So you’ve got a template and you would like your readers / subscribers / contributors / everyone to be able to make posts from the font end of your blog or template, without having to look at the dashboard (can be daunting for first time users, and not blatantly obvious how to use). Gravity Forms is an out of this world awesome plugin for wordpress which enables you to do just this. You can link forms to existing custom fields or create new ones; control the redirection after form submission; control the look and feel of the form with CSS. Just check out their site above for list of the functions you can perform with gravity. In order to control who is able to view and/or post new posts from the frontend, Gravity forms recommend the free members plugin. Iv used it and it works like a charm, allowing you to restrict who sees what. Another third party plugin which is really useful if you are using custom post types (normally if you have installed another theme and are using wordpress for a classifieds based system) is Gravity Forms + Custom Post Types. I’ve also used this and it works nicely with wordpress 3.2.1. There are a good number of coupons on the web for Gravity forms, so be sure to search google for gravity forms coupons before purchasing – I got $50 off my purchase, no jokes.
Have fun and please pop any questions this way, got quite a bit of experience with using the forms etc.
Cheers