Flow is an elegant WordPress theme ideally suited to people who want their content to shine. This blog style theme features a prominent image, video or quote from each post in a stylish list style. Here are just a few of the theme’s great features:

• Easy to use control panel to completely configure your theme
• Five color styles to choose from
• Three shadow styles available to use for post thumbnails
• Videos are playable from the post list (not just on the post itself)
• Space for sidebar ads (can be turned on and off from the control panel)
• Disappearing sidebar (can be turned on and off from the control panel)
• Choose from three post styles–image, video or text
• Enhanced WordPress gallery with valid XHML code and Fancy box image viewer
• Option to use your logo or your site’s title
• Works in Internet Explorer 6 +, FireFox 2 +, Safari 3 +, Chrome 2 +, and Opera 9 +
• Valid XHML for compatibility and CSS3 features to make your site stand out

Flow has even more to offer than these features. Buy it now and start using Flow on your site (or your client’s) today.

To start out I would make a new post for each small group. For the title of the post I would use the name of the small group. Then I would use custom fields for information that I would need on each group (childcare provided, leader’s name, location, day and time and so on). Custom fields may seem tricky at first, but they are really easy to use. You can find them on every page or post write screen, just below the main content box. Each one has a name and a value. The name is the type of information and the value is the specific information. For our example the name would be “leader” and the value would be “Bill Robbins.”

The first thing to do is to decide what information you’d like to display for every group. In my example, I use group leaders, day & time, location, group focus, and childcare. You may have others. Once you know the details you’d like to list for every group, here is the code you will need to call it.

<?php $recent = new WP_Query("cat=5&showposts="); while($recent->have_posts()) : $recent->the_post();?>
     <div class="group-item">
     <h2><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
     <li>Leader: <?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, "groupleader", true); ?></li>
     <li>When: <?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, "groupwhen", true); ?></li>
     <li>Where: <?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, "groupwhere", true); ?></li>
     </div>
<?php endwhile; ?>

Here’s a quick explanation of the code. We are creating a query of all WordPress posts from a particular category, in this case category number 5 (that’s the category ID number where we place our groups). This will produce a list of all posts from that category. But it will be a specific list showing the Title (the name of the group in our case), the leader plus when and where the group will meet. This will all be outputted into a list that we can easily style with css if necessary. I generally place this after the loop so that I can introduce the list without having to hard code it. Now we’re not limited to just using “leader,” “when,” and “where.” We can use any bit of information we’d like. You just need to keep track of the custom field and you could easily add topics or whatever. Well this takes care of listing the groups, but now we need to make it possible for people to sign up easily.

When I first stated this, I used the cforms plugin from Delicious Days to create the sign ups. I would create a form for the first group, copy it and make one for the next group. Each new group got their own individual sign up form. While this worked, it was a bit tedious.

Last summer Gravity Forms was released and I immediately bought a copy and have used it for all my form related needs since. One of the features they’ve added recently was the ability to do email routing. Basically this means that you can email the completed form to different addresses based on how the form is filled out. So say someone signs up for the Tuesday Morning Men’s Bible Study, that leader gets an email with the registration directly from Gravity Forms. I don’t have to be the gate keeper for all the sign up information that comes through the web site.

All you have to do is create a form with check boxes for your groups. Once you’ve completed it, you will be presented with an opportunity to set up notifications. Select routing and then enter the group leaders email address to send the registration to when their group is selected. Then fill in the rest of the notification form and you’re set. This is actually so simple, when I receive sign ups at church, I actually enter them into the website as a way of maintaining a record of the registration and notifying the group leader. Some things claim to make administrative tasks easier, this actually does.

So this is how I go about creating dynamic small group sign ups at our church. It’s a great way to leverage WordPress technologies to lighten our administrative loads and leave more time for ministry.

If you’ve discovered a great way to do sign ups on your website share it with us in the comments.

Far and away, 2009 greatly exceeded my expectations at Organized Themes.  The site grew from offering only three themes to now having 9 with more on the way.  Thousands of people all over the planet are now using these themes to power their websites.

