With the StudioPress WordPress themes you can really take your blog to a higher level!

The latest major release of our favorite blogging platform – WordPress 3.0 – has brought quite a few new features to the table. Among them, the custom navigation menus and the post thumbnails (featured image), the latter being available since version 2.9 came out. This started a whole new trend between theme developers, most of them rushing to announce WordPress 3.0 ready themes.

In all this rush, some of the themes released suffered from one big problem: backward compatibility. Why is that important and how can we give some backward compatibility to our WordPress 3.0 ready themes?

Importance of backward compatibility

While I feel that generally offering some sort of backward compatibility is just a common sense policy, in this case it’s more than that. Let me explain why.

Not everyone uses the latest WordPress release, and that is for various reasons:

• Failed to update, or waiting to make sure it’s “stable”;
• Doesn’t really get the importance of an up to date software;
• Certain plugins they use are not yet 3.0/3.0.1 compatible.

This doesn’t mean they don’t want to try and use your beautiful 3.0 ready WordPress theme, or that they shouldn’t. But you see, the biggest trick resides right here, in this terminology: “3.0 ready”. The actual meaning of this is that the theme is compatible with the 3.0 version, not that it requires 3.0 or higher to function properly, and this leads a lot of people into a trap that will cause their blogs and websites to break.

So, the common sense thing to do would be to take the time and apply certain checks and fallback solutions to our themes. Lets see how we can do that.

Adding WordPress 3.0 features with fallback support

Both of the above mentioned features – custom menus and post thumbnails – are based on a WordPress function added once 2.9 was released: add theme support();

Adding post thumbnails support

In order to add post thumbnail support to your theme, you’d write this in your functions.php file:

// Adds support for post thumbnails
add_theme_support('post-thumbnails');

Simple adding this will cause any WordPress installation prior to 2.9 to break, as the add_theme_support() function was not part of the WordPress core back then. The fix? As easy as this:

/* Checks if the installation has the function defined.
If true, continues to add the support for post thumbnails. */
if(function_exists(add_theme_support)) :
	add_theme_support('post-thumbnails');
endif;

Adding custom menus support

In order to also add support for the custom menus feature, you’d normally write this:

// Add theme support for custom menus
add_theme_support( 'menus' );

// Register a custom menu name/location
register_nav_menus(array(
	'custom-menu' => __( 'My Custom Menu' ),
));

In this case, we obviously need to check for core support of both functions: add_theme_support() and register_nav_menus(). Let see how we can do that, also including in this check the post thumbnails:

if(function_exists(add_theme_support)) {
	add_theme_support('post-thumbnails'); // Support for post thumbnails

	if(function_exists(add_theme_support)) {
		add_theme_support( 'menus' ); // Support for custom menus
		register_nav_menus(array(
			'custom-menu' => __( 'My Custom Menu' ),
		));
	}
}

In case you wonder why I chose to add support for menus only after checking if register_nav_menus() is defined, it’s simply because there’s no point in adding support for a feature that you won’t be able to use. Remember, add_theme_support() was added in 2.9, while register_nav_menus() became available only in 3.0.

But how about adding compatibility in the front-end of your theme?

When using post thumbnails, never call them without checking if the function exists first:

// Performs a check to see if the function is available and there's also a thumbnail attached
if (function_exists(the_post_thumbnail) AND has_post_thumbnail()) {
	the_post_thumbnail();
}

For the custom menus, the thing is just a tad trickier, but simple as well. I’m usually using a function that I wrote to specifically check for custom menus support, and even though the wp_nav_menu() function provides a fallback solution, defaulted to wp_page_menu(), this fallback will only activate for 3.0 installations without any menus created and allocated to the reserved space. The fallback won’t set off if you’re using a version prior to 3.0.

Due to my preference of wp_list_pages() over wp_page_menu() – for more customization options – the following function will apply a compatibility fallback to wp_list_pages:

function my_nav_menu() {
	// Check if installation has wp_nav_menu() defined.
	// If true, generate the menu, but don't print it yet;
	if(function_exists(wp_nav_menu)) {
		$my_nav_menu = wp_nav_menu(array('menu' => 'Top Menu', 'container' => '', 'fallback_cb' => 'wp_list_pages', 'depth' => 2, 'echo' => false));
	}
	// If false, generate the menu using wp_list_pages, but don't print it yet;
	else {
		$my_nav_menu = '<ul class="menu">'.wp_list_pages('sort_column=menu_order&title_li=&echo=0&depth=2').'</ul>';
	}
	// Prints out the menu;
	echo $my_nav_menu;
}

Now, in the front end. instead of calling your menu with wp_nav_menu() you’ll now use my_nav_menu() to display a backward compatible version.

