Hack WordPress

Follow WordPress Hacks on Twitter!

Kyle Eslick — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:41:40 +0000

Based upon the emails we get each month from readers who are trying to find our Twitter feed, I feel this post is probably long overdue, but I wanted to point out to our readership that we do in fact have a Twitter page! If you’d like to follow WPHacks.com on Twitter, you can get our updates here (@HackWordPress).

Our Twitter feed includes notification each time we publish a post here on WPHacks.com, but as an added bonus, you will also get some retweets of our favorite WordPress-related content published by others.

Note: If you’d like to follow my personal tweets also, you can do so here. (@KyleEslick)

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The BuddyPress Revolution (coming soon…)

Alex Denning — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:33:13 +0000

By the time you’re reading this, it is quite possible that the BuddyPress revolution will have happened, but if you’re reading this soon after this was posted, I can safely say that the BuddyPress revolution hasn’t happened yet. It’s under way, but is hasn’t happened.

What on earth are you going on about?! I’ll go back a step. You’ve probably got some idea what BuddyPress is and will have heard about it, but chances are you don’t really know what it is exactly. Well, in a nutshell, BuddyPress turns your WPMU (the version of WordPress that allows you to have multiple blogs, i.e. the software WordPress.com uses) installation and turns it into a fully functional social network! In other words (from BuddyPress.org):

BuddyPress will add a social networking layer to a new or existing installation of WordPress MU. BuddyPress is a suite of WordPress plugins and themes, each adding a distinct new feature. BuddyPress contains all the features you’d expect from WordPress but aims to let members socially interact.

But WordPress MU isn’t as popular as WordPress.org… No. It’s not, which is probably one of the reasons that a version of BuddyPress for the standard install of WordPress is in the works. There’s no official release date yet, but word on the.. er… web. is that it’ll be available in a couple of months. Taking a step back here, how awesome would that be! For those of you who have multiple writers or even just readers signing up on your blog, you can now message them with exciting stuff happening on your site and all of the other exciting stuff that comes with BuddyPress (although features will probably differ slightly between WP and WPMU).

But I want to try it out now! You do?! That’s lucky, as I’ve just written a series of posts about BuddyPress on my blog, Nometech.com! The series, in three parts takes you through the installation of WordPress MU in part one, then the installation of BuddyPress in part two and finally customizing and ‘getting to grips’ with BuddyPress in part three.

I’ve got something to say about this. Leave a comment below then. And you heard it here first. The BuddyPress revolution is coming!

This post was submitted by Alex Denning, a Twitter fan and WordPress blogger on Nometech.com.

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How To: Find WordPress Freelance Work

Kyle Eslick — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:11:08 +0000

In his “State of the Word” addresses at recent WordCamps, it is my understanding that Matt Mullenweg (the co-founder of WordPress) has often made mention of the growth of WordPress and the growing number of professionals and businesses which are earning a full time income using WordPress. As someone who makes a majority of his income online, this is something that I’ve spent some time working towards as well.

I’m sure upon hearing about these numbers, many people’s initial reactions may be that Matt is referring to the many premium theme authors who earn their livings creating professional themes which are in turn sold to the WordPress community, but what people may not know is that there is also a huge market for WordPress freelance work that designers and developers are making a large income from. These freelance jobs can range from building a custom plugin for someone, custom coding work, or even completely custom theme designs!

I know we have a lot of readers who are very talented developers and designers. If you are looking for freelance work as a WordPress designer or developer, here are a couple of great places to find potential clients:

WordPress Jobs - This is the official job board and includes a feed so you can easily keep updated on what jobs are needed.
eLance - eLance is a website which is used by all types of freelance designers and coders, but includes a very busy WordPress section where people can post their needs and freelancers can bid on them. You can also review rankings, earnings, and other information about the freelancers.

These sites were designed specifically with the intention of helping freelancers find clients, and I’m sure there are many others available as well. To our readers that do commissioned freelance work professionally, what have you found are the best ways to find work?

Using WordPress Consultants - What You Need To Know!

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WordPress Now Launches with Fresh New Designs

Kyle Eslick — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:35:32 +0000

The premium Wordpress themes market has continued to grow and evolve over the past two years, so much so that we’ve started seeing a few complaints that all of the premium themes seem to generally look the same. It seems a few designers are setting the trends while the rest of the designers just follow and release similar themes, causing many of them to just look like variations of the others.

One of the theme designers that recently caught my eye is a team of WordPress theme developers who launched a new website called WordPress Now. Since the website has launched, they’ve already got three themes released, and the have two more which are in their final development stages.

Here are the three designs that WordPress Now currently has for sale:

Bloom Theme

Triumph Theme

Elements Theme

To see the true flexibility of these themes, you can view the live demos of each theme here.

As an added bonus, I spoke to the developers at WP Now and was able to land a couple sneak previews of upcoming premium themes that haven’t been released yet.

