Whether you are a photographer who needs a showcase online for  his work, need a portfolio, are a retailer of products with image displays, or have anything visual you wish to display then the new Semiomantics Evo 2012 photoblog  may be for you.

I am just in the process of completing a project using the latest photo blog development  by Semiomantics, to display a series of photos that show the different stages of a Loft conversion, adding a dormer to provide more space in the house. An interesting project in itself,  married with photos taken during the construction makes interesting browsing.

Semiomantics Evo 2012

This particular Semiomantics development combines categories and galleries,  (galleries that expand), background slider, sidebars if desired, blog, social networking icons as well as being mobile friendly and a pleasing visual experience. Combining the latest developments from WordPress, HTML5,CSS3 and the mobile web makes it an attractive and easy photo blog to use. Shoot, post and share your latest news.

Customizing WordPress Child Theme

In this tutorial we will create Custom Post Types and add variables and functionality to them. Also we will add some styling for more user-friendly display in the dashboard.

Having set up our basic Child Theme structure we will now proceed with the customization. But before that we will do some basic WP configuration and go through the settings. You may be used to building WordPress based sites and therefore you may have some habits in as much as settings and configuration are concerned.

Semiomantics XO Custom Magazine for WordPress

Here is what I do in the dashboard:

1. Trash and permanently delete the Hello World Post.

2. Delete the default Links.

3. Set Permalinks to: /%category%/%postname%/

4. Under Settings General enter Blog Name and Tagline; for the purpose of this exercise I use  as a Title: WordPress TTP and as a Tagline: Tips, Themes and Plugins

5. Add some content to test content display by importing an RSS feed using a plugin such as Feedwordpress. I pulled into a new category called Blog the feed from my author-blog at:

http://yorgonestoridis.com/feed

We have set up a basic child theme for the purpose of modifying and customizing the Parent Theme. Creating structural modifications such as creating Custom Posts and Taxonomies are not strictly speaking theme relevant but should apply to all themes or as the case may be, to multiple themes in a Multi-user installation.

For this reason we will lodge the file which defines the custom posts outside any specific theme folder but inside wp-contents/themes.

We create a file called posttypes.php in wp-contents/themes. This file serves to define our custom post types and the way they integrate into the WP architecture.

In order to include the new Post Types in our Child theme, we include the posttype.php using an include function. This we doby adding a new file to our child theme; this file we call functions.php.

As you know, every WP theme contains a functions.php file; when creating a child theme which needs to expand the functions existing in the parent theme, then we just add a file with the same name, ‘functions.php’ to the child theme and append the functions defined in the parent theme.

Note: functions.php of the child theme does not override existing functions in the parent theme as is the case with styles (‘style.css)!

PHP allows us easily to include files in a script with the ‘include’ function and then by adding the URL to the file you wish to include.

Our ‘functions.php’ file will look as follows:

<?php
include_once (ABSPATH . 'wp-content/themes/posttypes.php');
?>

Please note that we use the ABSPATH function to construct the URL as the normal url path

 url(".../themes/posttypes.php") 

does not work here.

Save functions.php into your Child Theme Folder.

In order to set up our post types we proceed step by step:

1. Set up Custom Post Types
2. Add advanced Variables to Post Types
3. Add advanced custom post type functionality
4. Change the Menu Position (Dashboard) of the Custom Post Types
5. Add custom post type icon

Custom Post Types allow to separate different content from the traditional blog content. Blog content usually is edited as Posts and Pages, whereas Pages (static content) can be organized in a hierarchical way and posts are sorted by categories and tags. In order to display static content (pages) using customized layout, we can create different page templates easily.

Custom Post Types allow to sort content by Posts and Custom Post Types whereas custom post types are similar to posts but using custom taxonomies and as the case may be custom layouts or design adapted to the content. A typical example is a single product page from a shop compared to a single post page on the blog section of the website.

For the purpose of our exercise we will create 3 Custom Post Types

• WordPress Tips
• WordPress Themes
• WordPress Plugins

Setting up post types is relatively easy; while we could use plugins to create custom post types, I think hard-coding is a more solid and professional way of creating them. To create a new Custom Post Type we just need to add a few lines of code to the functions file or in our case to the abstraction file at posttypes.php which will then be included int the functions.php as per above where we have added the include function into functions.php.

We will create now the 3 Custom Post Types whereas the code used for each of them is the same except for the post type names and the function names.

