In my time as a developer and trainer for hire I have been asked by clients or trainees to make changes to their websites. More recently I've been working as a team lead/project manager and I'm finding that even though the context is different I'm often asked by clients to make changes to content, or code, or to processes. A lot of times this is no big deal; there have been cases where I've been gung ho! and dived straight in to make the changes the client asks for, after all, I have wanted … [Read more...]
Useful Infographics explaining Web, WordPress and Posts and Pages
I use these repeatedly in training, and am posting them here so I don't lose them... How The World Wide Web works... How WordPress works... The Difference between Posts and Pages in WordPress All by the lovely Kristarella. … [Read more...]
How to Link Widget Titles Without a Plugin
So, in this game from time to time you get thrown a curveball. Some beautiful design feature that doesn't have a natural easy flowing way of working in WordPress. Here's the scenario. This design has lovely images that are also links, in the sidebar. The titles for said widget are overlaid on the images, and thus also need to be links. Now, in the interests of making things easy for the end user we're working with a fabulous little plugin called Image Widget. This offers a really easy … [Read more...]
Beginning With WordPress: Preparing to Customise Your Theme Using a Child Theme
Ok, so your site is up and running and you're probably starting to get itchy to make some changes, and not just changes to the content, right? You may well be wanting to change some elements of what your theme actually looks like, and maybe even change how it behaves. So, as we keep moving through these tutorials we're heading towards being able to better customise your theme and we'll actually be getting more into what goes into theme tweaking and development. However, before we go there we've … [Read more...]
Beginning With WordPress: First Steps With Your New Website
Well… would you look at at that… a whole new WordPress site! Clever you! Have you logged in yet? If so, you might be sitting looking at the Dashboard wondering what the heck you do next… so, let me help you with that! (Failing that you’re wondering what on earth a Dashboard is, that’s ok, all will become clear.) In this tutorial we’re going to introduce the Dashboard and go over the first few settings you should adjust when you are setting up your site for the first time, and we’ll finish … [Read more...]
Beginning with WordPress – Installing WordPress Manually
So, there you are – sitting looking at a couple of emails: one with the keys to your domain name, one with the keys to your website, and now you’re going to have to get your act together and actually put WordPress on your site but you really don’t know where to go next. Well, you have two options: You can use an automatic installer (usually provided by your web host, something like Fantastico, Softaculous, or Installatron). You can install it yourself. Now, because this series is about … [Read more...]
Under the Hood of Self Hosting a WordPress Website
Here we are, the conversation continues... we talked the other day about deciding between wordpress.com and wordpress.org... and you are still following along.. you must have turned out to be one of those people like me for whom the lure of having control of your own website's destiny was too good an opportunity to pass up - welcome to the wonderful world of self hosting a WordPress website. This post has been snapped up, as has the whole series, by WP Tuts... I'll let you know when it's been … [Read more...]
Deciding Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org
This post has moved!!! The beginning with WordPress series has been snapped up by WPTuts and will be republished there, and all new posts will appear there, of course, I'll let you know when they're up so you can follow them over there too! Head over there to read the article! … [Read more...]
Freebie Social Media Icon Menu
There are a few blogs I follow pretty closely, and one of them predictably is Brian Gardner's (predictably because he's behind Genesis and I'm a bit of a fan). A while back Brian put together a tutorial about making a social media icon menu - I took it on board, I like rolling my own social icon displays and didn't want to load up my site with plugins that always seem to miss that one social network I want people be able to get to. So, given that I'm putting together a new 'site image' for … [Read more...]
Customize Meteor Slides with Advanced Custom Fields
I've spent a large block of time recently working on a project for a new client, intent on proving just how slick it is to build sites from a really solid, clean, FAST platform (Genesis - affiliate link). BUT I found myself stuck on an issue with the front page development and realised just how much of a handicap it can be when you get so welded to a 'way of doing things' that you forget just what else is out there. Here's the problem. The site needs a paginated, slideshow for the front page … [Read more...]