How to Develop WordPress Themes

Developing WordThemes are very convenient these days. One does not require any prior knowledge. Here is the simple tutorial that will guide you to create WordPress theme.

What Makes a Theme Great?

Is it Good design? There are many WordPress themes which appear to be charming initially. But when you download it, you will realize that it lacks the basic coding standards. So, coding is necessary. It is easy to develop a WordPress theme, but a good website for eCommerce development requires a lot of efforts and planning. You can consider it by hiring WordPress developer who can professionally convert your coded HTML/CSS design and into a beautiful WordPress theme.

The theme which is designed to modern standards should meet some trends and expectations of a modern web design. Nowadays, CSS3 gradients, transparent boxes, font replacement and noisy background are in the online fashion. Earlier it was cursor trails, animated gifs, and flaming text.

Now let's start

If you are in the practice of writing code in your style, then you need to understand the architecture of the site and figure out how to read it. To overcome this difficulties WordPress has well-established coding standards for PHP, HTML, and CSS. Following these standards, it becomes easier for developers to read and modify your code. They create a baseline for collaboration; it is because WordPress is an open source, and same applies to the plugins and themes. The coding standards help to improve the readability.

The standards given below means your code can be read, understood, and modified.

Example:

WordPress coding standards recommend the following structure to ensure readability of CSS:

- Refer tabs for indentation. Avoid spaces
- Provide a line to each selector, which should end with either a comma or an open curly brace.

1 #selector-1,
2 #selector-2,
3 #selector-3 {
4         background: #fff;
5         color: #000;
6 }

Organize your Theme File
Every web project requires a different set of resources. Some applications work on desktop and works under a single language while few aim for mobile devices with various languages. Many projects may range anywhere from three to four (HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript) languages. Moreover, the components of the themes can work on the side of the client or server, and initiate communication directly with WordPress.

Therefore, keeping your resources organized is vital to overcoming these complexity concerns. Failing in this will be challenging for designers, developers, or users. 

Theme file organization in short:

- Set up template files for different page components instead of one file.
- Keep the foremost template files within the theme’s root directory.
- Give CSS, image, page templates, JavaScript, and language files their directory.
- Be absolutely clear in file naming, prefix page template.

Be consistent to Template Hierarchy

The templates and files are used to produce different parts of the website. Some of them are displayed on every page, and others appear only in certain conditions. There is a hierarchy in WordPress, which represents, which template is to be utilized first and after that. If you do not provide the first option, WordPress will automatically use the second one. It is very vital to understand this hierarchy for WordPress ecommerce development as it familiarises yourself with the template hierarchy and ensures that you’re developing a correct template in the intended places.

Internationalize/Localise Your Theme

Internationalising your WordPress theme means you make it ready for translation. Localisation is the actual transfer of theme strings from one language to another. If you are fluent in another language, you might translate your theme yourself. Otherwise, you can, at least, give others the chance to do it for you.

Making your theme readable for non-English readers comes down to two acronyms: “i18n” and “l10n.” I18n is represented for internationalisation. Similarly, l10n is the numeronym for localisation. To do this WordPress uses the GNU gettext localisation framework. Special tools then parse the source code files and the translatable strings extracted into POT files.

The next step is to translate the text file inside the POT file into the target language. There are some important tools which can be used to create POT file: GNU Gettext, Pootle, Poedit and Launch Pad.

To Conclude

Test Your Theme

It is nothing more disgusting if you download a theme, which has a plethora of bugs, and no sooner people will stop using it. Therefore, it is essential to test the theme developed. Apart from this, if you are thinking to showcase your theme in WordPress directory, the validation team will not accept it. Therefore, check it twice before giving it a green signal.

WordPress 4.5 is expected to release in April 2016

WordPress, the world's most popular blogging software is supposed to give a great surprise this new year. According to, WordPress-ism a new version 4.5 of WordPress will be released in mid of April 2016. Mike Schroder, the WordPress core developer, will be the release lead along with Mel Choyce and Adam Silverstein.

Bloggers, Writers, and WordPress Developers must have already checked the latest security and maintenance version WordPress 4.4.1 which was announced officially via WordPress blog on 6th January 2016. Now let's wait for the next surprise!

You can experience the beta-1 version of WordPress 4.5 in February itself, and  three more beta versions are expected to be released before the final release candidate. 

Check out the chart showing the project schedule for WordPress version 4.5.

