Microblogging is all the rage nowadays. Everyone and their cat is doing it. Literally, cats are doing it.

One of the more exciting aspects of WordPress development, Plugins and themes, is how to draw what we’re doing elsewhere on the web into our blogs so we can own them. Right now for most of us that means integration of Twitter into our WordPress sites.

Tweem is a new theme from the new WordPress theme shop called Shopping Themes. I recently received a copy of Tweem and gave it a spin. Read on for my thoughts.

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On the way home last night I was browsing through unread feeds and saw someone talking about installing the new WordPress app on their iPhone. I jumped straight into the App Store and downloaded it for free (look for it under “Utilities”). The download was quick (even on an Edge connection), and within seconds I was setting up my own blogs and checking out the available feature set.

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Tumblelogs are a popular form of blogging, whether they take the traditional minimalistic form or not. When the amount of information is available the way it is online via blogs, strong and simple messages are all the more valuable. The popularity of Jason Kottke’s kottke.org and John Gruber’s Daring Fireball are two examples of this trend in action, despite the fact that their sites don’t fit the new accepted tumblelog design format.

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This morning I received a notice from Vladimir Prelovac that he has just released his newest theme which he is calling Amazing Grace. Since he was nice enough to send me a note about it, I thought I could be nice enough to review it.

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Any fans of Alex King’s work with Share This, a popular WordPress Plugin used to share pages via email, is now available in version two. This version allows for sharing via IM and texting. It looks really cool, with some backend customization options and stat tracking as well. Look for more coverage of it in the next few days.

When I first saw New Yorker I thought it was messy. After playing with it for a little bit, I don’t think that. I think there is some cool stuff going on. And it’s messy.

About the Designer/Creator

The designer only identifies herself as miloIIIVII on her site, as well a professional graphic designer and web designer. Based in Munich, milo created this theme at least partly due to the rage over WordPress magazine themes as of late. So, one can’t help but be reminded of some of the recent giants in magazine themes when turning to this one. It doesn’t quite hold up to the competition, but there are some things worth mentioning. After all, you can pull something valuable out of almost any WordPress theme.

Validation is Hurtin’

Both CSS and XHTML checks came back pretty bad for this one, with more than 30 errors for each. Ouch.

Cascading Style Sheets

There aren’t any comments in the styles. That can be frustrating, especially when there are single lettered class names (as there are in this theme).

Markup

There was some bad technique in the markup, such as a small tag wrapping image. This is an example of an inline tag wrapping a block level element, which is bad.

I also found some divs called things like alignleft and alignright, which is poor practice. The classes should have names which denote the div’s purpose and not the style of the div. This is a dangerous combination of style and structure, which could be a nightmare for changing it up in the future.

Template Files

This theme has all the files it should have, including a couple options for sidebars.

I Don’t Care for the Design

I just can’t stand that font. Wow I hate it.

There are definitely parts of this design that make me cringe. One of the big ones for me is pictured to the right, and that is the font used in a few different places throughout the theme: to denote the Featured post and head up the section for Flickr photos. But, like the caption say: I hate it.

I don’t want to get in the habit right away of pointing out everything I dislike about a theme, so I’ll move on to something I like. I like that milo tried something new with the menu. The menu drops down to a submenu of sorts when an item is clicked. (By the way, see the demo) The effect does work in Firefox and in Internet Explorer 6, although it breaks in 7. Interesting, since I always have more problems with 6 than I do 7.

The Favicon!

I almost forgot. The theme includes an animated GIF which is really flashy. I would suggest getting rid of it immediately (favicon.gif) if you do plan on using this one.

Work to Get it Customized

Javascript drives this dynamic box in the sidebar.

There isn&rsqou;t a whole lot that works out-of-the-box on this one. In fact there’s a long list of things to customize both on the theme’s page and in the documentation (although I do hand it to milo for having some sweet documentation). I don’t think I would ever want to go through and customize everything the way I would need to with this theme. There are lots of places that call individual lists from different categories, so the user has to go into the code and adjust the number to each one they want. This is probably too involved for the average user.

Oh, and I think it’s kind of funny that the designer’s Flickr photos are displayed by default, and you have to change the id number to make yours display. I wonder how many people will roll with her photos on their site before they realize they need to change it!

