58Twelve is built on a WordPress platform, which is an open source content management system that has gained much favour throughout the blogging community.
The design is built using the Headway Theme, which offers a highly customisable layout, which can be tailored to give the look and feel you want without any need to delve into the code. If, like me, you have a desire to tinker around under the hood, the CSS is clean and the site’s files are easy to find and it’s construction is easy to understand, so code-based fine tuning is a snip.
The real power of WordPress, though, lies in the community of developers who make some truly fantastic plugins to enhance the content and usability of the site, both for the author and for the reader. Below is a list of plugins I have used on this site, and a big hat-tip and a huge thank-you to all the developers:
There are 64 plugins used: 43 active plugins and 21 inactive plugins.Active Plugins
Advanced Most Recent Posts 1.1
» Yakup GÖVLER (url)
Display most recent posts from selected categories or current category or all posts with thumbnail images (optional).
Advanced Random Posts 2.3
» Yakup GÖVLER (url)
Display random posts from selected categories or current category or all posts with thumbnail images (optional).
Akismet 2.5.3
» Automattic (url)
Used by millions, Akismet is quite possibly the best way in the world to protect your blog from comment and trackback spam. It keeps your site protected from spam even while you sleep. To get started: 1) Click the “Activate” link to the left of this description, 2) Sign up for an Akismet API key, and 3) Go to your Akismet configuration page, and save your API key.
All in One SEO Pack 1.6.13.3
» Michael Torbert (url)
Out-of-the-box SEO for your Wordpress blog. Options configuration panel | Upgrade to Pro Version | Donate | Support | Amazon Wishlist
Apple - News, rumors & reviews 0.8.2
» Rune Jensen (url)
Enables an RSS widget which can be configured to show a specified number of RSS items of Apple news, rumors and/or reviews from AppleLunch.com
Audio player 2.0.4.1
» Martin Laine (url)
Audio Player is a highly configurable but simple mp3 player for all your audio needs. You can customise the player’s colour scheme to match your blog theme, have it automatically show track information from the encoded ID3 tags and more. Go to your Settings page to start configuring it.
AVH Extended Categories Widgets 3.4
» Peter van der Does (url)
Replacement of the category widget to allow for greater customization of the category widget.
Better Tag Cloud 0.99.5
» Nicolas Kuttler (url)
A Better Tag Cloud than the default one.
Category Posts Widget 3.2
» James Lao (url)
Adds a widget that can display posts from a single category.
CommentLuv 2.90.3
» Andy Bailey (url)
Reward your readers by automatically placing a link to their last blog post at the end of their comment. Encourage a community and discover new posts.
Contact Form 7 2.4.5
» Takayuki Miyoshi (url)
Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.
EmailBuddy 1.0.7
» Dustin Bolton (url)
Email newsletter solution for WordPress. Send broadcasts, event reminders, and manage subscribers by groups.
FD Feedburner Plugin 1.44
» John Watson (url)
Redirects all feeds to a Feedburner feed
Featured Posts 1.0.0
» Dustin Bolton (url)
Display featured posts and images in a widget or shortcode.
Featured Post with thumbnail 1.4
» Nando Pappalardo e Giustino Borzacchiello (url)
This widget allows you to add in your blog’s sidebar a list of featured post with thumbanil.
Flash Video Player 5.0.4
» Joshua Eldridge (url)
Simplifies the process of adding video to a WordPress blog. Powered by Jeroen Wijering’s FLV Media Player and SWFObject by Geoff Stearns.
Google Analytics for WordPress 4.1
» Joost de Valk (url)
This plugin makes it simple to add Google Analytics to your WordPress blog, adding lots of features, eg. custom variables and automatic clickout and download tracking.
Google News Widget/Shortcode 1.1
» Stefania Marchisio (url)
A customizable list of Google News given language/country, (searchkey(s) or topic) and the number of displayable news. It works as both widget and shortcode.
JAW Duplicate Widgets 1.0.4
» Thomas Watson Steen (url)
Makes it possible to duplicate a widget so it can be used more than once (i.e. in two different sidebars or two times in the same sidebar). This plugin is using the internal widget support of WordPress 2.2 and above. If you plan to use this plugin with WordPress 2.1 or below you have to download version 1.0.2 of the plugin. Version 1.0.2 and below require the Sidebar Widgets plugin from Automattic.
