Just a quick reminder: Registration on LearnWebDevelopment.com’s WordPress Bootcamp is ending this week – May 23, 2013 at midnight.

If you want to learn WordPress – and create your first website in just a few days – this is the bootcamp for you! You’ll learn how to build a fully-functioning website using WordPress faster than ever before. Grab your seat today.

And, if you secure your seat by Thursday at midnight, you won’t have to wait for this unique training. Go here now to see what you’ll learn and what others are saying about LearnWebDevelopment.com’s training.

Did we mention that your success is guaranteed in this bootcamp?

LearnWebDevelopment.com guarantees if you keep up with the assignments, do the weekly homework lessons, and ask questions when you have them, you’ll become a successful web designer by the time the Bootcamp is over. If you don’t, they’ll refund every penny you paid. Learn more here.

Even developers who are familiar with the backend WordPress infrastructure may not have an easy time getting into plugin development. This requires a sincere level of commitment to study the ideologies and best practices. And although this will not take more than a week at most, it definitely requires a strong attitude towards working in PHP.

I want to present a small collection of online tutorials geared towards educating new users about plugin development. If you are not familiar programming in PHP then this may be a step too far. Learning how to theme WordPress may be an easier place to get started. But I think anybody with a firm commitment will be able to learn this system quickly and efficiently.

Getting the Basics

Quite possibly one of the best places to start is within the WordPress Codex. They have entire articles and documentation built around structuring your own plugins. This link provides the sample template you will need for any plugin, along with handling functions and global variables.

Now to move a bit into more complicated areas I have always liked Net Tuts+. The whole Tuts+ library is full of great information written by very smart developers. I found a great article on WordPress plugin optimization which delves into areas like new database entries, dealing with permalinks and good SEO, plus adding features and documentation with the plugin core. All of these tips should be an excellent starting point for newcomers.

Now if you really want to delve into deeper topics check out the WP Tuts+ plugin category which has a whole slew of new articles related to WordPress plugin development. Their entire website is dedicated to WordPress tutorials. And the quality of each post is simply outstanding. Many of the tutorials offer free source code as well, just to have something you can work with instead of starting from scratch.

Additional Side Features

The plugins API within WordPress is very expansive to encompass many of the typical functions. One such area is creating widgets to be added into your sidebar or theme sections. These widgets may be any number of cool features like category listings, meta links, contact forms… honestly anything you can build.

Notice that widgets are also placed in the same folder as your plugins – namely /wp-content/plugins/. This means you can follow many of the same rules for creating widgets and they are even easier to install. You have full control over placement and where these appear in your theme. And it can be adjusted quickly by switching between new themes in WordPress.

If you need a more in-depth article I recommend this tutorial by Sitepoint. It starts off by explaining widgets and how you will use them within the Administration panel. Then you can move into the backend to start coding your own widgets into PHP files. It is actually a lot of fun and can save you on excess development time.

Responsive Plugins

This in-depth tutorial published on Designmodo offers some insight towards a more complicated manner of plugin development. There are many times you will be handling unique page content such as videos, images, or slideshow media. Responsive mobile designs are very popular and new plugins may want to keep up with this standard.

The ability to load dynamic content via Ajax has become more cohesive over the past decade. And now this whole process has been given an easier home in the WordPress core. Go through some of the example code samples and you will surely pick up a few tips. I have been impressed with the improvements and I feel WordPress can only continue adding better features as we move forward.

Final Thoughts

There are plenty of developers who never move into the realm of building plugins. Sometimes this just doesn’t interest people who would rather focus on the frontend – and there is certainly nothing wrong with this attitude! However I do hope these resources will provide a starting point for some curious minds.

This process of studying the syntax of a generic plugin is only the beginning. Then you have to think of your own ideas and try building them into WordPress. It is an exciting yet stressful endeavor, so be sure and take breaks every-so-often but never give up! When you bump into trouble post a new thread on WordPress Answers. The members are very smart and often nice enough to help you out with a detailed solution.

Last week I mentioned, “Due to popular demand, and the growing desire to learn WordPress, LearnWebDevelopment.com, has announced that they’ll host one of their hugely popular WordPress Bootcamps in May.”

The only catch is that it’s starting soon and, because of that, early-bird pricing is also ending soon: Thursday, May 2, 2013 at midnight. After midnight Thursday, the offer is over.

If you’d like to quickly become an in-demand WordPress website designer, sign up here now.

Remember, all of LearnWebDevelopment.com’s WordPress Bootcamps come with a risk-free lifetime money-back guarantee. Get the details here.

LearnWebDevelopment.com initially planned to wait until Fall 2013 to host another WordPress Bootcamp. But, their students had other intentions.

Due to popular demand, and the growing desire to learn WordPress, LearnWebDevelopment.com, has announced that they’ll host one of their hugely popular WordPress Bootcamps in May.

Check it out today because:

1. It starts soon.

2. You’ll save $200 with early-bird pricing. (But only until May 2, 2013.)

3. These bootcamps fill up fast. And, because so many are waiting for this one, I recommend enrolling today to save your seat.

Grab your seat today and start building feature-rich WordPress websites AND working with clients in just a few weeks.

In case you forgot, here’s a brief overview of the WordPress Bootcamp:

In this WordPress Bootcamp, you’ll learn everything you need to know – from the very basics (like how to choose a domain name) all the way to customizing your new website and even how to find clients.

These WordPress Bootcamps are so popular because they include:

- LearnWebDevelopment.com’s complete WordPress training videos so you can download and watch again and again.

- Three live sessions with our WordPress experts to better understand what you’re learning and ask any questions you might have.

- Personal 1-on-1 support from LearnWebDevelopment.com’s experts so you’ll never be alone as you learn.

See all the benefits – and their 100% money back guarantee – here.

Early-bird pricing ends Thursday, May 2, 2013 (at midnight central time).

Most designers are familiar with the process of branding. You need to create something which is easily recognizable to attach onto your company name. This could be a logo, slogan, cartoon character, icon, or any other graphic symbolism. Branding requires time and patience, but it does pay off in the long run.

I want to share just a couple of resources which may push designers into the world of print. You can get a lot more attention by offering products or even doing giveaways every few months. It is fun for your readers and all dedicated fans would be sure to check it out.

New Business Cards

The formal way of promoting business to others is by sharing your business cards together. This will often lead to connections with salesmen, possibly CEOs, but it can often lead to only a single connection. A newer exciting method of sharing personal company cards is to create a set of print products for your entire company.