To create the first post type, edit posttypes.php and paste in:

<?php

// Add new post type for WP Tips
add_action('init', 'wordpress_tips_init');
function wordpress_tips_init()
{
$args = array(
'label' => _x('WP Tips'),
'singular_label' => _x('WP Tip'),
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => null,
'supports' => array('title','editor','comments')
);
register_post_type('wordpress_tips',$args);
}

Save the file.

At the top we type a comment explaining what the following code is all about (Add new Post Type for WP Tips). Then we call the function in to WordPress with ‘add_action’ and at the bottom we register the post type. As you can see the function consists of a number of arguments which we will look into later ($args).

Check out your Dashboard now and you will see that the new post type is added to the menu just above ‘Appearance’.

To add new post types, you just need to copy and paste the above code and make simple changes to the name and labels of the post type.

The above post types work, however they are not well refined. For this reason we will add some more variables. As the new posts are still called “Post” in the editor for example we will need to relabel to display the real name of the post type. For this we will write a label variable which can take an array of labels and we thus relabel all instances of our Custom Post Type.

The variable we create with the array of labels looks as follows:

$wordpress_tips_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Tips', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Tip', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Tips'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Tip', 'wordpress_tips'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Tip'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Tip'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Tip'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Tip'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Tips'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Tips found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Tips found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);

We will insert this piece of code just before our block of arguments and then change the arguments accordingly as follows:

<?php

// Add new post type for WP Tips
add_action('init', 'wordpress_tips_init');
function wordpress_tips_init()
{

$wordpress_tips_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Tips', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Tip', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Tips'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Tip', 'wordpress_tips'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Tip'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Tip'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Tip'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Tip'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Tips'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Tips found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Tips found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);
$args = array(

/*      'label' => _x('WP Tips'), */
'labels' => $wordpress_tips_labels,
/*      'singular_label' => _x('WP Tips'),   */
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => null,
'supports' => array('title','editor','comments')
);
register_post_type('wordpress_tips',$args);
}

As you can see from the two commented lines, we have changed ‘label’ to ‘labels and defined with the variable from above ‘$wordpress_tips_labels’ and we have deleted the ‘singular label’ as it is replaced wby ‘singular name’ from the label variable.

For the other new post types it’s the same game, just copy and paste and change the labels accordingly.

Save posttypes.php and check it out in your dashboard.

You will now see all labels added and your site becomes a lot more user-friendly and less confusing.

We can define the functionalities of our new post types with an array under the variable ‘supports’; basically the ‘supports’ line defines which functionalities should be supported, i.e. which content should be displayed.

In our example, the line above looks like this:

'supports' => array('title','editor','comments')

When you go to your dashboard, and add a new WP Tip you will see the editor shows the ‘title’, ‘content’ and ‘comments’ fields.

While we can go crazy on adding supported functionality, we will here just look at some standard functionalities. To add more functionality we just need to append the array in the supports variable like so:

'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_tips'

By adding the above functionalities to the supports variable, we get something pretty close to the standard post editor, since we add the author, excerpts and custom fields as well as the featured picture functionality.

Also we can add a new variable, such as ‘has archive’ and then name the archive, in our example ‘WordPress Tips’.

This archive variable allows us to create an index page just for the WP Tips post  types.

Our Code for the WP Tips Custom Post Type is as follows:

<?php

// Add new post type for WP Tips
add_action('init', 'wordpress_tips_init');
function wordpress_tips_init()
{

$wordpress_tips_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Tips', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Tip', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Tips'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Tip', 'wordpress_tips'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Tip'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Tip'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Tip'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Tip'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Tips'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Tips found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Tips found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);
$args = array(

/*      'label' => _x('WP Tips'), */
'labels' => $wordpress_tips_labels,
/*      'singular_label' => _x('WP Tips'),   */
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => null,
'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_tips'
);
register_post_type('wordpress_tips',$args);
}

Copy and paste with the necessary changes for the other custom post types and save the file.

Check it out from the Dashboard Menu and the Editor.

As per now, our custom posts menu in the dashboard is positioned just above appearance and below comments. As custom posts are similar to posts, we want to move the custom post tabs just below the Posts tab.

As you can see from our code above, the menu position is set to ‘null’. The value ‘null’ makes that the custom post types are added at the bottom of the first section of the dashboard menu.

Depending of where you want to position your custom posts, you will need to change the value ‘null’ to another value according to the below reference scale:

0 — at the very top
5 — below Posts
10 — below Media
15 — below Links
20 — below Pages
25 — below comments
60 — below first separator
65 — below Plugins
70 — below Users
75 — below Tools
80 — below Settings
100 — below second separator

As we aim the spot below “Posts” we will use the value ‘5’, which will result in

...