When I started Organized Themes, I wanted to create the best themes for churches, non-profits and schools to use for their WordPress powered sites.  A funny thing happened though, as more people began to purchase my themes, I noticed more and more of them being used on sites other than the expected churches, non-profits and schools.  It all started with a yoga studio purchasing the Sky Church theme.  This trend really grew and so I started making my themes more generalized as you can see especially with Gallery, Media and Visual.  While making this change has led to more sales, it has taken Organized Themes off the course I set for it at the beginning.

So starting on January 18, I am launching a new WordPress theme club called Theme Weaver.  This site will feature WordPress themes for a more general audience, while Organized Themes will again be more specifically geared to churches and organizations.  The other change here is to announce the theme package will remain at $50 for all the themes here at Organized Themes.  So for less than the cost of one theme from many of the other theme developers you can have access to all of the themes here at Organized Themes.

I’m also offering a special deal right now through the launch of Theme Weaver on January 18, buy a Theme Package at Organized Themes, get a one year membership to Theme Weaver.net for free.  There is already a great crop of themes on the way.  The first theme called Flow already has a demo that you can check out here.  It is a streamlined theme that allows you to easily showcase your images, videos or thoughts.

It’s been a pleasure helping you create some amazing sites during 2009 and I know that 2010 is going to have even more excitement.

If you have something you’d like to see in a theme, leave me a comment to let me know.

Each year WordPress tries to have three updates to the software.  Every time a new version goes to the beta testing stage, I test my themes to ensure compatibility.  If there is ever an issue, I issue an update.  All updates are included with the cost of an individual theme or theme package so there is no additional charges involved.

As for new features with WordPress 2.9 two you will most likely be excited about are an image editor and a WordPress trash can.  The image editor allows you to make some basic edits like cropping and resizing.
The trash can works like it does on your computer.  Now when you delete a post or page, it isn’t lost forever, you can recover it out of the trash.  Rather handy if you accidentally delete the wrong thing.

What feature do you think WordPress needs to add next?

If your theme already has a single.php, rename it single-original.php and create a new file called single.php.  Now into this empty file, paste the following code:

<?php $post = $wp-query->post;

if (in_category('9')) {
include(TEMPLATEPATH.'/single-9.php');
} elseif (in_category('4')) {
include(TEMPLATEPATH.'/single-4.php');
} else {
include(TEMPLATEPATH.'/single-original.php');
}
?>
<?php get_header(); ?>

<?php get_footer(): ?>

Here’s how it works. The code checks to see if what category you’re in (in this example the category id is 9). If the post is in that category it will display the single-9.php template for that post. After checking to see if it is in category 9, then it checks to see if the post is in category 4. If it is then it displays single-4.php. If not then it displays our original post template single-original.php.

The big advantage that the plugin provides is the ability to choose a template on a per post basis regardless of category. However using this snippet takes care of things automatically and that can be quite useful too.

• Background Control: This is a handy plugin that enables you to change the background image and color of your site. I uncovered this plugin because I was considering making one myself, but this one already had the features I thought users would want. It includes a built in file uploader, the ability to select the image properties (repeat, fixed, and position) plus color. If the only thing you don’t like about your theme is the background appearance, then this is all you need to change it. Download it here.
• Cute Profiles: This stylish plugin allows you to easily add links to your various social media pages right into your WordPress site. There are several existing plugins that do this so what sets Cute Profiles apart? For starters it is very easy to set up. To include a profile, all you have to do is enter the corresponding URL and the icon link will appear automatically. Some other plugins require you to uncheck lots of boxes unless you want 50 little icons on your site. There are styling and placement options, plus all the images are contained in an image sprite. This allows the browser to load only one image instead of several individual ones which will make your site much faster. You can download Cute Profiles here.
• Tweet Blender: I’ve been a Twitter Tools user for some time now and it servers my needs quite well, but it isn’t the best fit for every situation though. Tweet Blender gives you the chance to show tweets from multiple people or hash tags and place them into one stream. So say you have a company site, you can list all your employees tweets in the stream and display them along with their Twitter avatars. Or if you are hosting an event that people will be tweeting about, you can set it to display a common hash tag so someone can easily follow the conversation via your site. You can find Tweet Blender here.
• Ultimate Automatic WordPress Translation Plugin: Obviously the internet is global so shouldn’t your site be too? There are other translation plugins out there–WPML.org has a great plugin for you to translate your site, but you have to do the translating yourself. The Ultimate Automatic WordPress Translation Plugin uses Google Translate and language detection to automatically deliver a version of your site to an international visitor. So say your site is in English and someone from France visits. The plugin can detect the location of the visitor’s IP address or the language settings on their computer to direct them to the French version of your site. You have the ability to control which pages and posts are translated as well as which languages to include. It’s rather easy for the user, and while Google Translate isn’t perfect, it’s better than having a site that is impossible to read. This plugin is available for purchase for $9.95 from here.
• My Snippets: This is a simple plugin with a great idea behind it that will soon grace Organized Themes. It allows you to display custom snippets in any widetized area of your site on a post-by-post basis. Here’s how I’m going to use it. I’m adding instructional videos to all my themes, but I can’t complete them all at once. I’d like the videos to appear in my sidebar on theme posts below the price, demo and purchase links. I can hard code this into the theme and use conditional logic and custom fields to make them display when I have a video, but now I don’t have to. I can use the My Snippets plugin to handle this for me. I just paste the code into the snippet box and now my video is present. Simple and effective like all the best plugins are. You can find it here.

