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Caution! Adding Plugins to Your WordPress Theme

Caution! Adding Plugins to Your WordPress Theme

You probably, like in my case, spent many hours to search for a nice WordPress theme for your Website. You chose a theme that is valid (or mostly with some minor tweaks) for CSS and HTML, and compliant with the accessibility standards (or mostly at least) as required by Section 508 law, and suggested by the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

However, I want to caution you about adding plugins to adding plugins to your WordPress theme. As you know, the power of WordPress is its extensibility. And plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine. Plugins either enhance or add additional functionality to your Website. I know that many of you get carried away trying out the thousands of cool plugins available. As of the update of this post (Nov. 3, 2011), there are 59,000 plugins available.

Using plugins have tremendous advantages: they save a lot of time in coding and add a lot of functionality to your Website. But they could have shortcomings too. By adding plugins to your theme, you need to take into consideration the following:

  1. Plugins can interfere with each other. Installing (or sometimes updating) one plugin can cause another existing plugin to break. Therefore, it is best when installing or updating a plugin to retest all the plugins that exist on your Website to make sure that they still function properly.
  2. Some plugins can cause your Website to become noncompliant. If you care about HTML validation, CSS validation, and accessibility, make sure you choose plugins that are compliant with the latest Web standards.
  3. Having a WordPress Website that heavily depends on plugins can lead to future problems with newer versions of WordPress. Existing plugins on your Website might become outdated and not properly maintained for future versions of WordPress. Therefore, with every new WordPress upgrade you need to test all your plugins for proper behavior and functionality. The more plugins you have, the more tesitng your Website requires.
  4. Last but not least, some plugins inject extraneous CSS and JavaScript code and even create tables in your WordPress database. Plugins use system resources and slow down the load time of your Website. The more plugins you use, the slower your Website loads and users will leave. Website loading speed is a major factor that affects usability and user behavior. Therefore, use only plugins that you really need, and delete the rest.

Therefore, before going crazy with adding plugins, carefully weigh the advantage(s)/disadvantage(s) of each one and choose wisely.

Why not just deactivate plugins instead of deleting them?

  • Because, deactivated plugins can create loopholes and back doors that hackers can exploit. Delete them and maintain security of your Website.
  • Some plugins feature tags inside the template files. If the plugin is deactivated, it will “break” your Website or fail to load.
  • Deactivated plugins pile up in your WordPress plugins panel, making your plugin list cumbersome to scroll through. They might even become incompatible with new WordPress versions. So if you don´t use them, why keep them around?

Some of the WordPress themes, including the default theme, use (X)HTML attributes that are not W3C valid. For example the role=“main” and aria-required=´true´ attributes cause validation errors.

The aria attribute is an addon to XHTML 1.1 to use for accessibility with dynamic applications. It helps the not so fortunate handicap users to know what fields are required. The markup for WAI-ARIA is still in draft and that´s why the validation error.

The role attribute is used for a better semantic markup and, among other things, further improve accessibility of the content. It describes the role the current element plays in the context of the document. This can be used by assistive technologies to determine the purpose of an element.

3 Ways You Can Use Genesis to Build Your Own Web Design Business

Making a living working online is a more and more common daydream in today´s world, and with good reason the number of potential Internet jobs is increasing every day, with no end in sight. In a very real sense, the only limit to the number of jobs the Internet can provide is how imaginative and entrepreneurial people are capable of.

Chances are if you are reading this blog, you probably have a blog of your own, and it probably looks pretty good. Maybe you never thought that your ability to develop and design great Websites working with the Genesis Framework could replace your day job, but it might be high time you started thinking about it.

The Genesis Framework empowers you to quickly and easily build incredible WordPress Websites. It is one of the most popular WordPress frameworks released to date. It is powerful, elegant and best of all, simple to customize. Not surprising many bloggers choose Genesis framework to develop their Websites. Here is the list of the Genesis framework’s features.

What is surprising, though, is how few of those bloggers don´t know how to fully utilize Genesis´ capabilities, and even more surprising is how many bloggers never bother to customize their Websites in the first place.

So if you are looking for a way to keep your income but lose your desk job, here are a few ideas to get you going.

Do For Them What They Can´t Do Themselves

As already suggested, thousands of people have chosen the Genesis Framework to develop their Websites; why not capitalize on the already present demand? At least a quarter of a million Websites already use Genesis, and there are probably half a million other users too busy or overwhelmed by the technology to build their own Website.

Even better, if you decide to make a living out of developing Genesis Websites, StudioPress will stand behind you and work with you to get you clients. If that´s not a win-win, I don´t know what is!

Add To Their Options

A standard purchase of Genesis includes 41+ pre-designed “Child Themes” to choose from. The great thing about Genesis is that users are also publicly licensed to build their own child themes, and can submit their designs to StudioPress, or just sell the themes straight to other users. You can easily build a business solely out of expanding the library of child themes. Even if people have already installed Genesis, a unique design can make or break a Website, so they will always pay to get their Website looking good and original.

Speak For Genesis

Even if you aren´t that talented of a designer/developer, you can become a Genesis affiliate and make a commission on every sale made from a lead from your Website! And as popular as Genesis is, you are destined to make a pretty penny!