Nathan Rice (via Mowser)

10 Most Influential WordPress Twitter-ers

October 19, 2009 • 18 Comments

A couple of days ago, Bryan tweeted (via the @modthemes twitter account) that I was considered the 6th most influential WordPress Twitter-er according to WeFollow.com. Very cool!

So I figured I’d share the spotlight with 9 other people that make up the top 10, and help introduce you to them. Here they are! (more…)

Serve IE6 Visitors the Default WordPress Theme

September 15, 2009 • 62 Comments

Internet Explorer It’s been talked about time and time again … what do we do about the IE6 problem?

Of course, there are a couple of options already available to you: you can make IE6 crash when users visit, you can move on to bigger and better things and ignore IE6 altogether, or you can do like I do and display a little message to IE6 visitors encouraging them to upgrade (this plugin makes that pretty easy).

But, if you’re not in the business of pandering to inferior browsers, but you don’t necessarily want to be seen as a jerk, I have a solution that might work out perfectly for you. (more…)

ModThemes.com Launches Today!

August 24, 2009 • 9 Comments

After 15 months as a lead developer at iThemes.com, today marks the launch of my very own Premium WordPress Theme business, ModThemes.com. That’s right, myself and three other talented individuals, are launching a new business together, and it’s time to open up shop.

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BizTech: Free WordPress Theme

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If you’re looking for a simple, super-easy to modify, free WordPress theme, check out BizTech from the folks at Web Design. Developed by Yours Truly.

Join the Public Developer Beta for the Prodigy Theme

July 15, 2009 • 5 Comments

For the last several months, I’ve been quietly developing a theme framework for iThemes — a framework we could use to offer solid code, killer designs, and futureproofing (one of our most common requests at iThemes).

A couple of weeks ago, I invited a few people to join a private beta of the theme (called Prodigy, in case you hadn’t gathered), and it has been silky smooth. Hardly any complaints or bugs, and TONS of compliments. So, I think the theme is ready for a public beta, and you’re all invited!!! (more…)

Final Word on WordPress Themes and the GPL?

July 2, 2009 • 39 Comments

Matt Mullenweg, the founder and lead developer of the WordPress blogging platform, emailed the Software Freedom Center recently asking about the legality of WordPress themes being licensed under copyright not compatible with the GPL, and they’ve now responded, which Matt has published on the WordPress Development Blog.

The conclusion? The PHP files in WordPress themes must inherit the GPL, but CSS and Images do not. From the email:
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What Do You Want to Know About WordPress?

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Over the next few weeks, I want to take reader-submitted questions about WordPress and answer them here on the blog. Have a question about themes? Plugins? Simple or complicated — it doesn’t matter!

If I pick your question, I’ll answer it (in as much detail as necessary) here on the blog, and link to you as the source of the question.

Hopefully this will be a BIG help to everyone out there, and make for some really good conversation! Leave your questions in the comments.

iThemes, WordPress, and the GPL

June 11, 2009 • 15 Comments

Since starting iThemes back in early 2008, one thing Cory, and I when I joined the team, were justifiably concerned with was protecting our products, and of course our hard work, from being stolen or used without permission. This was our livelihood, so we couldn’t fool around.

Even though we both believed that we would have been within our rights to copyright the entire work, we decided that we would license all WordPress code in our themes (function calls, loops, etc.) as GPL, and protect our images, stylesheets, etc., under a copyright. We felt it was a good compromise. (more…)

An Introduction to WordPress Action Hooks

June 10, 2009 • 31 Comments

If you’re going to be doing any level of WordPress development, themes or plugins, you will invariably run into the need to take advantage of the WordPress Action Hook system. But the more I am able to talk to people in the community, the more I realize that people simply don’t understand the concept very well, or at all.

In fact, one of the biggest barriers to using what is referred to as a Theme Framework or creating their own plugins is the fact that they rely heavily on Action Hooks to function properly.

Understanding this concept accelerated my level of development skills immediately after I figured out what hooks were, and how they worked. And today, I want to help you find that path too. (more…)

How To Redirect a Page Using Custom Fields in WordPress

June 8, 2009 • 15 Comments

Today, I wanted to share a very quick tip that will allow you to insert an internal or external URL in a custom field for a page, and when a user visits that page, they will be redirected to the URL you put in the custom field.

Why would you need to do this? Well, if you want to add a link to your navigation menu, instead of editing code, you could just create a new page, and have that page redirect your users to the URL you specified. I’ve had clients in that situation before, and this code has come in pretty handy for them. (more…)