You can’t become a Thesis master without learning WordPress first, plain and simple. Being a huge WordPress nerd I have a section in my RSS Reader just for WordPress development blogs so I can keep up to date and continue to learn every day. I figured I’d share that folder with you.
Here you’ll find my top 11 favourite wordpress development blogs, with some information about each and examples of the kind of posts they do. (I’ve also uploaded an OPML file you can download here to import all the feeds easily)
Digging into WordPress
This is the blog that accompanies the wonderful ebook of the same name by Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr. The blog is a great read after the book, as it gets pretty advanced and has lots of code samples to help you do some really cool things with WordPress
Some recent posts:
Custom Page Titles from Scratch
Next/Previous Post Navigation Outside of the WordPress Loop
Call a Widget with a Shortcode
WP Shout
WP Shout puts up articles to help you improve your WordPress design whether you’re a complete beginner or somebody looking to take their theming to the next level. They’re great for some longer posts filled with code samples.
Some popular posts:
Create an Advanced Options Page in WordPress
Creating a Tumblog With WordPress
WordPress Theme Design Basics
Pro Blog Design
This is the only blog on this list that isn’t exclusively WordPress tips, but they put out some great tutorials and focus on making your blog. Also, owner Michael Martin is about to release his own WordPress framework so he gets a pass.
Some example posts:
How to Optimize a WordPress Database
Advanced WordPress Comment Styling
Get to Know the WordPress Hierarchy
WordPress for Beginners
When you first to get to the WordPress for Beginners website, you’ll see a huge guide on getting started with WordPress. That’ll get you up and running, but it’s their blog where they really shine for me. It’s there that they’ll teach you how to do the cool stuff.
Some recent posts:
Force Users to Login Before Reading Posts in WordPress
How to Add Twitter Anywhere in WordPress
How to Remove Default Author Profile Fields in WordPress
WordPress Tavern
WordPress Tavern is a frequently updated WordPress blog with a fairly long-running podcast as well. They write their own articles, show you where great articles are elsewhere on the web, and host a forum. A great blog for us WordPress nerds to check in with to see what’s happening with the WordPress community.
WP Engineer
WP Engineer is very popular WordPress development blog for good reason: they produce great content. They also keep very up to date and lately have been putting out a lot of great tutorials regarding WordPress 3.0. Definitely worth subscribing to.
Some neat posts:
Build a WordPress 2.8 Widget With the New Widget API
Exclude a Category From “Turn Off Comments” Automatically.
Display the Total Number of Registered Users
WP Recipes
By the same man behind Cats Who Code and Cats Who Blog here’s WP Recipes. This site is great if you’re looking for how to do something specific and cool, because all it is is quick code samples. Extremely useful.
Latest recipes:
Quickly Secure Plugin Files
Insert Custom Content After Each Post
How to Display Twitter-Like “Time Ago” on Your WordPress Blog
WP Vibe
With over 260 posts ranging from quick tips and tutorials to news, roundups and longer articles, WordPress Vibe will give you your WordPress fix. Also, owner Jonathan Dingman has WordPress license plates. Awesome.
Some resources:
Customize the Excerpt by Word Count
How to Exclude Pages from Search Count
Top 5 WordPress SEO Plugins
WP Constructs
Although young, WP Constructs is proving to be a contender in the WordPress development blog arena. They’ve put out quite a few posts since their inception in February of this year, ranging from tutorials and roundups to WordPress resources. Definitely a site to watch.
Some recent posts:
How to Remove NoFollow from Comments and Posts Automatically
14 Extremely Useful WordPress Admin Plugins to Boost Your Productivity
Display Posts Only to RSS Subscribers
WordPress Arena
WordPress Arena is becoming one of the more popular wordpress development blogs due to the wide variety of WordPress-related content they put out. They offer lots of tutorials as well as more abstract posts and highlight themes and plugins.
Some recent posts:
Highlight Features of WordPress 3.0
How to Make a Blog Post Using Flickr and Posterous
The Power of WordPress Custom Fields
Theme Thesis
You didn’t think I could do a post like this without mentioning the very site you’re on did you? (And yes, I subscribe to my own RSS feed.) Although we’re just a few weeks old, and have a strong focus towards the Thesis theme (obviously), I’m planning on covering a lot of ground related to WordPress on this site. That is because, as I said earlier, you can’t become a Thesis master without learning WordPress first.
Some example articles:
How to Show Category Descriptions in WordPress
Add Extra Widget Areas to Thesis
47 Customizations for the Thesis Theme
As I said earlier, you can grab the OPML file to load these feeds into your RSS reader with only a few clicks. I hope you enjoyed this post and these blogs prove useful for you. I’m always looking for nice WordPress development blogs so let me know in the comments if I left any out.