I often think of Uprinting for their quick service and large customer base. You can order any number of set cards, in bulk quantity, and still get your products at a relatively quick speed. And the customized templates are extraordinary! Letterheads, flyers, envelopes, you name it and they can print it.

Try out a similar branding scheme for your own company. It does not require much work or time. But you will need to determine a solution for getting printed products out into the public. Handing pieces of paper out to strangers on the sidewalk is a surefire way to find most of them in a nearby trash can. Study your audience and find out where they like to go. And when you get down to brass tax, it’s all a numbers game.

Publish a Site Contest

This idea doesn’t come around as much anymore, but publishing a contest on your website will definitely catch some attention. When you have dedicated fans willing to study your content and share around articles it would be an enthralling process to win some cool merchandise.

The website for Quality Logo Products is easy enough to traverse. Their products are fantastic with a very wide range of services. Skipping beyond the normal ideas you can branch into areas for accessories and neat little toys. Think water bottles, mouse pads, and other common things people would need around the house.

Custom T-Shirts

Obviously the idea of selling your branding on items of clothing should come as no surprise. But what about combining ideas together and raffling off a series of t-shirts with your company branding? If you have enough dedicated fans/customers, I would imagine this could attract serious attention. And you can even require e-mail signup to capture possible clients for an e-mail newsletter listing.

In recommendation I would have to suggest BlueCotton for online retailing. If you know somebody local who can do good work it might save you in money for shipping. But I would say that BlueCotton offers superior products and the prices are extremely reasonable for remote processing. They can make long sleeves, short sleeves, hoodies, beanies, and tons of other stuff. You can get a better idea by just browsing their products to see what I am talking about.

Closing

To keep your business forging ahead you should not be afraid of trying new things. This is the process used to scale any major business, whether a new startup or an older company celebrating their 10th anniversary. There is always time for branching into the world of print design and marketing.

After first installing a new website running WordPress there will be a number of tasks you want to handle. Securing the new installation is definitely a top priority. And thankfully there are tons of free plugins you can download right from the plugins administration page.

In this article I want to present 14 specific WordPress plugins which are helpful when doing a clean install. Any new WordPress-based website can benefit from a majority of these plugins. Additionally they are all free to download and the developers often update with version enhancements. You may not need every plugin but this is certainly an exhaustive list worth a quick peek.

1. Google Sitemap Generator

To get your webpages listed in Google will take some days or even weeks of crawling. But when you generate a unique XML sitemap the process may be expedited tremendously. I have to recommend Google Sitemap Generator for every single WordPress installation. Users never need to see this but it provides context for search engine crawlers to manage your content and organize pages by keywords.

2. W3 Total Cache

Contrary to the 1st example, I would argue W3 Total Cache is not necessary in every website. You need to consider what type of posts or pages you will publish on your site and if a local HDD cache will provide much value.

When you are posting lots of images and other media the caching system works wonders. W3 Total Cache will handle everything from database queries, video media, images, shortcodes, and other similar content types. When you notice your website pulling in major upticks of traffic this would be a good solution for wearing down on bandwidth transfers.

3. WP Maintenance Mode

It is not uncommon to perform updates or enhancements to your theme. When editing core areas of your site there are likely going to be errors among many trials. Instead of leaving these glaring bugs in the frontend for your visitors to see, why not try WP Maintenance Mode? This all-in-one plugin will allow you to switch into maintenance mode which directs users to a construction page, while admins can still observe the changes to inner pages.

4. Ultimate TinyMCE

If you are bored of using the default text editor then look no further beyond Ultimate TinyMCE. There are definitely similar examples to choose from, but this plugin is my favorite by far. You can setup additional buttons or switches which are customized right from the admin panel. It’s certainly not for everyone, but it may be worth a try if you are curious.

5. Better WP Security

Better WP Security is for webmasters who really want to cloak their site. It will provide a number of helpful changes such as a new URL for dashboard/login pages, renaming the admin account, updating the WordPress DB tables prefix, and even changing the location of the wp-content directory. This may be overly paranoid for some users but it is a keeper in the means of security.

6. CMS Tree Page View

After building a WordPress site using over 1,000 pages I can vouch that CMS Tree View is a very handy plugin. You do not want to be guessing at parent pages when editing a new webpage in the admin panel. And WordPress is admittedly not so great with a more traditional UI when organizing all your webpages.

7. Custom Upload Dir

One separate feature which many webmasters have been asking for is a place to remove uploads outside of wp-content. This WordPress plugin Custom Upload Dir allows you to do just that! It is still possible to customize the URL based on date, month, user ID, or post title. And you may choose any root folder like /images/ or /media/ which masks a lot of the default behavior.

8. WYSIJA Newsletters

Although still not as popular among users, the WordPress Newsletter system has grown quickly. It provides a means of keeping members updated with content while still using the WP users system. All e-mail addresses are easy to pull – but what about custom themes? This plugin will provide a backend theme editor for customizing newsletter pages. Very handy for marketing potential and it is quick to learn.

9. Syntax Highlighter

There are a number of helpful tools for displaying code in your pages. The syntax highlighter offers additional support for quickly copying codes into your page without rendering HTML or CSS. Additionally you can choose from a number of languages, and the list is growing with each update. I have yet to be disappointed with Syntax Highlighter so give it a shot if you have the opportunity.

10. Crayon Syntax Highlighter

Another code display plugin is Crayon Syntax Highlighter. This system is a bit more complex with the ability to add your own custom language rules. But you also have the options of referencing an external URL or file within your WordPress install. In this way you do not need to include all the code inline, but rather keep them separate from the regular content.

11. BackWPup

You never know when an accident can happen with your database, WordPress theme, plugins, or even the hosting server. It is a good idea to keep local backups of your website just in case of an emergency. And BackWPup is one great solution rolled into a single plugin. You can take the WP database, file systems, and even the wp-content folder which may be remotely stored or downloaded. Very simple to use for webmasters who are not savvy in the backend.

12. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Although related posts are not exactly necessary for website security, they do help to provide a better experience on new launches. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin is totally free and much smaller than the competition. It is an easily install and also very easy to manage. Check out the details page if you want to learn more.

13. Disqus Comments System

One plugin which I always recommend is the Disqus Comment System. Unfortunately since Akismet has a more confusing checkout system which appears to require money(donations), I have stopped using them altogether. Even though Akismet is still technically free, the process for obtaining your API key is ludicrous.