'menu_position' => 5,

...

If you want to set a particular order, you can also use 3 different numbers, like 4,5 and 6 respectively.

Do the modification inside the arguments of each post type and save.

By repositioning the custom post type menu items , we signal priority and importance.

Check it out from the dashboard and note that our custom posts are right below ‘Posts’ now.

In order to make our custom post types stick out from the menu and to add user-friendly visual identifiers, we replace the default icons with custom icons.

There are two sizes needed, 16px and 32 px for the menu and the page title area respectively.

I have created sample icons and psd files for your convenience: please download from HERE.

Decompress the downloaded rar file and copy the image folder into wp-contents/themes (as we had done with posttypes.php, as we want to make these images available to all themes.

To add these icons we introduce a new function to posttypes.php with a function batch including some css/html code for styling purposes:

// Add new Custom Post Type icons
add_action( 'admin_head', 'wordpress_icons' );
function wordpress_icons() {
?>
<style type="text/css" media="screen">
#menu-posts-wordpress_tips .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/tips-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_tips {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/tips-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}
#menu-posts-wordpress_themes .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/themes-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_themes {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/themes-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}
#menu-posts-wordpress_plugins .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/plugins-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_plugins {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/plugins-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}

</style>
<?php }

Note the incomplete php delimiter at the end which is needed to switch back to php from css/html code.

At this stage, your posttypes.php looks as follows:

<?php

// Add new post type for WP Tips
add_action('init', 'wordpress_tips_init');
function wordpress_tips_init()
{
$wordpress_tips_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Tips', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Tip', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Tips'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Tip', 'wordpress_tips'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Tip'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Tip'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Tip'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Tip'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Tips'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Tips found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Tips found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);
$args = array(
/*        'label' => _x('WP Tips'), */
'labels' => $wordpress_tips_labels,
/*        'singular_label' => _x('WP Tips'),   */
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => 5,
'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_tips'
);
register_post_type('wordpress_tips',$args);
}

// Add new post type for WP Themes
add_action('init', 'wordpress_themes_init');
function wordpress_themes_init()
{

$wordpress_themes_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Themes', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Theme', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Themes'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Theme', 'wordpress_themes'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Theme'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Theme'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Theme'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Theme'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Themes'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Theme found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Theme found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);

$args = array(
'labels' => $wordpress_themes_labels,
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => 5,
'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_themes'
);
register_post_type('wordpress_themes',$args);
}

// Add new post type for WP Plugins
add_action('init', 'wordpress_plugins_init');
function wordpress_plugins_init()
{

$wordpress_plugins_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Plugins', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Plugin', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Plugins'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Plugin', 'wordpress_plugins'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Plugin'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Plugin'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Plugin'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Plugin'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Plugins'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Plugin found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Plugin found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);

$args = array(
'labels' => $wordpress_plugins_labels,
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => 5,
'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_plugins'
);
register_post_type('wordpress_plugins',$args);
}

// Add new Custom Post Type icons
add_action( 'admin_head', 'wordpress_icons' );
function wordpress_icons() {
?>
<style type="text/css" media="screen">
#menu-posts-wordpress_tips .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/tips-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_tips {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/tips-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}
#menu-posts-wordpress_themes .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/themes-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_themes {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/themes-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}
#menu-posts-wordpress_plugins .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/plugins-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_plugins {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/plugins-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}

</style>
<?php }

?>

Check it out from your dashboard and you should see something similar to this:

Custom Post Types with Custom Icons

Related posts:

1. How to build a Custom WordPress Site 2
2. How to build a custom WordPress Site
3. Custom Widgets for WordPress
4. WordPress 3.4 Beta
5. Facebook Strategy with WordPress

Customizing WordPress Child Theme

In this tutorial we will create Custom Post Types and add variables and functionality to them. Also we will add some styling for more user-friendly display in the dashboard.

Having set up our basic Child Theme structure we will now proceed with the customization. But before that we will do some basic WP configuration and go through the settings. You may be used to building WordPress based sites and therefore you may have some habits in as much as settings and configuration are concerned.