Conclusions

Caught in the rush of doing something nice and new, like a child discovering a shiny new toy, we can miss out some of the most basic problems. Most of them are really easy to solve, like the above mentioned and it would be common sense to make use of them.

And remember: if ( function_exists(function_name) ) is your geeky B.F.F.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Have you read "How To Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer" yet?

Loving WordPress is SO easy! You got thousands of great looking blogs, custom themes, free themes, premium themes and designers go beyond that by using WordPress as CMS for their non-blog projects. A while back I showed you 10 non-blog websites powered by WordPress, and now it’s time to take a look at 10 more!

If you have any additions to the list and wish to suggest a website for a future post, do so by adding a comment.

1. ProBar

Visit ProBar

2. Krispy Krush

Visit Krispy Krush

3. The Salon

Visit The Salon

4. Imaginaria Creative

Visit Imaginaria Creative

5. Lyndsey Hamilton Events

Visit Lyndsey Hamilton Events

6. IOKON Media

Visit IOKON Media

7. Loja Birds

Visit Loja Birds

8. Bug Interactive

Visit Bug Interactive

9. Ville de Falaise

Visit Ville de Falaise

10. Cow Says Moo

Visit Cow Says Moo

Yes! WordPress is fun. And easy!

If you’re looking to have a site built on WordPress, I can help you through my WordPress focused design studio.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Have you read "How To Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer" yet?

For a long while the option panels where something that people could only find in premium (commercial) themes, and for a good reason. The pricing of their licenses allowed the premium theme developers to invest more time in giving theme users the ways to do through these panels what they could not do through coding.

With the buzz created around these themes, regular users became aware of what could really be achieved, and thus, those that could not afford the license of a premium theme, became more selective with the free ones. A good-looking theme was not enough anymore, and WordPress developers realized it.

A good premium theme would bring its developer not only a good amount of money, but also recognition in the community, and this is where the free theme developers scored their biggest points. Now that their “turf” was endangered they had to react, and they did. For premium themes like Thesis or WP Unlimited, users have now alternatives like Thematic, Hybrid, Carrington, WP Framework or my own (even if not a framework) Simple Balance.

Why should free theme developers consider adding an options page?

Because being “cool” is just not enough anymore. Theme developers need to learn how to be useful. Free stuff can be either useless and ignored or useful and praised. I’m yet to see the developer offering a free theme without gaining something from it, be it awareness, expertise, backlinks, donation money, you name it! But none of these are achieved through an uncompetitive – even if free – product.

5 Most looked for options in a WordPress theme

“Stand out from the crowd!” If I had a penny for every time I read this I’d laugh at Shoemoney’s AdSense check image sipping a chilled cocktail somewhere on a tropical island, but you know what? This saying is so true that it cannot be repeated enough, and users KNOW IT! Theme users want to be able to have their own identity online. They need to be able to customize their themes and make them express who they are and what they believe in. And this is where options pages come into play. What are the most looked for options? Let’s see…

1. Logo and / or header image update / replacement

It doesn’t matter if it’s a professionally designed logo or a simple Windows Paint play. If it gives the blogger satisfaction and he wants to display it, let him do so. Add either a file upload box or an input box where the user could enter the full URL to the logo image to use. Same goes for the header images.

2. Layout structure

If you’re developing a 2 column theme, give the user the option to choose to display the sidebar either on the left, or on the right. With 3 column themes, you can give them even more options, like having the content centered, between the sidebars, or having both sidebars on the same side (right or left) of the content. If only takes a couple of PHP conditions and some “visionary” CSS coding.

3. Custom navigation menus

Don’t expect users to want every page that they publish to show up in their blog’s main navigation area. Give them the option to select which pages should show up there, and why not, add their own links, even if external.