And leaving your WordPress comments form open to manipulation is very dangerous. So the easiest alternative is to use a 3rd party solution via Disqus. Give it a try and if you don’t like how Disqus operates you can always uninstall and go back to default. Or merely disable comments altogether and not have to deal with any spam.

14. Fast Secure Contact Form

The Fast Secure Contact Form plugin is definitely an easy setup. When you need a very quick and easy contact form then this is a great solution. There is built-in spam protection to keep you from getting a flooded inbox. The plugins is free to use and provides support for additional fields within any contact form. Definitely a good all-around solution for beginners and experts alike.

It will require time and patience to work around your own WordPress backups. And when an accident occurs you will be happy that you took the time for properly managing your data. However the process can be stressful, so you want to ensure that everything is properly saved and ready to go.

In this article I want to share a few brief points about restoring your WordPress install. But the whole procedure begins with a regular backup of your database and WordPress files. It is definitely a bit more complicated if you are not familiar with working on a server. But if you managed to install WordPress, I would like to think you could also backup and restore these files.

Manual Backups

The first step is making a catalog all the files you will need. Generally this will include every single file located inside your WordPress installation and all sub-directories. The best way to do this is via FTP using a free solution like FileZilla or Cyberduck.

It is best to generate a brand new folder with the name of your website. So if we were performing a local backup on this site I would create a new folder named “colorburned.com” which contains all the website files. Alternately you may name this folder “public_html” which is standard practice in most Linux server environments.

Now if you want to split everything it might be a good idea to create another folder named “database”. Then put both of these directories inside a new folder with the current date and name of website. Now you have a basic public_html folder will all the website files, plus a database backup stored with the exact date.

Moving the Database

It is important to consider the size of your database before performing a backup. If you have lots of posts or pages and users then your DB size is probably very large, and zipping the contents will result in a much smaller file. The two basic methods are Zip and GZip.

Both forms of compression are extremely efficient and may also be uploaded right back to another web host. Databases are commonly managed using a service known as phpMyAdmin. You can read a bit more on this WP codex page which focuses on databases. The general process would be to select your database and then choose the Export tab found at the very top.

On the new page select the ‘custom’ radio button and more options will appear. You should notice all the tables are selected by default, but if this is not the case be sure and select everything. In fact the only super important change is to update ‘Compression’ which can be found under ‘Save output to a file’.

Selecting Zipped or GZipped will not matter too much. The compression size is just about the same, and both filetypes may be re-uploaded to any phpMyAdmin. Down at the very bottom hit the Go button and after a few seconds your download should begin.

Restoring the Database and Files

Now we can revisit the imaginary scenario that we have back up all the files and database content. Let’s assume suddenly your hosting server hard drive crashes and your entire website is down. Or we can pretend you are switching web hosts and need to get everything working again on a brand new server.

First you should edit the wp-config.php file in your backups folder. This contains a very specific database name, username, and user password, which all pertain to your older installation. All of these will be different with a new database and you’ll have to create them inside cPanel. Be sure you create a new database and save the full name into your config file. Additionally create a new user with all privileges added onto this new database, and save that username/combo as well.

Get back into your FTP program of choice and upload all the files back onto this new web server. While the files are transferring you may also log into the new phpMyAdmin and select the newly-created database. Then on the Import tab browse to your zipped/gzipped backup and upload right into the server. It may take a few minutes of processing but everything should work out.

If the zipped/gzipped file is too large it is possible to split the lines yourself. This would take a lot of work, and it is a good idea to limit your database backups to less than 100MB-1GB. This isn’t a solid rule but different web hosts will have different limits on the upload capacity. If you are still running into problems check out this WP codex page related to uploading & restoring any WordPress site.

Related Articles

• How To Backup and Restore your WordPress Blog
• Updraft: The Simplest WordPress Backup & Restore Utility
• WordPress Backup to Dropbox Plugin
• How to backup your self-hosted WordPress website the easy way
• WordPress Database and Files Backup Solutions

Final Thoughts

I hope this guide may prove useful to some WordPress developers or webmasters. When you lose unsaved data by accident it has to be the worst feeling. By holding vigilant and keeping local backups every few weeks or months, it will ensure this should not be a problem. There are certainly a lot of different methods for doing WordPress backups. Although this is the most direct solution, you may enjoy the above list of related articles for alternative backup solutions. If you have any further questions or comments on the post feel free to share with us in the discussion area below.

1. Music icon vector fashion

2. Vector Music Icons

3. Music icons flurry style

4. Classical Music Icons

5. Music Note Icon

6. Vinyl back

7. Free Instruments Icons

8. Stratocaster

9. MUSIC PLAYER ICON

10. Music Of The Spheres Icons

11. Music MP3 and Folders

12. Music icon vector

13. Music Vector Icons

14. Stringed Instruments Icons

15. Acoustic Guitars Icons

16. Gadgets Icons

17. Music Folder Icons

18. Music icons pack

19. Music Icon Pack by Matapalo

20. Acordeon icon

21. The OldMusic Plates

22. WIP Music icons

23. Flurry Music Icon

24. Wind Instruments Icons

25. Music Genre Icons

26. Instruments Icons

27. Disc Jockey Icons

28. Music icons pack

29. Be the DJ Icons

30. Music Icons

There are only a small handful of CMS libraries which offer support for breadcrumbs. This is a trail of links you’ll notice above the body content which leads back to the various categories and top-tier pages related to your post. Also it displays the hierarchical formatting between parent pages and sub-pages.

In this article I want to offer a few different solutions for implementing breadcrumbs in WordPress. The simplest method is to install a custom plugin which will automatically include these bits of HTML in your theme. Breadcrumbs are also easy to customize on your own, so it all depends on your comfort level when working within WordPress. Along with these ideas I’ve included some related links you may skim and other helpful breadcrumb tutorials.

Breadcrumb NavXT

The NavXT plugin is my first recommendation for those who don’t want to mess with too much code. You can actually search in your WordPress admin panel inside the Plugins page for the name Breadcrumb NavXT. It should come up within search results and you can install this right from your admin backend.

This plugin actually has its own documentation homepage for those who didn’t find enough info on the WordPress page. The installation process is fairly simple and we can follow along with the page directions as needed. Once it’s installed we just need to activate the plugin and it should be working. Now the last step is to include the function somewhere inside your active theme.

<div class="breadcrumbs">
  <?php
      if(function_exists('bcn_display')) {
        bcn_display();
      }
  ?>
</div>

This block should be placed somewhere inside your theme files. The most popular source is header.php because that will be included in every webpage. The PHP function will handle all the recognition and determining the root pages from blog posts. But if you want to change the default setup you may do so from Settings -> Breadcrumb NavXT in the Admin panel.

