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.

Related posts:

1. How to build a custom WordPress Site
2. Semiomantics XO Transparent WordPress Drafts
3. How to make WordPress Themes Responsive
4. WordPress Themes and Development
5. WordPress 3.4 Beta

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. XO Photo Press WordPress Theme
2. Elegant WordPress by Semiomantics 101
3. How to Customize your WordPress Typography
4. Semiomantics XO Transparent WordPress Drafts
5. WordPress Personal CMS and Blog

Mobile Developments for Small and Home Business

The rapid expansion of the Mobile Web and the success of smartphones and tablets open new opportunities and imperatives for Website Developments. In as much as Semiomantics is concerned, the focus is set on two main issues:

• Conversion and integration of web content into an App
• Publishing on Multiple Platforms
• Optimization

Whether it is a simple blog or a shop, a photo site or a video library, a directory or any other content, your website can be converted and integrated into a mobile App. Production cost will vary in function of the complexity of the development. I mention cost at this point because for the time being, App developments are still relatively expensive, but that’s the price to pay for a seat in the front row.

The mobile web and mobile devices and platforms offer today many features designed to enhance conversation, feedback and interaction which are much more dynamic, flexible and user-friendly than those offered on traditional websites. Also, an App is much easier to use on a smartphone than surfing a website.

Bookmarking a website and then accessing (loading) it at a later time is one thing; accessing an app with the content already downloaded to the device is a completely different story. Surfing the web on a smart device is in many countries relatively slow and linked to excessive cost for bandwidth. The App is a onetime download and thereafter only updates will need to be downloaded, which saves time and bandwidth.

Communication between the user and the App owner or amongst the users can take place using all mobile features, from email, over SMS to Push Notifications which will display an alert immediately. Skype integration (or other communication plugins) is a plus.

The mobile web has been dominated by Blackberry first, today by Apple (iOS, iPhone, iPad), Android Operating System by Google and Microsoft with Windows Mobile. Producing for multiple platforms is costly but seems to become a necessity for as long as no uniform standards prevail.

Like publishing a website, App publishing has to do with visibility, traffic and sales. Mobile web users are active on Google, Facebook and in App Stores to find what they are looking for. This is a key issue: Apple’s App Store with over 500 000 Apps has become a real search heaven. If your name, brand or product is not available there, you are losing out on the potential of the mobile market.

You can write the best App in this world, if it cannot be discovered by interested people, it’s worthless. As mobile web users surf the stores to find Apps corresponding to their needs, it is important to

1. Optimize the App you submit to a store and to monitor downloads and reviews
2. Market the App inside and outside the store.
3. Make sure search algorithms can detect and become aware of the existence of your app and as the case may be optimize for top ranking.

For the time being it is not clear how Search Engines will deal with Apps nor how App stores will make more App related info available to bots, however it can be expected that sooner or later Google will include App results as they have included Video and Images or Local Content into their search returns.

Related posts:

1. Semiomantics Mobile Developments
2. XO Mobile Theme with WPTouch Pro
3. WP Best Business Theme Home Page
4. Home Business Tax Benefits
5. Facebook and Home Business

Mobile Developments for Small and Home Business

The rapid expansion of the Mobile Web and the success of smartphones and tablets open new opportunities and imperatives for Website Developments. In as much as Semiomantics is concerned, the focus is set on two main issues:

• Conversion and integration of web content into an App
• Publishing on Multiple Platforms
• Optimization

Whether it is a simple blog or a shop, a photo site or a video library, a directory or any other content, your website can be converted and integrated into a mobile App. Production cost will vary in function of the complexity of the development. I mention cost at this point because for the time being, App developments are still relatively expensive, but that’s the price to pay for a seat in the front row.

The mobile web and mobile devices and platforms offer today many features designed to enhance conversation, feedback and interaction which are much more dynamic, flexible and user-friendly than those offered on traditional websites. Also, an App is much easier to use on a smartphone than surfing a website.

Bookmarking a website and then accessing (loading) it at a later time is one thing; accessing an app with the content already downloaded to the device is a completely different story. Surfing the web on a smart device is in many countries relatively slow and linked to excessive cost for bandwidth. The App is a onetime download and thereafter only updates will need to be downloaded, which saves time and bandwidth.

Communication between the user and the App owner or amongst the users can take place using all mobile features, from email, over SMS to Push Notifications which will display an alert immediately. Skype integration (or other communication plugins) is a plus.

The mobile web has been dominated by Blackberry first, today by Apple (iOS, iPhone, iPad), Android Operating System by Google and Microsoft with Windows Mobile. Producing for multiple platforms is costly but seems to become a necessity for as long as no uniform standards prevail.

