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<channel>
	<title>WPDesigner &#187; Tips</title>
	<link>http://www.wpdesigner.com</link>
	<description>WordPress Themes, Blog Design, and Web Development</description>
	<pubDate>Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:30:48 +0000</pubDate>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.2</generator>
	<language>en</language>
			<item>
		<title>How to Get Help for WordPress Problems</title>
		<link>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/03/03/how-to-get-help-for-wordpress-problems/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/03/03/how-to-get-help-for-wordpress-problems/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:32:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Small Potato</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/03/03/how-to-get-help-for-wordpress-problems/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The following tips will help you get help for WordPress problems. If you don&#8217;t follow my tips, your question will get ignored, no matter who or where you&#8217;re trying to get help from.
Search Before You Ask
WordPress.org, Google.com, within the site you&#8217;re trying to get help from, etc.
Double Check the Read-Me File
Themes, plugins, and even WordPress [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The following tips will help you get help for WordPress problems. If you don&#8217;t follow my tips, your question will get ignored, no matter who or where you&#8217;re trying to get help from.</p>
<h3>Search Before You Ask</h3>
<p>WordPress.org, Google.com, within the site you&#8217;re trying to get help from, etc.</p>
<h3>Double Check the Read-Me File</h3>
<p>Themes, plugins, and even WordPress have installation and usage instructions. They&#8217;re usually in the readme.html or readme.txt file.</p>
<h3>Find the Right Place to Ask</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<h3>Skip the Introduction and Just Get to the Question</h3>
<p>Don&#8217;t say &#8220;I&#8217;m a total newbie.&#8221; It&#8217;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.</p>
<h3>Link to the Problem</h3>
<p>Even if your description of the problem is understandable and thorough, it&#8217;s best to link to your blog or a specific page and point out the problem.</p>
<h3>No Customization Questions</h3>
<p>Unless it&#8217;s obviously very technical and requires a great deal of knowledge and experience, do not ask &#8220;How Do I Customize ______&#8221; 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&#8217;t like the color. Show that you respect their time and they&#8217;ll try to get your problem solved ASAP. Avoid asking the following quesitons:</p>
<ul>
<li>How do I change the header image?</li>
<li>How do I change link colors?</li>
</ul>
<p>Those are general XHTML and CSS questions. They don&#8217;t have anything to do with WordPress. Your best guide for those questions is <a href="http://www.w3schools.com/">W3schools.com</a> or one of those &#8220;how do I make a website&#8221; sites.</p>
<h3>Don&#8217;t Be Lazy</h3>
<p>If it looks or even sounds like you&#8217;re not willing to do the work in order to fix the problem, good luck because you&#8217;re on your own. NEVER ask for copy and paste. Also, if it sounds like you haven&#8217;t done any searching, then good luck because you&#8217;re on your own again.</p>
<h3>Actually Follow the Instructions</h3>
<p>If the answer or instruction is too technical, it&#8217;s understandable and someone will clear it up for you if you point out the parts where you don&#8217;t understand, but make sure what you don&#8217;t understand is more than just a term, which you can look up on Google.</p>
<p>On the flip side, it is NOT understandable and people will ignore you if you don&#8217;t follow the instructions while you keep saying that it doesn&#8217;t work.</p>
<h3>What Your Question Should Look Like:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Here&#8217;s my problem and where/what it is.</li>
<li>How do I solve it and what do I need to do or know?</li>
<li>Which file should work with?</li>
<li>Thank you (this would be nice)</li>
</ul>
<p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/?p=1038&amp;akst_action=share-this"  title="Email, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_1038" class="akst_share_link" rel="noindex nofollow">ShareThis</a>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Simple vs Complex Designs</title>
		<link>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/02/19/simple-vs-complex-designs/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/02/19/simple-vs-complex-designs/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Feb 2008 07:39:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Small Potato</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/02/19/simple-vs-complex-designs/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
Designs with complex structures are typically more fun to look at, but they&#8217;re also typically more cluttered and harder to use. I find it interesting that WordPress users haven&#8217;t gotten over the &#8220;premium&#8221; news and magazine themes craze because they&#8217;re mostly designs with complex structures (and not exactly done right either).