Full Breadcrumb

This is a much simpler plugin but the installation process is about the same. Full Breadcrumb has been tested up to the most recent version of WordPress. Although it is lesser known than most other solutions, the code base is secure and works perfectly on all setups.

The difference is that we can choose to either directly output the breadcrumb codes, or return the values inside a PHP array. This gives developers a lot more choices for customization when it comes to frontend design. Let’s take a peek at my basic code sample:

<?php
show_full_breadcrumb(
    array(
        'separator' => array(
            'content' => '&raquo;'
        ), // set FALSE to hide
        'home' => array(
            'showLink' => true
        )
    )
);
?>

The function name show_full_breadcrumb is the default call we need to make. The internal array() isn’t required, but it is helpful when passing in new default values. These options allow you to change the text used in separating the different links, and whether to display the homepage link or not.

<?php if (function_exists('get_full_breadcrumb')) $crumbs = get_full_breadcrumb(); ?>

Now the above code will not show the breadcrumbs but instead return the basic HTML code. We can set this value into a variable named $crumbs. By default all the code is stored inside this variable, but we may change the output to be a PHP array of data. This requires a single parameter which looks like this:

<?php
  if (function_exists('get_full_breadcrumb')) $crumbs = get_full_breadcrumb(array( 'type' => 'array'));
?>

I feel that Full Breadcrumb is a much more customized plugin which allows developers to get their hands dirty. I would say this is still very easy to install since it is just a matter of copying & pasting the new function code. But if you want to dig into breadcrumbs without writing your own custom function, this is the best possible solution.

Custom Breadcrumb Codes

Sometimes you just cannot use the default plugins and want to work with your own PHP code. However this doesn’t mean you have to reinvent the wheel and code your own breadcrumbs from scratch. I have picked out a fantastic tutorial published on Blockcoders which delves into this idea of custom breadcrumbs.

Their post explains a bit about the history of breadcrumbs and how you may choose other alternatives for WordPress. However I am really impressed with their custom function code which behaves almost the same as our other plugins. Let’s take a peek at this code and see how it works.

function the_breadcrumbs() {

        global $post;

        if (!is_home()) {

            echo "<a href='";
            echo get_option('home');
            echo "'>";
            echo "Site's name here";
            echo "</a>";

            if (is_category() || is_single()) {

                echo " > ";
                $cats = get_the_category( $post->ID );

                foreach ( $cats as $cat ){
                    echo $cat->cat_name;
                    echo " > ";
                }
                if (is_single()) {
                    the_title();
                }
            } elseif (is_page()) {

                if($post->post_parent){
                    $anc = get_post_ancestors( $post->ID );
                    $anc_link = get_page_link( $post->post_parent );

                    foreach ( $anc as $ancestor ) {
                        $output = " > <a href=".$anc_link.">".get_the_title($ancestor)."</a> > ";
                    }

                    echo $output;
                    the_title();

                } else {
                    echo ' > ';
                    echo the_title();
                }
            }
        }
    elseif (is_tag()) {single_tag_title();}
    elseif (is_day()) {echo"Archive: "; the_time('F jS, Y'); echo'</li>';}
    elseif (is_month()) {echo"Archive: "; the_time('F, Y'); echo'</li>';}
    elseif (is_year()) {echo"Archive: "; the_time('Y'); echo'</li>';}
    elseif (is_author()) {echo"Author's archive: "; echo'</li>';}
    elseif (isset($_GET['paged']) && !empty($_GET['paged'])) {echo "Blogarchive: "; echo'

';}
    elseif (is_search()) {echo"Search results: "; }
}

Original Source

If you copy this block into your theme’s functions.php file it should have no problem pulling out the results. But of course, we also need to include the function call inside a theme file. Again we can visit header.php since this will display on every page in your website. Here is the sample code from their demo:

<?php if(function_exists('the_breadcrumbs')) the_breadcrumbs(); ?>

The biggest reason you may go after your own custom plugin code is the personal touches. You can update all of the internal HTML elements, classes, and even the display text. I feel this exact tutorial is great for your average WordPress developer who is familiar with PHP and can follow along with the codes. Although if you want to look for some alternatives check out the related links to similar articles and tutorials online.

Related Links

• Adding WordPress Breadcrumbs without a Plugin
• Custom WordPress Breadcrumbs Tutorial
• Breadcrumbs for WordPress with Twitter Bootstrap
• WordPress Tips and Tricks for Beginners
• Making Breadcrumbs with wp_nav_menu()

Final Thoughts

I hope this tutorial may be insightful to some developers who have been struggling with breadcrumbs in WordPress. The system does not offer any type of solution by default, and so you have to rely on custom codes or plugins. But the interface accessibility is fantastic and well worth the development time.

Peruse some of the plugins we have shared along with the follow-up links and tutorials. Much of this content may be found elsewhere on the web when searching through Google. Stay vigilant and you can surely find the best option for including breadcrumbs within WordPress. Additionally if you have any questions or comments feel free to share with us in the post discussion area.

How many times have you been writing a page or blog post and run into the nuisance of coding out a custom HTML table. It doesn’t happen all too often, but when you don’t have prebuilt styles it feels like a hindrance towards building your content further. This may be corrected by styling your own custom tables ready in advance for your posts.

But I feel there are other solutions which offer much more versatility. Most notably the WP plugin TablePress has gained a lot of attention over the recent months. In this article I would like to explain how we can go about configuring this plugin and getting code ready for your webpage. The settings are not too complex, although there are many options and advanced features for power users who are always finding themselves stuck working with tables.

What is Possible?

You may be asking why this plugin is even worth the time for testing. Well TablePress has a live demo which you can check out for yourself. This includes automatic column sorting with Ajax-style pagination. You can actually split up tables into multiple pages so that content isn’t streaming down the page into 100s of rows.

Similarly you may combine content using colspan and rowspan to generate some more thrilling layouts. Keeping your design neat & organized is the most important step. I feel that TablePress can help with all of these needs, plus many more useful interface features. One of the biggest features includes alternate row colors known as “zebra striping”. Also when you hover over individual rows the background will highlight so it is easier to read across the data columns.

There are an enormous amount of possibilities with TablePress. It can be difficult to know if this is the right plugin for you, or if this would ever come in handy down the road. If you have read this far try installing TablePress through the Admin panel and give it a quick test run.