Like publishing a website, App publishing has to do with visibility, traffic and sales. Mobile web users are active on Google, Facebook and in App Stores to find what they are looking for. This is a key issue: Apple’s App Store with over 500 000 Apps has become a real search heaven. If your name, brand or product is not available there, you are losing out on the potential of the mobile market.

You can write the best App in this world, if it cannot be discovered by interested people, it’s worthless. As mobile web users surf the stores to find Apps corresponding to their needs, it is important to

1. Optimize the App you submit to a store and to monitor downloads and reviews
2. Market the App inside and outside the store.
3. Make sure search algorithms can detect and become aware of the existence of your app and as the case may be optimize for top ranking.

For the time being it is not clear how Search Engines will deal with Apps nor how App stores will make more App related info available to bots, however it can be expected that sooner or later Google will include App results as they have included Video and Images or Local Content into their search returns.

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Mobile WordPress and Social Media

The fast evolution of the mobile web has created new needs for publishers, whereas the objective remains to integrate mobile web targets into an existing workflow and to optimize productivity with the help of automated conversion scripts and tools.

At Semiomantics the starting point for our development is the most comprehensive conversion plugin, called WPTouch Pro. WPTouch has released its latest version end of March 2012 with some adjustments for iOS 5.1 and many other fixes and developments:

• * Added: Custom advertising options for iPad

• * Added: Simple caching of desktop functions.php

• * Added: Russian language file

• * Added: Automatic archiving of previous settings in wptouch-data directory

• * Added: Compatibility setting for BuddyPress Mobile AJAX support

• * Fixed: Changing user-agent matching that may have interfered with advertising in certain scenarios

• * Changed: Replaced include with locate_template in theme files, should allow child overrides of custom WPtouch Pro template files

• * Changed: Algorithm to reload settings; may have caused settings to be lost in a certain scenario

• * Updated: All translations based on 2.6 strings

• * Fixed: An issue with Register and Lost password links in Classic

• * Fixed: Video issues with jwPlayer and other video sources and plugins

• * Fixed: An issue which could cause the Share button not to show in Classic mobile theme

• * Fixed: Improved appearance for Embedded Google maps

• * Fixed: Issues with Tweet text encoding in sharing options for Classic

• * Fixed: Search form issues with Skeleton theme

• * Fixed: Admin issues for non-English languages

• * Fixed: Issue where style.min.css was never loaded in child themes of Classic

• * Fixed: Broken admin icons when SSL was enabled in the admin

• * Added: Hungarian language

• * Changed: Adjustments for memory management in Classic iPad theme

• * Fixed: An issue with MapPress embeds

• * Fixed: An issue with JetPack videos

• * Fixed: An issue with Smart Youtube plugin videos

• * Fixed: Issue with blank spaces in custom user agent string

The above recent change-logs indicate the extent of considerations necessary for a serious development of an integrated mobile WP based solution. The reason for such complexity lies amongst others in the following:

1. Increasing WordPress complexity and advanced plugin developments.
2. The multitude of mobile operating systems, browsers and devices of different sizes, display resolutions and aspect ratios.
3. The improved algorithms of Mobile Search.
4. The complexity of Semiomantics’ unbeaten optimization for conventional and mobile search.
5. The popularity of mobile and smart devices and the automated Mobile Search privileging mobile site versions.
6. The popularity of Social Networks and their ever changing integration parameters.

At Semiomantics we aim to make complex matters simple for day to day use. As an author or business, you don’t want to spend your time with technical issues or sitting logged into social networks to keep up with the continuous stream of information and exchanges. You want to do your business and be assured that your message gets spread broadly and that visitors requests are piped to proper destination without your intervention.

Semiomantics Developers are trained to build high end customer specific solutions assuring optimized productivity and workflow.

Based on the above, the Seminar will provide all necessary updates and upgrades for existing and new installations of high end websites, namely those built on Semiomantics XO and EVO frameworks.

During numerous Workshops we will knock participants personal sites into shape to comply with the highest standards.

We will go step by step through the set-up and development of the customized version of each participants author site. This includes the following workshops:

1. Build a Mobile Child Theme for your Website.

2. Build OS specific Icons.

3. Build a Start up screen (image).

4. Build Mobile specific WP 3.0 menus.

5. Custom Links and Icons.

6. Integrate Advertizing: Adsense, Admob, Custom Ads.

7. Custom Post formats for the Mobile theme.

8. Test Plugin compatibility and create your mobile plugin menu.

9. Embed media for Mobile content, YouTube, Vimeo or self-hosted standard h.264 encoded media.

10. Specifics for tablet computing, namely for the iPad and other touch tablets.

We will focus on Facebook in particular. Mobile Facebook is quite restrictive; it is therefore important to learn about what is visible on mobile FB and what cannot be accessed, respectively, how we may work around some of these restrictions.

