Oct 15
WordPress Theme Hacks
WordPress was originally created as a weblog or blog platform. But now WordPress has grown so powerful that you can use it to create any type of website and use it as a Content Management System (CMS). In this article, I’m going to share some of my WordPress tricks with you on how to make a better WordPress theme. I’m not a programmer nor developer, so I will focus more on the frontend development. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that WordPress has made it so easy that even a non-programmer (designer like me) can build a wonderful website. My WordPress sites included: N.Design Studio, Best Web Gallery, Web Designer Wall, and some free WordPress Themes.
WordPress Conditional Tags
Conditional Tags are very useful when creating a dynamic WordPress theme. It allows you to control what content is displayed and how that content is displayed. Here are couple sample uses of Conditional Tags:
Dynamic Highlight Menu
Here is what I used to create a dynamic highlight menu on Best Web Gallery. In the first list item, if it is Home or Category or Archive or Search or Single, add class="current" to the <li> tag, which will highlight the "Gallery" button. Second item, if it is page with Page Slug "about", add class="current".
<ul id="nav">
<li<?php if ( is_home() || is_category() || is_archive() || is_search() || is_single() || is_date() ) { echo ' class="current"'; } ?>><a href="#">Gallery</a></li>
<li<?php if ( is_page('about') ) { echo ' class="current"'; } ?>><a href="#">About</a></li>
<li<?php if ( is_page('submit') ) { echo ' class="current"'; } ?>><a href="#">Submit</a></li>
</ul>
Dynamic Title tag
Again, I use Conditational Tags to output dynamic <title> tag in the header.php.
<title>
<?php
if (is_home()) {
echo bloginfo('name');
} elseif (is_404()) {
echo '404 Not Found';
} elseif (is_category()) {
echo 'Category:'; wp_title('');
} elseif (is_search()) {
echo 'Search Results';
} elseif ( is_day() || is_month() || is_year() ) {
echo 'Archives:'; wp_title('');
} else {
echo wp_title('');
}
?>
</title>
Dynamic Content
If you want to include a file that will only appear on the frontpage, here is the code:
<?php if ( is_home() ) { include ('file.php'); } ?>
Feature post highlighting
Let’s say categoryID 2 is your Feature category and you want to add a CSS class to highlight all posts that are in Feature, you can use the following snippet in The Loop.
<?php if ( in_category('2') ) { echo ('class="feature"'); } ?>
Unique Single template
Suppose you want to use different Single template to display individual post in certain category. You can use the in_category to check what category is the post stored in and then use different Single template. In your default single.php, enter the code below. If the post is in category 1, use single1.php, elseif in category 2, use single2.php, otherwise use single_other.php.
<?php
$post = $wp_query- >post;
if ( in_category('1') ) {
include(TEMPLATEPATH . '/single1.php');
} elseif ( in_category('2') ) {
include(TEMPLATEPATH . '/single2.php');
} else {
include(TEMPLATEPATH . '/single_other.php');
}
? >
Unique Category template
Suppose you want to use different Category template to display specific category. Simply save your Category template as category-2.php (note: add “-” and the categoryID number to the file name). So, category-2.php will be used to display categoryID 2, category-3.php will be used for categoryID 3, and so on.
Display Google Ad after the first post
A lot of people have asked me for this. How to display a Google ad after the first post? It is very simple. You just need to add a variable ($loopcounter) in The Loop. If the $loopcounter is less than or equal to 1, then include google-ad.php code.
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); $loopcounter++; ?>
// the loop stuffs
<?php if ($loopcounter <= 1) { include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/ad.php'); } ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php else : ?>
<?php endif; ?>
Query Posts
You can use query_posts to control which posts to show up in The Loop. It allows you to control what content to display, where to display, and how to display it. You can query or exclude specific categories, so you get full control of it. Here I will show you how to use query_posts to display a list of Latest Posts, Feature Posts, and how to exclude specific category.
Display Latest Posts
The following code will output the 5 latest posts in a list:
<?php query_posts('showposts=5'); ?>
<ul>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endwhile;?>
</ul>
Display Feature Posts
Let’s say categoryID 2 is your Feature category and you want to display 5 Feature posts in the sidebar, put this in your sidebar.php:
<?php query_posts('cat=2&showposts=5'); ?>
<ul>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endwhile;?>
</ul>
Exclude specific category
You can also use query_posts to exclude specific category being displayed. The following code will exclude all posts in categoryID 2 (note: there is a minus sign before the ID number):
<?php query_posts('cat=-2'); ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
//the loop here
<?php endwhile;?>
Tips: you can overwrite the posts per page setting by using posts_per_page parameter (ie. <?php query_posts('posts_per_page=6'); ?>)
Custom Fields
Custom field is one the most powerful WordPress features. It allows you to attach extra data or text to the post along with the content and excerpt. With Custom Fields, you can literally trun a WordPress into any web portal CMS. On Web Designer Wall, I use Custom Field to display the article image and link it to the post.
First add the Custom Field in the post.
To display the article image and attach it with the post link, put the following code in The Loop:
<?php //get article_image (custom field) ?>
<?php $image = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'article_image', true); ?>
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><img src="<?php echo $image; ?>" alt="<?php the_title(); ?>" /></a>
Tips: don’t forget WordPress allows you to create/store multi keys and the keys can be used more than once per post.
I used the same methodology and created a very dynamic template at Best Web Gallery, where I used Custom Fields to display the site thumbnail, tooltip image, and URL.
WP List Pages
Template tag wp_list_pages is commonly used to display a list of WP Pages in the header and sidebar for navigation purpose. Here I will show you how to use wp_list_pages to display a sitemap and sub-menu.