First, I admit it. This [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src='http://www.wpdesigner.com/wp-content/files/2008/02/simplicity-takes-first-plac.jpg' alt='simplicity-takes-first-plac.jpg' class='centered' /></p>
<p>Designs with complex structures are typically more fun to look at, but they&#8217;re also typically more cluttered and harder to use. I find it interesting that WordPress users haven&#8217;t gotten over the &#8220;premium&#8221; news and magazine themes craze because they&#8217;re mostly designs with complex structures (and not exactly done right either).</p>
<p>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&#8217;t really useful. And of course, I&#8217;m not an exception. Yours truly is also guilty of jumping on the news portal slash magazine design bandwagon <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/10/06/jello-wala-mello-wordpress-theme/">here</a>.</p>
<p>Second, I have to point out that in a battle between simple versus complex for magazine sites, <strong><a href="http://commandshift3.com/tag/magazine">simple beats the heck out of complex</a></strong>.</p>
<p>(<a href="http://www.3oneseven.com/">Milo</a> brought the magazine designs ranking to my attention a while ago, but I didn&#8217;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&#8217;s basically Hot or Not for web design instead of people.)</p>
<p>The number one design is from <a href="http://www.alistapart.com/">A List Apart</a>, which uses a simple three column layout. Also, the closer to the top of the rankings the simpler the structure. Interesting?</p>
<p>Granted, typical &#8220;premium&#8221; news or magazine themes (at the moment) are designed around multimedia content, but that doesn&#8217;t mean you can&#8217;t simplify the layout structure. My point here is you don&#8217;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.</p>
<p>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&#8217;s the best spot, but it&#8217;s &#8220;what-works&#8221; because many popular blogs place the subscribe button there.</p>
<p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/?p=1012&amp;akst_action=share-this"  title="Email, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_1012" class="akst_share_link" rel="noindex nofollow">ShareThis</a>
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		<item>
		<title>Static Sidebar Sucks</title>
		<link>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/02/15/static-sidebar-sucks/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/02/15/static-sidebar-sucks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:42:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Small Potato</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/02/15/static-sidebar-sucks/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If every page has unique content or purpose, then why does your sidebar look the same on every page? Your static sidebar sucks that&#8217;s why. Notice, currently, Wpdesigner.com&#8217;s sidebar also sucks; it&#8217;s static or displays the same content on every page.
Example
While reviewing DavidAirey.com, I realized that his blog&#8217;s right sidebar (made up of a search [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If every page has unique content or purpose, then why does your sidebar look the same on every page? Your static sidebar sucks that&#8217;s why. Notice, currently, Wpdesigner.com&#8217;s sidebar also sucks; it&#8217;s static or displays the same content on every page.</p>
<h3>Example</h3>
<p>While <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/forums/showthread.php?t=634">reviewing DavidAirey.com</a>, I realized that his blog&#8217;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 <a href="http://www.davidairey.com/portfolio/">portfolio page</a>.</p>
<p>(I&#8217;m not trying to nit-pick David&#8217;s blog, but his portfolio page is the best example of a problem that most of us are facing.)</p>
<p>Typically, portfolio pages are created for potential clients. I don&#8217;t know about you, but if I&#8217;m thinking about hiring someone by checking out his or her portfolio page, I&#8217;m not thinking about subscribing to that person&#8217;s blog at the same time. So the question is, why do I need to see the feedburner subscribe link on the portfolio page?</p>
<p><b>Solution</b><br />
In DavidAirey.com&#8217;s case, the feedburner subscribe link serves no relative purpose. It&#8217;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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<h3>Static Sidebar = Clutter = Sidebar Blindness = Waste of Space</h3>
<p>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&#8217;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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Conditional_Tags">conditional tags</a> for the sidebar. And here&#8217;s a <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/06/21/bring-life-to-your-blog-using-conditional-tags/#more-584">conditional-tags tutorial</a> by Wpdesigner.com.</p>
<p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/?p=1001&amp;akst_action=share-this"  title="Email, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_1001" class="akst_share_link" rel="noindex nofollow">ShareThis</a>
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<p>Copyright &#169; 2007 <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/">Wpdesigner.com</a>. All Rights Reserved.</p>                                          ]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>WordPress Tips Part 2</title>
		<link>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/02/01/wordpress-tips-part-2/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/02/01/wordpress-tips-part-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 02 Feb 2008 07:03:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Small Potato</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/02/01/wordpress-tips-part-2/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This post is guest blogged by Milo of 3OneSeven.com. For all codes, type them out. Do not copy and paste. And here&#8217;s part 1.
Tip #6: Add Gravatars Without a Plugin

Open your comments template and find this line:
&#60;li class=&#8221;&#60;?php echo $oddcomment; ?&#62;&#8221; id=&#8221;comment-&#60;?php comment_ID() ?>&#8221;&#62;

After that line, add this set of codes.
Adjust the path to your [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>This post is guest blogged by Milo of <a href="http://3oneseven.com/">3OneSeven.com</a>. For all codes, type them out. Do not copy and paste. <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/01/30/wordpress-tips-part-1/">And here&#8217;s part 1</a>.</em></p>
<h3>Tip #6: Add Gravatars Without a Plugin</h3>
<ol>
<li>Open your comments template and find this line:
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;li class=&#8221;&lt;?php echo $oddcomment; ?&gt;&#8221; id=&#8221;comment-&lt;?php comment_ID() ?>&#8221;&gt;</div>
</li>
<li>After that line, <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/wp-content/files/codes/gravatar.txt">add this set of codes</a>.</li>
<li>Adjust the path to your default image shown when no gravatar is signed.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Tip #7: How to Add a Side Blog</h3>
<ol>
<li>Set up the desired category or choose a current one.</li>
<li>Add the following code to your functions.php file:
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;?php<br />
function asidesFilter($query) {<br />
if($query->is_feed || $query->is_home || $query->is_ search) {<br />
$query->set(&#8217;cat&#8217;, &#8216;-17&#8242;);<br />
}<br />
return $query;<br />
}<br />
add_filter(&#8217;pre_get_posts&#8217;, &#8216;asidesFilter&#8217;);<br />
?&gt;</div>
<p>(Notice the number 17 is the category ID number for the chosen category. Yours will be different.)
