WPDesigner

The following tips will help you get help for WordPress problems. If you don’t follow my tips, your question will get ignored, no matter who or where you’re trying to get help from.

Search Before You Ask

WordPress.org, Google.com, within the site you’re trying to get help from, etc.

Double Check the Read-Me File

Themes, plugins, and even WordPress have installation and usage instructions. They’re usually in the readme.html or readme.txt file.

Find the Right Place to Ask

Do not email or post codes in the comments if the site or author specifically told you not to. Email is probably the worse tool to get and give support by. Even if you have a unique problem, avoid email.

Skip the Introduction and Just Get to the Question

Don’t say “I’m a total newbie.” It’s one of the most annoying signs of possible laziness. Ask for a solution, what you need to know, and what you need to search for.

Link to the Problem

Even if your description of the problem is understandable and thorough, it’s best to link to your blog or a specific page and point out the problem.

No Customization Questions

Unless it’s obviously very technical and requires a great deal of knowledge and experience, do not ask “How Do I Customize ______” questions. WordPress volunteers and individual theme and plugin authors do not have the time to help you tweak your blog and then re-tweak it because maybe you don’t like the color. Show that you respect their time and they’ll try to get your problem solved ASAP. Avoid asking the following quesitons:

• How do I change the header image?
• How do I change link colors?

Those are general XHTML and CSS questions. They don’t have anything to do with WordPress. Your best guide for those questions is W3schools.com or one of those “how do I make a website” sites.

Don’t Be Lazy

If it looks or even sounds like you’re not willing to do the work in order to fix the problem, good luck because you’re on your own. NEVER ask for copy and paste. Also, if it sounds like you haven’t done any searching, then good luck because you’re on your own again.

Actually Follow the Instructions

If the answer or instruction is too technical, it’s understandable and someone will clear it up for you if you point out the parts where you don’t understand, but make sure what you don’t understand is more than just a term, which you can look up on Google.

On the flip side, it is NOT understandable and people will ignore you if you don’t follow the instructions while you keep saying that it doesn’t work.

What Your Question Should Look Like:

• Here’s my problem and where/what it is.
• How do I solve it and what do I need to do or know?
• Which file should work with?
• Thank you (this would be nice)

Designs with complex structures are typically more fun to look at, but they’re also typically more cluttered and harder to use. I find it interesting that WordPress users haven’t gotten over the “premium” news and magazine themes craze because they’re mostly designs with complex structures (and not exactly done right either).

First, I admit it. This wave of WordPress themes imitating the structures of complex print magazines and online entertainment portals featuring multimedia content was a refreshing change of pace for the WordPress themes community. However, when it comes down to it, they look good, but aren’t really useful. And of course, I’m not an exception. Yours truly is also guilty of jumping on the news portal slash magazine design bandwagon here.

Second, I have to point out that in a battle between simple versus complex for magazine sites, simple beats the heck out of complex.

(Milo brought the magazine designs ranking to my attention a while ago, but I didn’t think too much of it until now. The rankings are based on one-on-one battles between magazine designs on a site called Command Shift 3. It’s basically Hot or Not for web design instead of people.)

The number one design is from A List Apart, which uses a simple three column layout. Also, the closer to the top of the rankings the simpler the structure. Interesting?

Granted, typical “premium” news or magazine themes (at the moment) are designed around multimedia content, but that doesn’t mean you can’t simplify the layout structure. My point here is you don’t need a featured post, a gallery, a top articles listing, and etc., each with its own unique template structure; all sitting on one page.

Design around your content and make your site look unique, but at the same time you should simplify where you can and go with what works. For example, blog readers expect to find the RSS subscribe button at the top right hand corner or at the top of the right sidebar. Why is that? No one said that’s the best spot, but it’s “what-works” because many popular blogs place the subscribe button there.

If every page has unique content or purpose, then why does your sidebar look the same on every page? Your static sidebar sucks that’s why. Notice, currently, Wpdesigner.com’s sidebar also sucks; it’s static or displays the same content on every page.

Example

While reviewing DavidAirey.com, I realized that his blog’s right sidebar (made up of a search form, feedburner subscribe link, list of popular articles, and list of recent articles) displayed the same sub-content on every page, even on the portfolio page.

(I’m not trying to nit-pick David’s blog, but his portfolio page is the best example of a problem that most of us are facing.)

Typically, portfolio pages are created for potential clients. I don’t know about you, but if I’m thinking about hiring someone by checking out his or her portfolio page, I’m not thinking about subscribing to that person’s blog at the same time. So the question is, why do I need to see the feedburner subscribe link on the portfolio page?