The few essential features that are expected shall be: 

1. Improvements with customizer that shall include customize pane resizer and customize device preview.
2. Improvements in post edit and publishing process.
3. Improvements in core compression of images.
4. HTTPs improvements to fix mixed content.

According to the project schedule for 4.5 version, new enhancements and feature requests will need to be added by the release of Beta 1 version. All the new features will be first worked on as plugins and will be decided to merge in the core over the course of development.

The call for feature plugins is beginning early, this time, around and a Feature
Plugin chat is scheduled for Tuesday, January 12, 2016, 3:00 PM CST. The main
purpose of the early chat is for plugins that believe they are ready for merge, and to start up new ones for future releases. Those who have ideas and plugins to put forward will have an opportunity to get feedback from other contributors.

Additionally, some new features, which are currently used as Plugins are: 

- Two-Factor Authentication for WordPress
- Background Image Cropper– It will enable cropping of background images in the Customizer, similar to the header images.
 - Shiny Updates – It removes the ugly bits of updating plugins and themes.
- WP Toolbar Experiments– some potential UX changes to the WordPress toolbar.
- WordPress REST API (Version 2)

Now let's see what how will the team maintain momentum and how 4.5 version will be executed according to the project scheduled.

Why WordPress is a great for Non-profit organizations ?

WordPress has recently celebrated its 12 birthday and has emerged as a leading content management system for websites and blogs. WordPress plugin development services plays a crucial role in maintaining the zest of WordPress alive by providing high performance plugins for extendable functionalities. There are a lot of organizations which have chosen most professional WordPress website development firm to build their websites in order to cater their audience in the best possible way. Being an open source software WordPress is widely used by a lot of non-profit and social organizations to make their mark in this open source world. Though there are a lot of content management systems present in today's world but WordPress is the most widely used CMS in the market preferred by this social service group and NGO's. Let's dig deeper!

WordPress provides quick service and being an open source software is free. You need no money to purchase its license, no money to upgrade the software and no other extra cost regarding commissions are required. It is estimated that organizations spend around $500 only while paying for the license and other stuff related to the content management system let alone the cost of hiring a WordPress developer. Furthermore, WordPress offers ample lot of template designs and themes with easy integration steps which helps the organizations to save the cost they invest to hire designers or web programmers.  Moreover, there are a lot of free themes specially tailored for non-profit organizations. Moreover, it offers quick installation and setup procedures which plays a crucial role in its success. This further helps you to establish your website on internet within a very short period of time. WordPress has some where or the other has played a crucial role in decreasing the time taken to build websites.

Perfect model for NGOs

As we are well aware of the fact that most of nor-profit or social service organizations function with the help of donations and thus have a revenue model for getting non-conventional income.  WordPress works as one of the best CMS for these sites as it allows very easy integration of Payment gateways, which accepts online transfers and other regular payment modes. There are numerous plugins such as PayPal, 2CO, Stripe and many other which fosters the payment model which these websites need. Everything is ready made and handy to use and all you need to do is to fill in the bank details of your organization and start the process. We further have plugins which allows these organizations to spread their work with ease.

Add extra features via Plugins

No CMS can provide all the features which you need in your website. Thus, it becomes necessary for you to use tools which allows a wide range of extendability. WordPress stands tall in offering this functionality as it allows simple integration of plugins which helps you to improve the credibility of your website. One can install various features such as  Statistics Tools ,Social Networking Buttons, Payment Plugins , Audio Players and Video Galleries in your website with just few installation steps and no programing acumen.

Gives organic traffic

NGO's and social service organizations need websites which have the functionality to conduct online polls, surveys, feedback and other tools which can carry forward interactions with a large community or a target audience.  WordPress being a highly competitive CMS offer all such tools which embarks on interactions which are quite favorable for the admin of the website.  Thus, it helps you to organically generate traffic and further get attention of people and voluntary donors.

With such a low setting-up cost and affordable maintenance cost, WordPress seems to be the  most viable option for NGOs and social service organizations. I am sure there must be queries regarding the development and other things. Feel free to drop us your queries, we will be glad to help!

Creating a WordPress E-commerce Store That Invites Shoppers

E-commerce is a very fascinating industry, and thanks to WordPress, now anyone can become an imperative part of it and capitalize on our evolving online shopping habits. Thousands of businesses out there opting for WordPress to build an e-commerce website that engages users and stimulates them to shop.

However, designing an e-commerce website using WordPress is one thing, and planning right moves for traffic generation and revenue maximization is entirely another. After having WordPress e-commerce development , you also need to outline a competitive strategy for your online store, so that customers keep on returning.