	</li>
<li>Add the following code to your sidebar, assuming you do not work with widgets:
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;h3&gt;TITLE<br />
&lt;a href=&#8221;FEED URL&#8221; title=&#8221;The Asides RSS feed.&#8221;&gt;<br />
&lt;img src=&#8221;RSS IMAGE URL&#8221; alt=&#8221;RSS&#8221; style=&#8221;position: relative; left: 0;&#8221; /&gt;<br />
&lt;/a&gt;<br />
&lt;/h3&gt;</div>
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;?php query_posts(&#8217;cat=17&#038;showposts=4&#8242;); ?&gt;<br />
&lt;?php if(have_posts()) : ?&gt;<br />
&lt;?php while(have_posts()) : the_post(); ?&gt;</div>
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;div class=&#8221;aside_post&#8221;&gt;<br />
&lt;?php the_content(&#8217;Continue reading this article&#8217;); ?&gt;<br />
&lt;/div&gt;</div>
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;?php endwhile; ?&gt;<br />
&lt;span class=&#8221;aside_archive_link&#8221;&gt;<br />
&lt;a href=&#8221;CATEGORY URL&#8221; title=&#8221;More asides.&#8221;&gt;Archives&lt;/a&gt;<br />
&lt;/span&gt;</div>
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;?php else : ?&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, the sideblog is having a little trouble.&lt;/p&gt;<br />
&lt;?php endif; ?&gt;</div>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>Tip #8: Customizing The Read More Link</h3>
<ol>
<li>Open your index php or home php file and find this line:
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;?php the_content(__(&#8217;Read more&#8217;));?&gt;</div>
</li>
<li>replace it with this one:
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;?php the_content(&#8221;Continue reading &#8221; . the_title(&#8221;,&#8221;,false), 0); ?&gt;</div>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>Tip #9: Customizing The Comments Link</h3>
<ol>
<li>Open your index.php, archive.php, home.php files and find this line:
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;?php comments_popup_link(&#8217;Leave a Comment&#8217;, &#8216;1 Comment&#8217;, &#8216;% Comments&#8217;); ?&gt;</div>
</li>
<li>Replace it with this one:<br />
&lt;?php comments_popup_link(__(&#8217;No comments on &#8216; . the_title(&#8221;,&#8221;,false)), __(&#8217;One comment on &#8216; . the_title(&#8221;,&#8221;,false)), __(&#8217;% comments on &#8216;. the_title(&#8221;,&#8221;,false))); ?&gt;</p>
<p>Of course  customizing the No Comments text and further is ok too.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Tip #10: Customize the WordPress Login</h3>
<ol>
<li>Download from /wp-admin/images/ these two images:<br />
login-bkg-tile.gif<br />
login-bkg.bottom.gif</li>
<li>Create two new images with same width and height</li>
<li>Save them with the same name and file extension (.gif). Of course you can use other extensions, but then you have to edit the admin.css too to match it.</li>
<li>Upload it to the /wp-admin/images/ folder</li>
</ol>
<h3>Tip #11: Customize the WordPress Admin</h3>
<ol>
<li>Download from /wp-admin/ this css file:<br />
wp-admin.css</li>
<li>Admin link colours, find this line:
<div class="codesnip-container" >a {<br />
	border-bottom: 1px solid #69c;<br />
	color: #00019b;<br />
	text-decoration: none;<br />
}</div>
<p>Adjust color to your linkings</li>
<li>Admin link colours, find this line:
<div class="codesnip-container" >a.edit:hover {<br />
	background: #ccc;<br />
	color: #036;<br />
}</div>
<div class="codesnip-container" >a:visited {<br />
	color: #006;<br />
}</div>
<div class="codesnip-container" >a:hover {<br />
/*	border-bottom: 1px solid #3a75ae;*/<br />
	color: #069;<br />
}</div>
<p>Adjust color to your linkings</li>
<li>Don&#8217;t like Lucida Grande with serifs, adjust this:
<div class="codesnip-container" >body, td {<br />
	font: 13px &#8220;Lucida Grande&#8221;, &#8220;Lucida Sans Unicode&#8221;, Tahoma, Verdana;<br />
}</div>
</li>
<li>Admin top header background:
<div class="codesnip-container" >#adminmenu {<br />
	background: #6da6d1;<br />
	border-top: 3px solid #448abd;<br />
	margin: 0;<br />
	padding: .2em .2em .2em 2em;<br />
}<br />
#adminmenu a {<br />
	color: #000;<br />
	font-size: 14px;<br />
	font-weight: normal;<br />
	margin: 0;<br />
	padding: 3px 5px;<br />
	text-decoration: none;<br />
}</div>
<div class="codesnip-container" >#adminmenu a:hover, .current {<br />
	background: #ddeaf4;<br />
	color: #333;<br />
}</div>
</li>
<li>Admin second level header background:
<div class="codesnip-container" >#submenu {<br />
	background: #0d324f;<br />
	border-bottom: none;<br />
	margin: 0;<br />
	padding: 3px 2em 0 3em;<br />
}</div>
<div class="codesnip-container" >#submenu .current {<br />
	background: #f9fcfe;<br />
	border-top: 1px solid #045290;<br />
	border-right: 2px solid #045290;<br />
	color: #000;<br />
}</div>
<div class="codesnip-container" >#submenu a {<br />
	border: none;<br />
	color: #fff;<br />
	font-size: 12px;<br />
	padding: .3em .4em .33em;<br />
}</div>
<div class="codesnip-container" >#submenu a:hover {<br />
	background: #ddeaf4;<br />
	color: #393939;<br />
}</div>
</li>
<li>This is just a rough guide for changing link and background colors. No margins or padding were touched. However, when finished, <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/wp-content/files/2008/02/customizedwpadmin.png">your wp admin can look like this</a>.</li>