Solution
In DavidAirey.com’s case, the feedburner subscribe link serves no relative purpose. It’s unintentional distraction. To solve this problem, I suggested that David should display client testimonials in the right sidebar for the portfolio page instead of displaying the regular right-sidebar content.

To take it a step further, David or you (for your own blog) should reconsider everything else on the portfolio page or any page for that matter. What is the purpose of that page? What you are trying to accomplish? What are you trying to get the user to do?

Static Sidebar = Clutter = Sidebar Blindness = Waste of Space

The typical blog layout consists of a Main Column + Sidebar(s) with a bunch of stuff. The Bunch of Stuff is what you should sort out (I’m doing it). Cluttered sidebars get ignored anyway so instead of cramming every bit of sub-content into one or two sidebars for every page, start thinking about what makes sense for each page.

To stop wasting about 1/3 of EVERY SINGLE PAGE and start customizing your sidebar, turn off your sidebar widgets and learn how to use conditional tags for the sidebar. And here’s a conditional-tags tutorial by Wpdesigner.com.

This post is guest blogged by Milo of 3OneSeven.com. For all codes, type them out. Do not copy and paste. And here’s part 1.

Tip #6: Add Gravatars Without a Plugin

1. Open your comments template and find this line:
   <li class=”<?php echo $oddcomment; ?>” id=”comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>”>
2. After that line, add this set of codes.
3. Adjust the path to your default image shown when no gravatar is signed.

(more…)

This post is guest blogged by Milo of 3OneSeven.com. For all codes, type them out. Do not copy and paste.

Tip #1

DO NOT use this search code in the

:

Nobody should be allowed to search your entire server, or?

Use this one instead:

Tip #2

Another bad code used in title tags or search templates:

as it allows malicious code injection.

Use this one:

(more…)

It’s a new world out there for WordPress theme authors. They (including me) don’t mean to harm the theme users (you), but they’re simply new at this premium themes game. Luckily, Small Potato (yours truly) is here to help.

Before we get to it, first of all, not all premium themes are actually top notch themes. They’re basically called premium because you have to pay for them. Also, I’m personally responsible for spreading the “free premium themes” virus (which I regret). Theme authors are using that term so liberally that it has lost its meaning.

Second, assuming that someone great at creating and releasing free themes will be or is great at creating and releasing premium themes is a very dangerous assumption. This isn’t about not trusting your favorite free-theme author to do the right thing; it’s about protecting yourself and making sure your money will be well spent. (more…)

Wpdesigner is getting a micro-redesign. Your blog should get one too. Simple tweaks, additions, and subtractions can do wonders for your blog. In Wpdesigner’s case, this micro-redesign is another step toward de-cluttering. Preview the upcoming design here. It’s not much different from the current Wpdesigner. But all together, the small changes make a big difference.

New Logo - If you’re a loyal reader, you know Wpdesigner lacks identity so I’m adding a logo to help this blog become more recognizable and memorable for new visitors. And if you know me, you know I’m not a graphic designer. Based on circles and gradients, that little figure is my best attempt at a logo. But give credit where credit is due, I couldn’t have done it without Nur of Nomad-One.com. He came through with the concept and style for this logo. What I’ll be using for Wpdesigner’s logo is only a fraction and combination of everything he sent me.

Simple Navigation - Instead of trying to pack as many links into the horizontal menu as possible, I decided to bring it down to six links and add more spacing around each menu item. For one thing, your mind typically holds seven items at a time. Therefore, having more than seven items within one group of links will not do much good if you can’t remember them.

The result is a simpler and more balanced horizontal menu.

1. Don’t abuse tags. They’re meant to complement your main categories. They’re not cool. Tags are clutter. Too much tagging will make your blog lose focus.
2. Don’t use big images in your blog posts. When you need to use big images or photos, link to them through thumbnails and text links. Not using their actual sizes will allow to easily re-design your blog later on.
3. Put your content first, but also design your blog around ads. Make it easy for banners to look pretty and neat within your blog.
4. You should be unique, but also generic. Logos, favicons, and graphic banners are all areas where you can be unique. However, layout and structure-wise, don’t feel like to you need to reinvent the wheel to separate yourself from millions of other blogs. By mimicking typical layouts, you allow your users to make an easy transition from browsing other blogs to browsing your blog.

Thoughts about the video:

It looks like I’m not totally comfortable in front of the camcorder yet, a bit stiff and mispronounced some words here and there. Also, I don’t know my way around the video editing program yet. In the next video, I’ll try to put together something more smooth and organized.