Site map
To generate a sitemap (sample) of all your Pages, put this code in your sitemap Page Template (note: I exclude pageID 12 because page12 is my sitemap page and I don’t want to show it):
<ul>
<?php wp_list_pages('exclude=12&title_li=' ); ?>
</ul>
Dynamic Subpage Menu
Put this in your sidebar.php and it will output a subpage menu if there are subpages of the current page:
<?php
$children = wp_list_pages('title_li=&child_of='.$post->ID.'&echo=0');
if ($children) { ?>
<ul>
<?php echo $children; ?>
</ul>
<?php } ?>
Page Template
If you are using WordPress as a basic webpage management, you better don’t miss out the Page Template feature. It allows you to customize how the Pages should be displayed. To use Page Template, first you need to create a Page Template, then you can assign the Page to specific template.
Here is how the Page Template structured (ie. portfolio.php):
<?php
/*
Template Name: Portfolio
*/
?>
<?php get_header(); ?>
//the loop here
<?php get_footer(); ?>
When you are writing or editing a page, look on the right tab “Page Template” and you should see the available templates.
WordPress Options
There are many built-in options in the Admin panels that can make your site much nicer. Here are some of them:
Custom Frontpage
By default, WordPress displays your blog posts on the frontpage. But if you want to have a static page (ie. welcome or splash page) instead, you can set that in Admin > Options > Reading.
Permalinks
Default WordPress uses www.yoursite.com/?p=123 for your post URLs, which is not URL nor search engine friendly. You can change the Permalinks setting through Admin > Options > Permalinks. Personally, I like to set the Permalinks to: /%category%/%postname%/
Category prefix
Default WordPress category prefix is "category" (ie. yoursite.com/category/cat-name/). By entering "article" in the Category base (Options > Permalinks), your category URLs will become: yoursite.com/article/cat-name/
Want more?
WordPress Codex is always the best place to learn about WordPress. Thank you WordPress and happy blogging!
Free iPod & Laptop Giveaways Useful WordPress Plugins
Comments
There are 315 comments (+Add)
1 Dan http://www.dotblue.ca
October 15th, 2007 at 12:38 am
Great article, just had a quick read! Would love to see even more tutorials like this, as there are so few out there!
2 Florian Weich http://www.centerxmovies.de
October 15th, 2007 at 1:48 am
That’s a cool tutorial! I started to setup a new homepage with Wordpress only a few hours ago and your tips are coming just at the right moment. Thanks!
3 Arctic http://hellobmw.com
October 15th, 2007 at 1:51 am
An excellent tutorial! Would you mind if I translated it into Chinese on my blog? Of course I will give the original URL. Thank you very much.
4 Squawk http://www.squawkdesign.com
October 15th, 2007 at 1:52 am
It’s a shame that I am not using Wordpress anymore.
But thanks anyway, this was the kind of tutorial that I was missing when I started using Wordpress. May it be of help to many newbies like me.
5 Meaz
October 15th, 2007 at 2:21 am
i’m starting my wordpress website and this is very useful !
i have been watching you guys for few days now , u are the best really
6 Leo http://webcmsdesign.com
October 15th, 2007 at 3:07 am
Hi Nick!
Very good tipps, thanks for them! I’ve found an another genius simple tipp at http://themeplayground.com/order-your-pages.
A question:
Your HTML/PHP snippets look pretty good. How do you generate the code: do you type span tags and CSS classes into the code or do you use a wp-plugin or similar?
with best regards
Leo
7 RUDE http://rudeworks.com/
October 15th, 2007 at 3:47 am
Great post!
BTW, one thing I don’t like about custom fields is that is so dificult to include them into feeds (for me, a non-developer like you). If you find a solution… please let us know!
8 koan http://fabien.wordpress.com
October 15th, 2007 at 4:41 am
This is one of the most useful WP article I’ve ever seen. I’ll give it a try asap! Thanks a lot!!!
9 RaymaN http://blog.websenat.de/
October 15th, 2007 at 5:52 am
Thanks. Useful article!
10 Nikos Psy2k http://blog.typpz.com
October 15th, 2007 at 7:24 am
Very usefull article again! Keep on with providing great stuff! Worts a digg, so I dugg it
11 Giancarlo.D http://www.giancarlo-design.hlfusion.net/journal/
October 15th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Another very useful tutorial for Wordpress by Nick. Great job man. Thanks for sharing it.
12 Eric http://www.sans-concept.com
October 15th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Excellent article! Really useful of use wanna-be coder designers.
13 Mindy http://www.ourfixerupper.com
October 15th, 2007 at 10:31 am
I work for a University, and we use it as a “poor man’s CMS”. So far, we haven’t found any challenge we can’t find a solution for somewhere since there are so many plugins and extensions available. I didn’t know any PHP when I started using WordPress but have since been able to cut/paste/alter to do some very crazy things!
A few of our sites running on WP:
http://commencement.syr.edu
http://sia.syr.edu (in development)
14 Tim
October 15th, 2007 at 10:48 am
This is great. I have a couple sites that are going to really benefit from this.
15 Master Employment http://www.masteremployment.com
October 15th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Interesting article, and nice site. I like the design. I totally agree that WordPress can be used to produce Content Management System. But in order to build more complicated web site I would recommend Joomla as a CMS.
16 AirDig http://www.airdig.com/
October 15th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Great collection. Thanks for sharing all these snippets.
