Essential Content Types vs IFTTT Post Formats & Post Types

Essential Content Types allows you to feature the impressive content through different content/post types on your website just the way you want it. These content/post types are missed by the themes in WordPress Theme Directory as the feature falls more towards the plugins’ territory. Content is at the forefront of any website. Changing the layout of your important content changes the way your website looks, which may not be a plus point if your current website layout is loved by your users. Additionally, switching themes changes your website layout completely. Therefore, to keep things looking spic-and- span in your website, we bring you Essential Content. Essential Content allows you to add up to three content/post types: * Portfolio – Create and display your portfolio on your website * Testimonials – Add customer testimonials to your website * Featured Content – Display the content you want as featured content on your website to attract visitors’ attention * Services – Add your services on your website Features of Essential Content: * Enable/Disable any content/post type as needed * Light-weight * Supports all themes on WordPress Essential Content is inspired by Jetpack’s Custom Content Types feature. However, not everyone wants to have a plugin that “does-it- all”. Some may want plugins to be niche focused and concentrate on smaller areas. That is precisely what we have done with Essential Content. Essential content, true to its name, has only the essential elements. We have added the features that WordPressers use most. We have ruled out all other elements to make it non-bloated and clean. It takes up lesser space and does the job well. If you think we have missed any essential content/post types, please let us know. We’ll review the frequency of usage and add your suggestions. Portfolio Shortcode You can use shortcodes to embed portfolio projects on posts and pages. Embedding Portfolio Projects To embed portfolio projects on posts and pages, first activate the Portfolio custom content type on your site and add some projects to your portfolio. Next, add the [portfolio] shortcode to a post or page. The shortcode will display projects in different ways, depending on how you use the optional attributes to customize the portfolio layout. Attributes * display_types: display Project Types. (true/false) * display_tags: display Project Tags. (true/false) * display_content: display project content. (true/false) * include_type: display specific Project Types. Defaults to all. (comma-separated list of Project Type slugs) * include_tag: display specific Project Tags. Defaults to all. (comma-separated list of Project Tag slugs) * columns: number of columns in shortcode. Defaults to 2. (number, 1-6) * showposts: number of projects to display. Defaults to all. (number) * order: display projects in ascending or descending order. Defaults to ASC for sorting in ascending order, but you can reverse the order by using DESC to display projects in descending order instead. (ASC/DESC) * orderby: sort projects by different criteria, including author name, project title, and even rand to display in a random order. Defaults to sorting by date. (author, date, title, rand) Example [portfolio display_types="true" display_tags="false" include_type="grooming-tips,best-kitties" columns="2" showposts="10" orderby="title"] The example will display up to ten portfolio projects in two columns, in ascending alphabetical order by project title. It will display Project Types, hide Project Tags, and only display projects that are assigned the “Grooming Tips” or “Best Kitties” Project Types. Featured Content Shortcode You can use shortcodes to embed featured content on posts and pages. Embedding Featured Content Projects To embed featured content on posts and pages, first activate the Featured Content content type on your site and add some projects to your featured content. Next, add the [featured_content] shortcode to a post or page. The shortcode will display projects in different ways, depending on how you use the optional attributes to customize the featured content layout. Attributes * display_types: display Content Types. (true/false) * display_tags: display Content Tags. (true/false) * display_content: display project content. (true/false) * include_type: display specific Content Types. Defaults to all. (comma-separated list of Content Type slugs) * include_tag: display specific Content Tags. Defaults to all. (comma-separated list of Content Tag slugs) * columns: number of columns in shortcode. Defaults to 2. (number, 1-6) * showposts: number of projects to display. Defaults to all. (number) * order: display projects in ascending or descending order. Defaults to ASC for sorting in ascending order, but you can reverse the order by using DESC to display projects in descending order instead. (ASC/DESC) * orderby: sort projects by different criteria, including author name, project title, and even rand to display in a random order. Defaults to sorting by date. (author, date, title, rand) Example [featured_content display_types="true" display_tags="false" include_type="grooming-tips,best-kitties" columns="2" showposts="10" orderby="title"] The example will display up to ten featured content in two columns, in ascending alphabetical order by project title. It will display Content Types, hide Content Tags, and only display projects that are assigned the “Grooming Tips” or “Best Kitties” Content Types. Testimonials Shortcode You can use shortcodes to embed testimonials on posts and pages. Embedding Testimonials To embed testimonials on posts and pages, first activate the Testimonial custom content type