The Daily Plugin for 07-16-2013

Happy Tuesday everyone! It’s time to dip into the pickle jar and pull out a fresh and crispy peck of plugins from the WordPress Plugin repository. As a reminder for those who are new to The Daily Plugin, we are merely mentioning these plugins as an introductory sampling of the newest and most recently updated plugins out there rather than an official review or endorsement. Make sure you test the stuff on a development or staging site so that you can get the full scope of the plugin’s functionality and how well it plays with other plugins. OK, Let’s get plugged in!

Widget Importer & Exporter helps you to migrate widgets from one installation to another. We always talk about testing on a staging site before going live. This plugin allows you the chance to modify a site’s widgets and the plugins that power them and have the ability to move them over to a live site once you’ve got them locked down and working perfectly. The plugin will not overwrite existing widgets, so be sure you clear the decks of your old, same-named widgets to be assured that everything will copy over to the new site correctly.

WP Mobile Theme Switcher is a tool that allows you the flexibility in switching your themes when delivering content to your mobile device viewers. It does so by providing a drop down selector that lets you choose what theme you would like to use for your mobile applications. I like this option, as some of the themes I use are not completely mobile ready. If this were the case, one would be able to select a theme that is more responsive instead, not worrying about the matching of mobile site vs standard full site display. You could even opt for one of the stock responsive themes that would look good with minimal effort. Very nice to have the option.

Grid Gallery with Custom Links lets you create alternative custom fields for your image galleries, even permitting links to external URLs. New field items that are unlocked with this plugin include Custom URL, URL Target, Captions 2-4 and the set number of the image. I’ve often created galleries for product sites that I would have loved to add an affiliate link or alternate product information. This plugin would do the trick as required and provide some additional functionality to boot. There is a premium version of the plugin as well, but I found the standard lite version to work nicely as-is.

SE HTML5 Album Audio Player helps to bridge a gap in audio players that I’ve noticed being present for a long time. Often when a band or artist wants to publish audio, they have to rely on third-party embeds from bandcamp or soundcloud to do the job. Some also use various plugins that are mainly designed for Podcasting applications. This player works quite well for adding standalone audio tracks or complete albums in order. Not only could this be used for musicians, but also audiobook producers. It allows for setting up full albums, playlists, and album art. You evoke the player by simply adding the shortcode with the album’s ID number. This plugin permits you to have multiple albums.

SZ – Google for WordPress gives you the opportunity to interact with Google Plus and some of the newer associated products that reside on G+, like personal pages, business pages and community pages. You can also incorporate G+ commenting in your WordPress install, either choosing to replace the standard comment system with G+ powered comments, or to use both standard and G+ comments simultaneously. There are not many G+ community plugins out there and this is a nice way to display these options.

Join us again tomorrow for another installment of The Daily Plugin. You can say hello to me on Twitter @marcuscouch or leave your comments here on WPTavern.