Archive For December, 2008

This post is for people who work with WordPress: themers, WordPress coders and consultants, and anyone who wants to do things more advanced than installing plugins with WordPress. If you’re not in this market, be on your way, this poll doesn’t apply to you!

If you’re still here… I’ve been considering writing a book on “Advanced WordPress.” The market in mind is all of the themers, coders, consultants, and intrepid blog tweakers who may know a bit of PHP (or a lot), and want to go beyond the basics with WordPress. There are a lot of books that cover WordPress basics, but not a lot aimed at more advanced uses of WordPress. A sample of the topics covered would be:

• Plugins
• Hooks
• Advanced WordPress administration and automation
• Themes
• Advanced theme tricks

It would be part reference, part walkthrough.

If this book were available, and you are in the market described above, how much (if anything) would you be willing to pay for such a book?

View Poll

Thanks for your participation!

WordPress.com bloggers now have a new resource for help: the WordPress Help Pages.

Heather of the WordPress.com Support Team announced the new WordPress.com support. It features a knowledge-based style with overviews features and tasks.

I’ve covered a lot of tips and techniques for using WordPress.com, and here are some highlights, including a lot of features and things you can do with your WordPress.com blog not included in the new help pages:

• What Do I Do With My New WordPress.com Blog?
• What Can You Do With WordPress.com
• Playing with WordPress.com New Sidebar Widgets
• WordPress.com Top Blogs of the Day
• WordPress.com Custom CSS - All The Styles for the Sandbox Theme
• WordPress.com Resources for Beginners (and video, too)
• WordPress.com, Please Stop Using Snap Preview
• WordPress.com Blog Bling
• WordPress.com Blog Bling: Decorating Your WordPress.com Blog
• WordPress.com Blog Bling: Lines and Smilies
• WordPress.com Blog Bling: Fun Font Bling
• WordPress.com Blog Bling: Blockquotes and Quotes
• WordPress.com Blog Bling: Blogroll and Sidebar Bling
• WordPress.com Blog Bling: Signatures and Writing Code
• Adding Video and Podcasting Bling to Your WordPress.com Blogs
• WordPress.com Blog Bling: Show Off Your Blog Bling

For more WordPress News, see the latest edition of my Blog Herald WordPress News: WordPress News: WordPress 2.7 Awesome, WordPress.com 5 Million, Plugins Updated, and WordCamp News.

Site Search Tags: wordpress, wordpress news, wordpress tips, wordpress help, wordpress 2.7, wordpress 2.8, poll, wordpress ideas, wordpress versions, wordpress development

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging.

Posted in WordPress News, Wordpressdotcom      

Why I Created a WordPress Theme Framework by Justin Tadlock is a good look at the reasons why WordPress Theme designers and developers should work with a framework when designing a WordPress Theme. A strong Theme framework creates a solid canvas upon which to build your WordPress Themes.

If you are or considering building WordPress Themes for public use, this is a good article to consider.

For more information on building WordPress Themes, see:

• WordPress Template Files
• WordPress Blog Design and Layout
• WordPress Conditional Tags
• Designing WordPress Themes for Public Release
• Stepping Into Template Tags
• Stepping Into Templates
• WordPress Template Tags
• WordPress Theme Development