Vintmint Blog Theme (Not Yet Released)

Simplista Lifestream Theme (Not Yet Released)

So, what all is included with the purchase of a WordPress Now theme? Your purchase includes a number of features (features differ with each individual theme), a large FAQ for answering questions, tutorials for getting started, and of course theme support!

WordPress Now also offers some impressive price options, offering their themes for as low as $49.00 to start, as well as offering a few WordPress developer options for designers. Their two unreleased themes (shown above) will be available at even lower prices ($29.00 and $39.00 respectively).

If you’d like to learn more about Wordpress Now, you can read more about the features and support information here.

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How Long Should You Wait to Upgrade WordPress?

Kyle Eslick — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:35:58 +0000

With the recent release of WordPress 2.8 this past week, there has been a number of complications and/or frustrations from the WordPress community, leading to a lot of discussion about how long you should wait to upgrade WordPress when a new branch is released. Historically the WordPress team has always done a great job of testing their releases, which I think lead to a strong confidence from the WordPress community when it was time to upgrade. Combine that with the one-click upgrade option that is now built into WordPress and the annoying tag reminding you to upgrade, and you’ve got a huge number of people who upgraded to WordPress 2.8 immediately upon its release.

Unfortunately, with each new WordPress branch comes changes which sometimes break WordPress plugins, create problems with the WordPress theme you are using, and usually includes changes to the code. If you upgrade before the themes or plugins you rely on have been updated, this can cause problems. The iThemes team recently touched on this subject with their post, When Should I Upgrade WordPress? Their post also includes five helpful things that need done BEFORE you do your one-click upgrade:

Make a backup of all your site data
Upgrade of all your plugins
Visit plugin and theme author websites
Disable all plugins
Ask yourself if you need to upgrade now

I also recommend waiting a week or so to view feedback before upgrading.

I know several of you haven’t upgraded WordPress to 2.8 yet. How long do you plan on waiting until you upgrade your WordPress installation? Please include which version of WordPress you are currently using with your comment!

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WordPress 2.8 Officially Released!

Kyle Eslick — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:38:02 +0000

In case you haven’t noticed it yet in your WordPress dashboard, it looks like WordPress 2.8 has officially been released! Don’t forget if you are currently using WordPress 2.7 or 2.7.1, you can use the one-click upgrade feature built into WordPress to upgrade!

The changes from WordPress 2.7 aren’t as noticable as they were from 2.6 to 2.7, but it is always worth upgrading to the latest installation in my opinion. As far as what is new, here is what the WordPress team had to say about the improvements in WordPress 2.8:

Major New Improvements

First and foremost, 2.8 is way faster to use. We’ve changed the way WordPress does style and scripting.

The core and plugin updaters in previous versions of WordPress have been such a success we decided to bring the same to themes. You can now browse the entire theme directory and install a theme with one click from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard.

If you make edits or tweaks to themes or plugins from your dashboard, you’ll appreciate the new CodePress editor which gives syntax highlighting to the previously-plain editor. Also there is now contextual documentation for the functions in the file you’re editing linked right below the editor.

If you were ever frustrated with widgets before, this release should be your savior. We’ve completely redesigned the widgets interface (which we didn’t have time to in 2.7) to allow you to do things like edit widgets on the fly, have multiple copies of the same widget, drag and drop widgets between sidebars, and save inactive widgets so you don’t lose all their settings. Developers now have access to a much cleaner and robust API for creating widgets as well.

Finally you should explore the new Screen Options on every page. It’s the tab in the top right. Now, for example, if you have a wide monitor you could set up your dashboard to have four columns of widgets instead of the two it has by default. On other pages you can change how many items show per page.

You can view the entire list of changes here.

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WordPress 2.8 Moves to Release Candidate 1

Kyle Eslick — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:47:16 +0000

Going into WordCamp Chicago this weekend, there were a large number of rumors that WordPress 2.8 was VERY close to an official release. Well, the weekend has come and gone and unfortunately we got no official release, but it looks like we have gotten the first release candidate instead.

According to the official WordPress blog, WordPress 2.8 Release Candidate 1 was officially released about an hour ago. Here is their release candidate 1 official announcement:

With Release Candidate 1, we think WordPress 2.8 is ready and complete. Download it, test it, and tell us what you think. If you don’t uncover any bad bugs, 2.8 will be released on Wednesday the 10th.

If you’re interested in what has changed since beta 2, consult the changelog.

You can download Release Candidate 1 here, and consult the changelog from Beta 2 here. If you are wondering what all is new with WordPress 2.8, check out this post by TechnoSailor.

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New eBusiness Premium Theme by Elegant Themes

Kyle Eslick — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:02:06 +0000

As much of the WordPress themes market continues to move towards the premium (paid) model, it can sometimes be a chore for the consumer trying to find the best value for your dollar. There are certainly a few overpriced themes out there, but with a little effort you can also find a few premium themes you can find which are often undervalued.

