If you don’t know about Thesis yet, check out my post about why I am such a fan.

The following plugins all make use of the Thesis framework to make their installations extremely painless. Most make use of Thesis additional WordPress hooks to display content in places that were previously inaccessible. I’ve yet to find a solid list of Thesis ready plugins on the Internet so I took the time to put this list together for whoever is curious.

Thesis OpenHook

Thesis OpenHook takes the process of modifying Thesis and simplifies it! I couldn’t properly make a list of Thesis ready WordPress plugins without including the grandfather of them all. This plugin lets you take full advantage of Thesis additional hooks.

Thesis Import/Export

With this plugin, you can download individual data files for Thesis Options, Design Options, and all OpenHook content.

Yoast Breadcrumbs

Automatically add breadcrumbs to your site with no Template tweaks as long as you are running Thesis.

Thesography

The purpose of this plugin is to make displaying EXIF data as convenient as possible, while using as much of WordPress’ native image handling as possible. It can be inserted automatically into the Thesis theme.

Javascript Nofollow Links

This plugin replaces the standard anchor tag for comment author links with a bold tag and adds javascript behavior on the new tag to allow it to be clicked. It contains code for Thesis theme users to remove the redundant link on comment avatars.

PixoPoint Menu Plugin

Adds an SEO friendly, accessible regular or dropdown menu to your WordPress blog. Uses wppagemenu() which is also used by Thesis so no extra steps are needed after installation.

Commentwitter

Gives commenters the option of Tweeting their comments with a link to your post. Uses Thesis hooks to automatically display necessary code below your comment forms.

Visual Recent Posts

This plugin gives the look of a magazine-style website with thumbnails and excerpts in a clean layout. Easily place your Recent Visual Posts by simply inserting your desired Thesis hook on the settings page.

FV Descriptions

Simple plugin which allows you to mass edit the description fields of your choice

Honorable Mentions

These plugins don’t use the Thesis framework like the plugins above however were developed with Thesis in mind at some point during their development process.

• Results Count Remix
• WordPress Menu Creator
• Ajax Edit Comments
• WP Greet Box
• Subscribe to Comments

It’s important to note that most other plugins would work just as well with Thesis than with any other theme. This is only a list of plugins made with Thesis in mind. If you know of any other WordPress plugins that make use of the Thesis framework, please share them below.

Disclaimer: All links to Thesis from this blog are an affiliate link. If you purchase the theme through one of these links I will receive a percentage as commission. This is the first (and probably only) product I would ever endorse for money.

• SEO
• Awesome Layout
• It’s constantly being optimized

I guess what originally hooked me was the fact that most of the blogs I was reading by professionals within my industry were already on the Thesis theme. You’ve got Chris Brogan (who wrote about it here), Darren Rowse (who wrote about it here), Brian Clark (who wrote about i here), Matt Cutts and more.

So now a little about what makes it so great.

Matt Cutts recently spoke at WordCamp San Francisco 2009 where he discussed WordPress’s ability to satisfy 90% of your websites SEO. WordPress itself takes care of the obvious things like pretty URLs, syndication, interlinking pages, hiding duplicate content, etc. However, one thing WordPress does not control is the layout of the theme you are using. This is where Thesis comes in and satisfies several immediate needs:

• Cleanly laid out HTML for easy indexing by search engines
• Extra fields that allow editing of header meta on a page to page basis
• Clean, easy to read typography

But if everyone had the same theme, wouldn’t that get kind of dull?

Sure, if everyone was using the same settings. Thesis comes with two new settings pages under the appearance tab of your admin panel. You can move sidebars around, change major content area, and control all your fonts across the entire site.

Now while every other theme out there may eventually become outdated, I know I’m safe with Thesis because they are consistently releasing new versions. Their unique method for customizing the theme allows for easy upgrades and a lot more control. They have even added several new wordpress hooks that developers have already begun integrating into their plugins for easy one-step setup.

But I like it for the cutting edge look and feel

This was probably the culprit for the themes instant appeal in my eyes. Out of the box, the home page of the theme allows you to display excerpts in a slick boxlike fashion. You also get a dynamic content area in your sidebar that you can change on a post to post basis, great for promoting services relevant to the content your readers are viewing. Finally, they’ve added options to your posts and pages that allow you to display images in your posts that are automatically resized for the excerpts on the home page.

I’ve never promoted a product on my blog because I feel money can dilute an honest review by making it slightly more biased in any one direction. However, with Thesis I will make an exception. Ever since I’ve started using it I’ve been able to focus a lot more on content creation and less about SEO and blog maintenance. I very much look forward to future releases and hope you can too.

Disclaimer: All links to Thesis from this blog are an affiliate link. If you purchase the theme through one of these links I will receive a percentage as commission. This is the first (and probably only) product I would ever endorse for money.