What is it about August and redesigns? If you’ve been keeping up with the blogosphere, you know bloggers have been on redesign frenzies. Some did it for the right reasons and did it right. Some did it for the wrong reasons and created more problems for their readers. Even this blog went through a recent redesign. Here are several tips to guide your summer redesign.

Redesign Because You Need To
Do it to solve a problem. Don’t redesign simply because you want to. It’s short and simple, but this is the most important tip. My own blog needed a redesign because it was hard to use. For example, the search form was huge! However, no one used it because it was in the wrong location. (more…)

Although CSS galleries showcasing beautiful designs are nothing new, using WordPress to power your CSS gallery is picking up steam. Take CSSRemix.com for example, one of many CSS galleries powered by WordPress, although it would be time consuming to duplicate all of CSSRemix’s features, it isn’t hard imitate the basic structure.

• First, you need know how to use custom fields.
• Second, download Lester Chan’s WP-PostRatings plugin, install, and integrate it. This plugin isn’t necessary, but people like to rate stuff so let them rate.
• Third, decide how many custom field keys and values you’ll use for each featured-site or each entry. For examples: url (key) = http://www.wpdesigner.com (value), url_img (key) = wpdesigner_screenshot.png (value). The amount of custom field keys and values per site or entry equal the amount of work you have cut out for you.

Here’s an example of how to implement the outline above:

After you’ve gotten everything set up, outsource the job of indexing thousands and thousands of beautiful designs. Then, there you’ll have it, a CSS gallery powered by WordPress.

Creating a WordPress theme is easy. Creating a popular theme that gets thousands of downloads is hard. Creating a popular theme, downloaded thousands of times, that can also convince users to stick with it is even harder.

Adding to my post about factors of a popular WordPress theme is a checklist to give your theme a fighting chance.

• Is it a three column theme? Getting more downloads is as easy as converting your two-column theme into a three-column.
• Is it visually stunning? While design is subjective, users don’t preview codes; we preview designs.
• Does it focus on content? A visually stunning theme will always get a second look. But along with that, your design has to focus the attention on the content (usually, the main column).
• Is it generic? Your free theme will not be used by one client. It’ll be used by thousands of clients. It’s very important to keep all features generic. Stay away from hard-coding anything and stay away from too many non-customizable graphics.
• Is it compatible with more than one WordPress version? Believe it or not, not every blog is using the latest WordPress version.
• Are the codes, XHTML and CSS, valid? If your codes are not valid by now, you shouldn’t be releasing public themes.
• Is it compatible with the most popular browsers? Just like you, your theme users want their blogs to look the same across all popular browsers, Firefox and Internet Explorer for examples.
• Is it widget-ready? The widget plugin now comes with WordPress so this is an obvious one. There’s no more reasons to not widgetize your theme.
• Is there a theme options page? Some users like to customize headers and other sorts of tweakable features through the theme options page. If you’re PHP-savvy and know how to do this, it’s a big plus.
• Does the design includes a date button? Date buttons are eye candies. Theme users really love them.
• Does it come with a custom template for archives? Some bloggers prefer to put archive links on their own page, instead of the default sidebar listing.
• Has it been SEOed (search engine optimized)? The default WordPress structure is not search engine friendly. Not every page should have the same H1 title. Sidebar titles shouldn’t nest in H2 tags.
• Is your theme designed around ads? Despite not everyone wants to monetize and integrate ads, almost everyone wants to sleep well at night knowing your theme is easy monetize.
• Do you give theme support? If a user can’t figure out something, that user will come to you. If you don’t offer support for your theme, guess what that person is going to do?
• Where are you releasing your theme? If you’ve just started a blog to release your own WordPress themes on it then you’re not going to get any download at all. Submit your themes to public databases and popular blogs that feature WordPress themes.
• Do you offer previews or live demos? Save your users the trouble of downloading the theme and having to test it first before deciding whether to use it. Allow your users to fully preview your theme or look at a live demo of it.
• Does it come with Small Potato’s emoticons? Most importantly, my human emoticons will ensure huge success for your theme.

Bonus info:

• Get More Exposure for Your WordPress Theme
• Thinks to look for in a WordPress theme
• WordPress Theme Checklist - Part 1
• Check List for WordPress Designers - Part 2
• 11 Principles to Design a Great WordPress Theme

Have too many categories? Don’t want to list them all on one page, but still want them in the sidebar? For some reason, you just like drop down menus? Then, why aren’t you using

?

The WordPress Codex makes it very easy to have dropdown categories. It’s a simple copy and paste into your sidebar.