Steffan Antonas » WordPress

WordPress 3.0 “Thelonius” Is Now Available

Steffan Antonas — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:32:08 +0000

3.0 is here, and it’s packed with awesomeness. I do all of my website development on WordPress these days and there are a lot of great additions in this release that I’ve been waiting on for this site, as well as on client projects. They’ve made the maintenance easier with bulk update functionality for plugins and the software, you now have custom post types for products, newsletters and real estate listings, and you’ve got a heck of a lot more control in the widget area. Here’s a 3 minute video overview on the new release, as well as an hour long video (bottom) where Matt Mullenweg talks at length about some of the updates, why they went that way, and shares some of the vision and philosophy behind what Automattic sees in WordPress’s future.

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

WordPress 3.0 “Thelonius” Is Now Available

How To Get A Facebook Like Button For Your WordPress Blog (Plugin)

Steffan Antonas — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:21:02 +0000

Want a Facebook “Like” button for your WordPress blog like the one you see on this blog? It’s super simple. Todd Williams, Executive Developer at Media 1 Designs, got inspired by yesterday’s announcement at F8 about the Open Graph, and coded up a nifty lightweight “Facebook Like” WordPress plugin that you can use for your WordPress site! It was officially released today on the GunnJerkens blog.

Here’s what the options panel looks like:

Installation:

1. Head Over To the GunnJerkens blog (to make sure you’ve got the most up-to-date version)

2. Download the plugin (this link to the zip file will only work for the current version)

3. Unzip the file and place the Facebook Like plugin folder in your WP-Content –> Plugins Folder

4. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.

5. Go to Plugins –> Installed

6. Activate the plugin

7. Go to The Facebook-Like options panel, configure the settings

8. Click save.

And you’re done! Simple. Lightweight. Awesome (and every time someone clicks “like” that activity will show up in their Facebook stream and bring traffic back to your blog.

Also, if you blog about this plugin, please link back to the original GunnJerkens post.

Enjoy!

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

How To Get A Facebook Like Button For Your WordPress Blog (Plugin)

How To Create A WordPress Theme From Scratch (Complete Video Series)

Steffan Antonas — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:40:17 +0000

I recently found this video series on the theme forest community blog and thought it was so valuable that it was worth sharing with my readers. If you’re like me, you learn a heck of a lot better from being shown than from reading manuals and how-tos. This series of 7 videos put together by Drew from Themeforest.net is a great resource for visual learners looking to get into WordPress design. I just wish I had had it 2 years ago! Hat tip to Drew.

How To Install A WordPress Theme

Getting To Know The Admin Panel

Before diving straight in and developing a WordPress theme, it is vital to understand the basics and have a solid foundation to begin theme development. This video examines the WordPress admin panel and explores some of the key features.

How To Create A WordPress Theme From Scratch

Learn how to correctly set up your themes stylesheet and information, as well as create the index.php page. In addition, you’ll examine WordPress template tags, what they are, and how to use them properly.

How The WordPress Loop Works

Learn how to use the WordPress loop as well as some handy template tags to start pulling out and displaying content from our database.

How To Build Sidebars, Format Posts and How The WordPress Template Hierarchy Works

Learn how to split and call separate theme files and include them in your theme. Splitting theme code into different and organized files is a vital part of WordPress development. You’ll also learn some very helpful php functions and useful WordPress template tags to create a widgetized sidebar.

In this second video you’ll continue to split up your theme files in order to allow you more flexibilty when working with your theme. You’ll also learn more about the Wordpress template hierarchy. In addition, you will create and manage your single.php files, which will help you format your individual posts.

How To Widgetize Your WordPress Theme

In this tutorial, you’ll create a few more files from scratch and finish making your sidebar widget ready and have a look at what that means and how it works. Get your text editor and local server ready.

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

How To Create A WordPress Theme From Scratch (Complete Video Series)

Video Preview of WordPress 2.7

Steffan Antonas — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:00:33 +0000

I’m pretty psyched about the direction that WordPress seems to be going with 2.7. Customized dashboard? Moderating comments right from the back end? Right on. Personalization and usability in the UI is where it’s at.

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

Video Preview of WordPress 2.7

5 Minutes With Woo: My Interview With A WordPress Rockstar

Steffan Antonas — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:59:20 +0000

I’m humbled and excited by all the positive attention that the redesign of my blog’s been getting these past few weeks and I’m honored by how well the new look has been received by the WordPress community.

After being featured on the WordPress Premiums Showcase, PJ’s Best Of August Picks, and Mark Forrester’s Blog my traffic has more than tripled and random people from all over the world have been sending me email, asking me about WordPress design and Premium Themes.

As many of you know, this blog’s proudly sporting a customized “Woo” Theme, so I was particularly psyched this weekend to have the new design included in the launch of the brand new WooThemes showcase. Of course, I was twice as psyched when Adii, one of the Web’s top WordPress theme designers, contacted me over the weekend to interview me and get some of my thoughts on the new design and Wordpress Premium themes. Among other things, we discussed blog design and why the choice to go Premium is an important blogging decision. I also shared some breif thoughts on blogging trends like lifestreaming. Adii posted a transcript of the interview this morning on the WooThemes blog.

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

5 Minutes With Woo: My Interview With A WordPress Rockstar