Mobile For Wordpress

So for a missing feature that is missing that is wanted within my project my team and I are currently working on is the availability for mobile. Yes, it is easy to pull up the site on a mobile device, but I feel like if you are going to optimize a site for mobile, it needs to be done specifically and correctly.

Optimization for mobile devices is the new way of connecting with people. Smart phones are the way to look things up on the fly, not laptops, not desktops, not yellow pages. My client had mentioned his interest in this ability and it is appropriate for his business.

Plugins

There are multiple plugins for WordPress and I am looking for a simple one that my client may use and change if need be. Granted my client does not understand how to implement any of these ideas yet, let alone even customize HTML, so simplicity is key at the moment. 

WordPress Mobile Pack

Wordpress Mobile Pack is a plugin that has lots of cool features and seems easy enough to implement. Apart from the small things like color schemes and themes, you can re-size images, switch between mobile and desktop presentations, and standards adherence. 

MobilePress

MobilePress is another mobile plugin with a cool feature of showing ads, even your own managed ads. It is SEO enabled and works well with Google. Customization of themes is of course an option here as well. 

Mobile Admin

This plugin is specific for iOS devices, but can be used to customize for specific browsers as well. Some of the features are creating and editing posts, comment moderation, and ability to toggle between mobile and desktop.

Other Benefits

WordPress has an application to manage your site from iOS devices. With this you can moderate comments, create posts, and add images and videos, which makes everything a whole lot easier at times.

I'm Late! I'm Late For A Very Important Date!

While some of us can remember everything with what dates they are going to happen on, there are those of us who are jacked up on caffeine whose life depends on calendars.

The Truth In This Is Horrifying. 

Sliders! (Galleries, Not Burgers)

Galleries are necessities in today's tech savvy websites. Well every website I should say. For the WordPress project my team and I are working on, we need to find and implement an easy to customize, easily managed, easily implemented Wordpress gallery slider. There are quite a few just on this WordPress site.

Image Sliders, I said Image Sliders..... 

So With This Task, Comes The Research

With selecting a slider for this site, I looked for management and implementation as the top 2 credentials needed. Cropping is one of the big things that would be awesome to find within a slider for my client, as well as no need to know PHP, HTML, or CSS. As long as we can get it set up and teach him the basics of how it works, it will be perfect. 

Smooth Slider

Smooth Slider is a free WordPress plugin. *Free* we're off to a good start.there are many features listed, but I will translate a few that stood out to me:

• The CSS is fully customizable
• Easily readable for search engines
• Slider preview in admin panel option
• Custom size option for images

VSlider

VSlider is jQuery based slider that sells itself as the smallest file size because it uses the core WordPress jQuery library. Some features are:

• Customization of images
• Customization of transitions
• Customizable CSS
• Unlimited Image Sliders. 

While my search goes on to find a slider worthy enough for my teams upcoming project, there are thousands of others out there waiting to be discovered. Go forth and find the one that fits yours appropriately, at the moment my choice seems to fall upon VSlider. 

WordPress Contact Forms

Plugins for WordPress are not limited, if you haven't ever looked into it. I have been given the task of finding a good contact form plugin for WordPress for a future project.

Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 seemed to pop up wherever I went on my search. It can manage multiple contact forms, that allows customization, has CAPTCHA, and is powered by Ajax. The set up is as easy as uploading and activating through the plugins menu. It seems very user friendly with the set up and the basics. This, I believe is why it is so popular. For a free plugin, this is a good solution.

SimpleModal Contact Form
SimpleModal Contact Form (SMCF) is an Ajax contact form as well and uses jQuery and the SimpleModal jQuery plugin. It has options such as contact from elements, subject field, and "send me a copy" option. The installation is pretty basic and gives you 4 options on how to do it. It seems to have a bug that may or may not be worked out yet, in WordPress 3.3.1.

Send E-mail
Send E-mail was imported from Grunion Contact From. It adds full internationalization using localized string from WordPress core. Instillation is simple with this as well, just upload and activate. It allows you to add the contact form with inserting [contact-form] in the post.

Conclusion
There are more free contact form plugins for WordPress than you could possibly sift through. Summaries are everywhere and all it takes is time to fully look through it all and decide what is appropriate for your project and how in depth you would like to get into it.