May 30, 2005
So after all the articles about creating themes I finally got round to finishing my own. After much pulling of hair I also made it work in Internet Explorer. Really, the pain that browser puts people through is unreal. Roll on IE7.
Anyway, I've tried to rearrange the layout so as to make it not look like Kubrick. The front page has a full-width lead article, followed by three smaller articles, and finished off with a list of titles. A single page post uses the full-width of the page. This was all designed to give maximum space for long articles. The CSS is also print-friendly.
Read more here…
May 26, 2005
A lot of people have asked for a printable version of my WordPress theme dissection and so I've been beavering away and have now released a PDF. This has been fully revised and expanded, and weighs-in at just over 1MB.
In a further fit of productivity I've also made a version available to buy from the online publisher Lulu. The guide is the same, so you can download the PDF and print it out yourself, but you also have the option of ordering a professionally printed and bound copy. As more of an incentive, the Lulu version has an extra chapter including my guide to installing WordPress on your own computer, as well as extra bookish things such as content pages etc. There's also a full-colour durable cover - just like a real book!
Read more here…
May 24, 2005
So the old Czech lady who cleans the stairs accosted me today. Normally when we meet in the communal areas she nods and says a polite Dobry Den, and I do the same in return. This time she waved a piece of paper and planted a pen in my hand. I peered at the paper in the hope of picking out some recognizable words, but it seemed to be a table with different numbers and very little else.
Not knowing a whole lot of Czech I tried to tell her I didn't know what this was... ne Česky, ne Česky! She spoke some more and I told her in English that I had no idea what she wanted me to do. She then laughed and I went to get my lunch.
Read more here…
May 22, 2005
We generally become WordPress users to create a blog for everyone to see. This can involve the purchasing of a domain name and web hosting. These we treat as black boxes on which the WordPress software is installed, and everything magically works. This is exactly how it should be.
Although WordPress provides a comprehensive management interface, there are times when it would be better to have our own local copy, running on our own machine. There are several reasons we would want to do this:
- A working backup of our online site
- A development site to develop plugins and themes without affecting our online site
- A testing area to try out hacks and new versions of WordPress without fear of corrupting the live site
- A staging area to create and verify posts, before releasing them live
Read more here…
May 20, 2005
In previous guides we have concentrated on the building blocks of creating a WordPress theme. A basic design structure has been defined, followed by enclosing header and footer elements, and finished off with a navigational guide. While important aspects of any blog, they are secondary to its main purpose: the content.
In this fourth and final part we carefully dissect the process of taking the content from WordPress and arranging it on screen. Attention is paid to the many alternative methods of grouping this information, from the many posts of the front page to search results and archives.
We will look at how WordPress distributes the responsibility for this work, and how everything is tied together with the all-seeing all-knowing construct known as ‘The Loop’.
By the end of this guide we will not only have a fully working theme, but we should have enough experience and knowledge of WordPress to be able to extend our theme beyond the basic design presented here.
Read more here…