</ol>
<h3>From Small Potato</h3>
<p>Milo is a graphic and web designer based in Munich, Germany. <a href="http://3oneseven.com/about/">Read more about this author</a>.</p>
<p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/?p=996&amp;akst_action=share-this"  title="Email, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_996" class="akst_share_link" rel="noindex nofollow">ShareThis</a>
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<p>Copyright &#169; 2007 <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/">Wpdesigner.com</a>. All Rights Reserved.</p>                                          ]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>WordPress Tips Part 1</title>
		<link>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/01/30/wordpress-tips-part-1/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/01/30/wordpress-tips-part-1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 31 Jan 2008 01:23:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Small Potato</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wpdesigner.com/2008/01/30/wordpress-tips-part-1/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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
search.php
:
&#60;?php echo $_SERVER [&#8217;PHP_SELF&#8217;]; ?&#62;
Nobody should be allowed to search your entire server, or?
Use this one instead:
&#60;?php bloginfo (&#8217;home&#8217;); ?&#62;
Tip #2
Another bad code used in title tags or [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>This post is guest blogged by Milo of <a href="http://3oneseven.com/">3OneSeven.com</a>. For all codes, type them out. Do not copy and paste.</em></p>
<h3>Tip #1</h3>
<p>DO NOT use this search code in the
<div class="codesnip-container" >search.php</div>
<p>:</p>
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;?php echo $_SERVER [&#8217;PHP_SELF&#8217;]; ?&gt;</div>
<p>Nobody should be allowed to search your entire server, or?</p>
<p>Use this one instead:</p>
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;?php bloginfo (&#8217;home&#8217;); ?&gt;</div>
<h3>Tip #2</h3>
<p>Another bad code used in title tags or search templates:</p>
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;?php echo $s; ?&gt;</div>
<p> as it allows malicious code injection.</p>
<p>Use this one:</p>
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;?php echo wp_specialchars($s, 1); ?&gt;</div>
<h3>Tip #3</h3>
<ul>
<li>DO NOT use the default Kubrick theme, as it contains a security bug. Affected Script:
<div class="codesnip-container" >/themes.php?page=functions.php</div>
<p>â€œHeader Image and Colorâ€ section of the Default Theme Kubrick.</li>
<li>Further info <a href="http://mybeni.rootzilla.de/mybeNi/2007/wordpress_zeroday_vulnerability_roundhouse_kick_and_why_i_nearly_wrote_the_first_blog_worm/">here</a>.</li>
<li>Also, some themes are based on the Kubrick header functions, examine those themes carefully as they can have the same vulnerability.</li>
</ul>
<p><em>Before doing any of the following customization, BACK UP your existing files. Or better, test it on your local or server test site.</em></p>
<h3>Tip #4: Style Switcher The Easy Way</h3>
<ol>
<li>Download this <a href="http://www.4shared.com/file/34891640/12249f4a/style-switch.html">Javascript file</a></li>
<li>Upload the style switcher file to your theme&#8217;s &#8220;js&#8221; folder</li>
<li>Copy your basic theme stylesheet and rename it to style2</li>
<li>Insert the Javascript in your header:
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;script src=&#8221;&lt;?php bloginfo(&#8217;template_directory&#8217;); ?&gt;/js/ style-switch.js&#8221; type=&#8221;text/javascript&#8221;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</div>
</li>
<li>
Insert the two stylesheets in your header:</p>
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;link rel=&#8221;stylesheet&#8221; href=&#8221;&lt;?php bloginfo(&#8217;stylesheet_url&#8217;); ?&gt;&#8221; type=&#8221;text/css&#8221; title=&#8221;default&#8221; media=&#8221;screen&#8221; /&gt;</div>
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;link rel=&#8221;alternate stylesheet&#8221; type=&#8221;text/css&#8221; media=&#8221;screen&#8221; title=&#8221;style2&#8243; href=&#8221;&lt;?php bloginfo(&#8217;template_directory&#8217;); ?&gt;/style2.css&#8221; /&gt;</div>
<p>Note the difference between the title &#8220;default&#8221; for your basic stylesheet and the second title &#8220;style2&#8243;. Vary your basic stylesheet by applying new rules to the id&#8217;s and classes.</li>
<li>Upload new images to your themes image folder (if needed)</li>
<li>Insert the script call at an appropriate place:<br />
Styles:
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;a rel=&#8221;no follow&#8221; title=&#8221;Toggle stylesheets&#8221; href=&#8221;javascript : chooseStyle(&#8217;none&#8217;, % 20 60)&#8221;&gt;#000&lt;/a&gt;</div>
<p> |
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;a rel=&#8221;no follow&#8221; title=&#8221;Toggle stylesheets&#8221; href=&#8221;javascript : chooseStyle(&#8217;style2&#8242;, % 20 60)&#8221;&gt;#fff&lt;/a&gt;</div>
<p>Bullet proof for IE6+7.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Tips #5</h3>