Basic Installation

Open up your administration panel and go to Plugins -> Add New. From here you may search for the tablepress plugin and it’s only a one-click install. From here you will have the option of setting up new table IDs and adding them into your posts via shortcodes.

The beauty of this plugin is how the content may be separated from all your inner post data. I feel this is important to explain because when adding your codes into the post it will not show up within the editor. You should skim the documentation page to learn a bit more about their shortcodes. But the GUI will also include a small button icon inside the text editor, so this is always another option.

If you do not want to write out all the table content in TablePress’ plugin area you may add content into external documents and import them to WordPress. The importer function supports CSV and plain HTML tables. Both of these formats are fairly typical to understand, and you may even export CSV from Excel or an alternative spreadsheet editor. You will never miss hand-coding tables unless you have to include specific rows or columns within the HTML.

Customizing Styles

One final topic I always read about is customizing the table designs. This is obviously a big idea and will require some time fooling around in the CSS. On the website’s FAQ you will notice a series of CSS-related topics. These all relate to coloring the table rows, header rows, and alternating rows.

On the plugin page inside WP Admin there is a small textarea labeled Custom CSS. This is what you want to edit for recoloring tables or adding new IDs and classes. These CSS styles pertain directly towards the tables you enter on any WP post. Additionally you may consider editing styles in the plugin when first getting started, then porting them over into your own stylesheet. This will keep your codes a lot more organized and much easier to edit in the future.

Closing

It is true that HTML tables are not as popular as they used to be. This doesn’t imply that they serve no purpose, but that other HTML5 elements have come along as a better replacement. Nowadays tables are used solely to build actual content tables, and I hope this plugin may be of assistance to those who still need them. Feel free to check out the TablePress official website and dig through their FAQ for more solutions.

Early-bird registration (and the chance to save $200) on LearnWebDevelopment.com’s WordPress Bootcamp is ending this week – March 14, 2013 at midnight.

If you want to learn WordPress – and create your first website in just a few days – this is the bootcamp for you! You’ll learn how to build a fully functioning website using WordPress faster than ever before. Grab your seat today.

And, if you secure your seat by Thursday at midnight, you’ll save $200. Go here now to see what you’ll learn and what others are saying about LearnWebDevelopment.com’s training.

Did we mention that your success is guaranteed in this bootcamp? LearnWebDevelopment.com guarantees if you keep up with the assignments, do the weekly homework lessons, and ask questions when you have them, you’ll become a successful web designer by the time the Bootcamp is over. If you don’t, they’ll refund every penny you paid. Learn more here.

Google has become more integrated into the web and has developed their own process for ranking content. Designers and webmasters are working with new tools for handling webpage analytics and digital media. Recently the Google+ social network has allowed authors and writers to connect their blog accounts with Google.

After this is completed you will notice each author’s profile photo will appear in Google search results. This is a nice way of demonstrating who you are and what each writer has done on your website. Some users may have the personal search results turned off, but your account will still have all the benefits related to a Google Author profile. In this brief article I want to explain a couple solutions for connecting into WordPress with Google Author accounts.

Header Meta Tags

The most popular and quickest method is to include an HTML link tag inside your document head. This should point towards the user profile on Google+ and appends the rel attribute for author. Here is an example code snippet you may copy and include on your own site.

<link rel="author" href="https://plus.google.com/117805273496374929333/posts" />

The problem you may experience is dealing with automating the href value. You would need to detect the author for each blog post before outputting their Google+ profile URL into the tag. This can be very difficult if you are not familiar with coding in PHP. But it is easiest to define a small function inside your theme’s functions.php file to detect the current post ID and which author is related to that post.

<?php
global $post;
$author_id = $post->post_author;
?>

The code here will get the post variable from any page and add this into your function. If the visitor is not viewing a post page(such as the homepage) this value will not return any number. However this is obviously helpful because it’s just as easy to determine the author based on their profile ID. Then using some if/else logic you can switch between different Google+ profiles to return the proper link value.

Profile Links

If you’d rather go a different route there is another option of linking directly to the author’s post archives in WordPress. This is typically known as the Author template which displays a writer’s past articles in chronological order. Based on this Google support article you want to link directly towards the author’s profile page URL so it looks something like this:

<a href="<?php echo get_author_posts_url(get_the_author_meta('ID')); ?>?rel=author">Author Archives</a>

This is all possible through the get_author_posts_url() function and calling the specific author ID on each page. WordPress blogs often include a small “About the Author” section at the bottom of each article. This is the perfect area to link onto the current author’s archives page using the appended flag ?rel=author at the very end. This final tidbit is what lets Google know that this writer is also tied into their Google+ account.

Remember that aside from all this internal code you will also need to have each author place a link back to their posts URL page. This link should go inside Google+ down in the section which reads “Contributor To”. Ideally this whole section would be filled with custom links to blog profiles, or at least onto the blog homepage where they write. Google can usually work with either option but it helps to point their crawlers directly onto the author posts URL archive.

WordPress Plugins

The final and easiest solution is to use a plugin for handling the job. Keep in mind this may be the easiest solution, but it doesn’t offer deep customization within your own template code. If this is something you find important then I suggesting going with one of the other custom methods.

After searching through WordPress you will likely find a lot of unique plugins. I feel the WP Google Authorship plugin works fine but requires a bit more setup. It has been tested with WP3 but not the latest 3.5 release.

This alternative Google+ authorship plugin has a lot more downloads and has been fully supported on the latest current release of WordPress 3.5.x. Mostly all of the user ratings are very high and reviews are quite positive. I find this plugin much easier where you only need to include a link to Google+ in the WordPress admin, plus a link to your author profile on Google. These 2 reciprocal links are the quickest method for putting together a working Google+ authorship connection.

Closing

Hopefully this article may provide a bit of help to other WordPress users. The process of setting up verified author accounts isn’t always complex. But when you are running a blog with multiple authors it can get confusing very quickly. Always keep in mind that writers without a Google+ account will not be vilified if nothing is connected into Google. This should not affect your overall ranking in Google searches, either. Instead this key just adds a bit more information about the authors on each published blog post.

By searching in Google you can find a lot of specific WordPress tutorials related around plugins. However there are not too many guides which explain an overview of the system, best practices, and just getting started with plugins in general. Thus I want to fill the void and hopefully offer some great tips for newcomers.

In this article I will present the methods of building a WordPress plugin from top-to-bottom. We can look into just the minimum requirements for a plugin to exist, and then extend functionality as needed. The conventions are not overly complicated if you have a decent handle on PHP and the WordPress syntax.

