Development
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Episode Seven
Episode Six
- WP Hide Dashboard 2.1
Best Practice For Adding Custom Functions - 10 Techniques for Customizing the WordPress Admin Panel
- Customizing WordPress Admin – updated for 3.1 with new tips!
- Custom Meta Boxes
- 6 .htaccess Tricks for Better WordPress SEO & Security
- What to do when Auto-Update Fails
- Introducing Ghostbird
- Mini Press 1.0 – Free Genesis Child Theme
- Roots WordPress Theme
- Built for Speed: 12 Free and Fast Loading WordPress Themes
- Introducing Page Speed Online, with mobile support
- Speeding Up Your WordPress Website: 11 Ways to Improve Your Load Time
- Recipe for Baked WordPress
- Professional WordPress Plugin Development
- Build Your Own Wicked WordPress Themes
Speed Up and Optimize Your WordPress Site
Tutorials
- Web Performant WordPress | daverupert.com
- Rather than hacking plugin files directly to minify & combine styles and scripts, the next two tutorials will show you how to safely deregister them with a few lines you can add to your theme’s functions.php file. You can also disable scripts from loading on pages where you don’t need them.
- How to disable scripts and styles
- Optimize Plug-in Scripts for WordPress | WordPress Theming
Use Google’s CDN copy of jQuery for the frontend
- Function Reference/wp enqueue script « WordPress Codex (Note: use the second code block)
Plugins
- Google Analytics for WordPress – Yoast – Tweaking Websites Puts the javascript where it should be, and supports asynchronous tracking.
- WordPress › WP Minify « WordPress Plugins
- WordPress › JavaScript to Footer « WordPress Plugins Moves javascript to the footer, so the javascript will load last. Leave typekit scripts in the head, though. Not all plugins are coded to allow this plugin to do its thing, so again YMMV.
- WordPress › W3 Total Cache « WordPress Plugins More than a caching plugin, W3 Total Cache will minify, compress, integrate with a CDN, and a host of other features. It will even write to the .htaccess file for future cache expiration and compression.
- WordPress › WP Super Cache « WordPress Plugins A solid caching plugin.
Combine and minify the css and javascript. Your mileage may vary.
Episode Five: Faster WordPress
Here are the links from the first segment:
Plugins
- WordPress › Stylesheet Per Page « WordPress Plugins
- Gravity Forms Custom Post Types WordPress Plugin
- YOURLS: Your Own URL Shortener
Theme
WordPress Development News
Get Great WordPress Support
You might be new to WordPress and are having difficulty with installing the software to your server. You might be a professional developer working on a new plugin, and a line of code is not working the way you think it should. Either way, you might need some support. This episode will outline a few ways to get help.
Episode Four: Get Great Support
Here are the links from the first segment:
Plugins:
Follow-up on security:
- Mark Jaquith: Theme & Plugin Security « WordPress.tv
- Dre Armeda/Brad Williams: User Security « WordPress.tv
- 30 Free WordPress themes you simply must……er avoid? | Fuzzly
Book Recommendation:
WordCamp News:
Useful Tutorial for 3.1:
Show notes for the featured topic: Getting Great WordPress Support.
Episode Three: PressTags
This episode’s links:
Theme Picks
Plugins
Tutorials and Tips
- WordPress Custom Fields 101: Tips, Tricks, and Hacks
- Enhancing WordPress Custom Fields with Search Filtering
- Incorporating the Settings API in WordPress Themes » cb.blog
- WordPress Syntax mode for Panic Coda | A HitchHackers guide through WordPress
Featured Topic:
Recommended Listening
WordPress Theming Basics
WordPress is known for its ease of use. Many are jumping on the WordPress bandwagon to build their own website. Sometimes with no prior web design experience. On any given day, many turn to the support forums for advice on how to customize their theme. In this episode, we discuss the basics of WordPress theming.
The Foundation: HTML and CSS
You really should learn some HTML and CSS. Two references:
Understand How Themes Work
Chris Spooner wrote an excellent tutorial at line25 on how to create a custom WordPress theme. This is a simple, visual guide. Even if you’re just modifying a theme, it’s worth a read to better understand how themes work.
Another great visual guide to help you is The Anatomy of a WordPress Theme by Joost de Valk.
The Smart Way to Modify Themes
Child Themes
How to make a child theme for WordPress: A pictorial introduction for beginners I highly recommend this tutorial, well written and lots of great resources (tools, software, references at the end.)
WordPress Protip: Child Themes Another really good tutorial, with an intro to overriding with action and filter hooks.
The Codex entry for Child Themes
Other Best Practices
If the site is live, avoid destroying the site by working off a copy of the active theme. Use a text editor and a ftp client – the built in editor is better for quick reference and minor fixes. Version that copy and use the theme test drive plugin to view your changes while logged into the site. The older version of the theme can stay active until you’ve got it all sorted.
Even better, make your changes on a local or test server. Then upload the new version of the theme when you’re ready.
Theme Building Tutorials
- How To Create a WordPress Theme: The Ultimate WordPress Theme Tutorial
- Designing for WordPress: Complete Series & Downloads
The Codex
Episode Two: WordPress Theming Basics
The second episode of daWPshow is pretty much all about themes. And cat blogs. Free themes, a theme shop’s new job board, responsive design and a new feature in 3.1 round out the first part of the show. Then we’ll dig into WordPress Theming Basics. After that, a BIG thanks to the “early adopters” of the show!
Links:
WordPress Security Tips
Links from the featured topic of episode one:
The Codex
Hardening WordPress
Changing File Permissions
Editing wp-config.php
General Tutorials
12 Clever Tips for Securing Your WordPress Site via WPCandy
How to: Secure Your WordPress Blog via Mashable
Now That’s What I Call Security (Presentation slides by Brad Williams)
Plugins
Block Bad Queries plugin from Jeff Starr
WordPress File Monitor plugin from nicolly
WP Security Scan plugin by hallsofmontezuema
Server Buddy plugin by Plugin Buddy
WordPress Exploit Scanner plugin by donncha, duck_, ryan, azaozz and tott
Vaultpress from Automattic
For Developers
Other ideas to consider
- Choose a vps or dedicated server for a mission critical site.
- Protect your content from scraping and hot-linking.
- Force SSL when you’re logged into the admin.
- If you can’t use SSL, Use a proxy server when you log into your site on open wifi networks.
- If you’re developing a plugin or advanced theme, use nonces and data validation.
- Protect Your Site with a Blackhole for Bad Bots.
- The most insecure factor of WordPress. via @Ipstenu on twitter
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