What other undiscovered plugins have you found recently that are useful to you?


]]> http://www.organizedthemes.com/plugins-for-form-and-function/feed/ 5 http://www.organizedthemes.com/plugins-for-form-and-function/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/organizedthemes/KxLG/~3/n_PFD1KO7Uc/ http://www.organizedthemes.com/package-sale/#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:01:12 +0000 Bill Robbins http://www.organizedthemes.com/?p=1259

Right now I’m offering two amazing deals, get any two themes for only $20, or all my great themes for only $50. Why spend $70 or more on just one theme when you can get all these great themes for only $50? Plus you get theme updates and great support from me.

Buy theme package for only $50 here!

If you’d rather get two themes that’s easy too. Just add two themes to your cart and the discount will automatically be applied. You’ll get two great themes for only $20.


]]> http://www.organizedthemes.com/package-sale/feed/ 4 http://www.organizedthemes.com/package-sale/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/organizedthemes/KxLG/~3/mEJW6RrTJLk/ http://www.organizedthemes.com/backups-they-really-can-save-your-site/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:53:46 +0000 Bill Robbins http://www.organizedthemes.com/?p=1229

It’s one of the computing mantras that you hear over and over again–keep regular backups. But how many people do that despite hearing the occasional horror story of losing everything with a hard drive crash or a virus. I’ve always been someone who has good intentions of keeping things backed up, but if I’m left to myself to do them regularly, they often get overshadowed by the more exciting aspects of running my design business. Two weeks ago, I had a personal experience with why having multiple backups can be essential to ensuring your site stays up and functional.
Here’s what happened. It started after I purchased a new plugin for WordPress that allows your site to automatically translate your pages and posts and display them to a user based on their browser’s language settings. Since I get approximately 40% of my visits from countries that are not primarily English speaking, I thought this would be a fantastic way to server my customers. I knew this plugin would make some significant changes to my WordPress database, so I backed up my site with the WP Database Backup plugin, and I used the export function built into WordPress to export my site’s content in case things went wrong. On a Friday night, I set my site to translating, and hit the bed. When I woke up the next morning, I discovered that all my site’s traffic had been redirected to a non-existant French version of my site. I tried adjusting settings in the plugin, but to no avail. Deactivating the plugin didn’t fix the problem either.
Since I knew I was missing out on sales, I knew I had to act quickly, so I opened up the MySQL admin on my server and tried to restore the backup I had made before using the plugin. It wouldn’t take. I tried two more times, but to no avail. This would have been the simplest way to get things back up and running. All of my site’s settings were contained in that file–widgets, plugins form set up not to mention all my posts, pages and comments. If the backup had restored as planned, then all of this would be instantly corrected and it would be “like it never even happened” to quote ServPRO.
But I wasn’t out yet. I still had the export XML file that I had made. This is a bit different from the database backup in that it only has my site’s content–no settings are included. I created a new database on my server and ran WordPress’ famous 5 minute installer and then imported the XML file. All in all, it took about 20 minutes to get everything back as it had been before the incident took place. It may not have been ideal, but I was able to get my site back up and allow customers to resume purchases in less than a half hour. So what did I learn?