4. Custom RSS URLs and email subscription forms

Implementing a FeedBurner email subscription form is fairly easy for any developer, and I’m pretty sure that any dveloper knows how to customize such a script. The fact that it functions mostly based on a simple user ID should make the customization even easier through a theme options page.

5. Advertising management

Not everyone uses services like BuySellAds, or is affiliated with an advertising network. Some users actually prefer to take care of the advertising themselves. So, why not give them the possibility to do so by adding a few more field to the options page. Let them select the number of banners they need displayed, do-follow option, position of banners and so on. It takes a bit to develop, but the user response to it is amazing.

Additional options you could consider implementing

While the 5 options above are the most looked for, some users might also find the following options useful:

• Overall switch between serif and sans-serif typography;
• Theme color adjustments. Here are a couple of web-based color picker scripts you could use: one, two, three and four;
• Alternatively, you can offer a built in color schemes system;
• Custom “featured” areas;
• Additional, customizable widget areas;
• Twitter updates area;
• And the list could go on and on…

The limits are set by your knowledge and enthusiasm

While the enthusiasm is not something you train, but rather have it or not, knowledge can be trained. Remember that the WordPress Codex is your best friend, and the support forums can be of tremendous help. Additionally, Stefan Vervoort of DivitoDesign and WPToy has put together a very useful PDF called the “WordPress Theme Development Checklist“. Do take a look (and use it!).

So, the next time you think of releasing a free theme, ask yourself this: Is you theme competitive enough? If it’s not, it will not stand a chance when the alternatives are so smart!

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Looking for really affordable premium WordPress themes?

The time when WordPress was used strictly as a blog platform is long gone. WordPress has evolved into a mature CMS that gives designers and developers the right tools to create amazing non-blog websites for their clients. As proof for that stand these 10 beautiful websites powered by WordPress.

FernWoodCoffee.com

Visit website

Herout-Caves.com

Visit website

SearchInsideVideo.com

Visit website

Discounted.ro

Visit website

Healogix.com

Visit website

Emploi-Manche.fr

Visit website

HotelParadiso.it

Visit website

Typechart.com

Visit website

P41Studios.com

Visit website

EnrouteFilm.com

Visit website

Do you know more?

If you have more samples of beautiful non-blog WordPress websites, feel free to leave a comment linking to them, and I’ll create a follow-up to this post to include them.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

With the StudioPress WordPress themes you can really take your blog to a higher level!

By now, you should know that I’m a WordPress fan. While most people regard it as a simple blogging platform, some see beyond that and realize that WordPress is a very capable CMS.

While working with it as a website CMS will not allow too many customizations for entry-level developers or users, in the hands of a pro WordPress is ready to perform miracles.

The advantages of WordPress powered websites

There are quite a bunch of advantages when developing websites using WordPress as CMS, but the most important are:

• Productivity – A lot less time spent on development, which guarantees a lower cost and still high quality;
• Ease of use – Both client-side and developer-side. The amount of tutorials, plugins and support groups available out there is a divine gift;
• Updates – The WordPress community is very involved in keeping the project up to date and bug free and the updates are so easy to apply.

It’s enough to run a search on Google and you’ll see how many people praise the power of WordPress but instead of using words, this time I’ll use results.

The real deal

If in the past weeks you’ve seen less activity on Blogsessive is mostly because my design studio, QBKL Media has been working on delivering top notch quality for one of its clients that chose WordPress as the platform for their website redesign.

The client is one of Romania’s oldest post-revolutionary hotel – Caro Hotel – and today we’re pleased to announce the official launch of their website.

So, instead of going on and on about the power of WordPress, I invite you to see for yourself what can be achieved. And believe me that this is only a small part of the real deal!

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Blogsessive recommends WP WebHost for quality WordPress blog hosting!

Today I’ve received an email that made me think about this subject. Somebody asked me to confirm that a design agency that I’ve never heard of before, has done the design you see on Blogsessive. Obviously, I replied and told him that Blogsessive is a custom design done by yours truly, and any agency (with one exception) that would proud themselves with Blogsessive’s theme would be a fraud.

After hearing the price for which that agency was going to create something similar, the following thoughts started taking shape:

• Why would you proud yourself with the work of someone else?
• Why think these things would not surface?
• Why roll out a low-ball quote for something that’s worth much more, or that you cannot deliver, but still state you can.

Before getting a custom design for you blog, here are some things you should consider.

