Tip #6 : Enhancing WordPress administration

This tip has been written by Karthik Kastury from dailyApps.net. dailyApps showcases the best of the Apps for different platforms and is a must read for all you software junkies out there. You can also find a host of tips to improve your productivity with review of various services and apps.

If you are a long time WordPress user like me, you surely know the obvious limitations that the WordPress backend has. There are far too many distractions in the Compose Section where you write the posts. Presence of Controls that you never use could become a nightmare to manage so it would be best if you would just remove them and use a stripped down version of the Compose Screen to manage your workflow better.

• Get Rid of the Clutter

As I mentioned before there are far too many items in the compose screen that I normally don’t use. There is stuff like Password Protection, Excerpt, Custom Fields, Discussion Options, Bookmarklets, Author controls etc. which I am sure majority of WordPress Users don’t really use. So if you are one of them go ahead and add Clutter Free to your ever growing list of WordPress plugins.

Once you have activated Clutter Free go the Users Sections and select all the options that you need. Save the settings and “Boom!” as Steve Jobs would say, your Compose screen now loads a tad faster.

• Disable the Rich Text Editor

When it comes to the Rich Text Editor things are definitely easy for the average to publish a new post. But in case you are a power user like me then you would want to Disable the Rich Text Editor Screen that has a few annoyances, such as being slow and standing in the way of embedding code provided by Youtube and other services.

I would put my money on the Simple Text Editor that is extremely powerful in terms of what it can do. To disable the Rich Text Editor follow these steps. Go to the Users Section in your admin. Scroll to the bottom and uncheck the option that Says “Use the visual rich editor when writing”. The only Downside is that you will have to learn some basic HTML before you can use the Rich Text Editor.

• Make QuickTags Smarter

If you are long time WordPress user you will know how useful Quicktags really are (Quicktags are those buttons with tags at the top of the editor). Just about anything is possible with Quicktags. The default WordPress install comes with a few quick tags like <strong>, <li>, <ul> etc. But you might want to add a few more tags to this list so that you don’t have to type them over and over again while you are writing your post. I have some more tags in my Write screen like <span> which I regularly use.

If all the talk above sounded a little too geekish for you. Here is the simplified version of what you have to do. Just download the WP-AddQuickTag plugin and install it. Select Add Quicktags under the Options menu and add all the tags that you wish to include. Note that you need to have Rich Text Editor disabled to make Quicktags work for you.

• Install Greasemonkey

If you are a Firefox User you definately should install Greasemonkey. There are many scripts that can improve your workflow. One of the scripts that I am using is Akismet Auntie Spam which changes the skin of the Akismet spambox page for WordPress admins and allows to download all spam at once, compress spam to make it more scanable and completely compresses obvious spam. Turns checking spam into a 10 minute per week activity.

• Install WP-Admin Tiger 3.0

The default layout of the WordPress Admin can be confusing at times. It shows all signs of being extremely cluttered. You have to click through a maze of buttons to do something, and the most important thing surely is that it is not really good to look at. In case you are one of those who have got bored of the default layout for WordPress Admin then its time for you to download WP-Admin Tiger 3 that completely changes the look and feel of the WordPress admin.

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