Semiomantics XO Custom Magazine for WordPress

Here is what I do in the dashboard:

1. Trash and permanently delete the Hello World Post.

2. Delete the default Links.

3. Set Permalinks to: /%category%/%postname%/

4. Under Settings General enter Blog Name and Tagline; for the purpose of this exercise I use  as a Title: WordPress TTP and as a Tagline: Tips, Themes and Plugins

5. Add some content to test content display by importing an RSS feed using a plugin such as Feedwordpress. I pulled into a new category called Blog the feed from my author-blog at:

http://yorgonestoridis.com/feed

We have set up a basic child theme for the purpose of modifying and customizing the Parent Theme. Creating structural modifications such as creating Custom Posts and Taxonomies are not strictly speaking theme relevant but should apply to all themes or as the case may be, to multiple themes in a Multi-user installation.

For this reason we will lodge the file which defines the custom posts outside any specific theme folder but inside wp-contents/themes.

We create a file called posttypes.php in wp-contents/themes. This file serves to define our custom post types and the way they integrate into the WP architecture.

In order to include the new Post Types in our Child theme, we include the posttype.php using an include function. This we doby adding a new file to our child theme; this file we call functions.php.

As you know, every WP theme contains a functions.php file; when creating a child theme which needs to expand the functions existing in the parent theme, then we just add a file with the same name, ‘functions.php’ to the child theme and append the functions defined in the parent theme.

Note: functions.php of the child theme does not override existing functions in the parent theme as is the case with styles (‘style.css)!

PHP allows us easily to include files in a script with the ‘include’ function and then by adding the URL to the file you wish to include.

Our ‘functions.php’ file will look as follows:

<?php
include_once (ABSPATH . 'wp-content/themes/posttypes.php');
?>

Please note that we use the ABSPATH function to construct the URL as the normal url path

 url(".../themes/posttypes.php") 

does not work here.

Save functions.php into your Child Theme Folder.

In order to set up our post types we proceed step by step:

1. Set up Custom Post Types
2. Add advanced Variables to Post Types
3. Add advanced custom post type functionality
4. Change the Menu Position (Dashboard) of the Custom Post Types
5. Add custom post type icon

Custom Post Types allow to separate different content from the traditional blog content. Blog content usually is edited as Posts and Pages, whereas Pages (static content) can be organized in a hierarchical way and posts are sorted by categories and tags. In order to display static content (pages) using customized layout, we can create different page templates easily.

Custom Post Types allow to sort content by Posts and Custom Post Types whereas custom post types are similar to posts but using custom taxonomies and as the case may be custom layouts or design adapted to the content. A typical example is a single product page from a shop compared to a single post page on the blog section of the website.

For the purpose of our exercise we will create 3 Custom Post Types

• WordPress Tips
• WordPress Themes
• WordPress Plugins

Setting up post types is relatively easy; while we could use plugins to create custom post types, I think hard-coding is a more solid and professional way of creating them. To create a new Custom Post Type we just need to add a few lines of code to the functions file or in our case to the abstraction file at posttypes.php which will then be included int the functions.php as per above where we have added the include function into functions.php.

We will create now the 3 Custom Post Types whereas the code used for each of them is the same except for the post type names and the function names.

To create the first post type, edit posttypes.php and paste in:

<?php

// Add new post type for WP Tips
add_action('init', 'wordpress_tips_init');
function wordpress_tips_init()
{
$args = array(
'label' => _x('WP Tips'),
'singular_label' => _x('WP Tip'),
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => null,
'supports' => array('title','editor','comments')
);
register_post_type('wordpress_tips',$args);
}

Save the file.

At the top we type a comment explaining what the following code is all about (Add new Post Type for WP Tips). Then we call the function in to WordPress with ‘add_action’ and at the bottom we register the post type. As you can see the function consists of a number of arguments which we will look into later ($args).

Check out your Dashboard now and you will see that the new post type is added to the menu just above ‘Appearance’.

To add new post types, you just need to copy and paste the above code and make simple changes to the name and labels of the post type.

The above post types work, however they are not well refined. For this reason we will add some more variables. As the new posts are still called “Post” in the editor for example we will need to relabel to display the real name of the post type. For this we will write a label variable which can take an array of labels and we thus relabel all instances of our Custom Post Type.