Do you really need it?

You know my view on this one. I personally like having a unique looking blog, but than again, I’m a happy case. I can do my own designs.

Those who cannot have to relay on the skills of people like me and many others. In this case, there are some things you should base your decision on:

1. Can your budget afford a custom design?
2. Will this design generate profit? (Profit can be either traffic, awareness, money…)

If your answer is ‘yes’ to both questions, than you should go ahead with the design. If you answer with ‘yes’ to the first question only, then it’s only a matter of personal choice and willingness to invest in a hobby. The choice is obviously yours.

Looking for quotes

If you’ve decided to go ahead with the design, make sure you write down all the things you need. Otherwise, the quotes you’ll receive won’t reflect the reality.

Ask around for quotes on site like Elance, Get a Freelancer or Rent a Coder or simply contact the owners of the blog’s that you like and ask them to recommend you their designer.

Choosing the designer/agency

You’ll probably receive quite a bunch of quotes. Some will be very low, some will be too high. The ones that are too high will be pretty easy to identify, but the lower ones can be pretty attractive, considering the restrictive budgets these days.

The best advice I can give you is: Don’t be fooled!

From my whole experience I can guarantee you that there’s no such thing as a bargain when it comes to a job well done.

We all know that – for example – Darren Rowse’s blog, Problogger.net is an excellent design incorporating so many custom areas, like the Job Board, custom archives, best of zone and so on.

If Darren’s blog is such a hit, then you’d probably want something similar in terms of structure and accessibility (bare in mind the design is not everything and Darren is a great blogger, theme aside). Would you expect to get such a well done job for $300, or $400, or $500? Ask a real pro and the answer will be ‘no’. But then again, there are those people quoting these amounts, claiming they can get the job done.

The good: It fits your current budget.
The bad: Lack of professionalism in communication. Delays in delivery. Lack of attention to details. Bugs, and the list can go on and on.

Some of you would probably say I’m wrong, but consider this. A really well done premium theme sells for $49 to $99. Multiply this with the total sales and see the real price of that really well done design.

Fitting the project into your budget

Forget the bargain, start the negotiation. At this point you probably don’t even need all the features that Darren (Problogger.net), or Brian (Copyblogger.com), or I have on our blogs.

Does your traffic and exposure justify a job board? Do you really need so many custom page templates?

Instead of trying to fit everything into a tight budget and probably getting low-quality works, why not fit the custom concept along with the most important features into it. Negotiate.

Let’s say your budget is indeed $500, but a good agency will ask you for $800. Instead of picking the lowest quote, rather extend the deadline. Taking pressure off the agency could result in a lower quote.
Cut down on the features. Will also reduce costs.

I assure you that you blog will grow naturally even without that job board, and when the time is right and the blogging income will allow it, add that too. Take it step by step and don’t cut on the overall quality.

Rather put a smaller budget at work to get real results and build on that, than throwing your money out the window on something that will require constant fixing and attention and in the end, a whole lot of extra money to get done.

This is not the view of a designer. This is what I’ve concluded based on previous experiences, folks coming to me to fix work they previously had done as bargains. It’s not worth it.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Looking for really affordable premium WordPress themes?

One technique that is most common with WordPress magazine or news style themes is the display of an archive of the latest posts by category, as simple titles or with post excerpts. This is useful for the previously mentioned theme styles, but not only. It can be used to set up custom blog homepages, 404 pages, landing pages or even a special archive page.

This tutorial will help you build a ‘Latest Posts by Category Archive‘ in a very easy way. The widths in the CSS styling presented below have been calculated based on the default WordPress theme, assuming that is the most common theme available to anyone.

If you are looking for a plugin to generate such an archive, please check out: WP Plugin: Latest Posts by Category Archive.

Setting up the page template

Open up you favorite code editor and create a blank document. Save the document as ‘category-archive.php’ (or any other name you’d prefer) in the default WordPress theme directory (wp-content/themes/default).

