Scepter Marketing and Web Dev

Closing

DOH! Guess I missed that…

Thanks Mark, I will give this a try (as I’m still a beginner in php and wordpress methods). For the global var… where would I be placing that line?

wow… not sure where that came from. Obviously took it the wrong way and wasn’t my intention. I was referring to me developing for WordPRess, not you or others. Ideally, it’s a developers environment and not a designers (which I am more of). Still, I stand by the fact it’s still a complicated system to develop for “me” and requires more programming and WordPress knowledge and experience coders

Anyway, and again, not sure where that sudden defensive statement came from, but as I said, I was referring to myself experiencing a nightmare with learning the WP environment. In Design, there’s two areas: (1) designers (2) Developers ….and both requires skills that it’s generally difficult to find someone who can do both equally well. A person will either be more of a designer or more of a developer (who lives for code).

Coffee time!

Thanks for the follow up Alex…I can understand the “huge undertaking” as I’ve discovered that working with WP for the past year has been quite the learning experience and I can easily say it’s a nightmare to develop for compared to working with a cms system like Joomla (which I enjoy working with for the last 4 years). I find it a lot easier.

Anyway, good to know about the shortcode part and finally after 2 hours of searching I found that solution. I can also say that your version of the syntaxhighlighter is the better one. Now if only the WordPress development team can work with the end-users instead of themselves, WP could have a more flexible and featured product ??

They may want to simplify things if that is the case. Actually, I have a feeling it’s just one person doing the job. Perhaps they had a breakdown from so much and needed a much required vacation. As for reviews, not sure the average time to review but I’ve had mine done in a couple days each time. Guess it’s a wait and see what is happening then. Cheers!

Just a follow up to my own post…this is why a person needs enough sleep, lol. I forgot to add the wp_head()

Just one problem when doing a “display: none” for the widget titles, it doesn’t show it on the front-end but it does in the source code. This can have implications on your SEO efforts. One thing you can do if you use this method is to title your widget with some keywords that will be seen by the bots but still not show for the front-end (although this is not the ideal method).

What I would really like to see WordPress developers do is to provide a function in “all” widgets to turn on or off the title. I have not seen this yet.

Thanks for the comments! About www.ads-software.com method of viewing themes…I’ve mentioned this to them in the past with another theme but doesn’t look like they plan to change it. You are correct that the lightbox method they use can have an effect on themes that uses some scripts in their theme layouts…for instance this uses mootools (and or jquery) for the columns (main body and sidebar) which is why it looks like it does in the WP preview here. You seen the demo I have on my site which shows it as it looks when it’s viewed normally. So quick note anyone seeing the non-expanded columns, this is just because the lightbox popup window doesn’t work with some functional scripts but does work in a normal environment ??

Well with that part out of the way, I have had some people request different colour theme styles for Evening Shade and I have thought about that. It only has the one colour theme style but with careful modifications, you can achieve some changes. I do offer services though if you want something or all the colours changed as I just did this for 3 others, one being a full colour change and another just wanted some parts changed.

But… later in time, I might make a lighter version ??

Someone is getting creative ??

Anyway, now that I finished the pro version of this theme (evening shade), I think it’s time I do a full upgrade version of Pixel Blogging. So thanks for the notes and ideas presented here!

I think it depends on which theme you are using as the header image can be changed in many ways but again, it depends on how the author setup the function ….which one did you download?

I personally wouldn’t buy anything from godaddy but that is just me…lol ??

So what is it you are wanting to do and have done?

I hear ya and honestly, as a designer and one that comes from the Joomla cms platform, I’ve started working with wordpress themes as well and I can easily say wordpress is very simple to install and very simple for bloggers who just use premade themes and then begin blogging….however, to really get something custom and well designed, wordpress is very complicated.

However, that doesn’t really help you at the moment but perhaps this might. I am not sure how much css skill you have or html but I would say the best method to start any theme is to first sketch it out on paper along with what features you need (and wishful features) and when you have what you want, then it’s time to make a mock-up in photoshop (or whatever graphic software you use). When you are happy with the page design, you then slice it up into it’s separate elements and optimize them as png’s or jpg images. Then you can begin writing your css based on your mockup layout and start making an HTML version of your theme (not php). Put some sample text and other elements in it and when you are happy with how it looks as a standard HTML site, then begin converting it to a WordPress format…things like header, footer, index, etc, and use the www.ads-software.com site’s documents for creating your own themes as your guide.

This is of course if you still want to do your own theme and to start from the foundation. The best advantage of this is that you can control what goes into it step-by-step because trying to reverse engineer an existing theme can be very complicated and frustrating. I find it easier to begin from the start if a current attempt is becoming frustrating and time-consuming and no sign of completion.

However, if you are in a big rush, you may have to keep looking for a theme to use or hire a designer to make you one to your specifications.

Hope I didn’t scare you away….lol ??

They are rare to find… especially good ones. How soon do you need it? Reason why I ask is because I am working on my next theme and it will have three columns.

Check this out https://support.wordpress.com/moving-a-blog/ which might help you out. ??