Chapter 3: Exploring Plugin Options and Settings
- Discovering plugin options management
- Exploring widgets
- Determining what to do when something goes wrong
- Finding technical support
Managing plugins can easily be the most enjoyable or the least enjoyable part of your WordPress experience. In this regard, there are essentially two types of plugins: plug and play and plug and configure. The first allows you to “set it and forget it,” or simply activate the plugin and immediately see it work. The latter requires configuration, which could involve modifying the settings, or in some cases, inserting code into your WordPress configuration files. Fortunately, in most instances, this isn't nearly as complicated as it sounds.
Almost every WordPress plugin has options pages. In this chapter we outline two examples: the WP Super Cache and WordPress.com Stats plugin. Not every plugin is going to work and do what you want it to do upon activation, so you need to be sure to look to see if there is an options setting page for the plugins you install, and then go through those options to be sure that you configured the plugin to work the way you want it to on your site. In this chapter, we walk you through some of the most common methods for setting plugin options and explore how WordPress plugin developers make their plugins work for you.