In my Opinion WordPress Plugins make WordPress one of the most amazing pieces of software for people wanting to build there own websites, on the web.
In this tutorial I want to show you a really cool feature in WordPress, which lets you easily install new plugins from the WordPress Repository directly inside of your WordPress websites dashboard.
The fist step is to log into your WordPress Admin.
Once logged in you will notice on left hand side bar, under the Plugins section, there is a link with the text Add New. Click on that link to continue.
The next screen is where you can search for specific plugins that may suite your needs, the three search options are pretty self explanatory, they are listed below.
- Search for plugins that are Featured, Popular, Newest or Recently Updated.
- Search for plugins by Keyword, Author, or Tag.
- Search for plugins by Related Tags.
For this example I want to search for a plugin that will help with my blog security.
I noticed in the search by Tags, which is the 3rd option, there is a tag for Security, so all I do is click on the Security tag, and this will bring up a list of plugins that have been tagged with the word Security.
All I need to do now is browse through the list of results until I find something I am happy with.
Once I have found a plugin that will perform the specific task I am looking for, to install it, I just click on the Install link on the right hand side of my screen.
After clicking on the Install link on the Install Plugin page, a new screen opens up. This will give me all of the specifics for the plugin, for example the plugin version, what version of WordPress it is compatible with, user rating, screenshots etc….
If the plugin is compatible with my version of WordPress and I want to proceed with the install, I just click on the Big Orange Install Now button to continue.
In the following screen, I can see that my plugin is automatically being installed to my blog.
Sometimes you may have to check your file permissions, as these can sometime prohibit WordPress accessing your file directories.
The plugin will still need to be activated and set up if additional set up is required, but to activate the plugin I can simply click on the Activate Plugin link on this screen.
This install plugin feature in WordPress, now makes it so much easier to install plugins straight from your WordPress site, rather than having to download plugins to your hard drive then Uploading them to your server with your FTP client, the only snag with this is, you don’t have a back up copy of the plugin sitting on your hard drive.
Which means, if you ever need to reinstall one of the plugin files for whatever reason, you don’t have a back up on hand. Unless of course you manually download a copy to your hard drive.
I suggest, once you have tested the plugin and are sure you are going to keep it, then download a copy of the plugin to your computer, just in case you ever need to reinstall the plugin in a back up situation,
Excellent article, bookmarked for future referrence
Very nice blog, your article is interesting, i have bookmarked it for future referrence