By Ryan Imel on June 27, 2011
David Appleyard, manager of the Tuts+ and AppStorm community blogs for Envato, has announced a new blog on their network that might just interest you WordPress fanatics: Wptuts+. This site will join Envato’s growing Tuts+ family of over a dozen training sites.
In the announcement Appleyard mentioned that Wptuts+ will be a lot like the other sites on their network, but will focus on the caveats specific to WordPress development:
Focusing on everything WordPress, the site will be bringing you top-notch tutorials on developing WordPress themes, plugins and widgets, scaling your site, the business of selling WordPress themes, and general advice on how to become an expert at using the platform!
The announcement also comes with a bit of a giveaway, which you can read more about on their freshly pressed blog where Brandon Jones is the new editor. Jones is a WordPress developer, author, and previously the editor at Webdesigntuts+, another Envato blog.
How can you go wrong with a new source of WordPress tutorials? I mean, with new WordPress-centric sites announced every week it seems and long-standing blogs selling, I’m beginning to think I should jump in and start a WordPress-centric blog of my own.
Posted in News, Wordpress |
By Ryan Imel on June 26, 2011
Today’s Daily Plugin is called UI Labs, and is a plugin that slightly tweaks the user interface of the WordPress Dashboard. It’s highly experimental (and unofficial, of course) but if that’s up your alley you should give it a try.
The video is embedded at the top of this post’s page, with more about the plugin below.
UI Labs
UI Labs is an experimental plugin that tweaks your WordPress Dashboard in very slight ways. In its current version it makes post status labels more colorful, making it easier to scan a list of posts to find what you’re looking for.
That’s pretty much all it does right now, but there is a lot of potential in a plugin like UI Labs. Are there any UI features or tweaks you would like to see added to a plugin like this?
Video recorded with version 1.0.1 of UI Labs, running WordPress 3.1.3.
About the plugin author
John O’Nolan is the developer behind UI Labs. He is a developer and speaker as well as a volunteer member of the WordPress UI team. He tweets too.
Is your plugin worthy?
If you would like to see your plugin featured on an episode of The Daily Plugin, send your plugin information over to dailyplugin@wpcandy.com. We’ll see you tomorrow for another Daily Plugin!
Posted in The Daily Plugin | Tagged Plugins |
By Ryan Imel on June 26, 2011
Earlier this month WordPress developer Brian Richards released version 2.5 of Startbox, a theme framework he originally released back in August of 2010 (see our review). The updated thing brings a number of improvements, but the one that piqued my interest was the sidebar manager that Richards described.
The new custom sidebar allows for the addition and removal of custom sidebars, selecting which post types and taxonomies should display the sidebars, and including them anywhere via shortcode.
This screen shows the sidebar functionality added to Startbox 2.5.
Richards baked the custom sidebar functionality straight into Startbox, though he does seem to show an interest in introducing this sort of thing into a plugin in the future.
Version 2.5 also brings with it a short laundry list of additions and improvements aside from the custom sidebars. It offers:
- User-definable custom layouts,
- more control over post thumbnails,
- and improved sanitization for theme options.
What do you think of the described sidebar functionality, as well as the rest of what Startbox 2.5 has to offer? What method do you use for wrangling custom sidebars?
Posted in News | Tagged Themes |
By Ryan Imel on June 26, 2011
Earlier this month WordPress developer Brian Richards released version 2.5 of Startbox, a theme framework he originally released back in August of 2010 (see our review). The updated thing brings a number of improvements, but the one that piqued my interest was the sidebar manager that Richards described.
The new custom sidebar allows for the addition and removal of custom sidebars, selecting which post types and taxonomies should display the sidebars, and including them anywhere via shortcode.
This screen shows the sidebar functionality added to Startbox 2.5.
Richards baked the custom sidebar functionality straight into Startbox, though he does seem to show an interest in introducing this sort of thing into a plugin in the future.
Version 2.5 also brings with it a short laundry list of additions and improvements aside from the custom sidebars. It offers:
- User-definable custom layouts,
- more control over post thumbnails,
- and improved sanitization for theme options.
What do you think of the described sidebar functionality, as well as the rest of what Startbox 2.5 has to offer? What method do you use for wrangling custom sidebars?
Posted in News | Tagged Themes |
By Ryan Imel on June 25, 2011
Today’s Daily Plugin is called Post Revision Display, and offers a new way to show the changes to your posts to your readers. It may not be perfect for every blog you run, but if there’s a need for a certain level of transparency on your site you should check it out.
The video is embedded at the top of this post’s page, with more about the plugin below.
Post Revision Display
Post Revision Display is a particularly handy plugin if you plan on ever editing or updating your posts and like to be transparent with your readers. This is a plugin I enjoy using particularly because I don’t want to have to add a bold update notice to posts when I add something or improve the post in some way, but I still want people to be able to see that a change was made.
Post Revision Display allows your readers to compare the current version of your post against the old versions. Do you have a blog that you would consider using this one on, or do you handle post editing and updating in an entirely different way?
Video recorded with version 0.9 of Post Revision Display, running WordPress 3.1.3.
About the plugin authors
Post Revision Display is developed by Scott Carpenter and dnorman. Scott blogs, so you should probably check that out.
Is your plugin worthy?
If you would like to see your plugin featured on an episode of The Daily Plugin, send your plugin information over to dailyplugin@wpcandy.com. We’ll see you tomorrow for another Daily Plugin!
Posted in The Daily Plugin | Tagged Plugins |