My Custom Widgets 2.0.5
» Janek Niefeldt (url)
Define your own or copy existing widgets and include them into your sidebar or everywhere else.
My Page Order 3.0a
» Andrew Charlton (url)
My Page Order allows you to set the order of pages through a drag and drop interface. The default method of setting the order page by page is extremely clumsy, especially with a large number of pages.
Nofollow Reciprocity 2.3.1
» Lazar Kovacevic (url)
Searches for links to large sites using ‘nofollow’ tags for external links, and puts the same tag on links to those sites (Wikipedia.org, StumbleUpon.com, and similar) Added top 1000 sites from Quantcast.com. This plugin is based on Wikipedia nofollow and Identify External Links.
Polldaddy Polls & Ratings 2.0.4
» Automattic, Inc. (url)
Create and manage Polldaddy polls and ratings in WordPress
Post-Plugin Library 2.6.2.1
» Rob Marsh, SJ (url)
Does nothing by itself but supplies common code for the Similar Posts, Recent Posts, Random Posts, and Recent Comments plugins. Make sure you have the latest version of this plugin.
Random Posts 2.6.2.0
» Rob Marsh, SJ (url)
Displays a highly configurable list of randomly selected posts. Instructions and help online. Requires the latest version of the Post-Plugin Library to be installed.
Random Posts from Category 1.15
» Stephanie Leary (url)
A widget that lists random posts from a chosen category.
Really Simple CAPTCHA 1.2
» Takayuki Miyoshi (url)
Really Simple CAPTCHA is a CAPTCHA module intended to be called from other plugins. It is originally created for my Contact Form 7 plugin.
Social Web Links 3.2
» Nischal Maniar (url)
the_excerpt Reloaded R1.4
» Kaf Oseo, Rob Bresalier (url)
This mod of WordPress’ template function the_excerpt() knows there is no spoon.
Time Machine 0.0.6
» Aleksandar Urošević (url)
Widget that list all published posts relative to today date for specified offset of time
Twitter Tools 2.4
» Crowd Favorite (url)
A complete integration between your WordPress blog and Twitter. Bring your tweets into your blog and pass your blog posts to Twitter. Show your tweets in your sidebar, and post tweets from your WordPress admin.
Twitter Tools - Bit.ly URLs 2.4
» Crowd Favorite (url)
Use Bit.ly for URL shortening with Twitter Tools. This plugin relies on Twitter Tools, configure it on the Twitter Tools settings page.
Twitter Tools - Exclude Category 2.4
» Crowd Favorite (url)
Exclude posts in certain categories from being tweeted by Twitter Tools. This plugin relies on Twitter Tools, configure it on the Twitter Tools settings page.
Twitter Tools - Hashtags 2.4
» Crowd Favorite (url)
Set #hashtags for blog post tweets sent by Twitter Tools. This plugin relies on Twitter Tools, configure it on the Twitter Tools settings page.
WordPress.com Popular Posts 2.5.2
» Frasten (url)
Shows the most popular posts, using data collected by
WordPress.com Stats 1.8.1
» Automattic (url)
Tracks views, post/page views, referrers, and clicks. Requires a WordPress.com API key.
WordPress Featured Posts 2.8.3
» Ron Rennick, Andrea Rennick (url)
Adds a featured post management page for site admins who can input a sitewide feed address, then select posts via a checkbox. Also includes a widget to disply posts on the main (or any) blog.
WP-PluginsUsed 1.50
» Lester 'GaMerZ' Chan (url)
Display WordPress plugins that you currently have (both active and inactive) onto a post/page.
WP-RecentComments 2.0.6
» mg12 (url)
Show the recent comments in your WordPress sidebar.
WP Related Posts 1.0
» Yahin Ruslan (url)
Plugin for wordpress related posts.
WP Simple Adsense Insertion v1.1
» Ruhul Amin (url)
A simple Wordpress plugin to insert Google Adsense into posts, pages, sidebars.
WP to Twitter 2.3.1
» Joseph Dolson (url)
Posts a Twitter status update when you update your WordPress blog or post to your blogroll, using your chosen URL shortening service. Rich in features for customizing and promoting your Tweets.
WPtouch 1.9.29
» BraveNewCode Inc. (url)
A plugin which formats your site with a mobile theme for visitors on Apple iPhone / iPod touch, Google Android, Blackberry Storm and Torch, Palm Pre and other touch-based smartphones.