17 ocube http://www.ocube.co.uk
October 15th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Ive been looking to get into wordpress but have been put off by the backend stuff. Hope this will be the start of great things to come. Will let you know how I get on, thanks
18 Nguyet http://www.newwaydesign.com
October 15th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
exactly what I’ve been dying to see! Thank you thank you!
Love your site, btw.
19 Gilbert Pellegrom http://www.gilbertpellegrom.co.uk
October 15th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Wow thats good. When I started reading this post I thought “bet I already know this stuff” as I have been using Wordpress for years. But I must say there are a few things in there that are totally new to me. Thanks a lot.
20 Nick http://everlong.zxq.net
October 15th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
This is a very nice post. I’ve been working on WordPress themes and when I’m making mine I have to have multiple WordPress codex windows open so I can look up features. Now that it’s all listed on one page, it will be a lot easier and faster to make WordPress themes.
21 Deaf Musician http://deafmusician.com
October 15th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
That is the most useful article ever written about wordpress themes!!! Thanks, Nick!!!!
22 Elliott
October 15th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Nice guide and update, Nick! Oh and btw, bestwebgallery.com has a problem :s Don’t know if you know about it or not.
23 Alex http://www.makesitgood.net
October 15th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Really brilliant, thanks. Wish this had been posted about two weeks ago when I had to dig and find a lot of this out without any good resource for it!
Still, plenty of stuff I haven’t used yet here!
24 AskApache http://www.askapache.com/wordpress/what-is-this-plugin.html
October 15th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Wow there is some great tips here! I’m definately going to use this to test the new conditional testing plugin: WhatIsThis
Thanks for all the hacks!
25 Komsan Kramer http://pursefighter.com
October 15th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Hey, I just created a wordpress website myself! This is such a great resource! My only question, I would really love to know how you created the buttons on your right hand toolbar that navigates you to a different page with all the posts on a certain category… if you could explain that I would be eternally in your debt!
26 Pablo http://www.pablosavard.com
October 15th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Great site, some nice eye candy and yet very simple. I will spend some time on this page to learn from these nice tutorials.
Thanks for everything, keep on the good job.
27 webtuga http://www.webtuga.com
October 15th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Great Post!
I will need that to create my personal theme.
28 Thássius http://www.memoriasfracas.com
October 15th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
These tips are simply fantastic.
Thanks a lot!
29 Keith http://www.neohide.com
October 15th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Looks excellent. I have a blog set up aside for an official NeoHide Site, which I won’t reveal at the moment, but I am intending to bang on using WordPress as a CMS. Hopefully what you tips have mentioned here is going to help a great deal. Cheers!
30 Folletto Malefico http://digitalhymn.com/argilla
October 15th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Might I suggest this library I use quite every time I need some more juice for my wordpress templates?
WordPress Portal library/plugin:
http://digitalhymn.com/argilla/wpp/
I’ve developed it with a few friends when we were working on a corporate website based upon WP. After that, we polished the code and upgraded it.
31 Jermayn Parker http://germworks.net/blog
October 15th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Thanks for those tips, I use WordPress quite a bit but some of these are new to me which is good as you may have answered a problem I have and been wanting to solve for one of my websites, so thanks a lot for that
32 Matthew James Taylor http://matthewjamestaylor.com
October 16th, 2007 at 1:55 am
There is a better way to highlight an active tab. Instead of putting the ‘current’ class on the tab itself put an id in the body tag to represent the page you are on eg: body id=”contact” then put an id on each tab eg:=”tabhome”, ” id=”tabcontact”. Now the tabs can be highlighted purely by CSS eg: #contact #tabcontact {font-weight:blod}. This requires much less code because there is only one dynamic part in php (the body tag id). See an example in action on my art gallery website.
33 Razeen
October 16th, 2007 at 3:35 am
Wordpress is a great CMS with full of customization, i like your clean and simple tutorial.
34 Jarand http://blog.kihlmedia.no
October 16th, 2007 at 4:01 am
Great, great article! In fact, i’m designing my own theme for the first time as we speak. This information will become very useful! =) For example, i have never thought about custom fields and never cared about it, but now i can see how i can use it to make some things easier to do. Thank you!
35 Matt http://soonwithWP:-
October 16th, 2007 at 9:02 am
Hi, I’m your reader since april of this year and I like your design and articles. I’m a young italian student’s of InformationTechnology and I want to go to the University (in the specify at “Belle Arti” (Beautiful Arts :-P) in Venice or Milan). I simply love this tutz because I’ll create a site (not weblog) with WP.
Thank you!!
You’re a monster
Matt
ps: i’m sorry for the bad english but….i’m a little school’s speaker (lol)
36 William http://willbrown.org
October 16th, 2007 at 11:04 am
This is a great article. Thank you! Well worth the digg. Keep up the awesome work.
37 nazeem http://www.nazeemonline.co.nr/
October 16th, 2007 at 11:54 am
great post.. and nice timing too..I’m redesigning my site…and i could use these..
thanks:D
38 Ian http://www.digimander.com
October 16th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Fantastic article. Avoids finding plugins to do everything for you.
39 Jenny http://thesocalledme.net
October 16th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Nice! I can really use this for the theme I’m designing. Thanks for the writeup.
40 Rachel http://rachel.radfordnz.net
October 16th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Thank you so much - this is a great article. I’ve used WP for ages, but never to this level. Now I am redesigning my site and this is going to be so helpful for implementation!
41 Spencer http://www.psdlayouts.com
October 16th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
So thats how tut sites do it!
42 Cadu de Castro Alves http://www.cadudecastroalves.com
October 16th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Nice tips! Congratulations!
