WordPress 2.8 Themes Cookbook

Table of Contents

• Preface

• Chapter 1: WordPress Theme Basics
  • Introduction
  • Finding documentation on WordPress.org
  • Downloading themes from the WordPress theme repository
  • Downloading themes from third-party websites
  • Installing and activating a theme
  • Displaying the blog name
  • Getting the absolute directory path of the active theme
  • Creating a theme from scratch
  • Creating a child theme
  • Creating a theme by using a theme framework
  • Adding expected WordPress hooks
  • Including PHP files from your theme

• Chapter 2: Creating Navigation
  • Introduction
  • Listing all of the pages that exist on a blog
  • Listing all of the categories defined for a blog
  • Listing all of the tags in use on a blog
  • Highlighting the current page in the navigation
  • Adding a search function to a theme
  • Getting the category page link from a category name
  • Displaying page links only if the destination page exists
  • Creating a category drop-down menu
  • Creating drop-downs using child pages

• Chapter 3: The Loop
  • Introduction
  • Creating a basic Loop
  • Displaying ads after every third post
  • Removing posts in a particular category
  • Removing posts with a particular tag
  • Highlighting sticky posts
  • Creating multiple loops in a single template
  • Displaying only posts in a particular category
  • Styling every other post differently
  • Styling posts in a particular category differently
  • Showing every post in a category on a category archive page

• Chapter 4: Template Tags
  • Introduction
  • Displaying the post title
  • Automatically limiting the number of words of content
  • Determining if the user is on a specific page
  • Determining if the user is viewing a post in a particular category
  • Displaying the post date for each post
  • Highlighting search terms in post content
  • Displaying login/logout links
  • Adding navigation through older/newer posts
  • Displaying an edit link for posts
  • Displaying custom field content
  • Displaying a post author's avatar

• Chapter 5: Comments
  • Introduction
  • Displaying a comment form on a post
  • Displaying comments on a post
  • Displaying the latest comments on your blog
  • Highlighting the post author's comments
  • Alternating the style for comments
  • Displaying threaded comments properly

• Chapter 6: Sidebars
  • Introduction
  • Using the Text widget for custom sidebar content
  • Including a dynamic sidebar in your theme
  • Including multiple dynamic sidebars in your theme
  • Setting the default widgets for a sidebar in your theme
  • Positioning multiple sidebars in your theme by using CSS
  • Styling the appearance of sidebars in your theme by using CSS
  • Displaying different widgets on different pages by using the Widget Logic plugin and conditional tags
  • Showing asides in the sidebar by using the Miniposts plugin
  • Adding an interactive Facebook-style wall to a sidebar by using jQuery

• Chapter 7: Custom Page Templates
  • Introduction
  • Creating a simple page template
  • Creating an archives page template
  • Creating a taxonomy navigation template
  • Displaying author avatars and descriptions
  • Creating a table of contents page template
  • Showing your pictures from Flickr
  • Displaying a special template for a specific category

• Chapter 8: Integrating Media
  • Introduction
  • Aligning images properly within a post
  • Styling image galleries
  • Styling image captions
  • Creating a media template
  • Creating a media template for a specific media type
  • Displaying a related image for every post
  • Creating video posts by using the Viper's Video QuickTags plug-in

• Chapter 9: Showing Author Information
  • Introduction
  • Getting author data via an author's ID
  • Dynamically displaying the author's name and linked e-mail address
  • Listing all of the published authors on a site
  • Listing the authors who most recently published a post
  • Listing authors by the total number of comments that their posts have received
  • Adding a custom user field to display an author's Twitter link

• Chapter 10: Adding JavaScript Effects
  • Introduction
  • Linking to your theme's JavaScript files directly
  • Adding JavaScript files to your theme programmatically
  • Adding a bundled library to your theme programmatically
  • Creating a featured post slider
  • Making sidebar widgets toggle-able
  • Adding a font size toggle

• Chapter 11: Advanced WordPress Themes
  • Introduction
  • Adding a theme options page
  • Allowing for multiple theme color schemes
  • Changing the default Gravatar icon for your theme
  • Registering shortcodes for your theme
  • Localizing your theme
  • Displaying information based on the logged-in user's role
  • Packaging your theme for distribution
  • Uploading your theme to the WordPress.org theme repository

• Chapter 12: Layout
  • Introduction
  • Adding a skip navigation link for usability
  • Centering your site's layout in the browser window
  • Setting up a randomly-rotating header image
  • Making theme components drag-and-drop
  • Creating a global toolbar for your theme
  • Creating tabbed navigation for your theme

• Index

Nick Ohrn

Lee Jordan

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Sample chapters

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