When it comes to value, I usually recommend people start by looking at the various theme clubs available. Of the theme clubs out there, there is no doubt the best overall value is with the Elegant Themes club. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, lets take a look at their latest release, the new eBusiness theme:

eBusiness WordPress Theme

You can view the live demo of the eBusiness theme here.

The eBusiness theme also includes a very impressive control panel, of which the author lists the following features:

Design Layout - The layout tab houses some of the major overlying options that effect the structure and appearance of your website.

Color Schemes - eBusiness comes with three skins, and each skin comes in three colors. You can switch between these 9 different variations at any time from the drop-down menu.
Website Structure - The essence of eBusiness is to act as a CMS, creating a page-based layout. I have, however, included the option to bypass the page-based homepage in favor of a normal blog layout. You can switch between Page Structure and Blog Structure at any time.
Footer Options - You will notice that each page has a widgetized footer on the bottom.

Homepage Options - The homepage tab allows you to manage your homepage. If you are using blog style then most of these options do not apply, but if you are using the Page-based system then you will have to use this area to set up your homepage.

Slider Control - You will notice that the demo features 3 sliding elements on the top of the homepage. These are managed via the Homepage tab. Here you can customize the content text, the title of the tab, the text used in the button, the thumbnail image (which is automatically re-sized) and an optional read more link, which can be pointed anywhere. You can also choose how many sliding elements to display (up to 3).
Pages Control - The content on the homepage is made up of WordPress pages. You will create a page in wp-admin and then define the page to be used in the Homepage options tab. Simply input the page id of the pages you want to use and they will appear. You can also choose how many pages you want to use (up to4).
Blog Scroller - Even if you are using the page-based system you can still have a blog area on your site. For this reason I have included a blogroll on the homepage with a link to your most recent posts. This can be turned off if you don’t plan to have a blog section. You can choose how many recent posts to display. You can also customize the RSS link if you want to point it towards your feedburner account.

Blog Setup - If you are using the Blog Structure, or if you plan to include a blog within your Page-based website, you can customize your blog here.

Post Format - You can choose between “Blog Style” mode or “Default” mode. The Blog Style mode displays your posts in full on index pages, while Default mode automatically truncates the post to create a short preview with a “read more” link.
Categories Bar - The categories bar, with links to your various blog categories, only appears on blog pages. However, if you are using the blog as simply a recent news section, and don’t plan to have several categories, you can turn off this categories bar.
Further Post Preview Control - In addition to editing the length of the post previews you can also adjust the size of the thumbnail, as well as enable/disable the “read more” link and post info bar. All thumbnails are automatically re-sized, cropped, and cached, via TimThumb which means you can change the size of your thumbnails instantly at the click of a button.

Navigation Options - The navigation options allow you to customize the navigation bar. You can use this to exclude pages from the navigation, adjust the order of the links, add a link to your Blog section (if you are using one) and so on. Both the categories and pages navigation bars can be edited here.

Advertising Management - As with the rest of my themes I have included a banner management system. You can add 125×125 and 468×60 banners and choose how many 125×125 banners you want to display (up to 8). You can also choose where you want banners to be display. You can add them to your pages sidebar, blog sidebar or both. You also have the option to disable them completely.

How To Get a License for the eBusiness Theme

If you’d like to give the eBusiness theme a try, it isn’t free, but it almost is. Currently this theme, along with ALL of the themes released by Elegant Themes (close to 20 available currently), is available for only $19.99! Nick, the web designer behind Elegant Themes, has also upheld a pretty impressive release schedule, offering up a new theme just about every month (which should give you close to 12 new themes each calendar year), many of which can be viewed in their theme gallery.

Learn More About the Elegant Themes Club | Sign Up for Membership

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Some WordPress News from WordCamp San Francisco

Kyle Eslick — Sun, 31 May 2009 14:09:47 +0000

For all you fans of WordPress, this weekend has been a good one. Although I personally wasn’t able to attend the WordCamp San Francisco event, many were able to go and we’ve been receiving a lot of great information.

As a result, I wanted to do a quick post to bring to your attention a couple of the things we are hearing from the event, and in particular, from Matt Mullenweg’s “State of the Word” address, which he does at each WordCamp event:

WordPress 2.8 Coming VERY Soon!
There have been hints from the WordPress team about adding a section to their theme repository for GPL-compliant premium themes (paid themes which comply with GPL). I haven’t gotten clarification yet if their will also be a similar site setup for premium plugins that comply with GPL.
WordPressMU and WordPress.org will be merging.

To those of you that attended the event, let us know about anything we missed in the comments!

Information Sources:

The WordCamp Report from the event.
Various tweets from a number of web desginers in attendance.

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WordPress 2.8 Moves to Beta 2

Kyle Eslick — Sat, 23 May 2009 18:28:59 +0000

Just a quick note to our readers know that WordPress 2.8 has now moved to Beta 2. You can see the changes here. If you are interested in giving it a try, you can download it here.

Note: If you aren’t comfortable using beta software, we recommend you hold off on using WordPress 2.8 until the first release candidate is announced.

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