1. Regular backups are a must. I have the WP Database Backup set to email me a copy of my database every day. I’ve been doing that for as long as I can remember. Now I periodically check the backups to make sure that I can use them. If I can’t import them, then they are pointless for me.
2. Multiple backups are necessary. I now export my site’s content via the tools>export command after I publish each post. I actually did lose one post through this whole process. I still have the text in my feed reader, so I will publish it again soon. This was just a lesson learned–if it isn’t backed up, it may not exist anymore after a failure.
3. Test plugins before you use them. When I first discovered WordPress, I made the mistake that lots of people do, in that I used too many plugins. They can be great, but if you mix too many plugins together you can expect trouble to creep in somewhere. There are exceptions to this, but my experience in helping hundreds of people with WordPress related issues tells me that this is the norm. I used to be good at testing a new plugin on another site to ensure that everything worked properly before I moved it to my main installation. This time I didn’t do that and a plugin cost me my site being down for about 5 hours. Lesson relearned. Unless you mind potentially having to rebuild your site, test a plugin someplace else before running it on your own site.
4. Don’t forget to backup your local computer too. I’ve been using Time Machine on my MackBook Pro since Leopard came out, but now I use Sugar Sync to maintain an automatic off site back up as well.

I think we all sometime or another will have a loss of data. If you are good about maintaining a backup routine that includes verifying your backups, you’ll be in good shape when disaster strikes.


]]> http://www.organizedthemes.com/backups-they-really-can-save-your-site/feed/ 0 http://www.organizedthemes.com/backups-they-really-can-save-your-site/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/organizedthemes/KxLG/~3/rdBf-4VWxUA/ http://www.organizedthemes.com/add-a-read-more-link-to-a-text-widget/#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:31:25 +0000 Bill Robbins http://www.organizedthemes.com/?p=1158 The default text widget allows you to not only place text, but HTML code as well. We can use that ability to create a link from a “Read More” button. Here is what the code we will use will look like:

Read More

Here’s how to make it work. Go to the widgets menu under appearance and create a text widget where you’d like it to be visible. Copy the code from above and paste it into the widget and save your changes. Next replace the http://www.yoursite.com/page with the address you would like to link to. An easy way to get the url is just to browse to the page and copy the url from the browser address bar. Save your changes and you should be good to go.

If you want to take this up a notch, you can use an image for the link. Just use the add media feature of WordPress to upload the button you’d like to use. I’ve included one here if you need one. Once the upload is complete, copy the URL that appears at the bottom of the resulting dialogue box. Then use code that looks like this:

Now you’ll have an image button that links to the rest of your text. Pretty simple don’t you think?


]]> http://www.organizedthemes.com/add-a-read-more-link-to-a-text-widget/feed/ 0 http://www.organizedthemes.com/add-a-read-more-link-to-a-text-widget/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/organizedthemes/KxLG/~3/-PSwqn1ZNyw/ http://www.organizedthemes.com/media-theme/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:41:40 +0000 Bill Robbins http://www.organizedthemes.com/?p=1135

Media Theme is a theme designed from the ground up for sites that need the ability to have a slideshow or video displayed on the front page as a main feature.  It is a highly flexible theme that can be used for individuals, businesses, organizations, churches, cafes, bands and so on.

Main features:

• Option for an image slideshow or video on the homepage.
• A comprehensive theme control panel so you can customize the theme without needing to touch the code.
• Built in thumbnail uploading and resizing.
• Customizable tabbed slider on the homepage to give you control over your content.
• Five distinct page styles for use on your site.
• Custom background editor so you can use your own background images and colors.
• Custom styles so you can use your own colors to compliment your background and site feel.
• Works across browsers from Internet Explorer 6 +, Safari 3 +, Firefox 2 +, Chrome 2 + and Opera 9 +

Plus as always, Media Theme includes personal support from me directly.  If you have any questions or problems, just ask and I’ll be glad to help you out.

So what are you waiting for?  At $20 this is a deal that is too good to pass up!



Blog Page



Media Archive



Full Width



Default Page



Site Map


]]> http://www.organizedthemes.com/media-theme/feed/ 0 http://www.organizedthemes.com/media-theme/