Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Daily Tip: Add a WYSIWYG Editor to Gravity Forms in WordPress

Daily Tip: Add a WYSIWYG Editor to Gravity Forms in WordPress

Daily Tip: Add a WYSIWYG Editor to Gravity Forms in WordPress

Posted: 05 Jun 2012 01:33 PM PDT

If you’re a fan of the Gravity Forms plugin, you will want to check out this new free extension that lets you add a WYSIWYG Editor to your forms. A few months ago I posted 11 Free Add-ons for the Gravity Forms Plugin, and the new Gravity Forms WYSIWYG plugin is another very useful extension.

It does two simple things:

  • Adds a new WYSIWYG field under standard fields
  • Adds a “Enable WYSIWYG” checkbox for post body field

Once the plugin is enabled you’ll see the new WYSIWYG field type available:

Here’s what you’ll see on the frontend when you add it:

The Gravity Forms WYSIWYG plugin is a simple way to make your forms a little more friendly and give your customers a tool to communicate with you more effectively. Download it for free from the WordPress plugin repository.

Sarah Gooding on Google+

Enhance YouTube Videos with Annotations, Social Engagement, and More

Posted: 05 Jun 2012 08:00 AM PDT


Embedding YouTube videos on your site, be they yours or someone else's, can help increase engagement. And the EmbedPlus: YouTube for WordPress plugin can help you enhance those videos to optimize engagement even more.

Below are some of its more useful features:

  • Timed Annotations (i.e. pop-up up comments)
  • Scene Markers – Allow viewers to jump to the next scene
  • Set Start and Stop Times
  • Instant Replay
  • Looping
  • Slow Motion
  • Movable Zoom
  • Social Reactions – Let viewers see what others are saying about the video on YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and Digg

 

How It Works

Getting all this to work is really very simple.

You will notice a new button added to you visual editor. Click this to get started, and the plugin will take you through a simple step-by-step wizard. (You can also access this wizard in your Admin area.)

 

Enter URL

On the first screen, enter the URL for your video.

Options

In the next screen you'll have a number of options to configure if you choose to.

You'll see options for Size and Start/Stop points.

Next you'll have the option to set up scene markers. This effectively lets you cut the video up into different scenes that your viewers can then jump to as they please.

Next you'll be able to turn on the Real-time Reactions feature, which will let viewers check out what others around the web are saying about the video. And then the section after that is for adding annotations (pop-up comments).

 

Get Code

In the last step, you will be able to preview your video as it will appear on your site, and then get the code needed to embed it.


The Embedded Video

And finally, here's a look at the embedded video. One nice feature about the annotations is that they don't obscure the video. The pop up stays below the video screen.

And here’s a look at the social reactions (taken from screenshots on the plugin page):

 

You can see a demo of this plugin in action on the EmbedPlus homepage.

Photo: Film from BigStock

Joseph Foley on Google+

Zillow Announces WordPress-Powered Sites for Real Estate Agents

Posted: 05 Jun 2012 07:00 AM PDT

This week Zillow launched what is soon to be one of the largest implementations of WordPress on the web. The Zillow blog already runs on WordPress and they will now be offering easy-to-use, WordPress-powered websites for real estate agents.

The cornerstone features of the new Premier Agent Websites include a free domain name, striking designs, and built-in IDX MLS search. The sites are offered at just $10/month and marketed towards busy real estate agents who have little time left over in the day to maintain a solid web presence as a base for customer relationships. This is a brilliant move on Zillow’s part, as these affordable websites are a product that will appeal to tens of thousands of agents. Current Zillow Premier Agent subscribers will receive a website for free.

Premier Agent Websites feature:

  • MLS property search through IDX
  • City/community/school pages
  • Personalized blog
  • Ability to display video
  • Ability to add custom pages and menus with dropdowns
  • 19 widgets and 7 widget-ready areas to put them in, including mortgage calculator, reviews, search by affordability and more
  • Home page slideshow for branding and/or featured listings
  • Optimized for SEO
  • Integrated with the Zillow CRM

Check out a few theme examples at ZillowPress.com:

Currently you can’t add any custom plugins as that would be a security nightmare and most agents don’t want to learn about using them anyway. However, the Zillow team is taking requests for additional features and will more than likely implement those that have the strongest mass appeal. Though the sites aren’t as customizable as hosting your own WordPress site, a huge selling point is that you own your own data and can export it at any time.

Zillow’s move to add WordPress-powered sites is another great example of a company using WordPress infrastructure to provide enterprise-class business sites and services. Zillow had 32 million unique users visiting their websites and mobile applications in April 2012 and this massive WordPress-powered network is bound to increase that number. The use of open source software is definitely on the rise and WordPress publishing integrated with Zillow’s powerhouse real estate marketplace seems like a recipe for success.

Sarah Gooding on Google+
Posted by Hai Huynh at

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