<p>Block search robots from your archive page by preventing the indexing:</p>
<p>&lt;?php if(is_archive()) { ?&gt;&lt;meta name=&#8221;robots&#8221; content=&#8221;noindex&#8221;&gt;&lt;?php } ?&gt;</p>
<p>Paste it anywhere in the header of your current theme BEFORE the closing of the head tag.</p>
<h3>From Small Potato</h3>
<p>Milo is a graphic and web designer based in Munich, Germany. <a href="http://3oneseven.com/about/">Read more about this author</a>.</p>
<p>Part 2 of Milo&#8217;s tips will show you how to add Gravatar, add a side blog, customize the read-more link, customize the comment link, and customize the WordPress login.</p>
<p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/?p=992&amp;akst_action=share-this"  title="Email, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_992" class="akst_share_link" rel="noindex nofollow">ShareThis</a>
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<p>Copyright &#169; 2007 <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/">Wpdesigner.com</a>. All Rights Reserved.</p>                                          ]]></content:encoded>
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		<item>
		<title>Premium Theme Buying Tips</title>
		<link>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/11/27/premium-theme-buying-tips/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/11/27/premium-theme-buying-tips/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Nov 2007 09:53:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Small Potato</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/11/27/premium-theme-buying-tips/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ It&#8217;s a new world out there for WordPress theme authors. They (including me) don&#8217;t mean to harm the theme users (you), but they&#8217;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 [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src='http://www.wpdesigner.com/wp-content/files/2007/11/shopping-cart.jpg' alt='shopping-cart.jpg' class='alignright' /> It&#8217;s a new world out there for WordPress theme authors. They (including me) don&#8217;t mean to harm the theme users (you), but they&#8217;re simply new at this premium themes game. Luckily, Small Potato (yours truly) is here to help.</p>
<p>Before we get to it, first of all, not all premium themes are actually top notch themes. <strong>They&#8217;re basically called premium because you have to pay for them</strong>. Also, I&#8217;m personally responsible for spreading the &#8220;free premium themes&#8221; virus (which I regret). Theme authors are using that term so liberally that it has lost its meaning.</p>
<p><strong>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.</strong> This isn&#8217;t about not trusting your favorite free-theme author to do the right thing; it&#8217;s about protecting yourself and making sure your money will be well spent.</p>
<p><strong>Do you recognize the theme author?</strong><br />
Although it isn&#8217;t a real quality indicator, if you don&#8217;t know how to thoroughly inspect and review a WordPress theme, the first thing you should look for is a recognizable name. Have you used any theme from that author before? How big is his or her blog? Is there a portfolio? The more established the author the more he or she has to lose if his or her product goes wrong.</p>
<p><strong>Is everything within this theme&#8230;legal?</strong><br />
Theme authors and web designers / developers in general tend to use external resources like free icons, images, and scripts to help ourselves speed up the process or help us fill in the gaps that we&#8217;re not so good at. That&#8217;s nice and all for free themes. However, when you have to pay, make sure they have permission to sell those icons, images, and scripts to you.</p>
<p>Like I mentioned, the premium themes market is a new game for theme authors. We&#8217;re not being lazy or trying to harm you. The fact is not everyone knows what to do. But of course, that fact shouldn&#8217;t be an excuse. The best you can do is help them help you.</p>
<p>What your premium theme author should tell you is:</p>
<ul>
<li>Yes, they&#8217;ve all been licensed for commercial use and here&#8217;s proof.</li>
<li>Yes, I (or we) do have permission to commercially redistribute or resell those images, files, or scripts in question.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>What are the features and hidden options?</strong><br />
In short, give me the goodies. Some themes come with extra features and options that theme authors often neglect simply because they&#8217;re about developing themes, not marketing. Look for features like theme options, asides, featured posts, and custom page templates or layout variations.</p>
<p>You could be looking at a real gem and not know it.</p>
<p><strong>Is there a FAQ and how&#8217;s the support?</strong><br />
At this point, your premium theme author probably made up the questions on the Frequently Asked Questions page, but a thorough FAQ page can be a very helpful guide for discovering hidden features, answering basic customization concerns, and solving installation problems.</p>