The variable we create with the array of labels looks as follows:

$wordpress_tips_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Tips', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Tip', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Tips'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Tip', 'wordpress_tips'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Tip'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Tip'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Tip'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Tip'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Tips'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Tips found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Tips found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);

We will insert this piece of code just before our block of arguments and then change the arguments accordingly as follows:

<?php

// Add new post type for WP Tips
add_action('init', 'wordpress_tips_init');
function wordpress_tips_init()
{

$wordpress_tips_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Tips', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Tip', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Tips'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Tip', 'wordpress_tips'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Tip'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Tip'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Tip'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Tip'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Tips'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Tips found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Tips found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);
$args = array(

/*      'label' => _x('WP Tips'), */
'labels' => $wordpress_tips_labels,
/*      'singular_label' => _x('WP Tips'),   */
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => null,
'supports' => array('title','editor','comments')
);
register_post_type('wordpress_tips',$args);
}

As you can see from the two commented lines, we have changed ‘label’ to ‘labels and defined with the variable from above ‘$wordpress_tips_labels’ and we have deleted the ‘singular label’ as it is replaced wby ‘singular name’ from the label variable.

For the other new post types it’s the same game, just copy and paste and change the labels accordingly.

Save posttypes.php and check it out in your dashboard.

You will now see all labels added and your site becomes a lot more user-friendly and less confusing.

We can define the functionalities of our new post types with an array under the variable ‘supports’; basically the ‘supports’ line defines which functionalities should be supported, i.e. which content should be displayed.

In our example, the line above looks like this:

'supports' => array('title','editor','comments')

When you go to your dashboard, and add a new WP Tip you will see the editor shows the ‘title’, ‘content’ and ‘comments’ fields.

While we can go crazy on adding supported functionality, we will here just look at some standard functionalities. To add more functionality we just need to append the array in the supports variable like so:

'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_tips'

By adding the above functionalities to the supports variable, we get something pretty close to the standard post editor, since we add the author, excerpts and custom fields as well as the featured picture functionality.

Also we can add a new variable, such as ‘has archive’ and then name the archive, in our example ‘WordPress Tips’.

This archive variable allows us to create an index page just for the WP Tips post  types.

Our Code for the WP Tips Custom Post Type is as follows:

<?php

// Add new post type for WP Tips
add_action('init', 'wordpress_tips_init');
function wordpress_tips_init()
{

$wordpress_tips_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Tips', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Tip', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Tips'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Tip', 'wordpress_tips'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Tip'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Tip'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Tip'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Tip'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Tips'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Tips found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Tips found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);
$args = array(

/*      'label' => _x('WP Tips'), */
'labels' => $wordpress_tips_labels,
/*      'singular_label' => _x('WP Tips'),   */
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => null,
'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_tips'
);
register_post_type('wordpress_tips',$args);
}

Copy and paste with the necessary changes for the other custom post types and save the file.

Check it out from the Dashboard Menu and the Editor.

As per now, our custom posts menu in the dashboard is positioned just above appearance and below comments. As custom posts are similar to posts, we want to move the custom post tabs just below the Posts tab.

As you can see from our code above, the menu position is set to ‘null’. The value ‘null’ makes that the custom post types are added at the bottom of the first section of the dashboard menu.

Depending of where you want to position your custom posts, you will need to change the value ‘null’ to another value according to the below reference scale:

0 — at the very top
5 — below Posts
10 — below Media
15 — below Links
20 — below Pages
25 — below comments
60 — below first separator
65 — below Plugins
70 — below Users
75 — below Tools
80 — below Settings
100 — below second separator

As we aim the spot below “Posts” we will use the value ‘5’, which will result in

...

'menu_position' => 5,

...

If you want to set a particular order, you can also use 3 different numbers, like 4,5 and 6 respectively.

Do the modification inside the arguments of each post type and save.

By repositioning the custom post type menu items , we signal priority and importance.

Check it out from the dashboard and note that our custom posts are right below ‘Posts’ now.

In order to make our custom post types stick out from the menu and to add user-friendly visual identifiers, we replace the default icons with custom icons.

There are two sizes needed, 16px and 32 px for the menu and the page title area respectively.

I have created sample icons and psd files for your convenience: please download from HERE.

Decompress the downloaded rar file and copy the image folder into wp-contents/themes (as we had done with posttypes.php, as we want to make these images available to all themes.

To add these icons we introduce a new function to posttypes.php with a function batch including some css/html code for styling purposes:

// Add new Custom Post Type icons
add_action( 'admin_head', 'wordpress_icons' );
function wordpress_icons() {
?>
<style type="text/css" media="screen">
#menu-posts-wordpress_tips .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/tips-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_tips {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/tips-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}
#menu-posts-wordpress_themes .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/themes-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_themes {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/themes-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}
#menu-posts-wordpress_plugins .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/plugins-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_plugins {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/plugins-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}

</style>
<?php }

Note the incomplete php delimiter at the end which is needed to switch back to php from css/html code.

