Archive for tag 'wordpress'

Apr 18 2012

Theme test site upgraded to WordPress 3.4 (beta 2)

The theme demo site where you can preview the WordPress themes from this site, has been upgraded to the new beta version of the upcoming WordPress 3.4. I’ll be reviewing all themes and make sure that they are fully functional with WordPress 3.4 once it is released, but I would still like to ask for your help. If you spot any bug or error when you browse the demo site, or if you download one of my themes and use it with the 3.4 beta and run into problems, please let me know about it.

Screenshot of the new theme customization feature in WordPress 3.4 (beta 2)

WordPress 3.4 will introduce some new features which I will look closer at soon, including a new theme customizer which seems both interesting and useful. With version 3.4, it will also become possible to install child themes hosted at the official WordPress theme directory, from inside the administration area of your site. Both those features are highly relevant for me to support, so I will write more about these features once I have experimented with including support for them in the themes.

By Andreas • General • 1 Tags: ,

Apr 10 2012

Enhance your WordPress theme with code snippets

As much as I love building themes for WordPress, I am much more of a CSS designer than a coder. In order to make theme development easier, I started to build a library of useful code snippets that I could re-use in future projects. Seeing how useful it was, I started looking around for sites with more snippets that I could use. Today, WordPress Tavern published a post with a link that is well worth passing on to anyone who could find short code snippets for WP-theme development useful…

WPfunction.me contains a collection of snippets which you can copy and paste into the functions.php file of your theme to add new features to it. Using a simple interface, you can sort snippets by category and then select the features you want to add. After selecting, you click a “Get my code” button to get all the code you need. Paste the code into your functions.php file, and you are all ready to go.

It is not the largest collection of WordPress-related code snippets I have seen, but the way that features are selected and the code is customized according to the selections that are made, is simply beautiful. Check it out, and if you want more code examples to choose from, move on to the excellent list of code snippets compiled by CatsWhoCode.

By Andreas • General • 1 Tags: ,

Mar 17 2012

Coming up: Drupal and WordPress theme versions of the Inland CSS template

Drupal theme designer Nick Young, who have made the Drupal themes linked from this site, is reporting on Twitter that a Drupal theme version of the Inland CSS template is in progress and that it will be released soon. I can also reveal that I am working on a WordPress theme version, as well as on expanding the CSS template with a layout for mobile devices. Exciting news coming up soon, in other words. Stay tuned for updates!

By Andreas • General • 1 Tags: , , , ,

Jan 30 2012

Update about the Arctica theme for WordPress

After being in the review queue for the official WordPress theme directory for more than three months, the Arctica theme was finally reviewed a day ago. Since it was based on the same code base as my two latest themes, Asokay and Lagom (which are both approved and published on wordpress.org), I expected the review of Arctica to result in an approval as well.

I was wrong. Arctica was turned down, with the only argument being that it “appears to be a copy of Toolbox with only minor style changes”. With the approved Asokay and Lagom in mind, and knowing the amount of changes that I had to make to get those two approved, I disagree with that conclusion and have asked the reviewer to clarify why Arctica is treated differently than my previous two themes. Until I get a chance to understand the reason for the non-approval, Arctica will still be available from this site, just like before. It works well, but you will not get update notifications inside the WP-admin until the theme is approved and added to the wordpress.org theme directory.

By Andreas • General • 3 Tags: , ,

Jan 11 2012

How do WordPress plugins affect site performance?

One of the best things about building websites with WordPress is the flexibility you get from the wide range of WordPress plugins available. But every plugin that is added affects the performance of the website. If the number of installed plugins is high, the difference can be quite significant. Dev4Press has published a detailed test showing how 35 different plugins affect the performance of a WordPress website, and it is a really interesting post that provides a good point on optimization by simplification. In some cases, it may actually not be worth installing some plugins as the negative effect on performance is bigger tan te positive effect of the added feature. Check it out, and if you know about more tests similar to this, I’d be happy to know about them.

By Andreas • General • 3 Tags: , ,

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