<p>While you&#8217;re at it, find out what kind of support you&#8217;ll get. Does the theme author have a forum or message board for you to post complicated questions? Support through email is a pain, not just for the theme author.</p>
<p><strong>Is there a live demo or preview?</strong><br />
Typically, there&#8217;s a live demo or preview so you can check it out before purchasing. If there&#8217;s no demo or preview, that should be a warning sign. Anyone serious about selling a premium theme should have a demo. Otherwise, there has to be a really good reason for not having one.</p>
<p>If there is a demo, bust out your magnifying glass and start inspecting.</p>
<p><strong>Is it well organized and evenly spaced?</strong><br />
Regardless of how and why, an organized and well-spaced layout makes everything easier to use and look at. If something looks out of place, make sure that problem area will be easy to fix. If it&#8217;s not easy to fix and you&#8217;ll get no support then&#8230;doh!</p>
<p><strong>Are the XHTML and CSS codes valid?</strong><br />
Whether they are valid or not doesn&#8217;t really affect you. You probably won&#8217;t even notice a thing. At the base of it, valid codes simply means the codes have been organized and closed correctly. Valid coding isn&#8217;t a hard thing to do. If there are invalid codes, your premium theme author should have a good reason for it. Otherwise, run.</p>
<p>Grab the address of the live demo and its sub pages. <a href="http://validator.w3.org/">Start validating the XHTML codes</a>. As for validating CSS, while you&#8217;re using the theme&#8217;s demo:</p>
<ul>
<li>Go to View > Source (from your browser)</li>
<li>Find the address of the stylesheet, which looks something like this: <strong>yourblog.com/wp-content/themes/Theme-Name/style.css</strong></li>
<li>Enter that address at the <a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/">CSS validator</a> page.</li>
</ul>
<p>A positive validation result page for both should look green. Below is an example of a positive validation result.</p>
<p><img src='http://www.wpdesigner.com/wp-content/files/2007/11/valid.png' alt='valid.png' class='centered' /></p>
<p>In simple terms, XHTML controls your structure and CSS controls the styles.</p>
<p><strong>Does it have cross-browser compatibility?</strong><br />
Basically, does it look the same in both Firefox and Internet Explorer? Your blog readers, not all of them use Firefox and not all of them use Internet Explorer. You should cover both bases.</p>
<p>Regardless of how each browser interpret codes differently, it&#8217;s important for your blog or premium theme to <strong>not</strong> change according to what browser the user&#8217;s using.</p>
<p>(Firefox and Internet Explorer are used as examples because they are the most popular. You can also test for Safari and Opera browsers.)</p>
<p><strong>Have the sidebar widgets been styled?</strong><br />
Nowadays, asking whether a sidebar is widget ready should be out of the question because the answer is they should be. But, what&#8217;s also important is whether the author spent any time styling for sidebar widgets. Your sidebar might look fine, but you never know until you start using sidebar widgets.</p>
<p>This a bit hard for novice users to check on so just ask the theme author.</p>
<p><strong>Does the sidebar content come after the main content?</strong><br />
This is simply a bonus for SEO-minded users. Sidebar content coming after the main content in the source codes simply mean search engines like Google will scan the main content before scanning the sidebar content. This is usually a problem when a theme uses a left sidebar, which typically means the sidebar comes first.</p>
<p>A left sidebar coming after the main content is possible if the author knows how to manipulate the CSS codes to do so. Again, this is a bonus, not a requirement.</p>
<p>If there&#8217;s left sidebar, go to View > Source again and look for the left sidebar content, does it come before or after the main content area?</p>
<p><strong>Are there installation and usage instructions?</strong><br />
WordPress themes are getting more and more complicated to install and use to the fullest extent. Installation and usage instructions aren&#8217;t, but should be requirements.</p>
<p>If the author boasts about custom page templates, does he or she give you instructions on how to use those custom page templates?</p>
<p><strong>Does the archive template make use of excerpts?</strong><br />
Without a robot.txt file to control the behavior of search engine spiders, scanning your blog for content, you have to rely on using
<div class="codesnip-container" >the_excerpt</div>
<p> function for the archive pages to help search engine spiders distinguish your front page from your archive pages. You can get penalized for having duplicate content, which you didn&#8217;t mean to, but it just so happened that you front page is identical to your archive page while not using excerpts.</p>
<p>Using excerpts to prevent duplicate content isn&#8217;t much help, but something is better than nothing.</p>
<p><strong>Is it missing any basic template functions?</strong></p>
<div class="codesnip-container" >wp_head</div>
<p>,
<div class="codesnip-container" >wp_footer</div>
<p>,
<div class="codesnip-container" >wp_link_pages</div>
<p> are the most common missing functions.