At this stage, your posttypes.php looks as follows:

<?php

// Add new post type for WP Tips
add_action('init', 'wordpress_tips_init');
function wordpress_tips_init()
{
$wordpress_tips_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Tips', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Tip', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Tips'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Tip', 'wordpress_tips'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Tip'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Tip'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Tip'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Tip'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Tips'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Tips found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Tips found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);
$args = array(
/*        'label' => _x('WP Tips'), */
'labels' => $wordpress_tips_labels,
/*        'singular_label' => _x('WP Tips'),   */
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => 5,
'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_tips'
);
register_post_type('wordpress_tips',$args);
}

// Add new post type for WP Themes
add_action('init', 'wordpress_themes_init');
function wordpress_themes_init()
{

$wordpress_themes_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Themes', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Theme', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Themes'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Theme', 'wordpress_themes'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Theme'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Theme'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Theme'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Theme'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Themes'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Theme found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Theme found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);

$args = array(
'labels' => $wordpress_themes_labels,
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => 5,
'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_themes'
);
register_post_type('wordpress_themes',$args);
}

// Add new post type for WP Plugins
add_action('init', 'wordpress_plugins_init');
function wordpress_plugins_init()
{

$wordpress_plugins_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Plugins', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Plugin', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Plugins'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Plugin', 'wordpress_plugins'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Plugin'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Plugin'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Plugin'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Plugin'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Plugins'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Plugin found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Plugin found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);

$args = array(
'labels' => $wordpress_plugins_labels,
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => 5,
'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_plugins'
);
register_post_type('wordpress_plugins',$args);
}

// Add new Custom Post Type icons
add_action( 'admin_head', 'wordpress_icons' );
function wordpress_icons() {
?>
<style type="text/css" media="screen">
#menu-posts-wordpress_tips .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/tips-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_tips {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/tips-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}
#menu-posts-wordpress_themes .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/themes-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_themes {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/themes-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}
#menu-posts-wordpress_plugins .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/plugins-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_plugins {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/plugins-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}

</style>
<?php }

?>

Check it out from your dashboard and you should see something similar to this:

Custom Post Types with Custom Icons

Related posts:

1. How to build a Custom WordPress Site 2
2. How to build a custom WordPress Site
3. Custom Widgets for WordPress
4. WordPress 3.4 Beta
5. Facebook Strategy with WordPress

Build a Custom WP with Semiomantics XO

This post focuses on setting up our Main Theme and a Child Theme. For the purpose of this exercise we will use Semiomantics XO as the parent theme because it’s flexible, user-friendly and highly optimized. In fact you can use most any decent WP theme to follow this tutorial, namely the TwentyEleven which comes with the WP installation.

Semiomantics XO for WordPress — Custom Magazine

Like on any live site, our test site on BitNami allows us to add themes either from the Dashboard (upload the theme’s zip file) or by pasting the theme into the themes folder in wp-contents.

Access your BitNami environment using Windows Explorer and surf to the themes folder. You will see the same folders and files structure under htdocs as you are used to when accessing your WordPress folder on a server using an FTP client.

Folders on BitNamy WP Stack

In order to add Themes, we just drop theme folders into the ‘themes’ folder as per above. As you can see, I have amongst others) added my Semiomantics XO (the ‘xo’ folder under themes). XO will serve as the parent theme of the new website. Instead however of customizing XO directly, I will create a child theme which will contain all modifications. The advantage is clear: when an update or upgrade of the theme becomes available, the parent theme can be updated without destroying the child and restarting the customization job from scratch.

A WordPress child theme consists first of all of a Folder to which we add a style-sheet.

This style-sheet contains a commented header which defines the parent theme folder as well as other optional data and it usually imports the parent theme’s style-sheet with a simple line of code (no need to copy paste the whole style-sheet). Also we will add a screenshot which will serve as a thumbnail in the Themes tab of our WP Dashboard.

Style-sheet for Child Theme

As you can see above, I am editing my files using the free PSPad which is handy to edit the various files we need to develop.

1. Add a new folder to the WP Themes folder under wp-contents/themes; name it as you like your theme to be named, in my case: yorgo12

2. Create a new file called style.css using your editor and save it into the new theme folder.

3. Edit the style.css file by adding a commented section defining:

• Theme Name  (yorgo12 in the above case)
• Theme URI    (this is optional and can be your website where you may talk about your theme; in my case: semiomantics.com)
• Description    (Optional; I have added a simple description, but you may well describe your Child theme, for example: 3 column minimalist child theme for Semiomantics XO.
• Author:           (Optional; put your name.)
• Template:  This is important: put the FOLDER NAME of the parent theme, in my case xo.
• Version:          (Optional: I start with version 1.0)

You could add other data as some authors do, such as Author’s URI and more, but that’s not necessary.

