Over the years, I’ve built up a toolkit of essential software, gadgets and reference material. This ‘toolkit’ series introduces some particular favorites that you, too, might find useful.
Simple Tags plugin for WordPress
Created by Amaury Balmer, the Simple Tags plugin works with the latest version of WordPress blogging software.
Once installed, the plugin:
- allows you to add tags to your blog entries, while you are still in the write/edit interface
- makes suggestions based on matching your previous tags with the text of the article you’re writing
- automagically generates a tag cloud for your web pages
- provides advanced editing and management of your tags list (much easier than messing around with the default WordPress categories, although these too have their place in your site’s information architecture)
- does an assortment of other nifty stuff
The plugin’s interfaces and documentation are written by a French-speaker who is reasonably articulate in English (far more than I am in French!! “Je ne parle pas Francais” is a terribly handy phrase, assuming one is not lying ;-).
This means the documentation and interfaces for the plugin can be slightly baffling if you’re not familiar with the kind of functionality on offer or if you’re unwilling to experiment with settings until you hit upon the right one.
It’s worth persisting, though: once you have it set up, the plugin works nicely and can enhance users’ experience of your web site.
More information: Amaury Balmer’s Simple Tags page
Hat-tip to Chris Norton’s recommendation, which convinced me to give this plugin a whirl.
