By Guru: Leland
Is Leland your favorite writer? Why not get everything Leland publishes, all the tutorials, hacks, news, plugins, and themes, across all sites, delivered directly to you? Choose your method of delivery on the Gurus page.
Below are the latest articles from Leland. The results are culled from all sources Workflow: WordPress follows.
-
TL Tweets – Free WordPress Theme
This is a free tweet archive theme for WordPress, based off of my own tweet archive site. It contains no images and made up of pure CSS (with a few CSS3 properties), and supports custom WordPress 3.0 menu and background support.
How To Set Up A Tweet Archive
First of all, this theme looks really weird if you try to use it for an actual blog. It’s designed to be used to as a tweet archive. If you don’t know how to set one up, please refer to this tutorial: How To Create a Searchable Tweet Archive with WordPress.
Basically all you need to do is backup as many of your current tweets as you possibly can using a service like TweetBackup or BackupMyTweets, export them as an XML file, and import it using WordPress’ built-in importer.
Then to automatically grab new tweets, you’ll need to install the Twitter Tools… -
Want More Retweets? Use the Official Tweet Button
A little over a month ago, I recommended to use the TweetMeme WordPress plugin to get more retweets on your posts.
A few days ago, Twitter announced their own button for retweeting. Several methods of integrating the official Tweet button in your WordPress sites have already emerged.WordPress Plugins
The first Twitter button WordPress plugin I came across was from Blogsessive.As you can see from the screenshot above, the options integrate all of the options you’d expect from a Twitter button WordPress plugin, with no extraneous features. You can download it from the post linked to above.
After this a few others popped up on the WordPress.org plugin directory:Twitter Button by Svilen Popov
TweetButton by David R. Davis, Jr.The Manual Way
Twitter has provided a number of ways to include the Tweet button on your own pages. The most straightforward option is through this customizable form where… -
Green Tea – Free WordPress Theme
Today’s free WordPress theme is designed by Roshan of CSSHeaven.org (you might know him from his RamblingSoul themes). I ported the static template to WordPress and packed it with WordPress 3.0-specific features, including custom menus, headers, and backgrounds. More on that below.
WordPress 3.0 Menus
As stated above, this theme includes WordPress 3.0 menu support which means you have very flexible control over what links show up in your header menu. If you don’t set up a menu, it will default back to a list of WordPress pages.For further reading on implementing the WordPress 3.0 menu feature into your own themes, I found these links really helpful:
Goodbye headaches, hello menus! – A write-up by Justin Tadlock on WordPress 3.0 menus.
wp_nav_menu – The official WordPress codex on the function used for the menus.Custom Header
If you want to get rid of the red header image displayed directly… -
Remove Unnecessary Code from wp_head
WordPress includes a lot of stuff through the wp_head() hook included in most themes. Most of this stuff I would consider unnecessary. A few lines of extra code in your header probably won’t slow your site down that much, but I like to keep things as clean and efficient as possible.
In this quick tip post, I’ll go over how to remove the following from being output through the wp_head hook.Really Simple Discovery (RSD) link
Windows Live Writer link
WordPress generator notice
Post relational linksRead on for the description of each of these to see if you need them or not, and how to remove them.
Really Simple Discovery
This is the code that displays the following code in your header:
<link rel=”EditURI” type=”application/rsd+xml” title=”RSD” href=”http://example.com/xmlrpc.php?rsd” />
This is the discover mechanism used by XML-RPC clients. If you have no idea what this means and/or don’t integrate services… -
The Arialist – Free WordPress Theme
Got a couple requests today to port this template by Mohd Huzairy to WordPress, so I did. As you can see, it’s super simple with a very minimalistic design. In the WordPress theme, I added a few features like a widgetized sidebar and threaded comments.
Related posts:Simple Gray – Free WordPress ThemeRS11 – Free WordPress ThemeJungleland – Free WordPress Theme
-
Want More Retweets? Use the TweetMeme WordPress Plugin
I installed the TweetMeme WordPress plugin the other day, and I’m pleased with the results.
