I was recently looking for a forms plugin and was getting frustrated. Normally my only use for forms is as a simple contact form, but this time I needed something more robust for use on a contest site. It had to be really easy for users to submit their entries, and equally as easy for the administrators to review them. Something was going wrong with every plugin I was using, and I was about to think of other ways to make the site work.
Then I stumbled upon Gravity forms.
It was everything I was looking for, so I bought it and couldn’t be happier. I’ve narrowed down the 5 reasons that Gravity Forms is better than the form plugin you’re using, and I’m going to go into them quickly here:
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Internet Explorer, as much as a lot of us despise it, has a considerable market share in the browser space. Some people even still use the defunct Internet Explorer 6 (which sucks) but even Internet Explorer 8 has its own kinks and intricacies to worry about.
And up until recently it’s been hard to test a design against them if you’re using a Mac (which many designers are).
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A theme options page is a necessity in your premium WordPress theme. Even free ones are popping up with them. It can be a big step to take, especially for someone with more of a design background than a development one but the benefits are extraordinary.
When I was creating the options page for Thesis Magazine, I read as much as I could on WordPress options pages in order to create the best one possible. There are many ways to go about it, so I’ve included some awesome tutorials that have really helped me in the past as well as a cool resource Ian Stewart put out the other day that will blow your mind.
So without further ado, here are 10 resources to help you create a wordpress options page:
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Social proof is a powerful thing. Showing how many people are talking about your article on Twitter can encourage more people to talk about it, that’s a fact. Humans are silly and trusting this way.
The way most people go about it is by installing some sort of a widget or plugin. Now you say, “But Matt, why wouldn’t I want to use a plugin!? Plugins are awesome!”
Well there are a few reasons for this:
- To allow greater customization and to separate yourself from other sites.
- To keep your WordPress install lean. Do we really need 1000 plugins mucking up our WordPress install to do even the simplest tasks?
- To feel awesome. Haha, this is sort of a joke but I’m a huge nerd and get satisfaction out of doing things myself, and you might too. Plus every learning experience is a good one.
Plus it’s extremely easy. How easy? Here’s the code:
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Almost every blog you come across will have an archives page. Unfortunately, most of them will only show you a list of posts by month. An archives page is a prime place to get a reader further into your site.
Here you’ll learn how to add an archives page to WordPress that not only shows a monthly archive, but also your categories, every post you’ve written, your most popular posts, and even a search box, using jQuery to keep everything organized and easy to navigate.
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Lately I’ve been wondering about this. I figured I’d start a poll to make sure that my values are in line with everyone elses when it comes to developing premium WordPress themes. It should hopefully also give other theme developers an idea of what to spend the most time focusing on.
So what makes you feel that a premium theme is worth it over a free one, if anything? Don’t just fill out the poll, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this as well!
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One of the most popular features to have in websites today is the “featured content slider” (or “featured post slider”). It gives people a glimpse into your better posts and can catch their attention right away. For these reasons, it was one of the first features I included in my latest premium Thesis skin.
Today I’m going to tell you how you can do it for your own Thesis site (if for some crazy reason you don’t use Thesis Magazine :p)
So without further ado, here’s how to add a jQuery-powered featured content slider to Thesis in 5 quick steps:
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There’s been a problem going around lately regarding some people using Host Gator along with the Thesis WordPress theme. I’ve seen three posts in the forum pop up this week (one of which was made by me) so I figured I should probably put this post up.
Even if you haven’t noticed any problem, I’d recommend testing this out to see if you’re affected. It’s something that doesn’t show on the front end, only the back, and it’d be best to get it fixed now rather than when you’re trying to make an important change to your site.
Anyway, here’s what to do if your Thesis options won’t save.
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Note: This is another post stolen from my web design blog.
This article could also be called “How I Designed the Words Skin” because this is a list of almost all the modifications I made to the default Thesis install. Please don’t just take all of my customizations, but rather learn from them. After reading through all of these you should get a basic understanding of Thesis hooks, custom functions, and your custom.css file and also the knowledge to make some basic (and more advanced) hacks.
So without further ado, here are 10 ways to quickly make your Thesis site stand out from the rest:
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Lately there has been a huge rise in Thesis skins, with developers popping up all over the place (me included) to offer free and premium Thesis skins for you to use on your site. Installing these generally involve overwriting the /custom folder and uploading an options file. Sounds simple enough, right? It is.
What if you’d like to switch to a different skin? You do the same thing: overwrite the /custom file and upload an options file. Now say you want to go back to the first one. You see where I’m going with this, no? It can get tedious at best and confusing at worst.
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