In fact: Mobile Facebook is quite disappointing, be it whether you access it via the App or the browser. Custom content on app driven canvas pages and page favorites don’t display! Even promoting their link on the wall will not trigger any display. There are some workarounds by using different browsers where you can modify browser settings and simulate a desktop browser, but that’s not a solution for the masses.

Facebook is not here to promote YOUR site but just to grab your content for it’s own purpose.

• We will show you how to work around the problem and take advantage of the FB App and Mobile Site to get most out of it. The goal is to achieve that Facebook works for you and not you for Facebook.

• We will also come back to the desktop version of Facebook, showing how to build the most neutral and minimalist Facebook page for full and perfect control of all your content.

The Ycademy Online Seminar will take place on April 28/29, 2012 starting daily as usual at 1 p.m. London Time and closing at 9 p.m. London time.

All materials and scripts are provided and included.

The cost for this seminar is $85; discounts as usual for Ycademy Pros (please mail Bianca at bianca(at)ycademy.com for the coupon code.

Click on the below image to get your ticket.

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WordPress 3.4 Beta Custom Headers and Backgrounds

The release of WordPress 3.4 Beta raises a number of problemsquestions for theme designers in as much as Custom Headers and Custom Backgrounds are concerned.

The implementation methods via add_custom_background() and add_custom_image_header() will be depreciated and replaced by a more powerful method via add_theme_support().

Due to the depreciation of the old calls, we will need to update the themes and make the modifications needed to take advantage of the new features provided by WordPress 3.4. The new theme versions will work with WP 3.4 minimum and must not be used with previous WP versions.

Custom developments and child themes may need a special treatment, depending on the degree of customization. I will arrange for some developers calls or set up some tutorials in due course. For the time being I am testing WP 3.4 Beta to check backwards compatibility using our themes.

I will keep you posted on results and updates.

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Facebook Page Publishing with New Timeline

As from March 30, Facebook pages will change their look and features. I have presented the new options at last week-end’s Ycademy Seminar. In order to take advantage of the new features, companies, brands or people in general must adapt to the new format and can optionally expand visibility and interactivity using a well thought publishing concept. The concept I am talking about is the Semiomantics Facebook Publishing Concept.

Semiomantics Facebook Publishing Concept

Semiomantics has been focused on developing high performance scripts for online publishing since 2008. Originally the main target was SEO to reach Google Top 10 listings and to gain high visibility and traffic on and from search engines.

Semiomantics main concern has always been to control and secure content and to make it available online in the customer’s own rights, rather than to entrust third party sites such as social networks with the content and letting them handle the publication. The second most important concern is productivity and an efficient workflow, allowing to edit and publish on one place only all content for the web (including the mobile web) and to channel it then to the different target locations, networks and sites.

The Semiomantics Facebook Publishing Concept is in line with Semiomantics proven SEO.

In the center of the concept we position the Semiomantics Publisher, a WordPress based website expanded with all necessary bells and whistles to communicate with Search Engines and Social Networks as well as with the Mobile Web.

The most popular base is Semiomantics XO, the semantic framework and theme developed since 2008. It is not what you add to Semiomantics XO but how you add it that makes the difference when it comes to plugins and add-on software. That’s why Semiomantics XO is mostly used for Customized Websites by professional Developers and Designers.

For the purpose of efficiently publishing to Facebook (and other social networks) Semiomantics has integrated, optimized  and further developed the best Facebook integration scripts out there, allowing to provide customers with an easy to use, homogeneous solution.

Once expanded with Social Media Publishing scripts, the Semiomantics publishing framework provides custom taxonomies specially designed for FB Content creating, publishing and managing. The idea behind this concept is, that all content is published on our own website and when the Facebook page is called, the traffic hits our own site.

From the Dashboard we can set-up an unlimited number of such pages easily and quickly using the same editor as we use for WP dynamic posts or pages.

To get the pages hooked and deeply integrated into Facebook, we need to use the Facebook App and OpenGraph features. Don’t worry, it’s easy to handle once set up:-).

So, once we have created our FB Page content on our website, we create a Facebook App and then a Facebook Page. We link the App with our Website (from the Dashboard) and with the Facebook Page. Adding our App to Favorites on Facebook, we end up with a Favorites Tab on timeline (to the right below the cover image).

Facebook Timeline Page

Facebook Timeline Pages let us display 3 Featured Tabs on the first line, the Photo tab being fixed and cannot be replaced. Using the small icon on the right of the tabs, the page reveals another 8 tabs for additional use and display of apps. There we will lodge our additional pages created on our Website.

We end up with a Facebook page with highly visible tabs leading to content on our website, be it a shop, images, videos, sliders or any other content. By interlinking the so created pages and apps we offer easy navigation for our Facebook readers and can provide all the content you would never want to entrust Facebook with or share a license with Facebook, like for example on your graphics, logos and other content. (See Facebook’s terms.)