Not only was it really easy to install and configure, but I’ve noticed several people actually using the button to retweet my posts. You can see it in action in the top right corner of this post.
In this WordPress plugin review, I’ll go over installing the TweetMeme plugin and give an overview of the options. And there’s a screencast too! All after the jump.How to Install TweetMeme for WordPress
You can install TweetMeme for WordPress just like any other plugin. Also since it’s available in the WordPress.org plugin repository, you have the option of installing it automatically via your WordPress admin panel.
After installing and activating, you should see a new “TweetMeme” menu in the sidebar of your WordPress dashboard. The settings page should look something like this.TweetMeme Plugin Settings
Check out… -
WordPress 3.0 Released
It was just announced today that WordPress 3.0 has been released and you can get it here. This is considered a pretty big release with many new features and bug fixes, I’ll list some notable ones below:
A merge of WordPress MU and WordPress, making it possible to run multiple sites from one installation.
New features for theme developers including new APIs to have custom backgrounds, headers, menus, and more.New custom post type and taxonomy features for posting new and different kinds of content (besides posts, pages, etc.).
A new default theme called Twenty Ten, which shows off all this new functionality. Say bye bye to Kubrick!Watch the video below for more information:
If you’re upgrading, remember to backup your site. Also remember your themes probably won’t break but if they do, you can at least revert back to your backup and figure out what the problem is.…
-
How To Create a Searchable Tweet Archive with WordPress
Let’s face it, the Twitter search sucks and you’ll be lucky to find tweets over a week old with it even though they still exist.
Twitter has been plagued with service issues and the fail whale (which someone coded in pure CSS) is a regular occurrence once again.
I came across a tutorial the other day on how to create a browsable, searchable archive of tweets which you can use to host your own tweets. And the best part is? It’s powered by WordPress.
In this article, I’ll go over my experience with how I set up my own @themelab tweet archive powered by WordPress, including:Backing up my tweets with a third-party service
Importing those older tweets into WordPress
Setting it up so new tweets get imported automatically
Installing the theme to display them nicelyBackup Your Tweets
The first step is to backup your tweets. There are a… -
RS19 – Free WordPress Theme
Today we have yet another a ported WordPress theme originally designed by Roshan of Rambling Soul. It’s pretty much just a standard blog theme with three widgetized areas (404, sidebar, intro text) and threaded comments.
Related posts:RS11 – Free WordPress ThemeWP Rambling Soul 7 – Free WordPress ThemeSpotlight Blog – Free WordPress Theme
-
Braintied – Free Thematic Child Theme
Here’s the first resurrected theme released on Theme Lab. Originally designed by Small Potato back in 2007, I ported it to the Thematic theme framework. It now includes features such as threaded comments as well as many features inherited from the parent theme, Thematic, such as new markup.
As always, remember how to install a WordPress child theme. You will need both Thematic and the Braintied child theme uploaded to your themes directory. Just activate Braintied.
Related posts:Astatic – Free Thematic Child ThemeMonochromatic – A Thematic Child ThemeShould Child Themes Be Listed on WordPress.org?
-
Guide to Styling the WP-PageNavi WordPress Plugin
If you’re not familiar with the WP-PageNavi WordPress plugin, it allows you to replace normal previous/next navigation with a more advanced, numbered paging navigation. This is a feature I’ve included on a number themes I’ve developed, including RS16, Blogwave, RS17, and Bright Spot.
In this tutorial, I’m going to go over how to:
Install WP-PageNavi and properly integrate it in your theme.
Two methods to disable and/or override default plugin styles.
An overview of the HTML markup output by WP-PageNavi
Finally, how to alter the look of your page navigation through CSSInstall the Plugin
You have two options when it comes to installing the WP-PageNavi plugin.Download it from WordPress.org, upload it to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory, and activate (aka, the old fashioned way).
