Requesting New Wordpress Plugins and Themes

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Revision as of 17:46, 13 November 2016 by Carpenti (Talk | contribs)

Basics on requesting a plugin or widget for WordPress.

Criteria for Plugins and Widgets

Plugin and Widget requests are evaluated on a number of criteria:

  • Plugins and widgets must add new functionality to WordPress, they should not replicate built in functionality.
  • Plugins and widgets must be stable
  • Plugins and widgets are common shared resources. They should be useful for the larger Evergreen wordpress community
  • Plugins and widgets should not extend the functionality of a service to make it more like a different service. For instance, plugins should not make the blog service more like a wiki. The wiki service provides that functionality.
  • Plugins and Widgets must be actively developed. Plugins that are outdated will not be installed
  • Plugin and Widget code must meet web development best practices

When requesting a plugin or a widget, try to provide as much information as possible. If there's more than one plugin that does the same thing, include links to the other plugins in your request. The plugin that you're requesting may work better for you, but one of the others may be more appropriate for everyone.

To request new plugins:

  1. Make sure we don't already have a plugin that has the functionality you need. See Plugin Overview
  2. Look through the Wordpress Plugin Directory to determine which plugin(s) best suit your needs and adheres to the criteria listed above.
  3. Copy down the name and url of the plugin you prefer as well as those of one or two additional plugins that accomplish the same functionality as your preferred plugin.
  4. Email Academic Computing and wait. Even if a plugin works fantastically on its own, there's the possibility that it may cause a system crash when combined with another plugin on blogs.evergreen.edu.

Tips for requesting a plugin or a widget

  1. Include the official link from Wordpress.org when it's available.
  2. When looking for a plugin or a widget, try browsing the Wordpress Plugin Directory or the Wordpress Widget Directory first and reading through user reviews to determine if the plugin in question is of good quality.
  3. Look for popular plugins first.