Basic Plugin Structure

Most developers start out by asking how a plugin gets formed and molded. We can use even just a single PHP file to do this, but most plugins are separated into their own folders. This helps with organization and makes things easier if you need to add more files in the future.

Now another important piece is the comment section which accompanies every single plugin. The main file should be named the same as your plugin folder, such as my-simple-plugin.php. Inside the file we are including a header section with a set of comment lines describing metadata which appears in the WordPress admin panel. Here is a sample template you may copy from:

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Simple Plugin
Plugin URI: http://www.colorburned.com/
Description: Doesn't really do anything helpful.
Version: 1.0
Author: Your Name
Author URI: http://www.google.com/
*/
?>

As you can see the information is pretty standard and not very difficult to work with. It shouldn’t take any more than a few minutes to put this together on each plugin. I recommend saving this template somewhere in your code snippets so it is an easy copy/paste job each time.

The Activation

If you save this file into your /wp-content/plugins/ folder and then log into the backend admin panel you should see the plugin name ready to activate. Granted we haven’t added any codes into the plugin so it will not do anything just yet. But it literally is this easy to get something added into WordPress.

However there are not any plugins which do nothing, so it’s likely you will want to include some code. I can offer some more helpful code templates but ultimately the programming logic should come from you. This is almost no different than coding inside your theme’s functions.php file. We can use filters, actions, shortcodes, and even just define functions to be added right inside your template PHP code.

So as an example we might code a function named msp_output_hello_world() which displays this text wherever you add the function. I have prefixed the function name with an abbreviation MSP which stands for My Simple Plugin. It’s a good rule of thumb to prefix your function names with something(unless you are programming in Object-Oriented classes). There are thousands of custom WP plugins and core functions which can often lead to overlaps in naming conventions.

Defining Local Resources

Targeting local plugin resources will allow all your code to quickly access local images or documents from any WP install. It is an important trait which should be supported by almost any plugin developer. Using this method you could have local resources which are still included regardless of the page hierarchy.

I found a fantastic article on Smashing Magazine about things WP developers should know which includes a sample code snippet. This will define four new special variables which are named constants. Their values will adapt to any server environment but they cannot be changed from other codes in PHP. This functionality is crucial so that the information can’t be manipulated by other functions in the script.

if (!defined('MYPLUGIN_THEME_DIR'))
    define('MYPLUGIN_THEME_DIR', ABSPATH . 'wp-content/themes/' . get_template());

if (!defined('MYPLUGIN_PLUGIN_NAME'))
    define('MYPLUGIN_PLUGIN_NAME', trim(dirname(plugin_basename(__FILE__)), '/'));

if (!defined('MYPLUGIN_PLUGIN_DIR'))
    define('MYPLUGIN_PLUGIN_DIR', WP_PLUGIN_DIR . '/' . MYPLUGIN_PLUGIN_NAME);

if (!defined('MYPLUGIN_PLUGIN_URL'))
    define('MYPLUGIN_PLUGIN_URL', WP_PLUGIN_URL . '/' . MYPLUGIN_PLUGIN_NAME);

$image = MYPLUGIN_PLUGIN_URL . '/images/my-image.jpg';
$style = MYPLUGIN_PLUGIN_URL . '/css/my-style.css';
$script = MYPLUGIN_PLUGIN_URL . '/js/my-script.js';
$themelogo = MYPLUGIN_THEME_DIR . '/images/logo.png';

Code Source

Each of the four constants may be used anywhere in the plugin code. This should be helpful in saving you some headaches down the road. Development is very tricky and trying to reinvent the wheel can be a huge waste of time.

Using WordPress Shortcodes

I am sure you have seen these small brackets surrounding WordPress shortcodes. These may be defined inside your function code and used to call any method within your plugin. This could be our Hello World function as defined earlier. Or it could be pulling the most popular blog posts from the past year out of our database and listing them in an unordered list.

The possibilities allow you to include dynamic functions within your static WordPress posts or pages. Some more helpful examples of shortcodes may include contact forms, video/audio players, image galleries, or embedded media.

add_shortcode('msphello', array($this, 'msp_output_hello_world');

Assuming we still have the same function from before, this single line of code will define a new shortcode by the tag [msphello]. Then it will call our function and echo the text onto any page we choose. Now one other important tidbit is to include the parameter variable $attributes inside our function definition like so:

function msp_output_hello_world($attributes) {
  // code here
}

The variable name could be anything you choose such as $atts or $attrs. As long as this is consistent then we can always use the same variable throughout the shortcode functions. These attributes allow you to add parameters into the shortcode tag which will be reflected inside PHP.

So if we wrote the call [msphello name=Jeff] then we can check for this name inside PHP and display it. Otherwise it’ll just replace this name variable with a string “World”, and we get the original message instead. Here is what the basic function code might look like:

function msp_output_hello_world($attributes) {
    extract(shortcode_atts(array(
        'name' => 'World',
    ), $attributes));

    echo 'Hello, '.$name.'!';
}

Related Links

• Anatomy of a WordPress Plugin
• Crash Course in WordPress Plugin Development
• How To Add Shortcodes to your WordPress Plugin
• Create a WordPress Shortcode Plugin
• 10 Things Every WordPress Plugin Developer Should Know

Final Thoughts

Hopefully this article proves to be a useful reference guide to some newer WordPress developers. Plugins are such a fantastic solution for extending the possibilities of your website. And since WordPress is open source you can seek help from other programmers if you run into a wall. For more detailed support please consider joining the WordPress StackExchange community which is full of talented plugin developers.

Today we have something a little different for you. Our friends over at iStockphoto reached out and let us know about two huge coupon codes they are offering to you all. If you’re looking for something small they are running a one day sale. Today only you can save 15% off any credit pack! If you’re looking for more than 60 credits, you can save 25%!

25% discount applies to a single online purchase of a 60 credit pack or higher at iStockphoto. This offer is open to all iStockphoto customers and may not be combined with any other offers, discounts or pricing agreements. This offer is valid until midnight, February 28, 2013.

15% discount applies to a single online purchase of any credit pack at iStockphoto. This offer is open to all iStockphoto customers and may not be combined with any other offers, discounts or pricing agreements. This offer is valid for one day only, until midnight, February 12, 2013.

Leave a comment below and let us know how much you saved if you use this. I just saved $23.64 on 60 credits!

Today we are featuring the 30 Best food and drink icon designs. Hope you can use these in your work. Enjoy!