For these reasons I would say the potential utility for NewYorker isn’t high. I can’t see it being modified as heavily as some other magazine themes, mainly because there seems to be a steep curve to customizing things. This and the validation issues make me put this theme lower on the magazine theme list. But hey, I can’t be the only one with the opinion, right? Anyone else with feedback?

What do you think of this theme? And, if you use it, will you link it up so we can show off some users of this one?

Links for NewYorker

• Author’s site
• Theme’s page
• Theme preview

Since I’ve decided to start reviewing a WordPress theme every day (rather, start doing it again) I find it necessary to break down my model and describe the criteria by which these themes will be “graded”. Here we go.

Five Star System

Each category carries the potential for a score of “5”. The scores go as follows, not surprisingly:

Grading Scale

• 5 – Excellent
• 4 – Not bad
• 3 – Eh
• 2 – Pretty bad
• 1 – Really poor

Validation

As I’ve said before, valid markup is essential to a solid website, no matter whether it is a fortune 500 company’s page or a blog. In this case, obviously, we are dealing with blogs. And each one will be graded on how valid their markup is.

The W3C validation systems will be used (for CSS, XHTML, as well as its various usability tests) and can be a good early indication of the quality of a theme. However, this isnn’t the only way it will be graded on its validity. I will also pay attention to things like messy markup and lots of nested divs, inline styles and the mixing of presentation with content. Oh, and I hope it goes without saying that each theme that is graded well on validation better be using divs and not tables.

Design

Design is a tougher one to call. Obviously it is a bit subjective, but I will do my best to judge based on contemporary methods as well as popular trends (and what is old, tired, and outdated). Of course there will always be those who disagree with me, but then again comments are always welcome.

Flexibility

Themes will also be graded on their flexibility. This means a couple of things. First of all, can a theme stand it when I fill it full of content that isn’t like what is on the example site? In other words, can I use a number of sidebar widgets or only the ones designated? Is it easy to customize? Are there so many hacks I can’t navigate the code? Etc…

In order to rank high under flexibility, a theme must have a minimum number of theme files, such as index.php, single.php, header.php, etc. It will also be great to see things like author.php and category.php too.

Flexibility also has to do with different WordPress compatibilities (2.2/2.3, WPMU, etc).

Something to Build On

If this post seems a little sparse, that is a good thing. I want to be able to come back to this and update it, improve it, and perfect it so that theme reviews get better and better. I will be linking back to these explanations from each theme review, so please jump in and suggest anything that might make things clearer for the author/user/reader. Thanks!

Click Tracking is a simple and useful tool for WordPress users to track clicks with a heatmap (for free). While there are services like Crazy Egg out there that will provide meatier results, some of us might not want to spend a few bucks just to get some quality results. Besides, those of us who are WordPress purists are going to be interested in a WordPress solution before we’re interested in paying for anything, right?

The author says, about the Plugin:

1. You can quickly see which links are popular and which are not.
2. You can put ads next to your popular clicking spots.
3. You can see on which ads do people click the most.
4. Find out which pages are getting most of the clicks.
5. Some people actually read with their mouse (I’m one of them), they mark the text to ease their reading. You will see clicks inside of popular text.

Sound interesting? Let’s get on with it then.

Installing Click Tracking

1. Head over to the Plugin author’s homepage and download the Plugin.
2. Open up WP-Content/Plugins and drop the unzipped Click Tracking Plugin folder onto your FTP.
3. Navigate to Plugins from your WordPress Dashboard to activate your new Plugin.

Setting Up Options for Click Tracking

Once you’ve installed Click Tracking, it’s worth a look at its options page to make sure everything is set up the way you want it to be. Here I’ll go over the most important stuff and make sure you don’t miss anything vital.

1. Navigate to Options > Click Tracking to be sure that the initial settings for Click Tracking are set up the way you want them to be.
2. Don’t change anything on the first few options. I can’t even think of a reason you would like to track anything other than “100%” of clicks—can you?
   
3. This is where you want to pay attention. On “Display Mode”, choose Detailed until you find that the results take too long to view. On “How is your blog designed?” you will want to be precise here. If your blog is centered, say so. Left or right, say that too. Fluid simply means that the size of your site conforms to the width of the browser. If you have a fluid site you should know it.
   
4. Finally, be sure to set the right width for your site, assuming it is not a fluid design. If that number isn’t something on the top of your head (950px for me, what about you?) you may want to try out something called Screen Calipers, which I’ve discussed as a useful tool in the past. Plug in your number and hit “Update Options”.