NOTE: All the above information sits between comment tags (/*.….….*/)

Next, we import the style-sheet of the parent theme with the following line of code:

@import url("../xo/style.css");

I have then added a comment to remind that you should not edit above unless you know what you do.

Your style.css file reads now similar to the following:

/*
Theme Name:       yorgo12
Theme URI:        http://semiomantics.com
Description:      Child Theme for Semiomantics XO 12
Author:           Yorgo Nestoridis
Template:         xo
Version:          1.0
*/
@import url("../xo/style.css");
/* Edit here below*/

Save the file into the new Child Theme folder.

4. Add a Thumbnail

Usually the image represents a screenshot of the new site but it can also be a brand logo or any other image. Important: the image should be called ‘screenshot’ and be in png format to fit into WP. Use image size 300px x 225px for best display.

screenshot.png

Drop the image into the Child Theme folder.

Let’s now activate our new Child Theme from the WP Dashboard under Appearance/Themes.

What you will see is an out of the box XO when looking at the front-end of the site.

Having set the base for our custom development, we will start now to adapt the site to the needs of the hypothetical customer. Continue reading the next post.

No related posts.

Custom WordPress Design and Developments

This post will start a series of articles about building custom Websites based on WordPress and the Semiomantics XO Theme.

We will therefore use most of our remaining daily Ycademy calls this month to go into advanced customization issues. But first we will start at the beginning by planning and formulating a project which will allow us to test code, functions and design.

Semiomantics XO Custom Theme for WordPress

For the purpose of this exercise, we will build plan and execute a hypothetical customer’s project.

The new website will be about WordPress, namely about WordPress Tips, Themes and Plugins. It’s a site for a WordPress developer and web designer.

The structure of the Website will be based on WordPress and include some static pages such as the About, Contact, Imprint and Privacy pages as well as structured dynamic content.  As the site will focus on 3 main topics, Tips, Themes and Plugins, we will build for each of these topics custom Posts and Taxonomies.

To build the new website in a test environment, we install BitNami and namely the WordPress stack (free download). BitNami creates an independent (Apache) server environment with MySQL server and installed WordPress, ready to use via our browser. If you are used to Firefox and Firebug, you will find it easy to customize your styles and designs.

Now we can access the WordPress Dashboard via the browser and the files using windows explorer.

We are ready to start working on our project. Please look forward to the next related post where we will start adding Semiomantics XO and start building our custom child theme.

Related posts:

1. Transparent Fonts for Photo Site
2. Build your Flash Website
3. Elegant WordPress by Semiomantics 101
4. XO Photo Press WordPress Theme
5. Best WordPress Business Themes

SuperMoon 2012 Image

The edited version of the SuperMoon 2012 from Vouliagmeni.

Related posts:

1. How to shoot the Moon with a Point and Shoot Camera
2. Flowers from Vouliagmeni Beach
3. Image Editing and Post Editing
4. Ycademy Online Seminar January 2012
5. Ycademy Online Seminar Photo Publishing with Evo for WordPress

Vouliagmeni Moon Photo with Point and Shoot Camera

Believe it or not, it is possible to shoot the Moon with an average point and shoot camera. In fact, for as long as you dispose of a reasonable optical zoom (300–400 mm equivalent) and the possibility to switch to manual settings, you should be able to catch some details of the surface of the moon. Of course there will be a lack of detail and sharpness, but at least you won’t end up with just a white spot on a black background.

As today the Moon is at it’s closest to the earth for this year, I did a test run last night and brought back the following shot:

This is about as good as it could get

The above was shot with the following

F-stop:                   f/6.3

Exposure time:    1/250

ISO-speed             ISO-400

Focal-length:        49 mm

35-mm focal length:  389

Exposure Program: Aperture Priority

The idea was to figure out different settings to catch at least some of the texture of the surface of the moon.

Tonight I found a nice spot, just above Vouliagmeni’s Limanaki to catch the moon rising above the Varkiza Bay.

Click to view the bigger version for more detail.

This time I went for Shutter Priority and ISO 200 which resulted in an Exposure Time of 0,77 sec. Also I used an Exposure Bias of +0.7 step.

Of course this is not the kind of quality you could expect from a professional picture, but it shows what you can do with most any point and shoot.