E-commerce web design is a broader concept that isn't just limited to the aesthetics of a store. To influence the overall success of your business, it's important for you to follow some best of breed strategies, such as SEO, an inviting landing page, smooth transaction process, and much more, so that customers don't ditch you during the process. A remarkable e-commerce creates an environment that encourages its visitors to act and complete the process they've initiated.

Here are some key tips and tricks that you can implement when it comes to building and running a WordPress e-commerce website.

1. Go for Email Marketing

Email marketing can be an indispensable tool for any online business when it comes to maintaining a healthy and long-term relationship with its customers. It's a handy solution for entrepreneurs to gain an insight of their customers and thus interact with them accordingly. Creating email lists is a critical aspect for the success of any online store. Without an evoking email list, it will become difficult for you to encourage users for repeat sales. 

 

Mere traffic generation shouldn't be your ultimate goal, you need visitors that should be converted into promising customers. A thoughtful email list will help you achieve this objective in an efficient manner.

2. Embrace Blogging

If you are running an e-commerce channel that is based on WordPress, then you can easily supercharge your business with the addition of informative blogs and articles to your website. Blogging has to be a key strategy to influence your website growth and boost sales. 

 

Blogs attract traffic instantly and make users feel confident about your website. They inform customers about a range of products, so that they can make right decisions at the time of purchase.

3. Responsive is the Key

With the proliferation of smartphones and mobile devices, customers' expectations regarding online shopping have also increased. Today, the majority of online shoppers prefers to purchase from their mobile devices, thus resulting in increased mobile traffic and need for responsive websites. Therefore, it is important for online players to embrace responsive design to ensure a pleasurable mobile shopping experience. 

 

Failing to create a responsive website will not only provide a bad experience, but also results in lower search engine ranking. In order to avoid such issues, make sure your website is optimized to suit the growing needs of a variety of mobile devices. You can hire WordPress Expert and ask them to build a responsive theme for your website to cater your mobile audience. You can also download some pre-built themes from some leading theme markets for your site.

Conclusion

Creating an e-commerce website using WordPress is a big step, but if you are serious enough to make the most out of it, make sure you have implemented the above mentioned tips to get the user's attention towards your website.

Allowing Your Visitors to Use Custom Post filters in Your Genesis Theme

Recently, I worked on an project and caught with an idea that I should share the case with. One of my clients wanted to use the custom post filter in his genesis theme to get rid of the “post” navigation since he was running a review website. And its justifiably so since it seems misleading to the audience because they aren't reading the actual posts but only reviews.

One of the best things about genesis framework is that its flexible enough to serve the diverse needs of its users at the time of custom WordPress development. Genesis comes with rich “filter” functions under the theme settings area, which lets you place the desirable text on the basis of the taxonomy (terms/categories/tags) at the end of the index page.

Altering this text within the genesis framework isn't an uphill battle. All you need is simply go to your latest Genesis (v1.6) wherein it's quite easy to filter older/newer and next/previous text in the post navigation.

Getting The Grips of Older / Newer Post Navigation Filter

One can easily perform modifications within the Genesis with the help pf the functions that reside under the Genesis Theme Settings. Exploring this particular area you'll assess Content Archives, where there is an option called Post Navigation Technique”, already set as Older/Newer. Here, the default output is “Older Posts and “Newer Posts”, and in order to filter this, the below mentioned code should be added to your child theme's functions.php file. Here I have changed the example as to read Older and Newer Reviews.

add_filter( 'genesis_older_link_text', 'gt_review_older_link_text' );

function gt_review_older_link_text() {

$olderlink = '« Older Reviews';

return $olderlink;

}

add_filter( 'genesis_newer_link_text', 'gt_review_newer_link_text' );

function gt_review_newer_link_text() {

$newerlink = 'Newer Reviews »';

return $newerlink;

}

Previous / Next Post Navigation Filter

This filter is just like the one we have just mentioned above except that it runs when the “Select Post Navigation Technique” which we find under the Content Archive is set to Previous/Next instead of Older/Newer. Here also we are getting a default output, which is “Previous Posts” and “Next Posts”. To filter this, we have to add the following code within the functions.php file which you can get inside the child theme. In this example too we have edited it to Read Previous and Next Reviews.

add_filter( 'genesis_prev_link_text', 'gt_review_prev_link_text' );

function gt_review_prev_link_text() {

$prevlink = '« Previous Reviews';

return $prevlink;

}

add_filter( 'genesis_next_link_text', 'gt_review_next_link_text' );

function gt_review_next_link_text() {

$nextlink = 'Next Reviews »';

return $nextlink;

}

And that's all you have to do. See pretty easy right?

