WordPress Themes

Need inspiraton? Check out these WordPress showcase sites

Sophia Lucero — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:51:56 +0000

Want WordPressThemes.com to build a custom WP-powered site for you but don’t know where to begin? Try browsing through these showcase sites and experience just how innovative and powerful WordPress can be:

WordPress Showcase: the official listing of sites that take WordPress one step further, maintained by no less than the developers of WordPress themselves. From university websites to business, government, and entertainment, this showcase contains the creme de la creme of WP sites.

And one more for the road: Best WordPress sites – N. Design Studio

Happy browsing!

More hacks for your WordPress theme comments section

Sophia Lucero — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:31:53 +0000

The comments section is probably one of the top overlooked portions in a WordPress theme, and is a great indicator of how much effort a designer actually puts into his/her themes. Thankfully, Daniel Adams of instantShift has compiled 30 of the “most wanted” hacks for making the comments more easy to use. Here’s one of the more well-known tips:

23. Separate WordPress Comments and Trackbacks

Trackbacks are the messages displayed in the comments list whenever another blog links back to one of your posts. If you use trackbacks on your blog, it is best if they are not mixed with the comments. The comments are a conversation between real people. Having machine-generated links in the middle of that will only serve to disrupt the conversations.

Add Twitter to your WordPress themes for more star power

Sophia Lucero — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 02:50:58 +0000

Twitter is one of the hottest things on the web right now, and although this microblogging service could overtake (macro) blogging with WordPress, why not take advantage of its popularity and use it to add even more star power to your WordPress themes? Here are several guides that make WordPress blogging and tweeting a seamless experience:

TweetBacks for WordPress:
List all the tweets that are linking back to your blog. TweetBacks are now the new trackbacks!
Twittar – Twitter Avatars:
Display Twitter avatars in your comments section. I know you love Gravatars but if your users haven’t signed up for one, it helps to provide alternatives.
How to Create Your Own Twitter Widget:
Let your visitors share your blog posts on Twitter with a sidebar widget.
Tweet This, a WordPress Plugin for Twitter:
If you don’t want a sidebar widget, how about a WordPress plugin that lets users tweet your blog posts instantly?
How to: Create a “send this to twitter” button:
Now if you don’t want to install a plugin at all, try this single line of code you can add to your WordPress theme files!
How to Create an RSS-Enabled, Micro-Blog with Twitter:
Twitter has probably taken over most aside / side blogs since it’s so much more convenient. If it hasn’t on your blog, and you’ve been wondering how to do it, try this (all you need is your Twitter’s RSS feed).
Juitter:
A jQuery javascript plugin that displays tweets based on a keyword search. Perfect for blogging about the now.

Try porting existing HTML templates to WordPress themes

Sophia Lucero — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 08:46:35 +0000

Whether you’re currently in creative drought or you just want to spend less time coming up with a new WordPress theme, perhaps you could try porting existing free web templates to WordPress themes.

Hongkiat has listed 38 beautiful HTML templates you can use as base for your next WordPress theme.

Some things to remember though:

Check with the designer/owner first if you can use their templates and if the license you’re applying to the WP theme is compatible with theirs.
Credit them, of course.
Don’t hesitate to put your name on the theme, either!

Submit your site to the WordPress Showcase

Sophia Lucero — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:20:29 +0000

So you’ve got a fully-customized WordPress site. Why not submit it to the WordPress Showcase? It features beautiful WP-powered sites that are notable in their fields and use WordPress in ways you would not expect.

Some of the biggest names in news, business, education, sports, entertainment, and technology have sites that are running on WordPress. What’s stopping you from including yourself among them?

Maybe you haven’t built your site yet. Now’s the perfect time to draw inspiration from those featured in the Showcase, then head over here enroll in our services!

Styling comments in WordPress 2.7

Sophia Lucero — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:04:24 +0000

WordPress 2.7 has been out for a while now, and one of the biggest new features it has is threaded comments. And they just happen to be pretty complicated to style. So for all the theme authors out there, Andrew Rickmann made a diagram illustrating all the HTML elements and CSS classes used in nested comments. This includes guides for the comment form area.

If you need inspiration for the actual look of the threaded comments, Performancing has 7 great examples you can take notes from.

Tip: Add value to your theme with an options page

Sophia Lucero — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 01:23:42 +0000

Always assume that typical WordPress users will want to customize their themes, whether they’re willing to pay for them or not. And since you’ll probably be manipulating the functions.php file to widgetize your theme, why not go even further?

Custom Theme Design has written an excellent tutorial on building a control panel for your WordPress theme. This is a great resource for all the theme designers out there.

Will the premium WordPress themes controversy ever end?

Sophia Lucero — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:31:17 +0000

It’s been more than a year since premium WordPress themes first gained attention and finally became commonplace. But the debate over whether one should make or purchase such themes still hasn’t died out. Blogs like Upstart Blogger and ThemeShaper continue to raise this issue.

Don’t think WordPress is for you? Think again!

Sophia Lucero — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:39:21 +0000

If you’re wondering whether a WordPress-powered website can fulfill your needs, you might want to read this post at Performancing. It lists 48 unique ways to use WordPress which you probably never thought of.

And that number is growing. More and more people are turning to WordPress to create all sorts of websites: e-zines, media galleries, real estate listings, online stores, church sites, webcomics, social networks—the list never ends!

Enroll in our services now to find out how the versatility of WordPress can power your website.

What’s new with WordPress Themes?

Sophia Lucero — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:44:35 +0000

WordPress 2.3 has come and gone. The latest version of WordPress is now 2.5.1, so be sure to upgrade to it for the latest security fixes, not to mention cool new features.

As far as we can tell, old WordPress themes will not be much of a problem, but theme designers might want to take advantage of Gravatar support, for example.

That’s it for now. This is Sophia Lucero, and I’ll be taking WordPress Themes for Randa Clay. I’m looking forward to working and learning with you!