Related Articles

• WordPress Design Details
• What I Needed to Learn About WordPress
• WordPress Template Files and Style Sheets - Give Them a Name
• Attention WordPress Theme Designers: Designing Themes for WordPressMU
• Testers, Checkers and Fixers for WordPress Themes
• WordPress Tips and Tricks for Style Sheets
• Site Optimization: Optimizing Bandwidth and Cleaning Out the Code Closet
• Website Development - Make a Schedule and Calendar
• Designing a WordPress Theme From Scratch
• CSS and Web Page Design List of Resources
• HTML, CSS, PHP, and More Cheat Sheets
• The Art of the Zoom Layout
• Step-By-Step Website Development - Check List
• A Guide to the WordPress Code, The Online Manual for WordPress Users
• CSS and Web Standard Feeds in One Place
• Secrets of WordPress Theming
• A Good CSS Tips, Tutorials, and Tricks Resource
• A Gallery of Website Layout Designs and Ideas
• Finding Your CSS Styles in WordPress
• WordPress Theme Designers: Slapping You Upside the Head
• The 12 Biggest Problems With Your Blogs
• Usability Isn’t Expensive. It’s Practical. Usability is Useful.
• Breaking the Limits of Customizable WordPress Themes
• How Do You Choose a WordPress Theme?
• WordPress Themes - Do You Want Someone Messing Around With Your Theme?
• Using Author Template Tags Outside of the WordPress Loop
• Site Under Construction: Things Left Undone
• When the Blog Breaks: Fixing Your Broken Blog
• When The Blog Breaks: Site Monitoring
• WordPress.com Custom CSS - All The Styles for the Sandbox Theme
• Web Page Design and Styles: Let The One Who Has Never Hacked A Stylesheet Throw The First Stone At Me
• One Year Anniversary Review: Choosing a WordPress Theme
• One Year Anniversary Review: Web Development
• One Year Anniversary Review: Designing WordPress Themes for the Public
• One Year Anniversary Review: Web Design
• The Battle Between Image Width and Column Width
• Alex King: WordPress Themes Versus Templates
• Accomplished: WPDesigners One Month Challenge on WordPress Themes
• The Battle Over Centering on the Longest Line in CSS
• Blog Design: How Many Columns?
• Duplicate Content Controlled Naturally Through Themes

Site Search Tags: wordpress news, wordpress help, wordpress themes, wordpress themes, css, framework, theme framework, developing themes, wordpress theme development, making wordpress themes, using wordpress themes, customizing wordpress themes, wordpress theme help

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging.

Posted in WordPress News, WordPress Themes      

Weblog Tools Collection has restarted its Plugin Review with an invitation to all WordPress Plugin authors and lovers to submit their WordPress Plugins to be reviewed over the next year. Starting January 4, 2009, they will be reviewing one Plugin a week as their Featured Plugin.

I’d like to take this opportunity to remind WordPress Theme Plugin authors how much I adore their work, and recommend that they do better when it comes to promoting their WordPress Plugins. Two years ago, I spent a month reviewing and writing about hundreds of WordPress Plugins and wrote a love letter to WordPress Plugin authors asking them to help us help them by providing more keyword specific introductions and descriptions about their WordPress Plugins.

If you are submitting your Plugin to the Weblog Tools Collection for review, follow their guidelines and my strong recommendations to make the process painless for everyone, especially the readers and those who want your WordPress Plugin.

I’m a big fan of Weblog Tools Collection and their weekly WordPress Plugins and Themes reports, so I’m eager for this year of non-stop weekly WordPress Plugins.

For more WordPress News, see the latest edition of my Blog Herald WordPress News: WordPress News: WordPress 2.7 Awesome, WordPress.com 5 Million, Plugins Updated, and WordCamp News.

Site Search Tags: wordpress, wordpress news, wordpress tips, wordpress help, wordpress 2.7, wordpress 2.8, poll, wordpress ideas, wordpress versions, wordpress development

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging.

Posted in WordPress News      

Have you given much thought to WordPress 2.8? Well, the WordPress development team is and they need your help and input.

With WordPress 2.7 released, work is ongoing for WordPress 2.8 and WordPress wants your feedback. In “Prioritizing Features for WordPress 2.8,” Jane Wells invites people to take a poll on what are the top priorities WordPress developers should be putting their energy into.

Currently, they are focused on WordPress Widget management, automatic Theme updates and installs, and performance improvements. The poll features the most popular features requests from the Ideas forum and more that the WordPress developers want to work on. Vote by noon on December 31 to have your say in what you want to see in WordPress 2.8.

For more WordPress News, see the latest edition of my Blog Herald WordPress News: WordPress News: WordPress 2.7 Awesome, WordPress.com 5 Million, Plugins Updated, and WordCamp News.

Site Search Tags: wordpress, wordpress news, wordpress tips, wordpress help, wordpress 2.7, wordpress 2.8, poll, wordpress ideas, wordpress versions, wordpress development

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging.

Posted in WordPress News