Depending on your host, you can also automatically install plugins by searching them in “Add New” page under Plugins in your WordPress admin panel. Just search… -
How To Make Old WordPress Themes Compatible With New Versions
So you want to make your old WordPress themes compatible with newer versions of WordPress. With WordPress 3.0 right around the corner, theme compatibility is something on a lot of people’s minds. It’s pretty simple: do absolutely nothing.
I’ve been making WordPress themes since around WordPress 2.3 was released, and guess what? Those themes still work today and there’s nothing I need to do to keep them working with newer versions of WordPress.Will they have threaded comment functionality (circa 2.7)? Nope, they probably still have “single level” comments though.
Will it use post_thumbnails to handle post thumbnails (circa 2.9)? Nope, but not every theme makes use of post thumbnails anyway.
Will they have the new navigation menus, custom header and background images introduced in the upcoming WordPress 3.0? Nope, and keep in mind not every theme will have a need for custom background or header images.Most of these…
-
Cool Blue – Free WordPress Theme
Today we have another awesome free WordPress theme, which I ported from a Styleshout template. It’s more or less a pretty standard blog design with a bunch of widgetized areas (mostly in the footer), threaded comments support, and post thumbnail integration, among other things.
Let’s get into the features in more detail.
FlickrRSS Support
If you have the FlickrRSS plugin installed, you can configure it to show your various Flickr photos. This will show up in your footer (above all the normal widgets).This plugin is optional and will not break anything if you don’t want Flickr photos to show up.
Post Thumbnail Support
Like the SongSpace theme, this theme makes use of WordPress’ built-in post-thumbnail feature.Since post thumbnails were introduced in 2.9, you’ll need to at least WordPress 2.9 to run this theme.
Archives Template
Like other Styleshout ported themes including Jungleland and FreshPick, Cool Blue has an… -
Dissecting Astatic – Thematic Child Theme Tutorial
Last weekend I released a free Thematic child theme called Astatic. It was probably the most “advanced” Thematic theme I’ve ever made as I made use of several theme filters, as well as CSS styling to make certain pages look differently using the same HTML markup.
In this tutorial, I’ll go over:The very basics of making a child theme
How to use Thematic action and filter hooks
How to style pages differently with CSS without changing markupChild Theme Basics
A child theme technically only needs 1 file, a stylesheet named style.css. This differs from a normal theme which requires at least two files, index.php and style.css. Here’s what the header of a very basic child theme’s stylesheet should look like:
/*
Theme Name: Astatic
Theme URI: http://www.themelab.com/free-wordpress-themes/
Description: A very minimal child theme of Thematic
Author: Theme Lab
Author URI: http://www.themelab.com/
Template: thematic
Version: 0.1
*/
Notice the… -
Astatic – Free Thematic Child Theme
It’s been a long time since I’ve released a Thematic child theme. This one is called Astatic, and it’s designed to be a very minimalistic WordPress blog theme with posts formatted in two columns on index pages.
If you remember how to install a child theme, you also need to have Thematic uploaded to your /wp-content/themes/ directory, but activate Astatic.
Notes
I removed several elements through the functions.php file. I could’ve used display: none; to disable them through CSS, but that kinda freaks me out.
The blog title will show up wrapped in an H1 tag on non-singular pages. On singular pages, the post title uses the H1 tag. This is to keep the SEO crazies happy since I removed the blog description (see above note) which usually handles the H1 stuff.
The posts on the index pages are styled in two columns on index pages through the .not-singular selector.… -
Useful Alternatives to the Dreaded Monthly Archive Links
In a lot of WordPress sites’ sidebars, you’ll probably see the monthly archive links make an appearance. These are a list of links that categorize your post by month. If you want to get more specific, you can even group the posts by week or even day. Unless you’re using widgets, these lists are output using the wp_get_archives function. Here are some examples:
<?php wp_get_archives(); ?> – Lists the monthly archives (no parameters needed, it’s monthly by default)
<?php wp_get_archives('type=weekly'); ?> – Lists the weekly archives
<?php wp_get_archives('type=daily'); ?> – Lists the daily archives
Bonus: <?php wp_get_archives('type=yearly'); ?> – Lists the yearly archivesSo what’s the problem? Well, depending on the site, monthly archive links aren’t very useful to your visitors. I mean, how many times have you visited a site and said “Hmm…I want to check out some posts written in January 2008″?