<div class="codesnip-container" >wp_head</div>
<p> and
<div class="codesnip-container" >wp_footer</div>
<p> are often used by WordPress plugins to help you manipulate your blog.</p>
<div class="codesnip-container" >wp_link_pages</div>
<p> is used for displaying links to posts with multiple sub sections. It should be in the single.php and page.php files.</p>
<p>(You can&#8217;t check on the above functions until you have the actual theme files.)</p>
<p><strong>Are there unnecessary codes?</strong><br />
(Again, this level of inspection is best when you actually have the theme files.) Something like trying to display the comments number link on single post view pages (single.php) is unnecessary because the comments number link will not show up on single post pages.</p>
<p><strong>What does the error pages look like?</strong><br />
On the demo, purposely go to a page that doesn&#8217;t exist to see what the error message or error page layout looks like. You can do the same thing again by searching for a random keyword, through the search form, that you know there&#8217;s no result for.</p>
<p><strong>What plugins are comptabible or have been integrated with this theme?</strong><br />
If some plugins have been integrated, are there instructions on how to install, use, and customize them? Are there any known plugins that the theme isn&#8217;t compatible with?</p>
<p><strong>What versions of WordPress is it compatible with?</strong><br />
By default (November 27, 2007), your premium theme should be compatible with WordPress version 2.3.1. If it&#8217;s also compatible with previous versions like 2.2 and 2.1 then it&#8217;s a bonus.</p>
<p><strong>What are the licenses and usage limits?</strong><br />
Does the author allow you to redistribute in-whole or in-part (not likely)? How many domains are you allowed to use this theme on? If you&#8217;re a developer, does the author provide a developer license, which allows you to reuse that premium theme for your clients&#8217; projects?</p>
<p>That&#8217;s the end of my list. I&#8217;m sure there are many more concerns or quality measures I haven&#8217;t covered. You&#8217;re welcome to contribute to this list.</p>
<p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/?p=927&amp;akst_action=share-this"  title="Email, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_927" class="akst_share_link" rel="noindex nofollow">ShareThis</a>
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		<item>
		<title>Micro-Redesign</title>
		<link>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/10/24/micro-redesign/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/10/24/micro-redesign/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:56:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Small Potato</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/10/24/micro-redesign/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ 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&#8217;s case, this micro-redesign is another step toward de-cluttering. Preview the upcoming design here. It&#8217;s not much different from the current Wpdesigner. But all together, the small changes make a big [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/wp-content/files/2007/10/wpdesigner-75.gif" title="preview of wpdesigner new design"><img src='http://www.wpdesigner.com/wp-content/files/2007/10/wpdesigner-new-logo.gif' alt='new design thumbnail' class='alignleft' /></a> Wpdesigner is getting a micro-redesign. Your blog should get one too. <strong>Simple tweaks, additions, and subtractions can do wonders for your blog</strong>. In Wpdesigner&#8217;s case, <strong>this micro-redesign is another step toward de-cluttering</strong>. <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/wp-content/files/2007/10/wpdesigner-75.gif">Preview the upcoming design here</a>. It&#8217;s not much different from the current Wpdesigner. But all together, the small changes make a big difference.</p>
<p><strong>New Logo</strong> - If you&#8217;re a loyal reader, you know Wpdesigner lacks identity so I&#8217;m adding a logo to help this blog become <strong>more recognizable and memorable</strong> for new visitors. And if you know me, you know I&#8217;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&#8217;t have done it without <strong><a href="http://www.nomad-one.com/">Nur of Nomad-One.com</a></strong>. He came through with the concept and style for this logo. What I&#8217;ll be using for Wpdesigner&#8217;s logo is only a fraction and combination of everything he sent me.</p>
<p><strong>Simple Navigation</strong> - 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, <strong>having more than seven items within one group of links will not do much good</strong> if you can&#8217;t remember them.</p>
<p><strong>The result is a simpler and more balanced horizontal menu</strong>.</p>
<p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/?p=889&amp;akst_action=share-this"  title="Email, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_889" class="akst_share_link" rel="noindex nofollow">ShareThis</a>
</p><p>--------------</p><br />
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		<title>Video #1: Four WordPress and Blog Design Tips</title>
		<link>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/10/11/video-1-four-wordpress-and-blog-design-tips/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/10/11/video-1-four-wordpress-and-blog-design-tips/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Oct 2007 06:44:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Small Potato</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/10/11/video-1-four-wordpress-and-blog-design-tips/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(Either JavaScript is not active or you are using an old version of Adobe Flash Player. Please install the newest Flash Player.)

Don&#8217;t abuse tags. They&#8217;re meant to complement your main categories. They&#8217;re not cool. Tags are clutter. Too much tagging will make your blog lose focus.