1. Free Food Icons

2. Slurpee Mods Icons

3. Food Icons

4. Paradise Fruits Icons Set

5. Drinks Icons

6. Sushi Icons

7. Breakfast Icons

8. Summertime Snacks Icons Set

9. Cuisine Icons

10. Fruit Icons Pack

11. Brilliant Food Icons Set

12. Sweets icons set

13. Baklawa and Halawa Icons

14. Chibi meal

15. Coffee Break Icons

16. Coffee Shop Icons Set

17. Desktop Buffet Icons

18. Yummy

19. Drinx Icons

20. Real Vista Food Icons Set

21. So Sweet Icons

22. Patisserie Icons Set

23. Coca-cola Family Icons

24. Cocktails Icons

25. Fruitsalad Icons

26. Kappu Icons

27. Paradise Fruit Icon Set

28. Peppers Icons

29. Drinking coffee icons

30. Real Vista Food Icons

Hope you enjoyed watching these icons; please drop down your valuable comment.

We’ve been posting a lot of WordPress theme galleries over the last couple of months. If you haven’t checked them out here they are: Top Mobile WordPress Themes, 30 Best News Magazine WordPress Themes, and 10 Best Selling WordPress Themes of All Time. Today we are posting the 30 best corporate WordPress themes. Enjoy!

1. Expresso

Demo & Download

2. Shepard

Demo & Download

3. TryMee

Demo & Download

4. Thunder Corporate

Demo & Download

5. Sterling

Demo & Download

6. Flare

Demo & Download 

7. MetroStyle

Demo & Download

8. Mondeo Corporate

Demo & Download

9. Nevada

Demo & Download

10. Indus

Demo & Download

11. Etherna WordPress

Demo & Download

12. Builder

Demo & Download

13. Celta Business

Demo & Download

14. Centum

Demo & Download

15. Striking

Demo & Download

16. PureVISION

Demo & Download

17. Polyon

Demo & Download

18. Vulcan

Demo & Download

19. Blue Diamond

Demo & Download

20. Consultant

Demo & Download 

21. DiaryLand

Demo & Download 

22. Eleganza Corporate Business WordPress Theme

Demo & Download

23. Modernize

Demo & Download 

24. Office

Demo & Download 

25.  Pleng

Demo & Download

26. RT-Theme 17

Demo & Download

27. TheFuture

Demo & Download 

28. Ventura

Demo & Download

29. Nexus

Demo & Download

30. Advanix

Demo & Download

Responsive web designs are no longer regarded as a trend among the web development community but it has evolved as a need for every website. Previously, the mobile internet users used to only access the social media sites from their phone. However, with time the usage is no longer limited to the social media sites but it has proliferated to the other platforms as well like the ecommerce sites, different business platforms and many other sites. Since the websites are designed keeping in mind the screen size of the PCs and laptops, when these are seen from the mobile phones we get to see a distorted site which is extremely disappointing for the viewers and thus arise the need for responsive web design.

One of the most important features of a responsive website is that it needs to be extremely clean and clear so that the viewers can focus on the different links, content and information provided on it. Since most of the mobile internet users browse the net on the go or when they are already engaged in some other activities like travelling, the designers need to design a responsive, attractive, optimized, engaging yet clean website which can catch the attention of the viewers. They need to place themselves in the shoes of the potential clients and design the website according to their preference.

1. DesignCrowd

One of the best Crowdsource platform for designers online. It has got 100k designers on board and already paid $6.6 m towards designer payments. Oomph recently started a contest worth $10k, check your luck

2. City & wool

3. Diablomedia

4. Fore fathers

5. Illy

6. Convergese

7. Fork

8. Janmense

9. Dust and mold

10. Havoc inspired

11. Henry brown

12. 10k aneventapart

13. Dconstruct

14. Dezvolta

15. Health life

16. Loveandluxesf

17. J taylor design

18. Gary garside

19. Lapse

20. John jacob

Here is a list of twenty clean and responsive website designs that will be extremely useful for the novice designers. They can get some insights from these examples and thereafter come up with their own exclusive responsive web design.

The WordPress backend system is versatile enough to support developers writing and managing their own codes. These often take the form of plugins, themes, or commonly systematic functions which are run in your specific WP install directory. These codes are often placed inside functions.php and pertains only to the current theme files.

With so much access to backend customization I have wanted to delve into the subject of hyperlinks. Writers often need to reference external links on various websites within blog posts. But you may want to edit the link styles for opening into new windows, or dynamically setting the title tooltips. I have put together this brief guide for editing custom settings with your anchor links through WP functionality.

NoFollow on All Outbound Links

This is a common technique I have seen mentioned countless times in the WordPress support forums and WPMUDEV. When you run a high-PR blog all the external links from your posts get lots more attention than on other blogs. This means you have to be careful about how Google is crawling your webpage content.

You can check out this WP Recipes article discussing the hack in your WordPress theme. You simply add the code into your theme’s related functions.php file and save the changes. Everything should update automatically and be targeting all of your internal anchor links! Very neat code if you can find a practical use. I’ve coped over the snippet below which is originally sourced from One Extra Pixel.

add_filter('the_content', 'auto_nofollow');

function auto_nofollow($content) {
    //return stripslashes(wp_rel_nofollow($content));

    return preg_replace_callback('/]+/', 'auto_nofollow_callback', $content);
}

function auto_nofollow_callback($matches) {
    $link = $matches[0];
    $site_link = get_bloginfo('url');

    if (strpos($link, 'rel') === false) {
        $link = preg_replace("%(href=S(?!$site_link))%i", 'rel="nofollow" $1', $link);
    } elseif (preg_match("%href=S(?!$site_link)%i", $link)) {
        $link = preg_replace('/rel=S(?!nofollow)S*/i', 'rel="nofollow"', $link);
    }
    return $link;
}

Code Source

This is one of my favorite code snippets because it’s very easy to add into any theme and get working quickly. It is also a demonstration of where Google should place it’s credibility in your website. Many of the DoFollow links you should keep will appear in your sidebar or footer area, as opposed to blog post content.

Force Open in New Window

Another highly requested feature is to force all external anchor links to open in a new tab or window. Visitors grow accustomed to this feature and begin to expect it on many websites. You’ll have to think for yourself if this is a good idea to include within your own WP install.

function wp_change_target($content){
    return preg_replace_callback('/]+/', 'wp_target_callback', $content);
}

function wp_target_callback($matches){
    $link = $matches[0];
    $mu_url = get_bloginfo('url');

    if (strpos($link, 'target') === false){
        $link = preg_replace("%(href=\S(?!$mu_url))%i", 'target="_blank" $1', $link);
    }elseif (preg_match("%href=\S(?!$mu_url)%i", $link)){
        $link = preg_replace('/target=S(?!_blank)\S*/i', 'target="_blank"', $link);
    }
    return $link;
}
add_filter('the_content', 'wp_change_target');

Code Source

You can find this resource from an excellent blog post on the topic. All the anchor links inside your post content will be targeted, but note this will not include any other links on the page. Although much of the other content should be static and can be updated directly in your own source code.