Probably never, and these links waste… -
SongSpace – Free WordPress Theme
Today we have a free WordPress theme designed by Brad of DemusDesign. I took the coded design and ported it to WordPress. This is the first theme here which makes use of the_post_thumbnail feature to handle thumbnails and needs at least WordPress 2.9 to function properly. Other features include several widgetized areas, including a widgetized footer.
And now onto the features in more detail…
Widgetized Areas
Included in the theme are five widgetized areas.One for the sidebar
Three for each footer column
One on the 404 templateColor Schemes
Included in the original template are several color scheme stylesheets: blue, brown, green, orange, pink, purple, red, yellow. In the WordPress theme, I decided to integrate these with a very simple theme options page dropdown.The green one is pictured in all the screenshots. If you don’t set anything, the default color scheme is blue.
Post Thumbnails
Instead of using… -
BackupBuddy WordPress Plugin – Video Review + Giveaway!
A new premium WordPress plugin store launched the other day called PluginBuddy, the same people behind iThemes. Their latest plugin is called BackupBuddy which describes itself as an “all-in-one solution for backups, restoration, and migration”.
You can check out my quick video tour below where I go through all the menus and take a (surprisingly) quick database backup of Theme Lab.Features
Backs up your entire WordPress install (including all files) or just the database
Use the restore feature to quickly reinstall a previously made backup
Migrate a full WordPress site to a new web host
Backup scheduling, includes email and FTP optionsThe Giveaway + How to Enter
Cory Miller of PluginBuddy was kind enough to donate one single use license ($25 value) and one developer license ($150 value) for a couple of lucky Theme Lab readers.
To enter, we’ll use similar rules to our last giveaway.Tweet a…
-
Highlight Author Comments in WordPress, The Easier Right Way
I just came across a post published today which goes over “the right way” to highlight author comments in WordPress. Basically, instead of the usual code that inserts the “admincomment” class for just the first user (user ID 1). In the post, that code is adapted for any post author, no matter what the user ID is, which can be especially useful to multi-author blogs.
Ever since WordPress 2.7 was released over a year ago, a new function was introduced to display comments called wp_list_comments which is known for supporting threaded comments as well. In addition to threaded commments, it also outputs a class automatically which can be used to style author comments in WordPress 2.7.
Screencast
In this screencast, I go over the various classes added to a comment made by a post author. I also go over how to style the .bypostauthor class.Code Examples in Video:
.bypostauthor…
-
How to Hide the WordPress Stats Smiley the Right Way
For anyone who uses the WordPress.com stats plugin, you’ll notice it inserts a small smiley image in your footer. This image needs to be loaded to track the stats.
Some people might think this little smiley face is “cute”. The rest of you will find the smiley image unsightly (and possibly evil looking) and will look for ways to remove it. This post will go over:First of all, what not to do when hiding the smiley
How to properly hide it, with some extra absolute position goodness for certain layouts
If you’d rather not hide it, how to easily center the smiley imageWhat Not to Do
Don’t ever use display:none to hide the WP Stats Smiley.
First of all, I want to go over the one thing you shouldn’t do when attempting to hide the WP Stats Smiley, and that’s use: display:none. Yeah, I said that twice, but… -
RS17 – Free WordPress Theme
This WordPress theme is ported from the free CSS template of the same name by Rambling Soul. It’s a dark blog theme with a custom homepage template. It supports widgets and threaded comments. There are a few other features in the theme which will be gone over below.
Custom Homepage Template
Included in the theme is a custom page template designed to be used for your homepage. It includes the following:Gallery like post layout with optional custom thumbnails
Widgetized areas above and below the post areaTo use this page template as your homepage, you’ll need to do the following:
Make a blank page called “Home” (or whatever else you want to call your homepage, doesn’t matter) and select the “Home Page Template”
Make a blank page called “Blog” (or whatever else you want to call your blog, doesn’t matter)
Go to Settings → Reading and select “Home” as… -
All Orange – Free PSD Template
Finally, I’m releasing the losing theme from theme battle #3. In case you forgot, the winning theme was the free Tasty Showcase theme which has now been coded for WordPress.
