We prefer to use plugins to solve website problems as often as possible. Some people will ask if they can edit the code, but there should a plugin that will work for their purposes. Others will ask if they can install plugins on their own site. Our supervisor should be consulted when you’re considering installing a new plugin so he can make sure that the plugin will play nicely with the theme. We can check if a plugin is already installed, and then just activate it on their site for them, but we do not install new plugins without clearing it first.
When we do install a new plugin, we need to leave a record of what it is, the date it was installed, and which site(s) it was installed and/or activated on. That’s under the “Posts” section, entitled “Installed Plugins. Please keep that post updated with when you are working with plugins.
Here’s a list of common plugins that we use, their functionalities, and any extra information you need to know to make them work properly.
Allows for accordion style drop-down menus on a page (like the one on this page or the other pages in the menu). Handy for someone who wants to show information from multiple years, conferences, speakers, etc., but does not want a long page full of text, links, embedded content, etc. Colors, text size, font, etc. can be changed. Read more here.
Common plugin used on the vast majority of WordPress sites to help block spammers from emailing and commenting. Read more here.
Plugin description and instructions
Easy Google fonts is a simple plugin that allows you to add fonts from Google Fonts to your theme. If someone wants a specific font, due to copyright issues, the best solution is to find a Google Font equivalent to use. For best results, this plugin is recommended for themes with custom CSS. Read more here.
1. After installing the plugin, edit the setting under “Google Fonts” in the settings menu.
2. Then, create a new font control under “Manage Font Control”
3. There, add the font control name and CSS Selector.
4. After creating a font control, the rest is done in the customization portal in Wordpress under “Typography.”
5. Then, click on the “Theme Typography” to add a custom font.
6. Then click on “edit” on the font control by choosing which font (font family) to add to theme.
6. Depending on what part of the theme you want to change the font in, add a CSS modifier in the custom CSS tab of the customizer. For example, to change just the header title, add a modifier for the “.blog-title a” class and change the font family to the font you just added. (Example shown below):
Note: If you are unsure what part of the CSS to modify right click on the part of the page and click “Inspect” to inspect the element and the CSS rules applied to it.
Form maker with easy-to-use functionality. Read more here.
- ODH has bought a license for this plugin, so you’ll need to get the license code from either Tory or another site that already has it activated in order to activate this on a new site.
- This has become a more commonly used plugin since many departments and programs are trying to digitize their information.
- Many people like to have a bit of training on how to use this so they can create forms themselves. However, we don’t give access to just anyone. Departments and programs who create lots of new forms should be allowed access, but if they just need one or two forms on their site, we’ve been instructed to just do it for them.
This plugin creates buttons for PayPal subscriptions to be embedded with shortcodes. This is useful for websites that have publications with subscribers like icr.byu.edu/members.
To get started click on the “Subscriptions” Icon and then on “Settings” (Shown Above). There you will find instructions on how to connect the PayPal account and create buttons. Read more here.
A very handy plugin that allows you to add multiple pages at a time. You can organize them under an already-existing parent page or just add as many new pages as you’d like. Read more here.
With parent page
Without parent page
This is how we enable the BYU CAS login function on a site or a page. Read more here.
- Please make sure to update the settings IMMEDIATELY. Failure to do so will result in all admin access being locked out of the site. Edit to match the image below. Especially note CAS version2, and MUST have the / at the end of the server line.
- You will usually NOT have “Create wordpress user account if not exist.” That is used on Humanities so that new users can edit their directory entries.
Pods is a powerful plugin that allows you to create your own custom type post/page and taxonomy (I might mix up Pods and custom type post in the following). Below is an example of creating a custom type post called Directors and show the fields/posts. You can find the live example on the international cinema page here.
First, go to the side bar, hover the cursor on “Pods Admin”, and click on “Add New”.
Choose “Create New”.
Leave the default Content Type as “Custom Post Type (like Posts or Pages)” and put the singular and plural name in the corresponding labels.
When it’s done, you will be directed to the edit page of Director pods (The table under Manage Fields should be empty. However, the Director Pods is working right now, and I added some fields already). You need to click on Add Field for the new Pods you just created.
Once you click on “Add Field”, you’ll see the following. Label is the human-friendly name, and Name is for reference (we will see how it works in the template, which is your custom post layout). In the Field Type drop-down list, there’s an option called Relationship. This is a powerful field to reference a field in other Pods. 
For example, the Movies Directed field is a relationship field pointing to the Movie Pods. When you’re adding movies into this field, you can see the titles of all the Movie custom posts and choose from them.
Bi-directional Field connects two field. The Director field of the Movie Pods is connected to the Movies Directed field of the Director Pods. So, when you add Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope into Movies Directed field for George Lucas, his name also shows up in the Director field for the movie.
WP All Import is a plugin for uploading a CSV or XML file to your WorePress website. CIO Custom Fields Importer is a plugin under WP All Import (You must install the free version of WP All Import first to use it). CIO is helpful when you want to upload things into pods field (Pods is a tool that helps you create custom post type, custom taxonomies, etc).
I will use a project that I worked on as an example.
There’s a Movie and a Director pods. The Movie pods has a Director relationship field that connects to the director post (like a WP page), and the Director pods has a Movies Directed relationship field that connects to the movie post.
Now, I need to upload a CSV file with thousands of movies that BYU International Cinema has played in the past 50 years.
First, Click on the WP All Import on the side bar, choose Upload a file, and find the CSV file.
Once the file uploads successfully, the page will look like the following picture. If you’re uploading something new, choose New Items. Existing Items is or updating things in the pods already. Then, choose the correct type.
Continue to Step 2, you can review the number of records, the titles, and each record.
Continue to Step 3, this step reveals the power of both plugins. I want to make the englishtitle column as my movie title, so I just drag englishtitle from the box on the right.
CIO is the form called “PODS Custom Content Types and Fields”. I use MATCH ( post_title : ) for the relationship field. Here I want to match the director to all the director in the Director pods, so I put MATCH ( post_title : {director[1]} )
CIO will go find Abbas Kiarostami and put it into the field for the 1st movie and so on. ***In this case, I uploaded all the directors already. If CIO can’t find the director with the same name, CIO leaves this field blank.
The Movie pods has language and semester taxonomies, I drag them in as well.
Hit continue and then run the import, these 2 plugins will work together to put everything into the title/fields.
Now I can search Through the Olive Trees in the movies to check if everything uploads correctly.
Please Slack Eddy Hsu if you have any questions about WP All Import and CIO.
Ivory Search is a custom search plugin. You can choose which type/post/title that the search returns. Ivory search works well with Pods with its varies post types.
I will use the movie post type I created on humstaging.byu.edu/ic as an example.
First, select Ivory Search on the left menu and then choose add new.
Second, name the search form and choose the post types that you want to show up in the result. We only choose Movie so we won’t see any directors or normal posts in the search. Below the post types, you can choose whether you want to allow searching with title/content/excerpt. I leave them all on. Then, click on Save Form.
Once the form is saved, the post section loads all the possible posts that you might want to allow in the search result. You can select certain posts that you want. However, if you will add more post of this kind to the website, and you need all the posts including the new ones in the search result, DON’T SELECT ANY HERE!
Now, we need to copy the shortcode below the title on a page:
(Normally, you put the shortcode in the content part of a page like the following)
A search bar that only return searching result from movie posts will then show up on the page and ready to go.