The following post will detail the set-up and procedure.

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Ycademy: Facebook, WP and the Mobile Web

This month’s Ycademy Online Seminar will take place on March 24 and 25, starting at 1 pm London (GMT) time and ending at 21 pm London time on both days.

Some of our developers have asked for a program covering Social Networks, namely Facebook and the Mobile Web and how to take advantage of them to distribute, promote and gain high visibility with own content.

The Seminar will cover the following areas:

• Strategies for Individuals

• Strategies for Businesses

• Strategy for Brands

As you may know, Facebook will change  the rules of the game on March 31, when the new FB pages will be released (again!). In fact the new FB page format will be similar to the timeline format and a few important changes will be of utmost importance to businesses and promoters.

• New Facebook Cover Photo and Profile Image

• Larger, Highlighted and Pinned Posts

• Company Milestones

• New Applications

• Facebook Offers

• FB Insights, Admin Panel and Messaging

• Facebook Advertizing

If some of the above topics do not have a meaning for you, never mind: we will deal with them and make sure you are ready and up to date before March 31.

To the above Facebook on-board means we will add our own means.

The permanent changes of rules and features on Facebook have lead professionals a long time ago to structure and manage their assets outside of Facebook on a CMS or other appropriate website.

In as much as we are concerned, at the Seminar we will focus on consolidating our own assets on a WP CMS, typically XO or EVO by Semiomantics.

If you don’t talk about your business, someone else will do it — probably not the way you prefer. I guess there is no doubt in the business world about the necessity to take social networks seriously. Not for what they are, but for what users can do to your reputation. Internet promo often is based almost exclusively on testimonials and testimonials can take most any form and shape.

Word of mouth or viva voce has been a proven marketing strategy for ages.There are two principals to it:

1. A recommendation by a trusted person will trigger about the highest conversion rate. 
2. A lot of people blowing into the same horn cannot be wrong.

Ad 1: The most important term is “TRUSTED”; it’s not a matter of numbers but of authority and trust.

Ad 2: 800 Million people are trusting Facebook … 800 Million people cannot be wrong! How does that sound to you? Yeah, we have heard such like about most any product. The fact that the masses use a product will attract new masses by building on the humans’ herd instinct’. And it works! Like Hype works and Spam works. If it didn’t work, fewer people would spam or hype up the junk they are trying to get rid of.

So, how can we profit ethically from the herd instinct and from word of mouth marketing in connection with Facebook?

Join the Seminar to find out :-).

Focusing on one single platform or publishing environment is not enough. To reach out for a maximum of customers, readers or just interested visitors it is of paramount importance to build a strong presence on Search Engines and Social Networks. Equally important is to take into account the increasing importance of the mobile web.

Therefore we need to publish and interlink our content in an efficient way to display on mobile and static devices and at the same time we must optimize it for all sorts of Search Engines as well as Social Networks.

The Seminar will show you how to build an effective publishing network across platforms while preserving productivity.

As usual, just click on the image to get your ticket. Discounts as usual for Ycademy Pros; for the discount code please contact Bianca: bianca(at)ycademy.com

Ycademy Online Seminar March 2012

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Best Portfolio and Photo Custom Theme: Semiomantics EVO

WordPress offers a perfect backbone for Media Publishing and eCommerce on a single site.

Semiomantics Developments for WordPress assemble the best modules available to offer custom solutions to satisfy the needs of professionals. EVO is a theme base for custom design and development focusing namely on media producers, photographers, graphic and web designers.

Semiomantics EVO is based and inspired by the work of the best designers and developers out there who take advantage of the latest developments of WordPress, HTML5, CSS3, Java, Ajax and the mobile web.

Code and Scripts have been adapted and modified to satisfy Semiomantics’ highest standards of optimization for excellent publishing, targeting Search Engines and Social Networks.

Semiomantics EVO replaces the flash template Semiomantics Evo and constitutes a second cord on Semiomantics Arc.

The recent release of XO Edition 2012 remains the blockbuster product of Semiomantics in 2012; however we are working on a new XO which will replace XO 12. A new architecture will allow to eliminate some of the heavy plugins we are using at present with XO namely to satisfy the standards of mobile development.

Semiomantics EVO is the ideal platform for high quality editing, media publishing and eCommerce. Semiomantics Developers and Designers are invited to join the Ycademy February Online Seminar which is held this coming week-end.

Shoot Images and Videos with your camera or mobile device, load them to your EVO (can be done from the mobile device directly) and let EVO share your content with your friends and acquaintances on Social Networks without losing the control over your media or products. The shop is easily accessible, fully integrated and can also be added to your Facebook page for example.

Look out for more soon.

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