WPCoder

Nearly every project we handle here at WPCoder uses WordPress as a CMS, rather than just a blogging platform. It’s exciting to see WordPress being used more and more as a multi-purpose CMS as the software evolves, and it presents a new challenge for each project to make the theme as dynamic & easy to manage as possible by the client. However, with great power comes great responsibility, and unfortunately there are too many opportunities for clients to break the layout of their site by editing content. One of our major goals is to produce themes that eliminate the possibility of editing-related problems as much as possible, and we spend time on each project thinking through every part of the theme’s functionality from both a development standpoint and from the client’s pont of view. Here’s a glimpse into our development process and an example of one way we try to make our themes as client-proof as possible.

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Last week on Premium Pixels we saw an awesome pagination theme as the daily freebie. To save any developers who choose to use this design in their theme some time, we decided to code it into a drop-in theme for the WP-PageNavi plugin.

Both styles – light and dark – are included in the download. We decided not to use CSS3 for this because the goal was to match the PSD in all browsers, so instead we created a small sprite sheet with all of the normal, hover, and specialized arrow styles. Instructions can be found in the README file in the zip folder, which can be downloaded from the Premium Pixels site. Enjoy!

Update: Brajeshwar, a friend from the community, has created a CSS3 version of this theme for those who support modern browsers.

The face of WordPress is constantly changing. Last year, Automattic released a new default theme (Twenty Ten) for the first time in 5 years. Twenty Ten is already old news, though.

With version 3.2 geared up and almost ready for release, Automattic has not only improved WordPress’ core functionality, they’ve also introduced Twenty Eleven, the new theme on the block.

Twenty Eleven originated from the Duster theme released by Ian Stewart just a few months ago. Since then, some updates have been added:

Post Formats

Users now have 7 default post formats to choose from when publishing – Standard, Aside, Link, Gallery, Status, Quote, or Image. Similar to custom post types, post formats use a specific template file to display content appropriately.

Options Panel

Finally, a built-in options panel. It only has a few simple theme style options, but it definitely has potential for more functionality. Previously, developers have used Devin’s Options Framework or needed to create custom panels. The corresponding files for the options panel are located in the inc folder.

You may also create custom color schemes for Twenty Eleven. Check out the new colors folder and reference the twentyeleven_color_schemes function in functions.php for the code used to create a scheme.

Showcase Template

Since version 2.5, we’ve been able to create image galleries and insert them into posts and pages using nifty shortcodes. Our new default themes comes with a new Showcase Page designed to, well, showcase your favorite posts. All you’ve gotta do is mark these posts as Sticky.

Pull Quotes

Spice up your blog posts by using the CSS class “pull” on blockquotes or images. This class will break the element out from the post content into one of the margins on single posts and pages. Simply use the following code:

<blockquote class="pull alignright">Your quote here</blockquote>

Responsive Layout

The Twenty Eleven layout uses naturally adapts to the size of your browser window. If your visitors are using a mobile device, it will respond with an optimized design. If you would like to view the styles for this, check out the “Responsive Structure” section in the stylesheet.

That just about wraps it up! Please let us know your thoughts on the new theme. If you’re doing something fun and exciting with Twenty Eleven, we’d love to hear.

It seems like we’ve been waiting to write this post forever. So many times we’ve attempted to get the gears rolling for a redesign, and so many times we’ve been spending so much time running our company that we haven’t been able to get started on updating our image. After a few months of extra work from everyone, we’re finally here: WPCoder’s got a new look.

We’re big fans of giving credit where credit is due, so we owe a major shout-out to our buddy Alvin Thong of Sixbase for delivering such an awesome design. Alvin was fantastic to work with, putting up with our multiple rounds of heavy critiquing & detail nitpicking and, being a big Chicago Bulls fan, not being a sore loser when our Heat took the series. When it was all said and done, he made our weekend in California one of the best vacations we’ve ever had as we celebrated the launch. Thanks, Alvin!

If you remember the old site, with the machine and the modal boxes and the lovely brown background, you’ll immediately recognize that we’ve got a whole lot more to say than before. We’ve learned so much since we started back in September 2008. As you can see, we are starting to take some of those new ideas and improvements into action to make WPCoder the best WordPress development service on the ‘net. Here’s what we’ve been working on since the new year, and what we’re focused on right now.

Customer service

We’re totally committed to making your experience with WPCoder the best you’ll ever have. At least 50% of our business has been word-of-mouth referrals from happy clients, and we want to keep it that way by blowing you away with our work and service. Here are just a few things we’ve improved, changed, or added:

• Our development team is becoming more organized so projects are quoted, approved, and started as quickly as possible.
• We’re putting the final touches on our new client area, which will improve communication between everyone involved and fix all the little bugs and quirks in our original system that slowed the project down.
• We now have a separate department that handles theme support, so if something happens to your theme after a while or you have some changes to be made, we’ll get back to you and have the work completed much faster than before.
• We’ll be hiring a few of our developers full-time starting this summer, so if you send us multiple projects it’s even more likely you’ll get to work with the same developer every time.

Expanding our reach

On the services front, we’re now publicly offering a few new minor services to you. We’ve staffed a few Shopp and WP e-Commerce developers, so if an online store is part of your next project, we’re ready to help. We’re also now offering design services, and will be working on expanding our design portfolio this summer. Finally, for anyone who is stuck or needs some ideas or feedback on a project, we’ll be happy to offer you our suggestions – just get in touch with us and share some details about your project.

Building a better blog

In our effort to connect with the community more and provide helpful resources and information for other WordPress developers, we created this journal to do just that. You can expect a new set of tutorials, articles, and interviews in the months to come, and we’ll be much more active on Twitter and other community sites to learn more and share what we know.

Tell us what you think!

In case you haven’t picked up on our drift by now, we’re eager to improve & perfect our service. Experience is a great way to do that, but we love hearing from the community and our clients, too. If you’ve worked with us before, please let us know if there are any ways we could be better. We’re all ears!

It’s been a while since we’ve last posted on our blog (now known as our journal). It may seem like we’ve been hiding under a rock the past few months, but we’ve actually been hard at work on the redesign of our site. We’ve worked closely with Alvin Thong of Sixbase to create a stunning new interface for our site. We needed something fresh to help us with our transition from a typical PSD to WordPress conversion service to a more personal and professional WordPress development team. And now our site is actually built on WordPress!

Right now, we’re super excited to be in San Diego, CA this weekend! We’ve traveled all the way from Miami, FL and Johnstown, PA to the beautiful west coast of California for Valio Con. We figured there’s no better place to launch our new stuff than at a web developer & designer conference on the beach! Yes, we remembered to bring our floaties.

What brings us to Valio Con? We’ve been following Drew Wilson‘s work for a couple years now and we really admire what he’s accomplished. We’ve also been a part of one of his projects, Yoggrt, a creative ad network, since its initial launch. So as soon as we heard about the conference, we knew we had to find a way over.

Valio Con attendees, look out for us! We’ll be wearing (and passing out) WPCoder tees. We’d love to have a chat with you and see what we can do for you.

If you like our redesign, please leave us a comment below and let us know what you think. Most importantly, if you’re interested in discussing your next WordPress project with us, please get in touch with us directly.

Stay tuned for an official redesign launch post coming early next week.