Posts Tagged Wordpress
Wordpress Foundation Themes
Posted by Matt Brown in Insights, Web Design on November 21, 2009
I’ve been doing a lot of Wordpress work recently, both building themes from scratch and also customizing existing themes. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working on slowly compiling a library of resources so that I can save time by building upon existing code frameworks instead of starting each project from scratch. This has been a lot of extra work up front, but I am already starting to see benefits to my work in that I am able to streamline some of my work, and therefore make more money. So I thought that I would share some of my hardwork with those that follow me. Maybe these resources will be of great benefit to you.
Framework Package
I have put together this package of six blank themes that provide developers and Wordpress users a core theme to make custom theme creation easier, faster and more efficient. Each theme uses the latest WordPress API template tags and follows the standards set fourth in the official WordPress theme development guide at http://codex.wordpress.org as well as passing the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)’s validation tests for valid XHTML and CSS 2.1 technical specifications and standards.
Feature Summary:
- 100% Free GPL – No branding restrictions, take it, mod it, claim it as your own
- Navigating stylesheet PDF ‘cheat sheet’, know where to apply styles easily
- Fixes IE6 CSS limitations (CSS hover, focus, etc.)
- Fixes IE6 PNG limitations (PNG support, repeat pattern, etc.)
- W3C Validated XHTML 1.0
- W3C Validated CSS 2.1 Read the rest of this entry »
My Wordpress Cheat Sheet
Posted by Matt Brown in Daily Ramblings, Insights on November 2, 2009
I know that there are many resources regarding this topic but there are never enough. I have been working a lot with Wordpress lately and am slowly putting together a library of template files that I can just drag and drop into new themes that I put together. I thought I would share just a few of these today. This post is dedicated to small snippets from Wordpress that will make your life easier. Or maybe my life easier and in this case I want to have them in one single post.
Theme Structure
If you want to create a Wordpress theme, these following files must be included in order to be a standard theme. You can create a theme using fewer files but this is the way to do it.
The Loop
You will often see “the loop” as reference in many tutorials or samples. This piece of code helps you display your posts on a blog. By entering custom HTML or PHP code inside the loop, you will make every post to benefit from that custom code. You can use the loop mainly in your index.php file but also in other files when you want to display multiple posts. Read the rest of this entry »
How To: Install WordPress on Mac OS X Using MAMP
Posted by Matt Brown in How To on October 28, 2009
I’m a huge fan of Wordpress. It’s so simple yet so powerful. If you’re new to Wordpress development of any type, you probably get tired of having to upload your changes to the web via FTP just to see them. Well, I’ve got good news for you – you don’t have to do that! You can setup a development environment so you can test everything locally on your computer.
Your next question might be one like this – “How do I setup a test environment on my Mac? I know that the Apache web server is included in OSX but I can’t figure out MySQL or PHP. “
It’s true that OSX comes with Apache, and you could use it, but there is a much simpler way. Use MAMP. MAMP stands for Mac, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. You have probably heard of LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) which is the standard web development platform on the internet. There is also WAMP; Windows, Apache, so on and so forth. One more acronym, WIMP; Windows, IIS (Internet Information Server. The default Windows web server), MySQL, and PHP.
All these acronyms provide all the necessary components to run Wordpress locally on your given platform. In this case, the wonderful OSX.
Anyway, here is a step by step tutorial on how to install Wordpress on OSX using MAMP. Read the rest of this entry »
First Impressions: WP Fancyzoom Plugin
Posted by Matt Brown in Reviews on July 29, 2009
If I post an image into a page or a post, and I want a reader to see a larger version of that image, I sure don’t want them to have to leave the page to see that image. FancyZoom is a simple way to add the FancyZoom image overlay script to your blog or website. In short, FancyZoom is a nice, modern way of making popup images without forcing people to leave the page. FancyZoom is super fast, and will usually pleasantly surprise the reader (cause it makes it look like you have your act together). Read the rest of this entry »
My New Theme…..again
Posted by Matt Brown in Daily Ramblings, themattbrown.com on February 15, 2009
So last week you probably saw my post my New Setup on my blog. It was a really cool JQuery inspired blog with lots of cool motion/action and little loading of new pages. Well, it turned out to be a whole lot more trouble because plugins were clashing due to the overloading amount of Javascript.
So today and yesterday I sought on a quest to totally redesign my theme from scratch. And this current theme is what I came up with! My first question is what do you think about it?!?!? please leave your comments below!
It’s a simple, neat and fresh looking theme, yet highly effective:
Basic features:
- Optimized for speed and loading time
- SEO optimal titles
- SEO optimal page layout and headings
- XHTML/CSS valid
- Customized 404 page
- 3 column theme
- Integrated Social bookmark buttons
- Integrated Multi Page widget
- Prints parent category in title
- Incoming Google image searches are expanded to site
- Adsense ready
My Take:
I am pretty happy with my work. I made a big emphasis on the SEO aspect of the site when designing it as I want to start getting some advertising revenue eventually on the site. Therefore, I made it Adsense ready. I also included a lot of social networking support .
The two level navigation is also a nice integration I think because it can save space and provide a way for the user to highlight the important categories of the blog. I’m pretty happy with the color scheme and the font types. The colors used have a cool and soothing effect to the eyes and the font types are easy to read. It’s also widget-ready, even though I hand-code instead of using widgets. The thing I love most about my theme is how fast it loads. The combination of a fast load as well as full SEO makes it pretty desireable. Hopefully my analytics and traffic in the next few weeks will reflect this.
Do you like this theme and would you be interested in purchasing to use on your blog? Why or why not?
New Setup…
Posted by Matt Brown in Daily Ramblings on February 6, 2009
So in case you haven’t noticed, my website is just a weee bit different. As I wrote earlier, I screwed up my Wordpress database, therefore erasing everything. I figured that I would start fresh with a much more professional looking setup. This theme has been developed using JQuery and AJAX, and I think it’s pretty sweet. It’s not 100% complete yet as I’m finishing up the tweaking, and adding content.
What do you think of my new design?
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