New WordPress plugins and themes are released constantly. As I was looking at different layout ideas for a new site I realized I was using a time-saving tool some people might not know about.
To tell me quickly what WordPress theme and WordPress plugins a site is using I use Themestats. Even before you look at the source code you can look under the hood. I know there are lots of ways to do this but I’ve found this to be fast and painless for me.
I’ve discovered plugins I didn’t even know about this way. If you’re like me you tend to have the same several plugins that you use as a baseline for all your sites. I get it, but I know there are a ton of other plugins that would be appropriate for some of my sites.
But who has time to go exploring?
This is a better way to discover new plugins because seeing functionality or a look that interests you is exactly the time when you should dig into whatever is creating that feature, a theme or plugin, and if it’s a plugin it could be a big help potentially over many of your sites and clients’ sites, from now on.
Just as an example, I never knew till today that there is a WP plugin–Right Click Images Plugin–that disables the right mouse button clicks that would enable a user to easily save an image to his hard drive. Handy, and it took me seconds to dig in to find it.
Usually it’s clear simply from the list of plugins that Themestats gives you which plugin is responsible for the feature you’re interested in.
And though I’m more inclined to add a new plugin than buy a new theme, it’s good to discover nice new themes this way too.