Posts contained in the “WordPress” category:

WordPress is one the three big CMS’s out there (Joomla and Drupal being the other two). WordPress offers a sturdy engine, an easy-to-understand user interface, and an energetic and robust development and support community.

Message Blocks WordPress Plugin

I have just submitted a new plugin to the WordPress plugin repository. It allows you to quickly and easily add message blocks to highlight important information for your readers. It does so by way of two drop-down menus in the TinyMCE toolbar: Since the best way to see how this works is to see the …read more…

How Many WordPress Plugin Combinations are Possible?

I answered a question on the Graphene Neo Mobile theme about WordPress plugins, which then made me think about math, which then made me do math. Here’s the silly thing: I tweeted about it, forgetting that the forum is a private one. So it’s not very useful. But here’s the original query: Does anyone know …read more…

Create WordPress Shortcodes

In my earlier post about template parameters in MediaWiki, I lamented that WordPress doesn’t have a similar mechanism. Actually it sort of does: it has shortcodes. Shortcodes pretty much do what a MediaWiki template does, in that they allow you to easily add content to a post or page. You can even pass variables, which …read more…

Add Post Navigation Links in the Graphene Theme for WordPress

Earlier today, somebody in the Graphene Theme support forum asked about changing the location of the “Next Post” and “Previous Post” links: I’d like to put the pointers to prev/next posts below a post as well as at the top, preferably between the post and any comments. Is that possible please and, if so, how? …read more…

Create a Static Front Page in WordPress — A Visual Guide

Creating a static front page in WordPress is easy, but I often encounter people who have trouble doing it. Perhaps the instructions in the Codex aren’t very visual, or all the talk about theme development on the same page puts them off. In any case, here is a quick, visual guide to creating a static …read more…

Add CSS Classes to Images in WordPress

Not many people realize how easy it is to control the appearance of selected images in WordPress by adding a CSS class to the image, but this is a very powerful tool to control the appearance of your website. For example, WordPress automatically adds a border around all images. Here’s an example: If you want …read more…

WordPress—Taking Your First Steps

WordPress is one of the most versatile CMS’s out there. Unfortunately, I’ve seen a lot of people start out with it in complete and utter frustration, often because they don’t understand what WordPress is actually for, or how WordPress actually works. This list is meant to help you ease into WordPress. It’s based on over …read more…

WordPress Child Themes: The Whys and Hows

Child themes seem perplexing to a lot of people. I recently answered a question on the WordPress support forums (which you can read here) in which I summarized a lot of what I have been explaining to people about child themes over the last few years. (At this point, all the websites I design using …read more…

Criteria for Choosing WordPress Plugins

One of the nice things about WordPress is that it’s easily extensible though plugins. In fact, it’s so easy to add plugins that many people do so willy-nilly, and suffer the consequences. (Not all plugins are good plugins, and even the good ones don’t always play nice with one another, with your theme, or with …read more…

Troubleshoot your WordPress Blog

Quite often, I see messages on a message board that something has “suddenly” happened with the poster’s WordPress blog. Their level of concern ranges anywhere from mildly amused to (usually) panicked. In reality, nothing ever happens “all of a sudden”. When pushed or prodded, it usually turns out that the poster had installed a new …read more…