The main reason why you would do this is if you change the files of a theme, the next time that theme updates, it will wipe away any changes you might have made. A child theme allows you to avoid that!

It’s also a great way to create a custom and unique looking WordPress site, without having to know all that tricky PHP to build something from scratch. All you need is an ftp connection to the domain & hosting where your WordPress site is (for this tutorial anyway) and a good grasp of css.

Additionally, knowing how to use Firefox’s Firebug or Chrome’s Inspect Element (or any other browser’s equivalent) is very helpful when child theming. If you haven’t used them before, or don’t know what they are, I strongly suggest you go check them out.

Now, onto how to make the child theme! This will work with the assumption that your WordPress site is already installed, and you have the TwentyTen and TwentyEleven themes.

Load up your ftp client (I use FileZilla) and connect to the hosting where the WordPress site is. Go inside your public/main html area, and navigate to wp-content/themes. Create a new directory, and for the purposes of this tutorial, name it ten-child.

Now, open up your html editor, create a new .css document and write the following code:

/*
	Theme Name: Ten Child
	Description: A Twenty Ten child theme built as part of a tutorial.
	Author: 
	Author URI: 
	Template: twentyten
*/

These are the basic tags I tend to include. The most important one is the last one, Template. This lets WordPress know which theme to get information from in order to deal with your child theme. Theme Name is also important to remember! So, as you probably guessed, we’re making a child theme from the WordPress Twenty Ten theme.

There are more tags you can put in there too. These include Description, Version, License, License URI and Tags.

Anywho, what you do next is up to you, are there are two options. You can add this below the above code:

@import url(“../twentyten/style.css”);

Or you can copy all the code from the original TwentyTen style sheet from this line downwards, and paste it into your newly created style sheet.

/* =Reset default browser CSS.

Personally, I prefer to do the second option. Don’t do both though, as it can result in the same styles being called twice over. If you want an example of the second option, you can find one here (though this one is based off TwentyEleven).

If you choose the first option, then all you need to do is add in the css that you want to overwrite the default code. If you choose the second option, you go and edit the code you’ve copied over.

Once you’ve done one of those, save your new style.css file, and upload it inside the ten-child folder. So the route to this new style sheet should be wp-content/themes/ten-child/style.css.

Now, log into your WordPress dashboard, and navigate to Appearance -> Themes. Lo and behold, you should now see your new child theme appear as one of the available themes! You can now activate it go to Appearance -> Editor to start making changes!

You’ll notice that there’s no screenshot for your theme. Now might not be the time to put one in as you’ve just started on the child theme, but it’s easy to put in when you’re ready. Simple take a screenshot of your site, save it as screenshot.png and put it in the same folder that your child theme style sheet is in. According to the Codex, the recommended size is 300 x 225 px.

I hope that’s both useful and helpful! For more information, you can always check the WordPress Codex, so ask a question below. Thanks! ]]> http://www.alphaalec.com/2012/05/setting-up-a-wordpress-child-theme/feed 0 http://www.alphaalec.com/2012/05/child-versus-custom-theming?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=child-versus-custom-theming http://www.alphaalec.com/2012/05/child-versus-custom-theming#comments Fri, 04 May 2012 21:05:47 +0000 Alec http://www.alphaalec.com/?p=761 Continue reading →]]> When it comes to creating a website with WordPress, I nearly always do a child theme from either TwentyTen or TwentyEleven (I believe TwentyTwelve will be released with WordPress 3.5), rather than coding my own theme from scratch. This post is going to outline my reasoning behind this.

• Child theming is generally quicker that building a new theme from scratch. You could of course get around this by having your own scratch built framework that you reuse for different projects.
• I find there’s a huge advantage to using the core themes. The open source WP community ensures they’re going to be coded excellently, the tech support for them is both awesome & extensive and they have very high universal plugin compatibility.
• This method requires far less PHP knowledge and time to implement, focusing more on CSS, which is easier to master.
• I’ve got my own ‘clean look’ style sheets for the TwentyTen & TwentyEleven themes, which wipes their default styles to a more bare bones look. This makes the process even quicker!

Here are some thoughts I could come up with on the flip side, of why you might not want to use this method.

• When an update to TwentyTen or TwentyEleven rolls around, it’s possible they will have modified the style structure, which can break your child theme. Options with this are you can just ignore the update (and possibly miss out on awesome new features!) or spend time updating your child theme styles.
• The TwentyTen and TwentyEleven have a huge number of lines of css for you to pick through. I daresay if you create your own theme there’s more likely to be a couple of hundred lines, rather than a couple of thousand.
• The simple fact that you want to use something entirely built by you.

