In this article I urge people to avoid the use of direct styling and instead rely on CSS for defining how the elements of a page or post should appear. I explain the downsides of direct styling and the advantages of CSS. Although, CSS is a huge topic, you don’t have to be an expert in CSS to use it in some basic and helpful ways.
Techniques
Short How-To articles, similar to Case Studies but on a smaller scale.
Blog Tags: What They Are (and What They’re Not)
The categories and tags you use to describe your blog posts are not about search engine optimization. Their purpose is to make it easier for the people who are already on your Web site to navigate around and find content they’re interested in. When you’re tagging your blogs posts, you’re not publishing a thesaurus or creating a search engine ad campaign — you’re creating signposts.
Use Custom Lesson Icons for MemberPress Courses
I’m currently working on a Web site that offers online courses. I’m using the MemberPress Membership Plugin to restrict course content to registered members, and I’m using MemberPress’ Courses LMS addon for developing the course curriculums. MemberPress Courses does many things very well out of the box. This article describes a small but nagging problem I encountered and how I solved it.
How to Override MemberPress Template Files
Since MemberPress version 1.1.7, developers can override MemberPress template files (as well as the template files for MemberPress addons). I have written this article as a supplement to the excellent article in MemberPress’ official documentation so as to attempt to clarify one particular issue. Read on for more.
How To Add Custom Contextual Help Content To The WordPress Dashboard
In this article I explain how to add custom contextual help content to the WordPress dashboard.
If you’re a WordPress developer, you can make your clients more self-sufficient and effective by adding custom contextual help content. And that can make you more valuable to your clients.
Even if you’re not a WordPress developer, this article may be of interest.
WordPress Manual Excerpts: Why, When, & How to Use Them
Your blog’s landing page (aka Blog Archive) is like a magazine’s table of contents. Both have the same purpose: to grab the reader’s attention and to steer him or her to content of interest.
WordPress supports three methods for displaying blog post summaries on archive pages: automated excerpts; excerpts defined by the placement of the WordPress more tag within the body of a blog post; and manual excerpts. Which method should you use? In this article I explain why manual excerpts are always my go-to method.
How to Build Stunning WordPress Photo Galleries Quickly and Easily With FooGallery PRO
Photo (image) galleries are common and popular elements for many Web sites; for some, they’re downright essential. In this article I focus on how FooGallery PRO allows you to create galleries quickly and easily using “Media Tags” as the datasource for a gallery.
I’ve been using and liking the free version of FooGallery for years. Working on several client Web sites with multiple image galleries, I looked for more efficient ways to create and maintain those galleries. The datasource feature of FooGallery PRO is a game-changer. Read on for an explanation of how this works, with detailed instructions and screen captures.
How to clear cache on iPhone and iPad
Sometimes your browser will show you a cached (remembered) version of a Web site, no matter how many times you click the “Refresh” button. This can be a problem if you are using an iPhone or iPad to inspect changes made to a Web site during development. Yes, you can use “Responsive Design Mode” in […]
Dynamic Photo Galleries with Responsive Lightbox & Gallery
Responsive Lightbox & Gallery by dFactory is a WordPress plugin I’ve used and been a big fan of for a long time — back to when it was simply called Responsive Lightbox. In this article I show you how to use the “media folders” feature to create dynamic photo galleries that update themselves when you add new images to the media library.
Automatic “Visit Web Site” Links on WordPress Portfolio Posts
If your blog includes articles about Web sites you have built, here’s a simple way to automagically and uniformly show “Visit Web Site” links at the end of all such posts. Sure, you could do this the old-fashioned way (hard coding the link), but there’s a better way. (Hint: You get to use that “Custom Fields” feature.)