The first step is to asign our new template a name and a page-like structure, so based on the default theme’s page template, the code you should paste in your new document is:

<?php
/*
Template Name: Category Archive
*/
?>

<?php get_header(); ?>

<div id="content" class="narrowcolumn">

	<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
	<div class="post" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
	<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
		<div class="entry">
			<?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this page &raquo;</p>'); ?>

			<?php wp_link_pages(array('before' => '<p><strong>Pages:</strong> ', 'after' => '</p>', 'next_or_number' => 'number')); ?>

		</div>
	</div>
	<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

	<!-- Category Archive Start -->
	<!-- Category Archive End -->

</div>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

The template above will make sure to display the page name you set up, and also, any additional content you might want to add before the archive, from you WordPress page editor. We will be adding our ‘latest posts by category’ code between the ‘Category Archive Start’ and ‘Category Archive End’ comments.

Adding the archive’s PHP code

Simply put, the code below will cycle through the first-level categories of your blog (parent categories), check for the ones that are not empty and if this condition is met, return an unordered list of the latest 5 post from each category. Empty categories will not be displayed.

<?php
/*
Template Name: Category Archive
*/
?>

<?php get_header(); ?>

<div id="content" class="narrowcolumn">

	<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
	<div class="post" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
	<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
		<div class="entry">
			<?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this page &raquo;</p>'); ?>

			<?php wp_link_pages(array('before' => '<p><strong>Pages:</strong> ', 'after' => '</p>', 'next_or_number' => 'number')); ?>

		</div>
	</div>
	<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

	<!-- Category Archive Start -->
	<ul class="catArchive">
	<?php
	$catQuery = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->terms AS wterms INNER JOIN $wpdb->term_taxonomy AS wtaxonomy ON ( wterms.term_id = wtaxonomy.term_id ) WHERE wtaxonomy.taxonomy = 'category' AND wtaxonomy.parent = 0 AND wtaxonomy.count > 0");

	$catCounter = 0;

	foreach ($catQuery as $category) {

		$catCounter++;

		$catStyle = '';
		if (is_int($catCounter / 2)) $catStyle = ' class="catAlt"';

		$catLink = get_category_link($category->term_id);

		echo '<li'.$catStyle.'><h3><a href="'.$catLink.'" title="'.$category->name.'">'.$category->name.'</a></h3>';
			echo '<ul>';

			query_posts('cat='.$category->term_id.'&showposts=5');?>

			<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
				<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
			<?php endwhile; ?>

				<li><a href="<?php echo $catLink; ?>" title="<?php echo $category->name; ?>">More <strong><?php echo $category->name; ?></strong></a></li>
			</ul>
		</li>
		<?php }	?>
	</ul>
	<!-- Category Archive End -->

</div>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

You should now save your file, because we’re done editing it. As you can see, the archive code has been added between the ‘Start’ and ‘End’ comments. Now let’s go through the code and dissect it.

The PHP code explained

The first thing we do is to set up a database query to cycle through the non-empty parent categories:

$catQuery = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->terms AS wterms INNER JOIN $wpdb->term_taxonomy AS wtaxonomy ON ( wterms.term_id = wtaxonomy.term_id ) WHERE wtaxonomy.taxonomy = 'category' AND wtaxonomy.parent = 0 AND wtaxonomy.count > 0");

You can further tweak this query to exclude categories or specify categories to be listed based on their ID, with the use of the MySQL comparison functions NOT IN or IN.

Let’s say that you’d like the archive to exclude the categories with IDs 2, 5 and 6. Your query would become:

$catQuery = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->terms AS wterms INNER JOIN $wpdb->term_taxonomy AS wtaxonomy ON ( wterms.term_id = wtaxonomy.term_id ) WHERE wtaxonomy.taxonomy = 'category' AND wtaxonomy.parent = 0 AND wtaxonomy.count > 0 AND wterms.term_id NOT IN (2,5,6)");

Similarly, if you want to display only the categories with IDs 2,5 and 6, you’d have:

$catQuery = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->terms AS wterms INNER JOIN $wpdb->term_taxonomy AS wtaxonomy ON ( wterms.term_id = wtaxonomy.term_id ) WHERE wtaxonomy.taxonomy = 'category' AND wtaxonomy.parent = 0 AND wtaxonomy.count > 0 AND wterms.term_id IN (2,5,6)");

For further help with comparison operators and functions, you can check out the MySQL manual.

