Plugin Writers Don't Have Crystal Balls - Montana Webmaster

Plugin Writers Don’t Have Crystal Balls

… they can’t foretell every possible situation where people will want their plugin (or theme) to work. That means that just because a plugin is supposed to do a specific job, it doesn’t mean it will do what you want, in your specific case. Sometimes the reason a plugin is the wrong plugin is that it’s not a high quality plugin or it is an old, insecure plugin. Other times, it has the basic functionality, but it doesn’t do it the way you want it to.

When a Plugin Works, but Not the Way You Want

Screenshot of Home Page Feature Box on MontanaWebmaster.com
This is a Home Page Feature Box from the WordPress Kahuna theme. It includes an image, the post title, the post excerpt and a Read More link

For example, the Kahuna theme allows for boxes with a Featured Image and Excerpt to show on the home page. The boxes take their content from posts in a specific category that you choose. Kahuna lines them up in the reverse order of the post date. But, what if you want those boxes to be in a particular order? Can a plugin allow you to chose the order the boxes show up in?

There are plugins that put posts in order , but do they put posts in the order I want for this specific task? I want to control the order on the Home Page, as a Feature Box. The plugin writers may or may not know about the Kahuna theme. They may not even care about order in special theme features.

Partly, it depends on what core functions the theme uses … if it uses the WordPress core functions at all! So, let’s test some plugins.

  1. Simple Custom Post Order: No, this plugin has not kept up with WordPress core updates.
  2. Post Types Order: This one is up-to-date. Yes, this one does allow you to re-order the posts on the Home Page when you are using the Kahuna theme.

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