on your site and add some testimonials. Next, add the [testimonials] shortcode to a post or page. The shortcode will display testimonials in different ways, depending on how you use the optional attributes to customize the testimonials layout. Attributes * display_content: display testimonial content. (full/true/false) * image: display the featured image. (true/false) Defaults to true. * columns: number of columns in shortcode. Defaults to 1. (number, 1-6) * showposts: number of testimonials to display. Defaults to all. (number) * order: display testimonials in ascending or descending chronological order. Defaults to ASC for sorting in ascending order, but you can reverse the order by using DESC to display testimonials in descending order instead. (ASC/DESC) * orderby: sort testimonials by different criteria, including author name, testimonial title, and even rand to display in a random order. Defaults to sorting by date. (author, date, title, rand) Example [testimonials columns="2" showposts="10" orderby="title"] The example will display up to ten testimonials in two columns, in ascending alphabetical order by testimonial title. Service Shortcode You can use shortcodes to embed service on posts and pages. Embedding Service Projects To embed service on posts and pages, first activate the Service content type on your site and add some projects to your Service. Next, add the [services] shortcode to a post or page. The shortcode will display projects in different ways, depending on how you use the optional attributes to customize the featured content layout. Attributes * display_types: display Content Types. (true/false) * display_tags: display Content Tags. (true/false) * display_content: display project content. (true/false) * include_type: display specific Content Types. Defaults to all. (comma-separated list of Content Type slugs) * include_tag: display specific Content Tags. Defaults to all. (comma-separated list of Content Tag slugs) * columns: number of columns in shortcode. Defaults to 2. (number, 1-6) * showposts: number of projects to display. Defaults to all. (number) * order: display projects in ascending or descending order. Defaults to ASC for sorting in ascending order, but you can reverse the order by using DESC to display projects in descending order instead. (ASC/DESC) * orderby: sort projects by different criteria, including author name, project title, and even rand to display in a random order. Defaults to sorting by date. (author, date, title, rand) Example [services display_types="true" display_tags="false" include_type="grooming-tips,best-kitties" columns="2" showposts="10" orderby="title"] The example will display up to ten featured content in two columns, in ascending alphabetical order by project title. It will display Content Types, hide Content Tags, and only display projects that are assigned the “Grooming Tips” or “Best Kitties” Content Types. Food Menu Shortcode You can use shortcodes to embed Food Menu on posts and pages. Embedding Food Menu Embedding Food Menu To embed food menus on posts and pages, first activate the Food Menu custom content type on your site and add some food menus. Next, add the [food_menu] shortcode to a post or page. The shortcode will display food menu in the selected post or page. Attributes * showposts: number of menu items to display. Defaults to all. (number) * include_type: display specific Content Types. Defaults to all. (comma-separated list of Content Type slugs) * include_tag: display specific Content Tags. Defaults to all. (comma-separated list of Content Tag slugs) Example [food_menu showposts="10" include_type="pizza,burger,breakfast"] The example will display up to ten menu items. It will only display menu items in “Pizza”, “Burger” or “Breakfast” sections. Translations To translate the plugin, use translate.wordpress.org (GlotPress). You only need your WordPress.org account to join the collaborative translation project. You can translate Essential Widgets on translate.wordpress.org.

IFTTT (if this, then that) is one of the coolest web services available, and allows you to connect your different web service accounts to create ‘recipes’. An example of a recipe that I have is to create a new WordPress post on my blog whenever I favorite a YouTube video. Unfortunately IFTTT doesn’t have a way to specify a post format or a custom post type, so this plugin provides a couple ways to update them. To set the post format, you need to set the category in IFTTT to one of the following categories: ifttt-aside ifttt-gallery ifttt-link ifttt-image ifttt-quote ifttt-status ifttt-video ifttt-audio ifttt-chat So for my YouTube -> WordPress recipe, I have it adding the ‘ifttt-video’ category in IFTTT (IFTTT allows you to specify the category for the posts it creates), and voilà, when it’s published, the format has been set. If you want to instead set the new post to a custom post type, you can do so by setting the category in IFTTT to one that matches this pattern: ifttt-posttype-{post_type_slug}. So if you wanted to create new WordPress pages with IFTTT, you would add the ifttt-posttype-page category. And finally, if you want the IFTTT categories to be stored as a different taxonomy, you can do so by setting the category in IFTTT to one that matches this pattern: ifttt-taxonomy-{taxonomy_slug}. Note: These speciall ifttt-* categories will not actually be set on the post/page/object. These are ‘special’ categories which simply serve as flags for which post format, post-type or taxonomy to send the data to, and they are removed from the list of categories which are actually stored to the post. Hope you find this useful! Feel free to contribute to or fork this plugin on github.