ active installations.

I give Yoast SEO a 5 star review.

Name: Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is a plugin that allows for contact forms to be imbedded into either a page or a post on your website. It has a 4 star review on WordPress with 5 million+ installations

Functionally it is very simple. It adds a tab on the WordPress home menu called “Contact” From here you can create an imbed a form that will allow someone to contact you via the email that is connected with the WordPress account. It has them insert their email, name, and their message into the respective text boxes. Then it will send to your email the message this person type out.

This has potential usage for setting up a system where a user can get help, setting up appointments, or even commissioning freelance work.

Overall I give Contact form 7 a 5 star review