A little people know that is possible to use .htm, .html or other extensions in permalinks structure.
Just add the extension to the end of the permalink structure field: /%category%/%postname%.htm or /%category%/%postname%.htm
43 Andrei Gonzales http://www.studio-gecko.com
October 17th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Excellent tips! We’re redesigning our site around Wordpress as well, and these help loads.
44 Leandro Cianconi
October 17th, 2007 at 5:35 am
Great post! This website design it’s a good example how to use wordpress with very pretty and functional template. Thank you!
45 Nathan http://artisticimpulses.com
October 17th, 2007 at 6:22 am
Oh god. Looking at your site makes me so upset with my own. I really do like the design here. Its wonderfully made and so influential. I would love to catch some more of these hints and tips. They are very useful.
Continuing to be jealous of yours skills,
Nathan
46 Johan http://www.mooseman.se
October 17th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Thanks alot for this. Much of this I had no idea about
47 Jon http://www.dyers.org/blog/archives/2007/10/17/wordpress-tip-how-to-change-the-number-of-drafts-shown-in-your-admin-panel/
October 17th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
I consider myself pretty well versed with Wordpress hacking, so you can imagine how dumb you made me feel by suggesting that I use a category for featured posts. I felt like a complete moron. So simple, so good.
48 Accomplice http://www.accomplice.uk.com
October 17th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Great tips!!
49 Komsan Kramer http://pursefighter.com
October 17th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
This is a fantastic article, and I’ve started using a lot of the stuff on here! Very informative, my only question I have, and maybe some of the other readers here might be able to help, is that on this website the categories are displayed as buttons with javascript hover over enabled… how do you do that! I’d really love to know.
50 Smart websites make money http://www.layoutgarden.com
October 18th, 2007 at 5:45 am
Some of them I have already known but some are just great. Only if I would have the patience to implement them…
51 Thiago
October 18th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Thanks!
FAV and share for my friends!
52 Thiago Souza http://www.thiagosouza.com.br
October 18th, 2007 at 9:42 am
All my hack are summarized in just one:
00.gif
53 Malin http://www.infektia.net
October 18th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Awesome post! Some I already knew of, and some I never thought of! ^^
I just wish I could figure out how to get the “Page Template” tab back in the admin. It’s no longer there
54 Corinne http://c0rinne.net
October 19th, 2007 at 2:57 am
Definitely some great stuff there. I’ve had to go to great lengths to find alternatives, when the answers were right in your head!
What took you so long?
Thanks!!
55 Carly http://twisted-barfly.co.uk
October 19th, 2007 at 10:15 am
This is great, thank you!
56 Lea de Groot http://elysiansystems.com/
October 19th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Oh, well done - a very nice list of code stubs all put together.
Bookmarked, because I hate trawling the codex
57 scart http://scarty.com
October 19th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
great list of hack i know some of it but most i never think of that i can do that
thanks for sharing!
58 scart http://scarty.com
October 19th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
is the google ad can be post after 2nd post?
59 willmen46 http://willmen46.wordpress.com
October 20th, 2007 at 7:14 am
mm nice artilce
i must try it.thanx
60 matt http://joncalex.com
October 20th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Hi Nick,
I have a question, I’m working on a blog right now, I noticed yours does the same thing, Try submitting a comment without entering any values. It takes you to wp-comments-post.php its in the includes folder. I guess we should not worry too much about anyone not submitting a comment, but the page it takes you to is a wordpress default page. No longer do we feel like we are in the site. I might try to mess around with it and customize it, like you would a 404 page. but I’m not sure how wordpress will take it. Anyone have thoughts on this?
61 Ben
October 21st, 2007 at 6:23 am
Thank you so much for this article! I’m setting up my own WordPress blog and this will help me a lot. Like we sa in french “ça tombe à pic”! By the way, I’d like to tell you that this blog is the best ever in terms of design and css. This is a brilliant work you did, so many people can confirm. Have a nice sunday!
62 omcdesign http://omcomc.com
October 21st, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I think you need to understand a bit of PHP to do these hacks.. still they are easy and great, thanks for sharing..
63 Tom http://www.twademedia.com
October 21st, 2007 at 2:55 pm
@ Matt [60]
Surely you could just use javascript OnSubmit to check if fields are empty and then only submit the form if the fields have been filled out.
64 Dapo Olaopa
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:16 am
I have designed my template in html on my PC and I’m offline (I need to go to a cybercafe to use the internet). I also downloaded the WordPress installation. What do I do next?
Thanx
65 Jermayn Parker http://germworks.net/blog
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Found this article very helpful with a problem I had last week
http://germworks.net/blog/2007/10/19/need-help-with-wordpress-loops/
66 Alex http://www.typepress.net
October 23rd, 2007 at 1:19 pm
You wouldn’t even imagine how long i’ve been looking for a place to reference with all of these.
THANK YOU.
67 Joycee http://www.joystudio.ca
October 24th, 2007 at 4:25 am
awesome, just awesome. thanks so much for this post!
68 Drew http://slightlyunhinged.com
October 24th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
What a valuable resource. Thanks so much for posting all this!
69 Sharell http://foxerella.com
October 24th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Wow! Thanks!
70 Casey M.
October 24th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
I don’t believe you mentioned how to do this, but if you did then I’m so clueless that I completely overlooked it and didn’t realize that that’s what you were doing.
Basically, I want to know if anyone can send me on my way to figuring out how exactly to style different categories separately on the WordPress home page (index). For example, I want a “Links” category, and when I post in that category it isn’t styled like a real post (large heading, etc.).