Don&#8217;t use big images in your blog posts. When you [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/3re7cmIAOmk" width="400" height="350" class="embedflash"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3re7cmIAOmk" /><small>(Either JavaScript is not active or you are using an old version of Adobe Flash Player. <a href="http://www.adobe.com/de/">Please install the newest Flash Player</a>.)</small></object></p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Don&#8217;t abuse tags</strong>. They&#8217;re meant to complement your main categories. They&#8217;re not cool. <strong>Tags are clutter</strong>. Too much tagging will make your blog lose focus.</li>
<li><strong>Don&#8217;t use big images in your blog posts</strong>. 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. </li>
<li>Put your content first, but also <strong>design your blog around ads</strong>. Make it easy for banners to look pretty and neat within your blog.</li>
<li><strong>You should be unique, but also generic</strong>. Logos, favicons, and graphic banners are all areas where you can be unique. However, layout and structure-wise, don&#8217;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.</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Thoughts about the video</strong>:</p>
<p>It looks like I&#8217;m not totally comfortable in front of the camcorder yet, a bit stiff and mispronounced some words here and there. Also, I don&#8217;t know my way around the video editing program yet. In the next video, I&#8217;ll try to put together something more smooth and organized.</p>
<p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/?p=879&amp;akst_action=share-this"  title="Email, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_879" class="akst_share_link" rel="noindex nofollow">ShareThis</a>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>8 Blog Redesign Tips</title>
		<link>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/08/24/8-blog-redesign-tips/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/08/24/8-blog-redesign-tips/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:13:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Small Potato</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/08/24/8-blog-redesign-tips/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What is it about August and redesigns? If you&#8217;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 [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What is it about August and redesigns? If you&#8217;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.</p>
<p><strong>Redesign Because You Need To</strong><br />
Do it to solve a problem. Don&#8217;t redesign simply because you want to. It&#8217;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.</p>
<p><strong>Clean Up the Sidebar(s)</strong><br />
Just like me, you&#8217;ve been lazy to clean up the cluttered sidebars right? And, you&#8217;ve installed too many sidebar widgets haven&#8217;t you? That&#8217;s NOT okay. A redesign is also your chance to remove all the useless widgets that are taking attention away from the search form and category links. Not to mention, those widgets are also slowing down your blog.</p>
<p>I know it&#8217;s painful and your sidebar might look naked, but you have to do it.</p>
<p><strong>Put Content First and Best Content Forward</strong><br />
I don&#8217;t care where you&#8217;re at in your blogging career. You need to put content first. After all, that&#8217;s what readers come to your blog for. If you annoy them with too many ads and other useless stuff then they&#8217;ll stick with getting your content through a feed reader. If you want to increase uniques and pageviews, put your content first and <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/08/21/how-to-put-your-best-content-forward/">best content forward</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Don&#8217;t Overlook the 404 Page</strong><br />
You can test the new design / theme all you want before installing it for your blog, but you never know what problem you might come across until you&#8217;ve installed it. During the first few days of using the new design, it helps if you have a solid 404 or Not Found page to direct your readers to whatever they&#8217;re looking for. Here&#8217;s some <a href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/17/404-error-pages-reloaded/">inspiration for your 404 page</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Do You Need An Archives Page?</strong><br />
How old is your blog and how many archive and category links you&#8217;re listing in the sidebar? If it&#8217;s just too much to list all those links in the sidebar then create a new page for them. For an example, check out <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/archives/">Wpdesigner&#8217;s archives page</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Where is the search form?</strong><br />
Upper right hand corner is the best place to put it. The search form is even more important when your blog have lots of posts.</p>
<p><strong>Make It Worth It</strong><br />
I can&#8217;t stress this enough. If you&#8217;re aiming for a complete makeover, you better make it worth it or you&#8217;ll end up unhappy and looking for another redesign. Think about having to re-paint a house. Would you step into that half-hearted? If you have to hire a professional, do it and hire a good one. Don&#8217;t settle and don&#8217;t get stingy!</p>
<p>Nowadays, readers go through a lot of blogs per day. First impression is more important than ever!</p>
<p><strong>Get Feedback Before You Redesign</strong><br />
Redesigning is not an inward process. Don&#8217;t depend on yourself to realize all the problems. Where can you ask for help? Well, who&#8217;s better to ask than your readers? They&#8217;re the ones using your blog.</p>
<p>You can also ask me. I&#8217;m no expert, but I can give you tips from the user&#8217;s perspective. I recently opened up a new board on my forum, <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=8">&#8220;Ask Small Potato&#8221; Reviews</a>. <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/forums/register.php">Register</a> for an account and login to to submit your blog for review. I&#8217;ll feature it on the front page if I end up writing a lot of helpful tips that other readers can benefit from.</p>
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		<title>Using WordPress as a CSS gallery</title>
		<link>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/07/26/using-wordpress-as-a-css-gallery/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/07/26/using-wordpress-as-a-css-gallery/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Jul 2007 21:37:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Small Potato</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/07/26/using-wordpress-as-a-css-gallery/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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&#8217;s features, it isn&#8217;t hard imitate the basic structure.

First, you need know how [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Although CSS galleries showcasing beautiful designs are nothing new, using WordPress to power your CSS gallery is picking up steam. Take <a href="http://www.cssremix.com/">CSSRemix.com</a> for example, one of many CSS galleries powered by WordPress, although it would be time consuming to duplicate all of CSSRemix&#8217;s features, it isn&#8217;t hard imitate the basic structure.</p>
<ul>
<li>First, you need know how to use <a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/06/05/one-way-to-use-custom-fields/">custom fields</a>.</li>
<li>Second, download Lester Chan&#8217;s <a href="http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming.php">WP-PostRatings</a> plugin, install, and integrate it. This plugin isn&#8217;t necessary, but people like to rate stuff so let them rate.</li>
<li>Third, decide how many custom field keys and values you&#8217;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.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Here&#8217;s an example of how to implement the outline above</strong>:</p>
<div class="codesnip-container" >&lt;?php the_title(); ?&gt;<br />
&lt;a href=&#8221;value of url&#8221;&gt;&lt;img src=&#8221;value of url_img&#8221; alt=&#8221;&lt;?php the_title(); ?&gt;&#8221; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;</div>
<p>After you&#8217;ve gotten everything set up, outsource the job of indexing thousands and thousands of beautiful designs. Then, there you&#8217;ll have it, a CSS gallery powered by WordPress.</p>
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