A plugin is a computer program that adds extra features to a web page, or other software application, or app. Some of the most common plugin brands are Adobe Flash Player, QuickTime, and Microsoft Silverlight. Plugins can be used for anything from playing a video, to scanning your computer for viruses.
The term for adding plugins and combining them with other things such as snap-ins, extensions and themes is add-on.
Some examples of plugins you will see on just about every web page you visit are e-mail, graphics, media players, Microsoft Office, packet sniffers, and plugins that play videos such as Flash, or Quicktime.
Email clients use plugins in very important actions like encrypting emails, which protects your privacy. Graphics software uses plugins to support things like Adobe Photoshop, Gimp, and other programs that feed your artistic side. Microsoft Office uses add-ins to run programs like GStreamer, Winmap and more.
Plugins were created in the 1970′s but weren’t released to the public until 1987. The first computer that used plugins was a MAC. The first plugins that were created were Digital Darkroom and SuperPaint.
Current plugins can only run on six frameworks, C++, Delphi, Java, PHP, Python, and .NET. WordPress is an open source blog tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. What wordpress does is re-arrange widgets, or a small application within a web page. When using wordpress you can also switch between themes.
WordPress applications currently exist for Android, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Windows Phone 7, and Blackberry.
WordPress originated as a company called b2 or cafelog. WordPress was created by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little in 2003. WordPress has won four awards from 2007 to 2011 including Open Source Web App of the Year Award in 2011 at “The Critters”.
Currently the featured plugins from WordPress are BuddyPress, WPtouch, Jetpack by WordPress.com, WP Super Cache, and Wickett Twitter Widget. BuddyPress is social networking in a box. Build a social network for your company, school, sports team or niche community. WPtouch is a simple, powerful and elegant mobile theme for your website. WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application. Jetpack is where you can supercharge your WordPress site with powerful features previously only available to WordPress.com users. WP Super Cache is A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files. Lastly, Wickett Twitter Widget is where you can display tweets from one or more Twitter accounts a WordPress widget. As seen on WordPress.com.
Another very popular program that WordPress offers is WordPress Slider Plugin. WordPress Slider Plugin is also called vSlider. vSlider is an image slide show script that can display specific images on your WordPress based website with fading or sliding transitions. With vSlider you can easily install unlimited image sliders, and even use up to 20 custom images and links! vSlider is based on jQuery innerfade plugin. It comes as a simple zip file that you open in your plugin folder. There are other jQuery slideshow for WordPress that will make your site more user friendly and interactive.
Next time you have your iPod in your hand take a second to consider where the app you just downloaded actually came from and how it works. Also keep WordPress in mind the next time you hop on and edit your very own website!