Genesis is a great framework with some truly astonishing settings that help you create a website that helps you serve your client's needs efficiently. Its customization abilities are unique and they allow you give your website and its readers what is actually useful to them.

However, if you want to learn some more methods and ways to filter custom posts than you can rely upon some handy plugins like Beautiful Taxonomy Filters . The plugin can be described absolutely dynamic when it comes to add filtering to your custom post types archives based on taxonomies. The plugin is extremely useful to filter CPTs in the manner most effective.

To know more about this plugin, Beautiful Taxonomy Filters allows you alter rules to create pretty filter URLs by eliminating the need to use JavaScript. It helps you spruce up your custom posts type archives by allowing visitors filter posts on the basis of their terms or categories. The plugin does everything for you in the most seamless way. The plugin works automatically, without having any need to use JavaScript, and the best part is it is based on WordPress Plugin Boilerplate which allows you organize the codebase using the object-oriented approach.

The plugin is capable enough to handle and include as many as filters. However, if you have post type with varied taxonomies, you can better keep out those who aren't useful for filtering.

Some of the other highlighted features include:

• Active filtering on any registered public custom post type.
• Keep those taxonomies out you don't want your visitors to filter on
• Comes complete with functional filter component which you can put in your theme.
• Visitors can be presented with the information regarding their current active filtering.
• Integrated with custom GET parameters.
• Additional filters, settings, and actions to fine tune the filter module behavior.

The plugin provides a convenient and fast way of adding multiple taxonomies to filter custom post types archives. One can also easily extend its capabilities and actions to make it more compelling and versatile. I personally have tested this plugin and found it to be extremely great in the way it helped me to achieve my goals. So, you can also use it whenever the needs arise. It will not disappoint you for sure. Even if you are not confident about your skills you can better hire a WordPress developer, who will deploy his skills and knowledge to give you exactly what you have in your mind in an efficient manner. 

WordPress Developers: Your Best Bet For Performing WordPress Integration

If you have been using WordPress for a while now, then you most likely would have witnessed increase in the demand of WordPress CMS. Whether you want to build a blogging site or any CMS-enabled website or portal, WordPress has helped meet all our needs with efficiency. As time passes by, more and more website owners are integrating WordPress into their site.

However, WP integration is not a cakewalk and rather requires technical expertise and skills. So, in case you're not a tech-savvy guy it is better you should look forward to adopting WordPress web development services of some reputable web development company, which includes WordPress integration. Finding the right development partner for your project will enable you to integrate WordPress features and functionalities into your existing website in a mind-boggling way. That's because, they are well-versed with all the nitty-gritty aspects related to equipping your site with WordPress CMS.

Since, integrating WP functionalities into your site isn't an easy thing and requires specialized knowledge, make sure that your choice of development company is capable enough to meet all your project demands. Here are a few key points that you should pay attention to while employing a development partner for your project:

Figure Out Your Exact Needs: Before beginning your quest to look for the right service partner, it is important to know what you really need. This is because, building a website does not necessarily entails hiring a developer. For instance, when you are merely publishing information about your company you might need to seek professionals assistance. However, when you have some crucial tasks to take care of that requires coding, it's better to search for a developer if coding isn't your thing. But, make sure you know about – what you want to build.

Technology Prowness: In order to get assured WP integration services it is very important that your service provider is well versed with all the ins and outs of the WordPress content management system. A viable way to check out the prowness of your service provider is to conduct a mock test related to WordPress integration and customization. This will help you get an idea of your developers experience and skills.

Design and Development Skills: This is the second most crucial aspect that helps you choose the most suitable firm for your project. When you are employing any developers belonging to a web development company, make sure they possess good design and development skills in PHP, MySQL, HTML5, JavaScript etc.

Wherewithal to Manage WordPress Install: You may be able to integrate  WordPress CMS into your website effortlessly, however managing it requires plenty of work. And so, ensure that the developer you're about to recruit contains experience and expertise in the installation, configuration and management of the WordPress install.

Besides considering all the aforementioned points, make sure to communicate all your project requirements to your development partner clearly. Not communicating your needs with your selected development company, will most likely unable developers to deliver the services in a productive manner.