If you’re unsure as to what exactly it is that I’m talking about, then here’s a few sites that utilize this technique:
http://www.joshuablankenship.com/blog/
http://www.kottke.org/
http://www.thebignoob.com
These are just a few that I thought of off the top of my head and I’m aware that they don’t all use WordPress. But you get the idea of what I’m wanting.
Thanks in advance!
71 ascetic http://www.itechstyle.com
October 25th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
nice read indeed
thanks
72 Matt P.
October 26th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Hey Casey M.,
Look at the section “Feature post highlighting” above in the article. That is what you would want to do. Inside of your Loop you would want to put that php code in the class position of your div that surrounds each post.
You could even do:
Then you could have seperate styles for .link and .normal
73 Free Fall Creative http://www.freefallcreative.com
October 27th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Awesome article. Learned a few things with wordpress I’ve been wanting to, so this helps a lot.
Thanks!!!!
74 matt http://joncalex.com
October 28th, 2007 at 2:35 am
@ Tom [63]
Thanks, Tom your right about that. I didn’t think about that at the time.
75 Aion http://www.aionglobal.com
October 28th, 2007 at 4:26 am
Wordpress became really good
76 Rose DesRochers http://rosedesrochers.todays-woman.net
October 28th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Thank you for the helpful article. Stumbled and will link to it on bloggertalk.net
77 Sebastian http://blog.intelligence-networks.de/
October 29th, 2007 at 6:54 am
Outstanding hints for such a great ‘CMS’ like WordPress is!
Thanks a lot!
78 chazychaz http://www.artsmixer.com/
October 29th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Thank you for sharing this!!
79 james
October 30th, 2007 at 6:48 am
dig this stuff always. Would love to know how I can make a wordpress & flash portfolio. Just getting the php to spit out the XML so i can make a flash CMS.
check out http://www.gotoandlearn.com
80 Strawberrysoup http://www.strawberrysoup.co.uk
October 30th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Great article - it is interesting to look at Wordpress as an alternative to other open source or in-house content mangement systems. Many thanks for another great article!
81 Thomas Ka http://www.aboveluxe.fr/
October 31st, 2007 at 6:13 am
Thank’s fore these code sample…
A good example of using Wordpress as a CMS : http://www.aboveluxe.fr/
K
82 TOTALFUNWORLD.COM http://www.totalfunworld.com
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:16 am
Great sharing. I have Learned a new things with wordpress from the above article. Thanks for the sharing.
83 Rubens Fernando http://www.rubensfernando.com
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:50 am
Good Article! Thanks
84 wordpress seo http://www.wordpress-seo.com
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Get more with your wordpress , Seo out the box and better seo enable with simple modification.
85 adam http://archgfx.net/
November 3rd, 2007 at 6:57 pm
somebody’s probably already said this, bu i can’t be arsed to page through all the pages of comments.
rather than using a conditional to define a different template for a specific category, let wordpress do the heavy lifting: create a template called category-6.php (or whatever your category ID is), and customize it as you please. wordpress already automatically checks for this, and will use the file if it exists.
86 Tan The Man http://www.dorksandlosers.com
November 4th, 2007 at 6:09 am
Userful is the key word. Much appreciated.
87 Jokes http://www.wakafun.com/
November 5th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Thanks a lot! Considering the number of plug-ins its the approach!
88 idezmax http://www.idezmax.com
November 7th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Thak you very much. I will try.
89 PiticStyle http://www.piticstyle.com
November 7th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Thank you!
90 Livingston Samuel http://blog.delivi.info/
November 8th, 2007 at 3:11 am
Wow! Great article. This has helped me a lot. Keep the good work going on and Thanks a lot
91 Red@ http://Dzordre.com
November 8th, 2007 at 7:22 am
Thank you for Sharing with us this precious informations … it help’s alot !
92 Mark Wiseman http://allthewikis.com
November 11th, 2007 at 3:05 am
Wow, great post and great website design, Thanks
93 Technology Blog http://chronicles.wraithstrider.com
November 13th, 2007 at 5:38 am
thanks…
94 Lazlow http://slickhouse.com/
November 13th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Wow! Nice article, but the site itself is outstanding - very inspiring!
95 andy http://drew3000.net
November 13th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Thanks for the article and even more so for the great design. This site’s theme is fantastic. Inspires me to sit down and create a unique one myself. Very Nice.
96 ark
November 14th, 2007 at 3:21 am
wow, a really nice information, really help a lot…
97 ark
November 14th, 2007 at 7:13 am
and one more thing, can i ask some question, actually Im new to the wordpress thing/web. For the widger/sidebar, can change the widget or totally add new thing/function inside? I planning to using Wordpress to making my site because i need the Posting/commenting function…..
98 chirag http://moneymakersroad.googlepages.com
November 14th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
good one
99 micron
November 15th, 2007 at 3:27 am
What would this ( ) be for a Single post?
100 Mehmet Poyraz http://www.kurutma.net
November 15th, 2007 at 9:48 am
very nice
101 Mark N
November 16th, 2007 at 11:09 am
This is probably the most helpful tutorial I’ve ever read.
102 thamil http://www.google.com
November 17th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
it is very useful for me
103 daid http://webvmastergroup.org
November 19th, 2007 at 3:14 am
wow nice tutorials
thank
104 Webdesigner München http://www.weblike.de
November 19th, 2007 at 4:39 am
Thanks for the great informations and the hacks!
Best regards from munich.
105 Dj RaYz http://www.djrayz.com
November 20th, 2007 at 2:50 am
Thank you very much for all the helpful tutorials and tips for blogging!
