I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how to use and set up the WordPress menu navigation, so I created this video tutorial to walk you through it. These menus are a new feature in WordPress 3.0, and you’ll know if your theme supports it by clicking on Appearance > Menus.
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What’s Next for WP Theming
PostedI’ve been working as freelance web developer for the last couple years working almost primarily with WordPress. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, but I was recently offered the opportunity to work full time with Demand Media.
Demand Media runs eHow.com, Trails.com, Livestrong.com (among others) and social widgets that are viewed on millions of pages per day. It’s a really exciting company and position. Couldn’t pass it up. I start today, which also just happens to be my 29th Birthday.
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Post Type Presentation for WordCamp
PostedHere’s all the links and details from my talk on Custom Post Types at WordPress Austin in 2010.
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How to Upload Images to WordPress
PostedThis is a video tutorial showing how to upload your photos and other images into WordPress posts and pages. It explains how to align images to the left or right, how to add a caption, and how to display multiple images in a gallery:
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How to Add a Metabox to a Custom Post Type
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Most custom post types in WordPress will need (or could benefit from) a unique set metaboxes for entering information.
For example, a “photography” post type might need fields for “location of photo”, “type of camera”, etc. And an “event” post type would probably need a “location” and an “event date”.
Metaboxes aren’t the easiest to set up- so I’ve written up this tutorial which shows how to add a one line field for “location” to an “event” post type.
Hopefully, you’ll be able to use this guide to add any sort of metaboxes you need.
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Portfolio Press
PostedPortfolio Press is a responsive WordPress theme for showcasing your photography, art, web sites, or other projects. It also works nicely as a regular blog site. An options panel is available for uploading logos and changing the layout. There’s also support for various post formats and menus.
Here’s a video screencast of how it works:
The theme is in the WordPress Themes Directory. You can demo it here. Or download a copy and try it out.
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Custom Post Type Resources
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The ability to create custom post types was a great feature added in WordPress 2.9 and then expanded in 3.0. It allows us to create completely different types of content than the standard “Pages” and “Posts” we’re all used to.
To get started with custom post types, here’s my recommended list of links and resources: Read more
How to Refresh Your Browser
PostedWhen you view a website, your browser will usually save a copy of all the files onto your hard drive. This is called a browser cache. It does this so the page loads quicker the next time you view it and everything doesn’t need to be downloaded again.
Browsers will generally be able to detect if the website has been updated and get a copy of the new files, but sometimes it fails. This is especially true if your web designer has been changing background images or xml files. To see those changes, you will need to refresh your browser.
Here’s a short video screencast explaining how to refresh the browser in Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer 6.
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Curvy Corners
PostedI prefer using CSS3 properties whenever possible to make rounded corners on a website. But if it’s absolutely necessary to have rounded corners with Internet Explorer, I sometimes use the Curvy Corners javascript. You can download the script from the www.curvycorners.net website. If the CSS3 properties are defined for rounded corners with Firefox and Safari, this script will automatically apply them to IE browsers.
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Texture Pattern
PostedThis repeatable background texture was built off a photo I took in Antigua, Guatemala. You can use any of the tiled images below, or download the .psd and make your own colors. No attribution needed. Enjoy. (The white texture is being used as the background on this post.)
I am the original photos into a set on Flickr (creative commons).
How to Make a Child Theme for Canvas
PostedI’ve been working a lot with Canvas, a new framework by Woo Themes that gives users a plethora of design options. This video by Magnus shows a little how it works.
When setting up a new site with Canvas, I’ll make new default style settings using a child theme. This is the safe way to set up the theme, because if the design is done purely through the admin panel there’s the chance we’ll lose it if it’s ever reset. It also gives us the full css toolkit rather than just the options that Woo has provided.
Additionally, by using a child theme, we can make changes to the markup (adding extra divs or wrapper for styling)- and not be worried about losing those customizations when a new updates of Canvas roll out.
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Custom Page Templates with Thematic
PostedSometimes you need to display a certain post or page of your Thematic child theme differently than the standard template. If it is simply style changes, the best way to do this is generally with the dynamic body classes and targeted css. But if you need to alter the the html code or add extra markup, you would likely use a combination of body classes and a custom page template.
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