The temptation to pull such pictures through Photoshop is evident and I have not resisted just for the fun.

And a cooler version, filtering out some red which we usually see when the moon rises at the sea:

Related posts:

1. Shooting at the Moon
2. HD Video with your Digital Photo Camera
3. iPhone 4 Photo Camera Review 1
4. Vouliagmeni Kavouri Beach
5. Flowers from Vouliagmeni Beach

Normal websites just don’t look right on the phone. As you can see from the image below, a screenshot of an unoptimised site on a simulator, the site shows but the visitor must zoom or scroll left/right or sideways to view any information, overload of irrelevant to their search. Most unsatisfactory especially as most people just need a brief summary of major points, contact form and address to make a decision if what they see is what they need. What we need here is a mobile responsive web design.

Not mobile ready yet?

Mobile optimised website

A mobile optimised website takes into account the much smaller screen size that is available on a mobile device making loading faster, a cleaner more focused customer experience on a sales orientated website. Customers look for you because they have a need. An optimised site as in the example below displays a targeted marketing campaign to satisfy customer inquiries.

Mobile optimised design

Normal website design fills a desktop may have various content that is not necessarily sales orientated but just provides further information. Here the visitor can scroll around and has a wider choice of information to choose from.

As the screen size on a mobile device is much more limited we need to very specific in what we present to the visitor. This doesn’t mean he cannot still access your traditional desktop design.

Advantages of a Mobile responsive web design

1. Mobile and desktop direction to the correct website display.

2. Faster and leaner sales orientated experience to satisfy the need.

3. accessible any time, anywhere and on any mobile device, smartphone, tablet, iPad,  iPhone etc.

4. Attention grabbing professional look giving you an advantage over your competition.

Mobile ready designs

Whatever your product you do need to be adapted to todays mobile market. Around 5 billion people already have mobile phones, many with internet access. Slowly but surely mobile is taking over from the traditional PC this means your customers too. As speed increase to 4G, so does the need for faster loading optimised websites.

If you have a project in mind and need to discuss your requirements you can contact me here.

iPhone Simulator or Emulator for WordPress?

Subsequent to last week’s Ycademy Seminar, I read on Bianca Gubalke’s blog a post about the difficulty to create a WordPress Mobile version without having recourse to a preview tool. As I agree with this statement, I will show you here below a simple method to preview your WordPress Mobile version for iPhone, iPod and iPad.

The first question is: Do we need an iPhone Simulator at all? I have not seen a single free online iPhone Simulator which would render the mobile version of our WordPress sites. Online Simulators are therefore useless for our purpose.

Semiomantics Mobile Developments

Free online Emulators I have come across do not generate a preview of the mobile WordPress version. There are some paid solutions which are however pretty cool and accurate, namely the MobiOne emulator included in the Studio version. There is a 14 day free trial, thereafter a $99 fee.

Surprisingly the emulator included with TheAppBuilder does not render the mobile version — this would be a real plus since it’s a free tool until you want to publish your app to a store.

There is a much easier to use solution out there which is accessible to anyone and available for Mac and Windows:

The quick solution to Bianca’s and still many other people’s problem has been solved by Apple itself. The Safari Browser is equipped with Developer Tools which allow to preview websites under multiple user agents amongst iPhone, iPod and iPad.

Here is how to get there:

1. Download Safari

2. Once Downloaded, go Edit -> Preferences-> Advanced

3. Tick “Show Develop menu in menu bar”

4. From the Develop Menu under User Agent select Safari iOS 4.3.3 — iPhone

5. Your Browser will switch to the Mobile view; reduce browser width to minimum to get the best idea of what it would look like on an iPhone.

To get an iPad preview, just switch the user agent to iPad.

Other solutions are available, such as the iPhone Simulator from Apples Development Tools or the Firefox user agent extension; the latter is not as satisfactory as the Safari solution detailed above.

There is no more excuse for not customizing your Mobile WordPress version, namely if you work with WPTouch Pro :-).

Related posts:

1. Semiomantics Mobile Developments
2. Mobile WordPress and Shop
3. Semiomantics XO on iPad
4. iPhone 4S in stead of iPhone 5
5. WordPress on Facebook

App Look for WordPress

Related posts:

1. YORGOO Press Aggregators for WordPress
2. Semiomantics XO Transparent WordPress Drafts
3. Showcase Portfolio Photo Theme for WordPress
4. Cap Sounio — Sea Urchins
5. Transparent WordPress Semiomantics XO