106 Paul Enderson http://paulenderson.com
November 20th, 2007 at 7:59 am
Excellent post - and very useful too!
Thanks…
107 andree http://www.webeternity.co.uk
November 20th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
very good, i like it, just a small question.
i have may pages on my website, they show in the page widget and in the header wich is normal but how can i remove some of the pages from the header but keep them in the page widget? the reason for this is if i goto my website in firefox it looks wrong and this is ecouse of the amount of pages in the header
108 Fab http://www.fabnetrevenue.com
November 21st, 2007 at 8:57 am
Brilliant information ! Thanks for putting that together…
Would each WP Theme be appropriate for theses hacks ?
109 Editing Services http://www.alphabetix.net
November 21st, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Great post. I like your web design. Thanks for sharing!
110 forat http://www.forat.info
November 21st, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Theme Very good and very good handbook. Thanks !!
111 ashish http://www.takemasti.com
November 25th, 2007 at 6:54 am
this is very nice website
112 Agosh http://www.suvodas.com,www.ferfalla.com
November 27th, 2007 at 2:59 am
really nice & useful site, and keep updated
thanks
113 AlienFarmer http://www.solarcoupons.com
November 27th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Great post! I use wordpress to do a deals website thats all about solar products. http://www.SolarCoupons.com if you want to check it out.
114 Darren Hoyt http://www.darrenhoyt.com
November 28th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Great examples. I did notice that the code for “Unique Single template” has a few issues.
For one, the spacing between the dash and brackets needs closing here:
$wp_query- >post;Same with the space between the bracket and question mark:
? >Otherwise, it throws an error.
115 Ibrar
November 29th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
/%category%/%postname%/ = http://yourname.com/about/
But I want like this:
/%?????????????????%/ = http://www.youname.com/about
any idea?
116 aydınlatma direkleri http://www.buse-aydinlatma-sistemleri.com
December 3rd, 2007 at 5:00 am
thanks
117 kablo tavası http://www.ekip-ltd.com.tr
December 3rd, 2007 at 5:01 am
good source.thanks
118 kablo merdiveni http://www.ekip-ltd.com.tr
December 3rd, 2007 at 5:01 am
great examples!!!!!!
119 Xooxia http://xooxia.com
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Beautiful information. This format is much easier to get an idea of how flexible the template system is in wordpress than the documentation that wordpress offers. Thanks for the hard work in putting this together!
120 Betty Carbuncle http://bettycarbuncle.net
December 4th, 2007 at 12:22 am
hello!
that logo with heart on the W of Wordpress was originally a creation of mine. I would like to be recognized for that, even if changed and 3d-ed. thanks a lot. I will apreciate this a lot. Thanks again for reading this comment. If you go back in the past wordpress logo competition, you’ll see the logo with the heart was created by me: dandyna, now Betty Carbuncle on the net. Huge hugs, Betty (dandyna)
121 RHO http://rho.slowli.com
December 5th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Thank you for this examples!
I often looked for something like the Dynamic Highlight Menu!
Now i found that! Great
122 Lucas Savelli
December 6th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Spectacular!
123 mach
December 8th, 2007 at 11:26 am
good !!
124 Michael Kelly http://www.conurestudios.com
December 10th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Awesome website and awesome content. I’m a very big wordpress guy but still love to have links like this ready in case. Thanks for the good work!!
125 steveb http://www.mizizi.net
December 12th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
fantastic stuff
126 Mack http://www.freemobilecity.com/
December 13th, 2007 at 5:11 am
This is great since most word press themes suck. Lets see if a non-designer and non-programmer like me can use it. Thanks
127 Domain Name India http://www.domaindisney.com
December 13th, 2007 at 6:26 am
Nice article. Even programmers and domain name and hosting passionates wil get benefit from this.
128 Fei
December 14th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Really want to thank you for this post, it has really pulled me through when I was helping a friend to customize this wordpress look. Appreciate your hardwork, putting all these info together!
129 khax http://www.khax.com
December 18th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
big thx for this tips!
130 Wam3 http://blogblurt.com
December 19th, 2007 at 2:02 am
Fantastic stuff! Thanks a million.
131 Andy http://electon.info
December 19th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Oh, and did not know about it. Thanks for the information …
132 Tokyo http://www.ilovetokyo.fr
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Wow !
133 Alex
December 26th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Thanks!
Seeing how powerful WP actually is has inspired me to start using it.
134 SMASHINGAPPS.COM http://www.smashingapps.com
December 29th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Helpful article. Thanks
135 Rakesh Sharma Jack http://www.egzone.info
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:48 am
in a few words: wonderful article..simply suberb.
136 Susanne http://netz-studio.de/
January 2nd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I also like to use WP as CMS. And here I found more interesting stuff for working with WP as CMS. Thank you.
137 jesie http://www.jesieblogjourney.com
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:30 pm
I’m trying to use it. Just timely for me as I am trying to construct another new website. Stumbled and reviewed!
138 Chris Laskey http://www.chrislaskeydesign.com
January 7th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Great guide to some of the finer points of editing WP, all in one place. Another great post by webdesignerwall.
Cheers
139 LondonJack http://www.ahtutorial.com
January 8th, 2008 at 8:05 am
thank you. this art theme is very good!