All Orange is a simple and clean, two column blog designed by Anto. Click the image below for a bigger preview.Keep in mind this is an uncoded PSD and not a functional WordPress theme. It’s provided as-is with no support.
Do whatever you want with it, practice your coding skills, use it on a site, whatever. As per my rules for theme battles, I won’t be coding it. Ever.
For more free PSD goodness here at Theme Lab, check out the following:Massive Free PSD Template Giveaway #1
Bravissimo – Free PSD + XHTML/CSS Template
Green Shade – Free PSD DownloadLet me know what you think in the comments! Would you like to see more PSD or HTML…
-
Tasty Showcase – Free WordPress Theme
Finally, presenting the winner of theme battle #3. Tasty Showcase was a template designed by Brad of DemusDesign, who also coded it in XHTML/CSS/JS. I then took the coded template and ported it to WordPress. It has a ton of widgetized areas, including widgetized footers (plural).
Read on to see the features, including how to use the slider, in more detail…
The Slider
Displayed on the homepage, this Karmic Flow powered slider will display your four latest posts with a custom image should you choose.
Once you have a custom image sized 653×367 (653 pixels wide, 367 pixels high) simply input the absolute URL to the image in the built-in custom write panel.If you don’t have an image, the theme will automatically use one of the placeholder images (depending on which slot it is) if you don’t specify one yourself. That means even if you don’t have any images,…
-
Builder Theme by iThemes – WordPress Theme Review
I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about the Builder theme by iThemes. I’ve been hearing about how innovative it is, and how easy it is to make a lot of different layouts with this one theme.
I managed to get my hands on a copy, and you lucky Theme Lab readers will now get to see just how easy it is to set up your own Builder-theme-powered site. In this review, I’ll go over:An initial overview of the Builder theme, including set up and the various theme options
How to use Builder’s custom layout feature and how to apply it to your pagesCheck out the rest of the review after the jump.
Setting It Up
Initially installing Builder is just like any other theme. Once you get the zip file, just extract the “Builder” folder and upload it to your /wp-content/themes/ directory. Activate it in the… -
WordPress 2.9 “Carmen” Released
It was announced recently that WordPress 2.9 has been released. There are a few cool new features, which I’ll list below:
Built-in image editing – This feature allows you to do basic image editing to your uploads, including cropping, resizing, rotating, among other things.
Easier embedded content – Using the oEmbed standard, embedding content can now be as simple as pasting a URL. Support for YouTube, DailyMotion, Flickr, WordPress.tv, among many others.
Global trash feature – The Delete button is now replaced with a Trash button, giving you a second chance to recover posts or comments you would have otherwise deleted by accident.
Bulk plugin upgrade – Now you’re able to bulk upgrade plugins automatically, instead of upgrading one by one. On top of that, it now takes advantage of the community-powered plugin compatibility data from the plugin directory.The video below covers these features in more detail.
I’ve upgraded…
-
Spectacu.la Releases Threaded Comments Plugin
Spectacu.la, a WordPress theme club, has just announced the release of their free threaded comments plugin for WordPress. Basically what this plugin does is replace your theme’s comments template with a new one, generated by the plugin.
In addition to that, you also get pagination and jQuery based roll up of subordinate comments. For those who remember the old Theme Lab which used Brian’s Threaded Comments plugin, it’s kind of like that, except neater.
The plugin should work on almost any theme, even if it normally doesn’t support threaded comments, provided it uses the comments_template() call.Pictured above is the light and dark styles of the comments which are included in the plugin. Read on to check out my screencast which demonstrates these two styles on a really old theme that wasn’t originally designed to support threaded comments.
