Which plugins (Wordpress)?

Normally I code websites using Notepad, but I figured I'd use Wordpress and do a more complicated site. At the moment I'm just using a free host and seeing what can be done. I decided I'd try and create a writers site which members could join and post on, but I can't find all the plugins/information I need to do this. Hoping someone here can help me and if you have any suggestions on how to do this easier/better please let me know!

Sorry if this is quite long...

1. Posting

I figured members could use the blog to post stories, but that has led to a couple of problems. I'd like a frontend posting system that posts to the blog. The system just needs to have a title box, main content, categories (with the option of choosing more than one if possible), excerpt box and a send button (save as draft button would also be good).

2. Dashboard

I want to remove/hide some stuff from the dashboard. First thing is that I want to change the posts section. I can stop people editing/deleting other peoples posts, but I don't want them to be able to see anyone elses, only their own. I either need to be able to hide the links to the other posts or be able to hide the posts section and be able to edit posts through the frontend posting system.

I also want to remove/hide the tools options.

3. User profile

I want each user to have a public profile. I want them to be able to add a bit about themselves and just some general information. At the moment when you click on a name it goes to an archive of the authors posts which is fine but I'd prefer it if it could go to the members profile instead which would include a tab/section of all the authors posts.

4. Registration

I want a custom registration form. Once signed up I want each member to automatically have a public profile. I also want members to automatically be signed up to certain roles depending on age.

5. Recent blog posts

I like the recent blog posts widget, but it posts a lot of the content and I don't want that. I want the title, the excerpt and the general info it usually gives (category, author etc). Is there any way to either edit the existing widget or is there a plugin that does this?

6. Buttons/other

It would be useful if I could add a report/spam button to the blog for posts and comments.

When posting a blog you have to write a short code to add a new page. It'd be helpful if there was a button that added this code to save members writing it.

I want to restrict one page and one blog category. I'm using Page Restrict plugin, but members have the option of restricting their posts and I don't want that, but how can I remove the option? Is there a better plugin to use?

I want every post to have adverts on and I don't want members to have to add codes or be able to post without adds. Do I need a plugin for this and if so which?

Any help would be great. Thanks.

Hi sn0zb0z,

Have you tried Googling your problems? The Wordpress help/documentation is pretty decent.

You could achieve most of what you want by doing the following:

• Set the default user role to Author (Summary of Roles)
• Try searching the Wordpress plugins for "Custom Registration Form" - there are lots to choose from. Do the same for other plugins such as captcha, spam and recent blog posts.
• In regards to the way the posts are shown, this is controlled by the theme. You have two options, (1) change the css manually of your current theme, (2) find a theme that has a layout as you would like.

Hi. Thanks for replying. I have googled it and asked on the Wordpress forums, but google has really out of date answers or nothing and no one is replying to me on the Wordpress forums.

I have set the default user role to Author. How does that help me with these problems?

I have downloaded many profile and registration forms. Half don't show up under the dashboard so I can't alter any settings, some just don't work right and the rest just don't allow me to do the things I want (even simple things like adding age to the registration form). So examples of the best ones and exactly how they work would be helpful. I might be missing something useful on some of them...

I've changed the theme and it does seem to have solved the recent posts issue.

How can I solve the dashboard problems?

Hi sn0zb0z,

Taken from the links above...

• Super Admin - Someone with access to the blog network administration features controlling the entire network (See Create a Network).
• Administrator - Somebody who has access to all the administration features
• Editor - Somebody who can publish and manage posts and pages as well as manage other users' posts, etc.
• Author - Somebody who can publish and manage their own posts
• Contributor - Somebody who can write and manage their posts but not publish them
• Subscriber - Somebody who can only manage their profile

So setting to Author will allow them to add new posts and only modify the posts they have created, opposed to editor which allows them to edit others posts.

Changing the default user role will then allow people who register to post. You will probably need to turn on "Anyone can register".

To display a register link, add a link to "http://www.yourdomain/wp-login.php?action=register".

Thanks but I already did that. I have them settings. The problem is on the dashboard. I only want members to see others peoples posts on the website, but they can currently see them all on the dashboard where they edit/delete their own posts.

This is what it looks like at the moment:



This is more how I want it to look (just showing their posts):



I just need to get rid of the extra links.

What is preventing you from going into the source and manually removing those links? Of course, any clever person familiar with Wordpress could directly enter the URL and still have those options available.

What is preventing you from going into the source and manually removing those links? Of course, any clever person familiar with Wordpress could directly enter the URL and still have those options available.

Lack of knowledge. I don't know which file it is, nevermind which part I need to remove/edit.

I doubt any of my members will enter the direct link, but even if they do it's only the posts they can see on the site. They can't do anything. I want people to go to the actual pages though and it looks far better if my members cannot see them links.

I bet if you did a text search for the word 'published' or 'sticky' within the Wordpress code base, you would find it in about 3 seconds. I also bet that it is all part of the same fragment, and that you can simply comment out some code.

EDIT: Wingrep is a very helpful tool.
http://wingrep.com/

Thanks. Text searches don't always work, half the time it just tries to search around the editor. Plus there's a number of different links with their own code section so it's finding the right one. Someone on wordpress also told me that it wasn't possible to change the posts section due to their being no hooks so I'd basically have to programme it all which I can't do.

Things have slightly changed now though for what I want as, after a lot of problems, I managed to install buddypress.

I'm having problems with Frontend Posting. I'm currently using WP User Frontend for frontend posting which works fine, but the problem is that the page to edit the content isn't working and I also want to add an excerpt to each post. I need a plugin for frontend user posting that allows you to add an excerpt and edit/delete the content. I have searched through plugins, but not found anything that sounds right.