If you have followed our series on content management systems for WordPress, you would have found all manner of plugins that created anything you could ever wish for to make WordPress a viable, loveable, solid, and good, content management system. What more could you ask for?

Well quite a bit actually, and what kind of content management system is complete without a sack load of widgets. This article not only provides useful widgets for viable CMS, but also adds some more plugins which we feel can add that little bit more to your content management system that is powered by WordPress.

Widgets Reloaded. This plugin gives you widgets that allows you to have much more control. They replace the default widget and come with highly customizable control panels. As each widget can be used any number of times, this little ditty could be a useful addition to your CMS ala WordPress arsenal.

Flexi Pages Widget Plugin. If you are tired with the default ‘pages’ widget, then this could be for you. Flexi Pages, is more configurable than its default counterpart and includes these features:

 Option to display sub-pages only in parent page and related pages.
 Option to select and exclude certain pages from getting displayed in the list. Alternatively, only certain pages can be displayed by using the ‘include’ option.
 Option to include a link to the home page.
 Other options include title, sort column/order, hierarchical/flat format, show date.
 Multiple instances of the widget. Unlimited number of instances of the widget can be added to the sidebar.

In effect it breaks down and gives you more control over pages, and as you are running a CMS site, could prove useful.

Sidepost Widget. Rather than show all posts in the main blog after selecting a category, this little bundle of tricks shows the posts in the side bar, and provides a link to the posts. It also provides small blog in the sidebar for special entries, and you have the option for configuring it to show only the posts you want it to, and if it shows the full blog or post excerpts.

Query Posts Widget. This beauty of this widget is that you do not need to know any code to use it, and it provides the same functions as query_post(). All kinds of options are available such as Posts by tag, Posts by category, Posts by author, Posts by time/date, Posts by custom field key and/or value, Choose any number, Show pages, Show the full post, excerpt, or even order them in a list. All this without having to know a single line of PHP code. Now that’s what I call a plugin.

And now for some more plugins, well you can never have enough for CMS!

Search Everything Plugin. This plugin enables you to do precisely that, by increasing the capabilities of the default WordPress search. Search Every Page, Search Every Tag, Search Every Category, Search non-password protected pages, Search Every Comment, Search Every Custom Field, Exclude Posts from search, Exclude Categories from search and so on and so fourth.

Subscribe2 Plugin. This is a gem as it provides a subscription management service for your blog. You can create email notification for your subscribers every time there is a new blog post on a daily or monthly basis. Very cool.

Exec PHP Plugin. Allows you to execute PHP code in posts widgets etc, and features include:

 Executes PHP code in the excerpt and the content portion of your posts and pages
 Configurable execution of PHP code in text widgets (for WordPress 2.2 or higher)
 Write PHP code in familiar syntax, eg.

WP e-Commerce Plugin. Creates an elegant shopping cart that allows you to sell your services, your products, your soul etc.

This is not an extensive list of CMS plugins, but with the four parts should give you a sound infrastructure for creating a sound CMS for your WordPress blog.

With so many good plugins for converting WordPress into a quality, solid, and viable content management system, it seems silly not to bring you some more quality, solid, and viable plugins, that will make it that much easier to achieve the CMS dream.

This article features page and post management, and the holy grail of everything blog related, SEO. As always with plugins, it is advisable to choose them with care, and not just go by the ones that sound appealing. The best way is to take a step back and ask yourself which plugins are really going to work and enhance my blog.

Idealien Category Enhancements Plugin. Other than having the best name for a plugin ever, this baby allows you to manage category templates as easy as you manage posts templates. This is achieved as it gives the category a meaningful name rather than an ID number. Any views of the category will render as per the category template selected. Category templates can also be used for posts in a category too.

Pagemash/Pagemangement Plugin. The three ppps, will help you manage the order of pages, or if pages are shown at all. A very useful page management plugin.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARRP). By using a customisable algorithm, YARRP provides a reader with relevant posts to the one they are reading. The algorithm works by creating a “match score”, from tags, categories, and titles from your blog.

Exclude Pages Plugin. As you have no doubt deduced this plugin will allow you to exclude pages from the navigation menus. It adds a tick box which is ticked by default. If you untick it, the page is excluded from view. Could be handy!

WP no Category Base Plugin. As you have deduced this plugin removes your category base from your category permalinks.

Google SML Sitemap Generator Plugin. This plugin not only creates an XML sitemap of your blog which can be submitted to Google, it also updates it automatically and the update is sent to the major search engines.

All in one SEO pack Plugin. This plugin optimizes your blog by adding meta tags, keywords, descriptions, and page titles. It can be done on a post by post basis, or for the whole site.

Redirection Plugin. This plugin is especially handy if you are changing directories, or moving posts from one site to another as it keeps tracks of 301 and 404 errors, and generally helps to tidy up loose ends.

Permalinks Moved Permanently Plugin. This is a lovely plugin that helps sustain your page rank and traffic after you switch permalink structure.

SEO Smart Links Plugin. SEO smart links is an intriguing plugin, that automatically links keywords and phrases from one of your posts to another. It also links comments and post tags too. It also offers SEO management by allowing the creation of nofollows and keyword lists.

Platinum SEO Pack Plugin. This plugin despite its name which personally I find a little grating, is a pretty cool plugin. It adds features to the popular All in one SEO pack, and though more complicated is easy enough to use.

These plugins are good if you are planning to turn your WordPress blog into a content management system. It will be interesting to see in the future, if WordPress developers creates more options to make it more viable as a CMS, or if they continue to rely on plugins to the job.

Perhaps it is for the reason of support that you should consider WordPress before other CMS platforms.

