Must have add-ons

Question

I know this is a peer project related question but what are your must have add-ons? Which add-ons are you using in all your project especially for EE4.X

Thanks

Answer 1

Well it is not fixed that some addons you must have to develop EE website. But if you want then below are the addons of EE which usually I used.

• BBD Chopper (Chopper takes your entry's content and whittles it down to a more manageable size. It strips the HTML and limits the excerpts by character count, word count or cutoff marker.)
• CE Image (CE Image is an image manipulation tool for use in your ExpressionEngine templates.)
• Deeploy Helper (Manage paths and URLs more easily with Deeploy Helper.)
• Freeform Pro (Freeform is the most powerful form building add-on for ExpressionEngine. It gives you full control to create simple or complex multi-page forms, as well as connect your forms to many popular API integrations.)
• Low Search (Low Search is used to search any content on your website. To integrate Global Site Search or specific search functionality.)
• SEO Lite (SEO Lite is the easiest way to make sure the title-tag is output on all pages on your site: one global embed / snippet and you're done. SEO Lite is a very lightweight module which will add a SEO tab to your publish page.)
• Wygwam (Wygwam’s WYSIWYG editor is based on the powerful and accessible CKEditor 4, which we’ve custom-tuned to work exceptionally well with ExpressionEngine.)

These are the most usable addons of EE. I think all EE developers are using these addons. Also these are very famous addons in EE's world.

Answer 2

I don't have any "must have" addons, and have built a fair few EE sites that use no 3rd party addons at all.

That said I use 3rd party addons where native EE functionality either can't do what I need it to do, or they make things easier for site owners.

If I do use 3rd party addons there are a few that regularly crop up:

Low Variables - great for managing miscellaneous content like phone numbers, micro copy, social media URL's etc. It also works well for front end settings like switching things on/off!

WYGWAM - for when you need an enhanced WYSIWYG editor, the best bit is that you can control formatting buttons per custom field.

Freeform - if you need to store form submissions, you can use Channel Form to store submissions but that can overwhelm your entries listings.

Answer 3

I echo earlier comments about add-ons not being required to build an EE4 site, but there are some add-ons that I think are worth including in any base build. They are (alphabetically ordered):

• Caddis Math - to do simple mathematical operations within templates
• Mo'Variables - a useful collection of additional system / global variables
• Stash - Complex to use, but handy mechanism for temporary storage within / across templates (and some other things) - but increasingly becoming less necessary as EE4 builds in similar features
• Caddis Streeng - Handy string manipulations - need perhaps being replaced by EE4 variable modifiers, but still does many things that variable modifiers cannot :)
• URL Helper - a Swiss army knife of utilities to access and manipulate URL slugs

There are some other add-ons that are exceptional and often are useful, but not always required (and / or other ways of doing these things exist):

• CE Image - Still works under EE4 but long in need of an update or replacement; provides ability to perform customised manipulation of images within templates.
• GWCode Categories or Category Construct - Handy tools to work with category information within templates (EE4 compatible version of GW Categories can be found via second posting here)
• Low Reorder - Allows for creation of dynamic lists (e.g. based on channels, categories, search terms etc.) that then can be re-ordered arbitrarily - surprisingly useful
• Low Search - Provides fine-grain access / control of search within EE

Finally, although not strictly necessary, you might also want to consider adding a more complete Rich Text Editor than ships with EE4, I use Wyvern.

HTH

Answer 4

EE4 (presumably also EE5) is so well-packed, out of the box I don't need anything.

However, if using forms, FreeForm Pro is fantastic. I'd happily shell out the $ for this if I'm doing anything more than, say, a basic contact form.

Answer 5

Thanks all for your advice/comments..
Actually, i often use these Addons

• Low variables for multilingual site and miscellaneous content.
• Channel Images for image manipulation (maybe i could use EE4 for that but i need different kind of cropping..)
• Antenna for video implementation
• DataGrab to import data from RSS and/or custom json file i generate from other website)
• WYGWAM .
• PDF Press for few website..
• FreeFrom when i need file upload
• Snaptcha to avoid too many spam..
• Expresso Store when i need complex ecommerce solution

That's a lot, i know and sometime i wish i could do it without any Addons because when it's time to Upgrade it can be ?%@%$&@..