Next, we set up a category counter which will be incremented each time a category will be displayed. Based on this counter, the code adds a ‘catAlt‘ class that you can use to style differently consecutive categories. In our case, we’ll use it to shift the categories into two columns. This is were the alternate classes are assigned:

$catCounter++;

$catStyle = '';
if (is_int($catCounter / 2)) $catStyle = ' class="catAlt"';

The category list is built by the use of foreach and it helps retrieve vital information about the categories, such as name and permalink:

foreach ($catQuery as $category) {
	/* Code used to retrieve and display the latest posts */
}

After we display the category title and link through this line of code

echo '<li'.$catStyle.'><h3><a href="'.get_category_link($category->term_id).'" title="'.$category->name.'">'.$category->name.'</a></h3>';

we continue by using a custom query to retrieve the latest 5 posts from the current category in the cycle, followed by a link to the complete category archive:

query_posts('cat='.$category->term_id.'&showposts=5');?>

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
	<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endwhile; ?>
	<li><a href="<?php echo $catLink; ?>" title="<?php echo $category->name; ?>">More <strong><?php echo $category->name; ?></strong></a></li>

And that’s about everything in terms of coding! Now, onto the CSS styling.

Styling the archive

Find the style.css file in your default theme’s directory, open it and scroll down to the end of the file. Now copy the code below and paste it in your file.

/* Latest posts by category styles */

.catArchive {
	width: 450px;
	overflow: hidden;
	margin: 20px 0 0 0;
	padding: 0;
	list-style-type: none;
}

.catArchive h3 {
	font: normal bold 18px sans-serif;
	border-bottom: 1px solid #666;
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0 0 3px 0;
	display: block;
}

.catArchive li {
	display: block;
	float: left;
	width: 210px;
	margin: 0 30px 30px 0;
}

.catArchive ul {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
}

.catArchive li li {
	border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd;
	margin: 0;
	padding: 4px 0;
}

.catAlt {
	margin-right: 0 !important;
}

Now, save the file. We’re done!

Note: Keep in mind that column sizes have been calculated based on the available space (450 pixels) in the default theme’s content area. So, our columns should each be 210 pixels wide, with a 30 pixels spacing between them.

Since the column shifting is done with the help of float, I’ve set the overflow to hidden to stretch the list full height. This can only work with a fixed given container width, which in our case is 450px set on .catArchive.

If your new to “floating”, Sarah has posted a fairly easy to understand article about the float property on BloggingTips.com.

You can download an archive containing both source files: Download.

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With the StudioPress WordPress themes you can really take your blog to a higher level!

As some of you might already know, back on January 17th, the folks at Automattic have launched WordPress.TV, a website they plan on turning into “Your Visual Resource for All Things WordPress”.

This is a definitely a great project that will undoubtedly become a WordPress resource hot spot. On what do I base my belief? On the amazing community of people around this extraordinary blogging (and not only) platform that is WordPress.

It’s enough to check out their support forums and see the kind of involvement that people show, how willing they are to help, solve problems and answer questions. So yes, I think that the WordPress TV will be a success.

The reasons behind this launch are simple. The WordPress community needs a place where video information (news, tutorials and so on) finds its way to people, after passing through a certain quality filter, where it will be kept up to date with ad/spam free.

By the looks of it, after only one week of existence, the community response is amazing.

So, in case you’ve missed the launch (but not only for this reason), in this post I’m going to guide you to 10 must-see videos on WordPress.TV. Since the website is fairly new, most of these videos are addressed to WordPress.com users, or users that are new to WordPress in general. So, as a heads-up, those of you with a fair level of knowledge might not find these vids to be very educational or spectacular.

But before we get to those 10 videos, let’s start with a small WordPress.TV introductory video.

Welcome to WordPress.TV Video

1. The WordPress.com Dashboard

New to WordPress and its amazing dashboard? At a first glance, the dashboard might seem like a lot information to digest, but with the new administrative options, the dashboard turn into one of the most important and accessible tools on your blog. (Video source)

2. How to get a post out quickly with QuickPress

This video walks you through the functions and capabilities of “QuickPress”, a section on the dashboard of your self-installed or WordPress.com blog. The purpose of this section is to fasten the publishing of those posts you really need to get out quick, without wasting time with every possible setting available. (Video source)

3. Moderating recent comments from the dashboard

Moderating recent comments has just become a whole lot easier with WordPress 2.7′s new dashboard and this video guides you through the steps you need to take. (Video source)

