Author: Tom (Page 388 of 427)

Programmatically Set a WordPress Template

July 25, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

If you're an advanced developer or just want the TL;DR version of this, skip to the code.

One of the nicest things about WordPress is the ability to customize the look and feel of pages by applying customized page templates.

Whenever I am working on an advanced theme or an application, I often treat my pages like views and my templates like layouts.

In cases like this, I often need to programmatically create posts, pages, and other data upon theme activation. Similarly, I’ve also needed to programmatically add a template to a page during activation, as well.

This is relatively easy to do.

Meetup: Introduction To and Advanced Topics on WordPress Plugins

July 24, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

This Wednesday, July 25th, I’ll be speaking to the Atlanta WordPress Users Group about WordPress plugins.

Specifically, I’ll be leading two discussions:

Why Bloggers and Developers Should Understand WordPress Frameworks

July 23, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

Recently, someone asked me if a given theme was compatible with another popular WordPress framework. The short answer is that no, it was not, but it did get me thinking: If there’s one word that’s becoming all too common in the WordPress space, it’s “framework.”

If you were to ask a handful of people to define “framework,” you would probably hear one of two things:

Novice-to-experienced bloggers would say that it’s a theme with a variety of customization options
Developers would say that it’s a way to more easily build a theme

I’m sure there are a few other responses but, generally speaking, this is what I hear and read the most.

Instead, I think that “framework” is way over used in the WordPress world and the lack of understanding has the potential to negatively affect both bloggers and younger developers.

WP Help For Creating Documentation Within WordPress

July 20, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

In my experience, one of the biggest pet peeves that others have with hiring developers to build a product for them, is that the client and the developer have completely different ideas as to what it means to be “done.”

By that, I mean developers (especially younger developers) consider a project to be done when the code has been written. But, come on, there’s so much more to it than that – aside from the usual staging enivronment, testing, and deployment, there’s also the issue of support.

Support looks different based on the nature of the product: Some may need on-going support via forums, some may need maintenance, others may need some form of documentation or a manual.

Up to this point, providing documentation for WordPress-based projects has normally been relegated to something like README files or websites, but as WordPress continues to become a more popular foundation for building not only sites and blogs, but applications, too, the need for solid documentation is only increasing.

Standard 3 Migration Meetup Recap

July 20, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

Last night, we hosted our Standard Theme Migration Meetup. We had a solid turnout – there was an even split of 50 or so people hanging out with us face-to-face and via the webcast.

During the meetup, John did a live migration of his blog over to Standard 3 showing everyone his process for how to safely update their blog and I discussed WordPress’ custom menu system, header images, header text, Standard’s header logo feature, and some of the other features built into the theme.