Inactive Plugins
Alternate Recent Posts Widget 0.2
» GeekLad (url)
The default WordPress recent posts widget displays the most recent posts regardless of what posts are currently displayed on the screen. If your front page is already displaying your most recent posts, it can render the default Recent Posts Widget nearly useless. This alternate version of the Recent Posts widget will exclude any posts that are currently displayed in the main content of the current page.
AVH Amazon 3.1.4
» Peter van der Does (url)
This plugin gives you the abillity to add multiple widgets which will display one or more random item(s) from your Amazon wishlist, baby registry and/or wedding registry. It also has the ability to show items, with their link, in posts and pages by use of shortcode.
Batch Categories 1.4
» Rob Miller (url)
Easily manage the mass categorisation of posts that match various criteria.
Blog Copyright (by BTE) 1.6.6
» Blog Traffic Exchange (url)
Simple plugin to inject copyright statement into blog footer. Configuration options are here.
Disqus Comment System 2.66
» Disqus (url)
The Disqus comment system replaces your WordPress comment system with your comments hosted and powered by Disqus. Head over to the Comments admin page to set up your DISQUS Comment System.
Excerpt Editor 1.4
» Andrew Ozz (url)
Add or edit excerpts for Posts and Pages.
Featured Posts Widget 1.1
» Andrea_R (url)
Adds a sidebar widget to display Featured Posts
Formidable 1.05.03
» Strategy11 (url)
Quickly and easily create drag-and-drop forms
GD Star Rating 1.9.9
» Milan Petrovic (url)
GD Star Rating plugin allows you to set up advanced rating and review system for posts, pages and comments in your blog using single, multi and thumbs ratings.
Headway Skin: Clean Headway 1.0
» Corey Freeman (url)
A clean skin made for Headway, now with the ability to switch color schemes on the fly!
Headway Skin: Sunday341 1.0
» Chris Howard (url)
Sunday341 9-in-1 skin giving hundreds of combinations! Please view this Skin’s README.TXT for complete instructions.
Hello Dolly 1.6
» Matt Mullenweg (url)
This is not just a plugin, it symbolizes the hope and enthusiasm of an entire generation summed up in two words sung most famously by Louis Armstrong: Hello, Dolly. When activated you will randomly see a lyric from Hello, Dolly in the upper right of your admin screen on every page.
Jetpack by WordPress.com 1.1.2
» Automattic (url)
Bring the power of the WordPress.com cloud to your self-hosted WordPress. Jetpack enables you to connect your blog to a WordPress.com account to use the powerful features normally only available to WordPress.com users.
Menubar 4.10
» Andrea Tarantini (url)
Configurable menus with your choice of menu templates.
PeoplePond 1.1.9
» Neil Simon (url)
PeoplePond provides the tools needed to take ownership of your online identity and reputation management. The plugin retrieves your About Me profile from PeoplePond, and displays it in your About page on your blog. To setup, please go to Settings -> PeoplePond.
Recently on Last.fm 0.9.5
» Gregory Tomlinson (url)
Let’s you display the Last FM Recent Tracks in the sidebar of your blog, useful if you use WP-Cache / Super Cache and want the feed to be fresh
Recent Posts 2.6.2.0
» Rob Marsh, SJ (url)
Displays a highly configurable list of the most recent posts. Instructions and help online. Requires the latest version of the Post-Plugin Library to be installed.
Recent Posts with Excerpts 2.2
» Stephanie Leary (url)
A widget that lists your most recent posts with excerpts. The number of posts and excerpts is configurable; for example, you could show five posts but include the excerpt for only the most recent. Supports The Excerpt Reloaded and Advanced Excerpt.
Sodahead Polls 2.0.6
» SodaHead.com (url)
Allows you to create and embed a poll into your blog.
Thesis/Menubar Integration 0.4.2
» Paul Clark (url)
Use Menubar as a replacement for the default Thesis 1.6 menubar. 1. Install Menubar. 2. Install Superfish or Suckerfish Template (Directions here). 3. Create and populate a menu called thesis-nav using Superfish or Suckerfish without CSS. 4. Activate this plugin. Ignore the “do_action” code given by the Menubar plugin. No code changes are necessary.
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin 3.3.1
» mitcho (Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine) (url)
Returns a list of related entries based on a unique algorithm for display on your blog and RSS feeds. A templating feature allows customization of the display.