As shown in part 1, there are a lot of plugins for WordPress to make it a good, solid, and viable content management system for multi-user access. As there are so many plugins to this end, we thought it would be a good idea to bring you some more of them, to help you turn your WordPress blog into a content management system.

This list deals with navigation among other things, so lets begin.

WordPress Navigation List. This snazzy plugin allows you to create your own navigation lists, by allowing you to add drop down buttons. It can be manipulated in any number of ways, and is good fun to play around with.

Multi-level Navigation. Generally speaking, this plugin gives a professional edge to the navigation of your blog. It allows you to create a slider/flyout/dropdown menu, and creates sonofsuckerfish code to boot. The code is HTML, CSS and Wc3 valid, and to run on old browsers such as IE6 requires JavaScript.
Some of the options for this baby are:

 What content will be displayed in the menu
 Animation speed (how fast the dropdowns appear)
 Mouseover delay
 Hide delay
 Add a second menu

Yoast Breadcrumbs. As you probably know, breadcrumbs are the links that live above your posts. Normally looking like this: “Home> Articles>How to save a worm from destruction” etc. What you may not know is they are useful for SEO as they tell search engines about the structure of your site, and also, they make for easier navigation.
The Yoast Breadcrumb plugin, allows you to add these breadcrumbs to your theme.

Simple Slider Navigation. This does exactly what it says on the tin and allows you to create a simple sidebar which is predefined by your WordPress theme. This is particularly useful if you do not know too much about coding, as it creates the PHP code for you. Features include:

 Flat and multi-level navigation hierarchy for existing pages and custom links.
 Very flexible conditional appearance options.
 Out-of-the-box Suckerfish support.
 Option to add navigation links with custom title, url and target attribute.
 Unlimited number of navigation widgets.
 Optional setting includes blog posts into the navigation selection list (only pages are available by default).
 Support for custom drop-down menus CSS.

Multilingual Plugins.

If your site has a global reach then you should consider these plugins that assist translation. These are not the only remedy to crossing language barriers, but they will help you bring in an international readership.

WPML Multilingual CMS Full details of this powerful plugin can be read here. Some of its main features are listed below

• Multilingual content support based on Drupal i18n architecture
• CMS navigation allows adding drop down menus, breadcrumbs trail and sidebar navigation (all wigetized).
• Creates internal Sticky Links so that they never break

XLanguage Plugin. This plugin is quite amazing as it allows you to blog in a different language. You can either do this to make it easier for people to read in their mother tongue, or to confuse your native readership. Actually you can’t as your readers can select which version to read. It world for blog posts, tags, and categories, and the user language will select the right theme and MO files.

qTranslate Plugin. This plugin makes it just as easy to create multilingual content as easy as writing in English. Features:

 qTranslate Services – Professional human and automated machine translation with two clicks
 One-Click-Switching between the languages – Change the language as easy as switching between Visual and HTML
 Language customizations without changing the .mo files – Use Quick-Tags instead for easy localization
 Multilingual dates out of the box – Translates dates and time for you
 Comes with a lot of languages already built-in! – English, German, Simplified Chinese and a lot of others

These should come in handy, more to follow.

Though WordPress has its critics as a content management system, there are still profound advantages in using it. To this end we have found plugins that make WordPress a better CMS and which you should be able to utilize for your blog. Obviously, the requirements that you need WordPress to do as a content management system will influence which plugins you will use, and it will be up to you to assess WordPress’s capabilities as to its suitability for your requirements.

More Fields. This allows you to add extra fields on the write/edit page, and can be positioned either left or right of it. It allows you to add an extra level of categorisation to a post. So a food post which shows a receipe may be categorised as suitable for vegetarians, for example.

Custom flutter. In essence this plugin will allow you to make a custom write panel, whereby you can edit fields and add drop down boxes. This means you can tailor your needs around it, and in theory should make it easier for you and your clients to enter content, which is what content management is all about.

Post Template. This plugin is designed for people who need to enter information into the same structures. This is also good if you have writers who are unfamiliar with using CMS tools, as it effectively shows them what to do.

WP CMS Post Control. By using this plugin, you completely control what your writers can use and see. In essence this turns WordPress into a content management system. You can hide custom fields and revisions etc, to name but a few.

User Access Manager Plugin. In effect, this plugin allows you to partition areas of your blog for specific user groups, such as authors, members, and so on and so fourth. Here are some of the features.

 User groups
 Set separate access for readers and editors
 Set access by user groups
 Set access by post categories
 User-defined post/page title (if no access)
 User-defined post/page text (if no access)
 Optional login form (if no access)
 User-defined comment text (if no access

Role Scoper. This plugin focuses on permissions, by creating a CMS-like options in WordPress. By using this plugin you can create specific roles on a page-specific, category-specific, or other content specific bases.

Role Manager. As you have probably guessed, this allows you to define and set roles for subscribers. You can also create your own roles, if you are not happy with the ones you are given at the beginning.

Member Access. This allows each page to be manipulated in terms of who can view it. The default setting is global access, and options such as limiting pages or posts to be viewed only by members can be set. The beauty of Member Access, is that the pages can be set individually to override the global setting.

WordPress Navi. Allows for a more advanced, and on the whole, funky navigation system and graphics. You may or may not want to add this to your blog.

This list is by means no covers all the useful plugins to turn WordPress into a viable content management system. We are however, trying to bring you more plugins to make this a reality over the next few posts.

Content Management Systems, come into their own if you have a blog with multiple contributors, and these plugins will help you manage your site to the nth degree. So though WordPress does have its critics, it has in its favour many options to create a good, solid CMS, and like everything else WordPress, oodles of support behind it.