I’m sure there are more reasons why you may or may not child theme; these were the ones that sprang most prominently to my mind. Indeed, feel free to let me know your own ones! In any case, if you were deciding which method to go and were to ask me, I’d suggest do a child theme!

Thanks for reading.

The maps plugin is mostly explained by its name – you put a shortcode on your page/post and it loads a map there for you. I like it because of the ease of telling what the map should be showing, as well as being able to load in your own custom marker, which is a nice touch.

The Custom Gallery Link is the plugin I’m more excited about though. It is exceedingly useful if you use the WordPress built in gallery feature. This is because it adds an extra field in an image’s media area (where you alter the title, alt text, caption, etc) that lets you set a custom url, whereas before it would only link to either the image’s own page or its attachment page.

I’m glad that it’s a plugin now too, as before you had to go into your theme’s functions file and add the code yourself. Not that I mind doing something like that, but this makes it easier for those who don’t like digging into php!

Hopefully you get some use out of this. Enjoy!

What this plugin essentially does, is let your control which of your widgets will appear on each of your pages. On the surface, this might appear to just be a handy tool. Beyond that, however, it can help you turn a WordPress site into something truly dynamic.

One of the most effective and function uses I’ve found is with custom menus, enabling you to display page specific menus that go in a sidebar. You can do something similar with your homepage as well – set a widget that only displays there and nowhere else. I’ve found this to be invaluable on numerous occasions.

For an example of a site that makes extensive use of this plugin, I’d suggest you check out Diane Farris Gallery. It has over 25 custom menus, allowing its artist pages to each have their own set of unique links.

All in all, this plugin rocks, and I recommend you both remember it and share its existence with others.

This has been on my mind for a while now. Back in September when my course at BCIT was nearing its end, I started looking for somewhere in Vancouver that had great commuting options (before I lived close to the Burnaby campus).

Where did I start? Craigslist, of course. And quickly, I found that most housing and apartment ads on there are awful. Talking about it with a friend, she pointed out to me that it just wouldn’t occur to most people to list the level of information some people (myself) might require in an ad. I suspect these expectations stem from human factors classes on credibility and persuasion.

WRITING IN ALL CAPS
This one is quite common and I nearly always avoid listings written in all caps. Why? It looks like you’re shouting at me. And it looks like you’re using capitals solely to gain my attention, rather than focusing on the quality of your apartment or house to do the job. So I’ll pass you by.

Lack of Pictures
This is perhaps the most annoying thing I see. Or don’t, as it were. How often do you see ads for expensive items (such as laptops or televisions) that include no pictures? Not including any in your listing begs me to ask what are you trying to hide? Especially as digital or cell phone cameras are so common these days. It doesn’t have to be high quality either, just give a sense of what’s on offer.

However, if you do put up pictures, please make them ones from the interior of the house/apartment. It’s the inside that I’m interested in, not the out. Oh, and bonus tip. Showing the exterior of your place for rent with snow on the ground isn’t a great selling point in early September.

Location
Not as big an issue as others on my list, but bear in mind that for some people, location is the most important thing they’re looking for. Especially if you’re like me and don’t drive a vehicle. Most people are willing to provide a Google Maps link, however. To those of you that don’t, please do.

Utilities Included
The place comes with utilities included in the rent? So…which ones? Hydro (that’s what Canadians call electric) and gas are the common ones, but the term could include a combination, such as cable and/or internet. So it’s best to specify.

Contact Details
I know Craigslist provides an email link, but sometimes people are on a tight time schedule, or just prefer calling. So give them the option and include a phone number.

That covers my thoughts on the topic. Who knows, maybe this has been both useful and/or helpful.

But on the other hand, why not change it up? Why not switch to a site where you scroll purely side to side and none of that up and down business? It makes sense from a certain perspective – monitors are wider than they are tall, after all. And sizes are always getting larger and moving towards widescreen these days. For example, today’s iMacs are available with a screen size of 21.5 or 27 inches. Hardly small.

With this in mind, it’s reasonable to think that websites with horizontal navigation will become far more popular in the near future, especially for media heavy sites and portfolios. This is not to say that it will end up being a dominant layout for sites, though. As has been pointed out to me, documents and other vertical scrolling media (books for example) wouldn’t work well in a horizontal format.

Additionally, with Parallax becoming popular in its own rights, it looks like a concept that would match up well with horizontal websites. So…in the future, be prepared to not go more than 600 pixels in height…but many more than 960 pixels in width.

Example horizontal scrolling website
How to create a horizontal scrolling website ]]> http://www.alphaalec.com/2012/04/the-rise-of-horizontal-websites/feed 0