This can be useful to to theme developers who would rather make…
-
RS16 – Free WordPress Theme
It’s been a while since our last free WordPress theme. This one is designed by Roshan from Rambling Soul, who has recently returned to designing free templates after a long absence. This theme has a number of interesting features, which will be gone over below.
Read on to check out the features in more detail…
Image-Based Page Navigation
Roshan designed this template with a set of button-style image links for the page navigation. I wanted to make sure there was an easy way to choose which image you wanted to use on a page-by-page basis, so I coded in a custom write panel to make it easier.– home
– works
– blog
– downloads
– blogSimply type in the name of the corresponding image listed on the right, on the write menu on each page. If nothing is specified, the “works” image will be used (which is why…
-
Stop Downloading WordPress Themes from Shady Sites
So, you go to Google and type in a search for “WordPress themes.” You skip past the official WordPress theme directory because out of the 1,000+ themes hosted there, you couldn’t find one you liked.
So you move on to another site that has a great collection of free themes, you download one you like and install it on your site. It has 50 random irrelevant spam links in the footer, and you can’t edit them out because there’s weird encrypted code in footer.php, but who cares? It looks good so that’s all that matters. And chances are your visitors won’t ever scroll down that far anyway.
Using a theme with encrypted code would be a big mistake, and unfortunately most users using them don’t even know or care that the themes they’re using can open their entire blog or even server up to malicious attacks.Unless you want to…
-
Restrict WordPress Admin Access by IP Address
This is a guest post by Eric Sizemore, a web developer, programmer, and domainer.
In light of recent events, anyone using WordPress is apparently susceptible to what’s being called “Distributed WordPress admin account cracking”. You can view this article for more information. This post aims to provide an extra layer of security both to your wp-admin folder, and wp-login.php file.Step 1 – Determine Who Will Have Access
First and foremost, this extra layer of security involves blocking every IP except a select few. If your IP is dynamic, it may not be the best option for you. If you have a lot of users that you allow access to your blog, this could become time consuming. If you are the only author on the blog, and you don’t allow registrations anyway – this will be rather simple.
Step 2 – Creating .htaccess
First, let’s get your IP address. Go… -
Aperturious WordPress Theme Review
Aperturious is a paid WordPress theme designed by Chris Wallace, who you may know from the Gallery theme that I reviewed earlier this year. The theme is available for purchase through ThemeForest for $25.
I’ll be reviewing the theme in a review post, including how to set it up and an overview of the features.And now onto the review…
Setting it Up
After uploading and activating the theme, I got this on my freshly installed WordPress site:According to the included readme document, you’ll also have to set the /cache/ folder to 777 so TimThumb can save cached thumbnail images. Depending on your host, additional requirements may be necessary in order to get TimThumb working.
Theme Options
The Aperturious theme options lets you switch between three different color schemes, choose layout options, toggle post info display, and insert advertisement codes. A screenshot is below:Instead of going through the…
-
-
The universe’s best WordPress, bbPress, TalkPress & BuddyPress tutorials, hacks, news, plugins, and themes.™
4,593
WordPress tutorials, hacks, news, plugins, and themes from 783 writers and 121 publications. -
- 7803 readersThe Benevolence of the WP Community
- 6887 readersSharDB update
- 6605 readersBuddyPress 1.2 Beta
- 6142 readersWordPress for iPhone Version 2.2 now in the App Store
- 6074 readersThinking about Stats
- 6018 readersRelaunch of WordPress.com VIP Site and new VIP Support Options
- 6004 readersMerge News
- 5368 readersVersion 1.0: VideoPress Support, Improved Comments, and App World
- 5091 readersTesters, start your engines
- 4970 readersBuddyPress for One (and All!)
-
Resources from the
Workflow: Network -
Popular Search Terms
Curious what others are searching for? Below are the most popular search terms over the last 30 days.
Design Jobs LIVE! 
Quark VS InDesign.com 
Designorati 
GurusUnleashed.com 
Adobe Illustrator Users 
Adobe Fireworks Users 
Photoshop Professionals 
CreativesAre.com Community 
InDesign & InCopy Users 
QuarkXPress Pros' 