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Category Archives: Other Web Resources
Canvas Theme Creator for WordPress
Canvas is a CSS based theme editor plugin for WordPress that looks to be an awesome development when it becomes more stable and authoratative. The concept is that you will be able to simply drag and drop whole areas to create your theme without having to resort to using code (imagine using the sidebar widgets but for your whole theme–you did go get those for your site right?). A grand idea in the early stages. I’ll definitely keep you all updated as it develops.
The Importance of Looking at your URL before you register it.
Uh yeah, I’d check this list of possibly the worst URL’s ever registered to get an idea of what can go very wrong when you decide on a domain name for your website. Basically, look at the URL for awhile and say it out loud before you make a drastic mistake like these people did. Hysterically funny also.
WordPress Plugin Search Sites
One of the best things about WordPress is that it is so easy to extend it’s functionality through plugins. Plugins (like the ones I’ve written and host here) are very easy to install and simply get dropped into the folder wp-content/plugins in your WordPress install. Then you need to go to the Admin “Plugins” area and click the activate link for the plugin. In most cases that’s all you have to do. Two of the best plugin search areas are: http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins and http://wp-plugins.net/, and contain a large variety of things that you may find useful for administering or setting up your site. I check these on a frequent basis, you never know what might get developed.
One word of caution: Make sure that the plugin will work properly with your version of WordPress. Many plugins developed before the 2.1 version of WordPress may act erratically since they’ve changed some things between versions. If at all possible test out things on a non-production version of your site first.
WordPress Theme Database
WordPress has a ton of options for how it displays posts and pages on your site. At first it can seem overwhelming, with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets-an element of HTML) and other options making different things different colors, sizes, etc. What you might want to do to cut down on the work of setting up your site is go here: The WordPress theme database. There are tons of themes available with different configurations of sidebars (those 1 or 2 columns on the left and right of your main posts area), navigation links (on top or on the left or right sides), and other customizable ways of doing your website. I would suggest looking around until you see something that looks sort of like what you want, then download it and add it to the folder wp-content/themes.
Heck, download as many as you want, WordPress doesn’t care how many you put in the themes folder. (BTW, make sure your theme is only one level deep in a folder inside the themes folder on your server, sometimes they zip the theme files inside a second folder inside their folder, they won’t appear in the Admin area if they are too deep inside folders) Once they are in that folder you can go to the Admin “Presentation” area theme section and change between the themes by clicking on a theme to make it your current theme. (If you also want to edit the files using the Theme Editor function in WordPress you need to set the file permissions properly for this, see this tutorial to get info on how to do that)
The thing to pay attention to is where things are and how the page overall looks, you’ll probably change the images and maybe some colors so don’t worry as much about that stuff. The skeleton of the page is most important. The theme tutorial series that will be up here soon will help you do the final tweaking to the theme to make it just what you want anyway.
WordPress Permalinks Setup
This link goes to an area of the WordPress Codex that talks about Permalinks, and how to set the different types within WordPress. Permalinks are the links that go directly to a specific article page, and they can be set to many different styles. (if you look at this site you’ll see that my links end in the year, then name of the article) Many major SEO experts like to believe that making your links more human friendly (/my_article_name as opposed to /?p=17) can make a difference in how well your site ranks in search engines. Personally I don’t really see this that much, and most search engines now work perfectly with the default set up in WordPress, but if you’re interested this page explains the way to set things up.
If you were interested in using my structure it’s done by placing the following in the “custom” box in the Options Permalink area: /%year%/%postname%/
Make sure you follow the Codex instructions on how to do your .htaccess file, if not then nothing will work right.