4. Adjusting the discussion settings

This video explains the setting of how will your readers interact with you and your blog through comments. (Video source)

5. How to rearrange the post editor to suit your own style

With WordPress 2.7 it has become a lot easier to configure the Post/Edit screen to suit your own style or writing. You can choose which sections you need displayed and which you don’t, and even the order they appear in the management area. (Video source)

6. How to create a static frontpage for your blog

Sometimes, a recent blog posts archive is not enough to display on your blog’s homepage. Sometimes, people need to turn their blog homepages in actual landing pages with additional information. Setting up a static page for your blog is a fairly easy task and this video teaches you just how to do it. (Video source)

7. Using the WordPress.com Video Player – A DemoGirl Tour

Molly McDonald, also known as DemoGirl, does an amazing job at teaching you all you need to know about WordPress.com’s video player. Quality user videos like this one reinforce my belief in WordPress TV’s bright future. (Video source / Author website)

8. How to change the reading settings

In this video, you will learn how to adjust the settings of your blog in terms of reading, and thus adjusting the way readers experience your content, whether when reading on-site or in their feed reader. (Video source)

9. Integrating a bbPress Forum with your self-installed WordPress

This video by bbPress developer Sam Bauers guides you through the process of integrating a bbPress forum on your self-installed WordPress blog. Also, this video stands as proof that WordPress developers have now a place to better interact with their community of users through video tutorials. (Video source / Author website )

10. CSS-Tricks: Designing for WordPress

Finally, this 3 part video tutorial by Chris Coyier of CSS-Tricks.com takes you through the steps of designing a WordPress from scratch. Since this video is also presented on its author website, I encourage you to view it there, where you also have access to all links and files used.

Here are the links to all three parts of the tutorial:

• Part one: On CSS-Tricks.com / On WordPress.TV
• Part two: On CSS-Tricks.com / On WordPress.TV
• Part three: On CSS-Tricks.com / On WordPress.TV

Next, on WordPress.TV…

Most probably a lot of great, interesting content. Make sure you bookmark the WordPress.TV website, I’m sure it will be worthwhile.

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With the StudioPress WordPress themes you can really take your blog to a higher level!

By popular demand, I decided to publish a short tutorial on how to add your own logo to the Simple Balance WordPress theme.

So, in order to achieve this we’ll walk through the following steps:

1. The logo image guidelines and instructions;
2. Files to update;
3. Code explanation.

The logo requirements

In order to achieve the best implementation quality of your logo, you should consider saving you logo with a transparent background. A .gif file will work well, and if you’re using a software like Adobe Photoshop to edit your images, when saving the image (File > Save for Web & Devices…), setting the Matte to white would be good. This will ensure that the margins of your transparent background logo will look good on Simple Balance’s light background color.

As you can see on the live demo, I’ve used a .gif image for logo, and basically, this is what you are about to achieve with your own blog too.

Once you’ve saved your image, upload it to the “img” folder inside the Simple Balance theme folder (wp-content/themes/simplebalance/img). From here, we’ll link to it later.

Quick tips

1. Save your logo with transparent background;
2. Save it with a white matte;
3. Keep the width below 200 pixels, as that’s the maximum space reserved for the logo;
4. Write down the size of the image (width and height), as we’ll use them later.

Adding the logo in your CSS stylesheet

Now that you have uploaded the logo on your FTP, it’s time to add it to the design. There’s only one file you’ll need to update, and that is style.css, which is located in the root folder of the theme.

Open the file with a text editor (a basic Notepad should suffice) and look for this lines of code:

.topLogo h1 a, .topLogo h2 a {
	text-decoration: none;
	color: #d90202;
}

Select the whole block and replace it with the following code:

.topLogo h1 a, .topLogo h2 a {
	text-decoration: none;
	color: #d90202;
	display: block;
	width: 156px;
	height: 42px;
	background: url(img/name-of-your-logo-file.gif) no-repeat;
	text-indent: -9999px;
}

Be careful

… and don’t forget to replace the values in this new block of code with the real values of your image, as follows:

width: 156px;

The ’156′ value should be the actual width of your image. ’156′ is only a width I used as an example. Do not delete the ‘px’ text as it defines our measuring unit.

height: 42px;

The ’42′ value should be the actual height of your image. ’42′ is only a width I used as an example. Again, be careful with the ‘px’.

background: url(img/name-of-your-logo-file.gif) no-repeat;

Replace ‘name-of-your-logo-file.gif’ with the actual name of your logo file.

