MIS Project

Temple University

Project Server

Plug-ins

The plug-in’s listed below have been used by students. Students and faculty interested in using other plug-ins can make a request by posting a comment below. Please include a link to the plug-in on WordPress.org. In general, any plug-in listed on WordPress.org is usually automatically approved. Exceptions are site building plug-in’s that take over the page/post building or user registration/login plug-ins that override the network level user settings in WordPress.

Locating plug-ins

Most WordPress plug-ins are free or have a free component with a premium add-on. It can be challenging to identify the right plug-in for your project. Here are some tips:

  • Google search is better than WordPress search, go to Google, type in ‘WP Plugin XXXX YYYY’ where XXXX and YYYY are keywords that relate to what you are looking for. For example, if you are looking for a graph plug-in, you might type in: WP Plugin Graph Chart. This will generate lots of results. Unless you are an expert user, it is best to only focus on Plug-ins that are listed on WordPress.org.
  • The WordPress.org listing page for a particular plug-in provides several useful clues on the right hand side:
    • If the “Last Updated” date is old, then there is a good chance it is no longer being developed and may not work with the latest version of WordPress or worse, cause weird problems on your site.
    • If the number of “Active installations” is in the low dozens then you should be more cautious than if the number is in the high hundreds or better thousands.
    • The Number of 5 Star Reviews are important. Even the best plug-ins will have some negative reviews. What is more important is that they have at least some 5 star reviews.
    • Finally, click on the “Support Forum” to see if the authors are actively supporting their plug-in.

Using plug-ins

The WordPress architecture does a good job of managing third party plug-ins. However, it is still possible that a bug or misconfiguration in a third party plug-in can crash your site or worse, the entire server. To avoid problems, please keep the following in mind:

  • Only use plug-ins that are regularly updated (see above).
  • Avoid leaving lots of different plug-ins enabled on your site. If you decide not to use a plug-in disable it.
  • Avoid enabling multiple plug-ins that do the same thing.

Debugging plug-ins

If your site crashes or suddenly stops loading but the server is still operational (e.g., you can see this page), then a good place to start the debugging process is with plugins (and themes). Often problems occur with plug-ins that are out-of-date, out of synch with the latest WordPress release, or have some new untested capability. Try the following steps to debug plug-in problems.

  1. Reset to default the settings of all new plug-ins.
  2. If you have multiple plug-ins that do the same thing, disable all but one of those plug-ins.
  3. Disable each plugin on your site one by one, after each plugin is disabled, check to see if the site starts working again, if it does, now you at least know which plug-in is causing the problem.
  4. Alternatively, disable all the plug-ins and enable each plug-in one by one.
  5. You may need to try both the above approaches depending on the specific problem.
  6. If you identify a specific problematic plug-in check to see if we have the latest version, if not, post a comment on this page, requesting an update.
  7. Visit the forum of that plug-in on WordPress.org to see if others have had problems and how they solved them. Post a question to that forum if you do not see an answer.
  8. It is unusual, but sometimes there is a compatibility issue between the plug-in and the theme, so one other thing to try is to change the theme.
  9. Finally, it is also possible for one plug-in to break a second plug-in. This is likely with plug-ins that perform the same task (e.g., ecommerce) or when there is a major difference in when they were updated.
  10. If the problem still persists, consider changing to a different plug-in (or set of plug-ins). It is possible that there is a bug in the plug-in that you cannot fix.

Note: If a plug-in is causing problems at the server level, it will immediately be disabled. If you need help, you can post a comment on this page. However, the first question we will ask is if you have taken the above steps.

Standard plug-ins

Other plug-ins

Forms

Tables

Graphs

Calendar

Posts

Video

Transactions

Maps

Polls and Quizzes

If you have thoughts on the above or other plug-ins, please leave a comment below. Please include a link to the plug-in at WordPress.org.

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