WordPress is a CMS. The whole idea being to manage content and make websites editable without having to wrangle code. Any theme can handle Posts and Pages, but what about those “smaller” areas. Little chunks of text placed around a design like a small “about” section, or the copy in the footer of a website. A lot of times this text is hard-baked right into the theme, which isn’t a very friendly way to do things, as it can’t be updated by average Joe user.

This is something I find myself answering a lot. Excuse the snarky introduction to this post, my real goal here is to attempt to clarify what will and will not “work” with WordPress. So, to answer the question, “will this work With WordPress?!?!”…

Breadcrumbs are such a standard design pattern these days I find it surprising there isn’t a build in WordPress function for displaying one. But no matter, that’s what plugins are for. A quick Google search brings up a couple. Yoast has one, so you know that one is pretty good. The other popular one is the NavXT plugin, which I actually used recently on a project and can fully vouch for it.

Tumblelogs are a great way to streamline mixed-media blogging for different types of content. Commonly used tumblelog topics include “Links”, “Photos”, “Quotes”, “Dialogue”, and “Video”. A good tumblelog presents each these different topics with its own unique format while retaining an overall sense of cohesion throughout the entire design.