One of the things which characterizes WordPress is its broad use of PHP and “PHP-like” variables throughout its template files. These variables have remained unchanged for the better part of a decade since WordPress was developed, and so too has their placement. Since the very first WordPress release, PHP code could only be used in a raw template file which was stored on the server. This was (and is) largely done to protect a website’s security, as it was theorized [...]

Whether you’re a designer, a developer (or both), chances are you don’t have a lot of spare time. With that in mind, here are some of my favorite WordPress plugins that can help you get things done and move on to the next project. You may also like… WordPress Plugins to Help Make Your Site Responsive → 10 WordPress Plugins to Help Optimize Performance → Mobile Toolbox for WordPress (Tutorials, Plugins and Themes) → Useful Plugins and Resources for Improving [...]

Today we have an amazing freebie for you – A package of five WordPress Themes courtesy of the guys from WP Theme Generator. All five of the feature-rich themes have been built to demonstrate the power, functionality and awesomeness of their generator. You can download them all for free. All of the themes have been crafted using the same powerful base framework and are all choc-full of features you would expect from a premium theme. Here are some of the [...]

All of the minimal themes we have for you below are free and will work perfectly well straight-out-of-the-box (albeit with a few option panel tweaks), also the vast majority of them being responsive. But, putting the minimal styling aside, the real beauty of these themes, for designers and developers anyway, is that they are a fantastic starting point for further development and giving you the chance to view and learn first-hand professional and organised coding practices. You might also like: [...]

Each time you develop a theme you’ll have to deal with the same, repetitive tasks. E.g. you need a certain folder structure to organize your PHP, CSS and JavaScript files or you rely on features like layouts, compression and caching. Because you don’t want to start from scratch, coding all these features over and over again, you are better off using a theme framework. It provides you with a file and folder structure and offers a rich tool set for [...]

If you are a heavy WordPress user then it’s likely you’re interested in deep customizations. There are a slew of plug-ins available, but some tasks are just easier to perform yourself. As an example, the login/register forms are often unfitting to match the template of most websites. But thanks to a few genius developers there are simple guidelines to including your own custom styles. In this guide I’ll walk you through the process of designing a totally customized WordPress login [...]

With the galloping development of modern technologies the screen size margin of your readership can be anything in-between a 30″ desktop monitor and the iPhone’s 3.5″ screen. Responsive design techniques kills two birds with a single stone by helping improve user experience by displaying a screen sized optimized version of your website. You can help your WordPress website become more mobile-friendly, and here is a list of the most useful WordPress plugins that would help you in that. You’ll find [...]

In this tutorial, I’ll teach you how to adapt a simple HTML blog layout into a WordPress theme. We’ll be using this static page as starting point.

The move from physical to digital magazine content is an exciting process. Over just the past few years we have witnessed thousands of new brands and templates begin to surface. Magazine editors have wisely chosen the Internet as a medium to share their news stories. This not only reaches a wider global audience but also allows for the free flow of information. Without constraining signup fees these magazines can grow much faster with a lot less marketing. But to design [...]

As so many people have WordPress installed, I thought I would share with you a key technique integral to WordPress that will help your website speed. W3 Total Cache is a dream plugin for achieving caching, I would recommend it to anybody. Yet there are times when you do not want to cache a whole page for long periods, but to cache sections of it so that a page rebuild is not as costly in server time. For example I [...]

Minimal is the timeless web design trend of basic styling a web page and stripping out all non-essential elements allowing the reader to focus solely on the content with absolutely no distractions. Achieving the balance between content and minimal design is not easy, but in the hands of a skilled designer or a competent writer, the minimal style can truly accentuate your web page. This post is our third year featuring minimal WordPress themes and by far and away our [...]

The most popular topic of discussion at the moment, amongst web designers anyway, is undoubtedly responsive web design. This is in response to the popularity, over the past couple of years, of visitors opting to use a mobile device of some sort (Android, iPhone, iPad..) to access their favorite web sites. Just to give you a quick overview, responsive web design allows you to offer a specific and optimised screen size layout that is based on whatever device (mobile, tablet…) [...]

Shortcodes were introduced in WordPress 2.5, and help you to create macro codes to use within your content. If you think about it, this is a great way to create something like a dynamic ad spot or a call-to-action button in your posts. If we use the call-to-action example, you could add something like this to your blogpost to show the button, and then edit the output in your templates functions.php file, which we’ll get to in a minute. To [...]