Theme Browser

When looking for WordPress themes- it’s not enough to just look at the “look” or pretty pictures. There is a lot more to a theme than the css. While the basic 2 themes in WordPress work- and are guaranteed to do the job in any browser- almost everyone want’s to be different, to have their own little image in the world of the web- and because it’s pretty easy to tinker with the theme- people do- some that know what they are doing- and others that have no clue. Some tinkers shouldn’t put their themes out for public consumption.
As WordPress gets more features there are more opportunities to miss something in creating a theme. One of the “Favorite” themes these days is “Connections”- which doesn’t include categories for links. This can be a real bummer for those who have a lot of links in different categories. Many themes don’t include the next and previous post once you click the permalink headline and end up at the posts hard link location- where you can comment- this is a nice navigation aid that should be included to avoid back navigation but isn’t in many themes.

The Theme browser I like best right now is the one at www.themes.wordpress.net in Filmstrip mode. It gives you a chance to see how the theme handles a lot of formatting issues including the “More” tag and the above mentioned “categories” in links. It also shows ordered and unordered lists, blockquotes within blockquotes and subcategories.

The only thing missing is the ability to search by theme name, so you can review a theme quickly. Granted if you know the name you can search elsewhere to take a look, but it would be handy to have that ability built in.

One day someone will build a theme browser that also allows for reviews, comments, feature list searches- complete with plug-in links for the themes that you need- but for now, this is the bomb.

Don’t go out looking for a “WordPress for dummies” book- it will be obsolete before it’s off the presses. WordPress isn’t that complicated and you really can’t screw your site up too badly no matter how hard you try.

The biggest mistake a beginner can make is by changing to a theme that doesn’t have a log-in button- and they can’t figure out how to get back to the dashboard. No worry here- just go to www.yourblogname.com/wp-admin and then type in your user name and password. The user name is typically “Admin” if it’s your blog.

The other place you can screw things up is under the Options menu- by changing the location of your blog. If you happen to do this, someone who knows how to access your MySQL database on your server can get in and change it back.

Other than those two issues- (and it there are others- please feel free to add comments) the most you can lose is a post or page unless your sever crashes. That’s why it’s a good idea to enable the WordPress database back-up plugin in WordPress 2.0 and back up your data to your computer on a regular basis.

If you don’t understand something- and the question isn’t answered here- you can always e-mail me the question at [email protected]  and I’ll try to post a response soon.

Your other solution is to Google your question- more than likely someone has already answered your question online- just type in “WordPress” and “your question” and you should find an answer quickly.

The WordPress documentation on the codex http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page is full of good stuff and getting better every day.

And if you solve a problem on your own, and you didn’t find a good answer with Google- post it in your blog, so you can help others.

WordPress 2.0 Upload Management at D’Arcy Norman Dot Net

Has a great description with screen captures on how to utilize the new picture upload function of WordPress 2.0. So if you are stuck on how to upload and manage your images with the new tool- click on the link above to read more.
This post- is an example of linking to another blog to explain something someone else has already explained. Why re-create the wheel when you can create links to the content you want to talk about.

I’ve decided to add to this post to suggest a change in the next rev of WordPress. While having the image upload and browse window (rightfully) on the same page as the Write post or Write page window- the controls are in two different places- making for a sloppy confusing interface. Ideally, we should be able to upload and browse in the lower section- then drag the image into our post (supposedly available in Firefox) and then be able to click on the insert/edit image button in the tags- and be presented with ALL the options for using a thumbnail and if it should link to a larger image. The only function that should be available in the window below is to delete the image- and only if it asks if it should also delete it from the post if it has been used.

It would also be nice to have image padding controls in the insert/edit image button dialog as well.

This post will create a “Pingback” to “D’Arcy Norman’s” site- showing up in the comment section if he has allowed pingbacks- and to make this post I used the “Press it” tool in WordPress. If you have a lot of pingbacks on your post- it means you did a good job.
The Press It tool is at the bottom of your “Write post” page- it creates a bookmark that you can click on when visting another site- instead of saving the page to your bookmarks- (or favorites if you are using that terrible browser Internet Explorer instead of Firefox) you will instantly be taken to your blog’s “Write Post” page with a title and link already started for you to comment on the other sites content!

Just another way WordPress makes it easy to build your content and your links.