140 ibrahim http://www.runbitchrun.com
January 8th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
wow i really liked that loop features…
141 anatomy body education grays human humerus yahoo http://stars-education.com/
January 16th, 2008 at 3:23 am
anatomy body education grays human vagina yahoo anatomy body education femur grays human yahoo anatomy body education grays human sternum yahoo anatomy body education grays heart human yahoo anatomy body education grays human humerus yahoo anatomy body education grays human mouth yahoo anatomy body education grays human ulna yahoo anatomy body education grays human tarsus yahoo anatomy body education grays heart human yahoo
142 anatomy body education grays human sternum yahoo http://stars-education.com/
January 16th, 2008 at 3:35 am
anatomy body education grays human introduction yahoo exceptional child an introduction to special education exceptional child an introduction to special education anatomy body education grays human lung yahoo anatomy body education grays human sternum yahoo anatomy body education grays human introduction yahoo abdomen anatomy body education grays human yahoo department of education direct loan servicing center anatomy body education grays human tibia yahoo
143 anatomy body education grays human stomach yahoo http://stars-education.com/
January 16th, 2008 at 3:47 am
exceptional child an introduction to special education anatomy body education grays human sternum yahoo anatomy body education grays human pelvis yahoo anatomy body education grays human vagina yahoo anatomy body education grays human stomach yahoo anatomy body education grays human pelvis yahoo anatomy body education grays human tarsus yahoo anatomy body education grays human penis yahoo anatomy body education grays human rib yahoo
144 flower flower ohio paperback wild wild http://flowers-for-people.com/
January 16th, 2008 at 7:35 am
how to make tissue paper flower ambulance car car flower hearses professional amorphophallus bbg blooming corpse flower titanum where to buy flower girl dress flower flower ohio paperback wild wild 1000 art botanical flowering new years 1 ancient flower life secret volume design favorite flowering from ocake piece flower and gift delivery for valentine
145 desktop flower free photo site wallpaper http://flowers-for-people.com/
January 16th, 2008 at 7:42 am
the perks of being a wallflower day flower name prune tree valentine bead does easy flower it wire flower flower garden garden rose rose desktop flower free photo site wallpaper where have all the flower gone flower and gift delivery for valentine flower and wine for valentine day flower flower garden garden rose rose
146 palace hotel ho chi minh city http://hotel-2.road-hotels.com/palace-hotel-ho-chi-minh-city.html
January 17th, 2008 at 8:52 am
river palm hotel casino laughlin nv bc hotel in pacific pan vancouver riu grand palace maspalomas oasis hotel pacific palm hotel city of industry palace hotel ho chi minh city crown golden hotel paradise puerto vallarta courtyard discount hotel marriott omaha reservation arlington express holiday hotel inn suite friendly hotel in lancaster pa pet
147 fadern http://www.fadern.se
January 17th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Thanks
148 Jeromy
January 18th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Here’s a related question: I want to show content only on a page and all it’s subpages. Is there a way to do that?
149 web design http:www.webeternity.co.uk
January 19th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Excellent post - and very useful too! Thanks…
150 rene
January 20th, 2008 at 11:57 am
the note “don’t spam” should be answered with a installation of askimet. forex and co. … stupid suckers. :-/
151 web design http://www.webeternity.co.uk
January 21st, 2008 at 3:31 pm
very good, i like it
152 8am SEO http://www.8amseo.com/
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:35 am
Thanks for the Wordpress Hacks. I’m going to implements some of these in my SEO website soon.
153 amrinz http://www.linuxindo.web.id
January 24th, 2008 at 5:09 am
good news for me
154 ineation http://www.guidechambrehote.com
January 25th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Just fyi, I think that the is_home() template tag do not work anymore for WP>2.1, due to the new homepage option feature in the admin. Nethertheless you can use a plugin called is_frontpage (http://www.bos89.nl/1197) that will do the same job…
Congratulation 4 your blog design, I think it is the best I have ever seen.
155 Foxinni - Wordpress Designer http://www.foxinni.com
January 30th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Haha…. wordpress is very cool indeed. Gonna make use of the custom field now. So great.
156 Todd Christensen http://www.quesinberry.com
February 5th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I know this is dumb. But I am new to the Wordpress thing. Which PHP file do these hacks go?
157 Karen T http://kkkkk.tumblr.com
February 8th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
@Todd Christensen:
These go to the ‘theme’ files.
You can download a theme from online and figure out how they work and then edit according to what you want from there. There is no ‘right’ php file these codes go into because template files are pretty much dynamic in nature. Hope that helps.
158 Sim Kamsan http://www.ancientangkorguide.com/
February 10th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Great Post Thanks.
159 Mali http://www.eatingdesign.com
February 10th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Im really getting into wordpress, But your post still blows my mind! lol All the sites you have created are a real inspirations to me. The artwork is not a problem and I really want to push my blog beyond, hopefully soon I will get my head around the customisation of wordpress.
Thanks for the post and thanks for the inspiration
Mali
Eating Design
160 LD http://www.phim24h.com
February 15th, 2008 at 1:20 am
Nice Post! Thanks
161 Misser http://haozhan.name
February 16th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
I just come to say thanks. With your introduction in section “Query Post”, I have solved my theme Problem in a simple and elegant way.
162 David Stembridge http://fbcwaynesboro.org
February 20th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I’m trying to set up a Unique Single template… and I keeping getting a blank page… I modified the code like this:
post;
if ( in_category(’1′) ) {
include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/category-1.php’);
}
? >
but, perhaps I’m not putting this in the correct place for the single.php? Where on the file does that need to be inserted? Why does this have a forward slash in the front (/category-1.php) ?
Thanks!
163 Therseus http://therseus.com
February 21st, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Hi Nick! Thanks for a great website and insight into Wordpress.
Im trying to implement the custom hack on my site to produce a Post icon at the top of my posts…im having some trouble aligning it. Help anyone ?