WP Auto-Images without Anchor Links

If you have seen the new WordPress media center it has overgone major improvements since the new WP 3.5 release. But one nagging annoyance I still find is the anchor links which are embedded into your content along with the img tags. WordPress links to the original media resource so readers may click and see the image in full-view. However this is rarely ever useful and proves to just distract more than help people.

add_filter( 'the_content', 'attachment_image_link_remove_filter' );

function attachment_image_link_remove_filter( $content ) {
    $content =
        preg_replace(
            array('{]*>}'),
            array(''),
            $content
        );
    return $content;
}

Code Source

After scouring the web for a solution I came across this helpful StackExchange thread. Johannes Pille provides a small code snippet with regular expressions for detecting WordPress-generated anchors wrapped around an image tag. Then we can remove them in PHP and return the new content onto the page. This is another popular workaround which developers should keep saved if ever needed on future projects.

Remove Clickable Links in Comments

Popular blogs which receive a lot of attention also end up inundated with spam comments. Many of these discussion posts are generated by machines, but either way it is frustrating. Webmasters may wish to include this single line of code into their functions theme file to remove all clickable links in comment text.

remove_filter('comment_text', 'make_clickable', 9);

Code Source

Note this really isn’t a full solution for reducing comment spam. People will still drop comments and use links in their name section, or load up their content with related keywords. But applying this functionality does reduce the amount of spammy outbound links you’ll have pointing from each article page.

Final Thoughts

This post overview includes a series of helpful techniques for managing HTML links that you may wish to implement into WordPress. I would imagine that web developers are not interested in all of these, but possibly a combination over various projects. And there are also loads of similar resources to be found online searching through Google.

Please take the time to go over the codes above and test them out in your own website. Many of the snippets can easily be copied into your theme files and be working without much hassle. I find WordPress particularly helpful because of the large community and surrounding resources. But along with my tips above feel free to share your thoughts in the post discussion area.

LearnWebDevelopment.com’s WordPress Bootcamp is quickly filling up and early-bird pricing ends in just a few days: Thursday, January 24, 2013 (at midnight central time).

Grab your seat today and start building feature-rich WordPress websites AND working with clients in just a few weeks.

You’ll learn everything you need to know – from the very basics (like how to choose a domain name) all the way to customizing your new website and even how to find clients.

These WordPress Bootcamps are so popular because:

- You get our complete WordPress training videos that you can download and watch again and again.
- You get three live sessions with our WordPress experts.
- You get 1-on-1 support from our experts – meaning you’re never left alone as you learn.

See all the benefits – and our 100% money back guarantee – here.

Remember early-bird pricing ends Thursday, January 24, 2013 (at midnight central time). Get all the details here.

Ever since 2010 WordPress has been releasing new themes to coincide with the new year. Previously the past two versions have been incredible and ultimately become staples in the WordPress themes gallery. And now we have the ability to install WordPress Twenty Twelve which is packaged with every new WP3.5 download.

In this article I’d like to go over some of the new features within Twenty Twelve. There are plenty of changes in comparison to last year’s theme, and lots of relatable functionality for web developers. This new design may also prove useful as a basic template for creating your own WordPress themes without starting from scratch. I am definitely a big fan of this year’s theme, and I am just as excited to see what the developers at WP will publish next.

New Core Features

Before jumping into the template I want to share that you may demo this theme from a live WordPress blog. You’ll notice right away that the whole layout has been revamped for a more minimalist approach. There is no header image in place anymore, and by default this feature is turned off. You will need to upload your own images and configure the settings in order to get headers working.

Also the theme contains a default homepage style which is more adapted for a CMS. WordPress initially launched as a blog platform but it has come a long way since then. Nowadays webmasters are constantly building WordPress sites which are geared towards CMS engines.

The theme is also using a new “Open Sans” font which is incredibly popular compared to other typical families. We have been using the same CSS font stacks for decades. It is nice to see the WordPress developers changing up styles in relation to modern trends. And you even have the ability to include your own custom fonts within the layout.

Dropped Sidebar

This was a big change for me when first checking out the theme. By default all Twenty Twelve installations will not display any sidebar content. It seems crazy but the WP developers have put together a unique sidebar template which only appears when there is content to display.

This means you can build a fully-widgetized sidebar which will not take up space in your pages. There is a custom “full-width” page template which completely ignores the sidebar even if you have content to fill. There are some pages where this just makes sense – and although you will generally want to include the sidebar, Twenty Twelve makes this process easier than ever before.

Responsive Design

If you have demoed the layout on your smartphone it should become evident that Twenty Twelve was created with fully responsive design patterns. This means you can also resize your browser window and notice the same breakpoints in effect. The links and graphics have been designed to support all HiDPI and retina screens on any mobile device.

The top navigation menu even has a small jQuery toggle for displaying and hiding links. Users may really like this feature and choose to adopt a similar layout within new projects. All your custom post types and image media will also be fully responsive. This is great when you need to get a quick solution up and running without going back to edit all your posts and pages.

Unique Post Formats

Another interesting area is within WordPress post formats. You will notice these 5 different options in the sidebar of your WP Admin panel. The post formats include Aside, Image, Link, Quote, and Status. Each of these post formats is using a unique style as well.

I have not seen this effect being utilized quite enough by WordPress developers. The common templates you’ll notice often include these various post formats but do not use styles to differentiate between them. And much of the CSS is easily customized, so you may adapt the formats to suit your needs.

If you want to read a bit more check out the official WordPress theme article which goes over many of these features. You may calculate the pixels and finer details if necessary when constructing your own layout. I’ve been following the newer WordPress trends for a couple years and definitely like the direction where they are heading.

Closing Thoughts

In short the WP Twenty Twelve theme is definitely an improvement on the past 2 years. We can see powerful mobile-responsive tendencies along with a more widgetized design style. It appears the designers have really taken their efforts above and beyond for this new release! Be sure and grab a copy to test and demo in your own WP website. And let us know your thoughts on the 2012 theme here in the post discussion area.