The ‘display’ and ‘text-indent’ properties are meant to ensure the correct display of your logo, so you should not worry about those, but keep them. They are important.

Once you finish the editing, save the file and reupload it to your server. Et voila, the logo should be there the next time you check you blog.

A good idea…

…would be to go to the Simple Balance Control Panel (WP administration > Design > Simple Balance 2.1/2.0 CP) and uncheck the box that displays the blog description. Of course, only if you think it affect the design, or the new logo in a bad way.

If you have any questions, i’ll be happy to answer in the comments section of this post.

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It’s time for a new freebie release! Here is Feedsessive, a free, simple and elegant RSS icon pack for you to use however you wish, in either personal or professional projects, with no restriction.

These days I’ve been working on a new project and I needed an RSS icon that is simple and elegant, and after designing one to use in my project, I decided to create a few variations and release them as a pack for those who might need it.

Feedsessive features 50 free RSS icons, split into 2 two design styles (basic and outlined), each with 25 color variation.

All the RSS icons are available in 3 formats:

• EPS (vector) format
• PDF format
• Transparent PNG format at 300dpi

* Packed size: 2.22 Mb

Here’s a preview of all the icons in the set:

* Packed size: 2.22 Mb

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It’s a proven fact that a blog post’s footer is a “pause zone”. That’s why, people encourage you to place ads there, because you have more chances of catching the eye of your readers.

But, if it is a good place to place ads, why not take it one step further. Sure, some bloggers placed links to social media websites or to related blog posts in that are, but not giving it its deserved design attention minimizes its impact on readers.

Why not treat that area as a separate element of your blog’s structure? Why not take advantage of any of its effects:

• Encourage further reading;
• Promote featured content;
• Traffic growth;
• Bounce rate reduction;
• Social media exposure;
• Encourage subscription and many more.

As a reader of Blogsessive you must have noticed each post’s footer, and from my experience as Blogsessive’s webmaster, I can confirm that the results are amazing.

After tweaking the design and encouraging users to subscribe, my subscribers’ count almost doubled in a matter of weeks.

It’s a shame that mostly design blogs have adopted this technique, while other bloggers think that a “ShareThis” widget and a “Related posts” plugin does the job. It does part of the job, when you could get more!

They did, and now pride themselves with a big readership and followship:

GoMediaZine.com

Devlounge.net

Tutorial9.net

NetTuts.net

The next time you reconsider your blog’s design, keep an eye on this area too. Make sure you use its full power.

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Do you need quality design resources? Graphic River has them. Tons! And cheap...

It’s a fact. Readers want RSS updates. They are easier to manage, to search and follow. And when readers wanted them, bloggers provide.

Have you ever wanted to subscribe to a blog’s feed, but no matter how much you searched, you could not find the link? It’s frustrating!

The RSS subscription box is one of the most important elements of your blog’s design. It offers a good deal of branding solutions and it can turn out to be decisive in your readers’ choice of following (or not) your updates.

Let’s observe together these 10 RSS subscription box designs and draw conclusions at the end upon the DO’s and DON’T's.

FlashDen Blog

David Torondel

Lutův Blog

Loodo

We Are Not Freelancers

Adi Pintilie

BrumBrum – Chris Brummel

Whitley Journalism

Ciclismo Urbano

BienBienBien

RSS Subscription Design Tips

Nice designs right? So, based on them, what conclusions can be drawn?

RSS placement

• The link must be visible;
• Best choices are the top banner (header) and top of sidebar (s).

RSS link size

• Definitely not huge;
• Medium works best;
• Good placement can compensate for a smaller size.

RSS design

• Casual users are used to the RSS logo;
• Integrate the design with the overall blog layout;
• Play with the icon, but keep some elements of the original design.

Extra options

• Add a message, encourage visitors to subscribe;
• Add an email delivery option.

I’m sure that if you follow these (not so many) rules, your RSS subscription box will definitely boost your subscriber count, not to mention the good effects on your blog’s design.

Note: This post marked the launch of a new post category on Blogsessive – Blog Design – covering design tips and inspiration.

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