164 Andy the Celebrity http://gle.am
March 2nd, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Great info! I might actually try to hammer out one of my own someday…
165 Hosting http://www.weareonline.nl
March 4th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Which of these WP items would you advise for SEO purposes?
166 bob http://home.com
March 5th, 2008 at 2:43 am
TfQeq1 hi nice site man thx http://peace.com
167 kayol http://www.hostdemon.net
March 6th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Found this post on WP Theme Hacks from our Web Hosting Company using Stumble! Very nice guide.
168 Brian http://www.webunload.com
March 9th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
I really good example of the strange things you can accomplish with wordpress is http://www.webunload.com. It is transformed into a marketplace similar to sitepoint. Enjoyed the article!
169 Shane http://www.freshclickmedia.com
March 10th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Interesting and very useful post. Thanks a lot.
170 petnos http://www.petnos.com
March 11th, 2008 at 2:42 am
This post is really useful, thanks for sharing.
171 Sue
March 12th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I am using the Dynamic Highlight Menu. The problem is, on some pages, there are sub-pages. When I go to those sub-pages, the selected tab at the top isn’t selected anymore. For instance, if I click on the tab Gallery, there are links in the sidebar to say Colored Pencils or Paint. If I click on one of those links, the tab Gallery is no longer highlighted. Would I have to use an or statement to connect all the sub-pages to the main page, or is there an easier way to deal with this situation?
Also, could you email me with your reply? Thanks.
172 Ryan http://ryanhellyer.net/web_development/
March 15th, 2008 at 6:12 am
Thanks for the useful tips
I created the “Simple CMS WordPress Plugin” recently which massively simplifies the admin panel to make it idiot proof for non web designers to update their simple static websites.
I also have a development theme called “Simple CMS Theme” for helping web designers develop static websites with WordPress.
173 dapo-phoenix
March 16th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I really like this blog: the design, the info everything! If this isn’t too much to ask can you please make a detailed tutrial on how to create wordpress themes/templates?(or you can wirte a list of links with very good tuts on same.)
Thanx a million!
174 Flo http://www.dexthis.com
March 17th, 2008 at 5:02 am
well done on this site, it’s really well done! Top tips on how to use wordpress too, very impressed. Will definately come back to check on it. Cheers!
175 Sussex Web Design http://www.pixeldesignstudio.co.uk
March 17th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Great post! We have used some of these in our own web design blog, there are a few we have not seen before which we will use in our web hosting blog.
We keep coming back to your site, not just because of the great posts, but the design is just awesome! Keep it up.
176 yosax http://www.yosax.com
March 18th, 2008 at 5:17 am
I’m using your methods on my Automotiive World website and now it’s more attractive.
Thank you for the share.
177 elizer http://relizers.ueuo.com
March 19th, 2008 at 6:09 am
very good example..but i’m still confused. can you teach me step by step?
thanks before for your attention..
178 Antonio
March 19th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Hey, great article! I have Wordpress installed locally in my computer. And when I try and change the permalinks according to your article, like this:
/%category%/%postname%/
It won’t work…Is this because I’m working with wordpress locally or what?
179 Megan http://askgriff.com/meg/girls
March 19th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Hey,
I love your page, i love all the funky colors and the lines kind of like lined paperm and i expecially love your buttons and tabs, im not that great on the computer and dont understand the codes so i was wondering if you ever get extra time maybe you could email me and explain it to ma a little better. Thanks for your time.
Megan
180 sarah http://www.amazingwordpressthemes.com
March 20th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Although some of the information is technical if you have enough experience this info really is useful and appreciated.
Thanks
Sarah
181 Shantanu Goel http://tech.shantanugoel.com
March 21st, 2008 at 4:09 pm
The design of this site is just so cool, man…I love it
@Antonio (comment 178): This is occuring because you havent modified your .htaccess file or ur mod_rewrite isn’t running
182 Jon http://chronicblogger.com
March 24th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
This article was really helpful. I’m wondering if there’s a way to tinker around with a Wordpress theme without having to do it ‘live’ online. PS your site’s design is amazing!
183 waleed http://al-wlid.com
March 25th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
very good example..but i’m still confused. can you teach me step by step?
thanks before for your attention ..
184 Taurin
March 25th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Hi Nick,
I love your Artwork. Really great job. I’m actually working on a theme, based on your Glossy Theme. If you’re interessted and want to have a look, just mail me.
Kind regards.
185 dody
March 27th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
hello, your theme so beatifull..natural..i like it..first thing i have to say is iam newbie on wordpress..just 3 days..i learn a little bit about this en that..then WOW wordpress so great..so open source..so freely..alot of source i can got for free..
By the way thanks for you article..help me better..
186 Zeytin http://www.zeytin.net
April 1st, 2008 at 8:27 am
very good example..
187 Julia http://pinkmoonz.com/
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:44 am
Oh my gosh am I glad to have found you! I do hope you’ll be able to help me… I think I did something funky to my template when I removed the blog title, and now my About and Home tabs are not where they should be. Please could you take a peek? I’d love you forever! Thank You x
btw - your theme is just beautiful!
188 Karen
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Thanks for some great pointers! You’ve just saved me loads of time!
Your layout is just lovely. Easy on the eye and makes technical content easy to navigate and follow. Thumbs up from a technical writer!
189 Banago http://www.xixblog.com
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Good job body. Thanks!
190 MAJ3STIC
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Will you creating a theme for us to practice with or a psd version of a theme?
191 Anonymous http://www.aargroup.ru/kalendar-buhgaltera.php
April 4th, 2008 at 7:58 am
AAR Group:
192