WordPress 3.2 Released: Faster, Prettier, Powerful

WordPress 3.2 has been officially released, this time after a fairly short testing time period. To upgrade, use the built-in automatic upgrade. According to the announcement, this is the 15th major release of WordPress. Wow, that just doesn’t seem possible, and yet it also feels like too few. How far WordPress has come since 2003, […]

WordPress Post Content Sandbox Content Updated

The thirteenth blog post published on Lorelle on WordPress was Designing a WordPress Theme – Building a Post Sandbox. This post continues to be useful to WordPress Theme developers and testers, so I’ve updated it and included an easier-to-use sandbox post text file. When designing, testing, or tweaking a WordPress Theme, you need to pay […]

Parent/Child Themes in WordPress: The Future of WordPress Themes

WordPress 2.7 now features parent/child WordPress Themes, a new feature that protects installed WordPress Themes while allowing customization. Customizations are storied in the “child” Theme, which loads first. If a Child Theme isn’t detected, WordPress loads the “parent” Theme. If you do not intend on making any customization to your WordPress Theme on your WordPress […]

WordPress Themes: Start With a Solid Framework

Why I Created a WordPress Theme Framework by Justin Tadlock is a good look at the reasons why WordPress Theme designers and developers should work with a framework when designing a WordPress Theme. A strong Theme framework creates a solid canvas upon which to build your WordPress Themes. If you are or considering building WordPress […]

The Art of the Fan-Based Blog: Create a Game Plan

By DB Ferguson of the No Fact Zone Are you ready to plunge into your own fandom blog? Then it’s time you started thinking more like a webmaster than a fan. A fan is all agog with the thrills and spills of their star, but hosting a fandom blog means making a plan and sticking […]

Designing WordPress Themes For the Slowing Web

Jonathan Bailey of the Blog Herald wrote about Surfing the Slow Web, a summary of his recent experience trying to connect to the Internet as an evacuee from Hurricane Gustav. While most web designers are pushing the limits of heavy handed design towards high bandwidth, the world still doesn’t work that fast or wide. According […]

WordPress Podcast Wants Your Favorite WordPress Plugins

This week’s WordPress Podcast with Charles Stricklin and Jonathan Bailey is asking listeners to email them their top 10 favorite, can’t-live-without WordPress Plugins. WordPress Plugins are invaluable tools and extensions that help you do more with your WordPress blog. There are a lot I couldn’t live without, but that list changes over time as Plugins […]

Writing Better Blog Post Titles

I’ve written a lot about writing and creating powerful, effective, and attention-getting headlines and post titles on your blog, but more needs to be said on the subject, especially for blogging teachers and students. The following are not effective nor attention-getting post titles: March March 2006 March 17, 2006 Today’s News Homework Today’s Homework In […]

Strip Down Your Blog: CSS Naked Day

Get ready to go naked. On April 9th, 2008, hundreds, possibly thousands, of blogs and websites will go naked in honor of CSS Naked Day. Join fellow WordPress bloggers in honoring web designers and WordPress Theme builders by going naked. This is the third year of the annual CSS Naked Day which honors web design […]

Blog Challenge: Testing Your Blog’s Accessibility

I’ve talked a lot over the years about how important it is to design your website or blog to be accessible. There is a growing number of bloggers and blog readers who are reading your blog right now with a screen reader which reads your blog to them, or some other magnification or screen customization […]

Weekly Digest: Blogging on Blogging, Speaking at SOBCon and WordCamp Dallas, and More on Blogging

This week has been a busy one as I prepare for two intensive blogging article series coming up in the next couple of months. I doing a lot of research and I’ll give you a hint. One is about personal blogging and the other is about blog writing. Stay tuned for more hints. I’m sent […]

Blog Struggles: When An Old Post is New Again

You never know when an old post will revive itself and become one of the most popular posts on your blog at the moment. I’ve had this happen many times. Sometimes, it’s expected. More often not. In the beginning, it would send me into a panic, just another of my many blog struggles. I will […]

Are You Ready and Willing for CSS3?

Are you ready for the changes in web page design that will come with the new version of Cascading Stylesheets known as CSS3? In A Refreshed Design for 2008 by Don’t Trust This Guy, I found a glimpse of some of the new CSS3 features and possibilities including multiple background images and CSS drop shadows. […]

WordPress.com Marketplace and The Theme Debate

Last week, Matt Mullenweg made public his idea on creating a WordPress.com Marketplace to add more options to WordPress.com bloggers for a fee, especially meeting the demands of so many for more, more, and more. Among the proposals under consideration, and I stress that, since this is not a done deal but an idea, is […]

Blog Struggles: Changing Your Blog’s Focus

Last week, I covered the definition and benefits of having a focus on your blog, and then gave you some tips on discovering your blog’s focus by examining and studying the clues your blog currently contains. Today, I want to cover how to change your blog’s focus now that you’ve found it, as part of […]