16 Vital Checks Before Releasing a WordPress Theme
“Releasing a WordPress theme on a marketplace, such as ThemeForest, where the audience is so large and diverse, has some challenges. You cannot test a solution directly with the client. You need to plan in advance for all edge cases, and ensure that your theme is as customizable as possible. If you’re inexperienced, chances are that some things will unfortunately slip through the cracks. Luckily for you, we have drawn on our hard-earned wisdom to help you avoid repeating the same mistakes we made.”
“So we all know WordPress 3.0 ships with a shiny new theme called Twenty Ten. You probably also know that this theme is “HTML5” ready. What does that mean? Not much. Basically that the code validates and the doctype is the new HTML5 doctype. No <header>, <footer>, <asides>, etc to be found (understandably). So I decided to take the theme and make it as HTML5-ified as possible.”
20 Steps to a Flexible and Secure WordPress Installation
“A comprehensive WordPress installation, albeit simple to produce, often requires multiple steps — many of which can easily be omitted accidentally. How many times have you forgotten to customize your permalink structure? How about adding in a sitemap plugin? What about changing your timezone? If you’ve installed WordPress more than once, chances are you’ve missed something. Take the following steps and you’ll never miss anything again.”
WordPress Theme Thesis Maker Backs Down, Adopts GPL
“Chalk this one up as a victory for the free software movement: Thesis, the wildly popular proprietary WordPress theme from developer/designer Chris Pearson, is now available under a split GPL, the license that makes it possible to alter and redistribute this software as you see fit.
“Pearson’s decision marks the end of a high-drama clash between him and Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress and of Automattic, which runs WordPress.com and a handful of related software. Some folks wondered if the battle of words might end in a battle of legal precedent as Mullenweg struggled to preserve free software principles and Pearson struggled to maintain control over his highly successful software.”
Why WordPress Themes are Derivative of WordPress
“In the past few days, WordPress has become entangled in a debate about WordPress theme licensing. It was specifically centered around Thesis, one of the last notable proprietary theme holdouts. Chris Pearson, who develops and sells Thesis, refuses to license Thesis under the GNU General Public License that applies to WordPress and all WordPress-derived code.
“There are many aspects to the ongoing WordPress vs. Thesis brouhaha. Things like respect, copyright, freedom, GPL, ownership. There is no doubt that Thesis lifted lines of code, and even whole sections of code, directly from WordPress. The Thesis developer who did some of the lifting confessed to it (much to his credit).”
How To Be A Rockstar Wordpress Designer: WordPress 3 Revision!
“With the recent release of WordPress 3.0, Rockable Press has just released an updated version of How to be a Rockstar WordPress Designer by Collis Ta’eed and Harley Alexander.
“The updated version is FREE for all those who have already purchased the first edition of the eBook. All they’ll need to do is use the email which provided them the link from when they first purchased the book, and follow the instructions included in the email on how to re-activate the link. Once that’s done they can then re-download their new version of the book.”
30 Gorgeous Wordpress and Tumblr Themes
“To establish a unique identity in the online publishing universe, you need to have a great content & a great blog design as well. It is hard to keep people stick around your blog if you are running the Wordpress Kubrick theme.
“Hence, we at Web.AppStorm always insist on great content packaged in a fabulous wrapper. To help you select an fitting identity to your blog, we have rounded up thirty beautiful themes for two of the greatest blogging platforms – Wordpress & Tumblr.”
10 Useful WordPress Security Tweaks
“Security has always been a hot topic. Offline, people buy wired homes, car alarms and gadgets to bring their security to the max. Online, security is important, too, especially for people who make a living from websites and blogs. In this article, we’ll show you some useful tweaks to protect your WordPress-powered blog.”
How to Integrate an Options Page into your WordPress Theme
“Creating themes to give away or sell is great, but not everyone who uses your theme will have a solid understanding of HTML/CSS. Providing your theme with an options page makes it easier for non-technical users to make theme changes without getting their hands dirty with code. I’ll show you how to make one from scratch!”
10 Awesome New Premium WordPress Plugins from CodeCanyon
“As part of our massive CodeCanyon push this year, I’m pleased to announce that we’ve launched not one, but two awesome new categories. The new CSS category features everything from incredible pricing charts, to buttons, to entire frameworks; while the WordPress plugins category is quickly on its way to becoming the premier location for purchasing premium plugins on the web. In fact, I’m betting that we’ll be there by the end of the year!
“Today, I’d like to show you the first ten new premium WP plugins available on CodeCanyon.”
