For those who are less familiar with WordPress, plugins are addons that can enhance your blog’s functionnalities (read further for examples). The benefit of using (or developing) plugins is that you don’t have to modify WordPress’ source code.

Installing a plugin for WordPress is pretty easy:

1. Extract the files from the archive you’ve downloaded.
2. Upload the plugin file (when it’s made of a single PHP file) or the directory (when it’s made of multiple files) to your blog using a FTP client. The plugin file (or folder) must be uploaded into /wp-content/plugins.
3. Enable the plugin from WordPress control panel (http://www.yourblog.com/wp-admin). Select the “Plugins” tab and activate the plugin from the list.

Some plugins may require that you set some configuration values by editing them with your favorite text editor. Just look for a file named readme.txt, install.txt or any other text file that may contain the installation instructions for the plugin before you upload it.

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