And you should be set to see some results. If you’re wondering where to go to see the results of the click tracking (as I did) run back to your Dashboard and look for the link for Click Tracking as in the image below.

Now comes the patient part of the game. Don’t you hate that part of statistics? I’m right there with you, as I’m waiting to see some initial results with my installation here at the Playground. But I’m excited to see how it turns out, as well as how it stacks up against Crazy Egg.

Any questions? If they have to do with this tutorial, hit me up in the comments. Otherwise, head over to the Plugin author’s homepage.

(Link via Daily Blog Tips)

One of the best and most widely used WordPress Plugins on blogs is the Related Posts Plugin. I can think of plenty of big name sites that use some rendition of it, if not this very plugin (Daily Blog Tips and Problogger, for example). But even more than using this plugin is using it well. This is both a conceptual and a stylistic issue, and hopefully I can help with both. First of all, you’re going to want to download the plugin and get it installed.

Installing the Related Posts Plugin

1. Visit the author’s page and download the most up to date version. You have to scroll down a little, but it’s there.
2. Upload to your plugin folder and activate the plugin on your WordPress Dashboard.
3. The place to change settings for this plugin is not under Options. It’s under Plugins > Related Posts Options. Weird, but that’s how it works. Go there.
4. Obviously you can set up the plugin to work however you wish. But to fit in with this tutorial, set up your plugin just as I have in the following image.
5. Hit Save! and then click this script at the bottom to finalize the setup process.

Now you’re all good to go. But unless we keep going, you won’t have anything on your blog. So let’s get the plugin working for you and style it so it looks as good (hopefully) as the rest of your blog. I’m going to discuss a couple of the conceptual aspects of using this plugin (and how best to use it) but if that doesn’t interest you feel free to skip down to the tutorial.

How Many Posts is Too Many?

There are many resources out to discuss the pros/cons of more posts vs. less posts, etc. Actually, most recently Daniel of Daily Blog Tips switched his front page post display style. That raised some eyebrows, but the discussion was still a pretty even divide. In this scenario we have the ability to show your readers other posts that they may be interested in, assuming they enjoyed what they just read. The first stop, obviously, is to create solid content that people would want to read. That’s the first challenge. The second challenge is not to give them so many related options that they don’t even bother with the list but give them enough that one of the links catches their attention. Anyone will tell you, this can be a tough balance. In my experience three is the lowest number I would go to, and five is the highest. Anything below is no good (what’s the point) and anything above gets to be too much. Find your balance, and go with it. But be sure that you are taking your blog’s niche into consideration, and what your audience would be interested in (or, conversely, what they can handle!).

Where to Post Related Posts

I would say that the only place related posts are even remotely welcome is on the single post view of WordPress. Anywhere else and it just becomes offensive. For example:

• On the homepage: Too busy. Even if you use more to post only snippets, you’re lengthening the amount of time it takes to scroll down your page. Bad idea.
• On archive pages: Same answer as above.
• On search pages: Seems a bit redundant, doesn’t it?

I could go on, but I hope you get the point. So the following tutorial is going to instruct you to put the call for the plugin on the single post pages only, and now you know why.

Using and Styling the Related Posts Plugin

1. First, be sure you have the settings for your plugin set up the same way I do, in step four above.
2. Now we’re going to want to actually place the plugin on a page. As explained above, we want to put this on the single posts page for the sake of your reader’s sanity. Pull open your single post template under Presentation > Theme Editor.
3. Find the following code in your page:

   <p class="postmetadata alt">

4. Right above that paragraph, drop in the following code:

   <?php related_posts(); ?>

5. But that isn’t enough. We want the list items to actually be contained in a list, so surround that call with the following code, like this:

   <ul><?php related_posts(); ?></ul>

6. And include some sort of header for the post. I like to bold the reference, just above it. Anything like “Related Posts” or “Read more posts like this” will work fine.
7. Hit save and there you have it!
8. But we’re still not done. We want to be sure it is styled correctly.
9. To make your list/paragraph turn out the way ours do here at Theme Playground, use the following code for your lists and paragraph:

   p { font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.8em; margin-bottom: 1.8em; } ol, ul { font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 1.8em 0 1.8em 3em; }

10. And you should end up with a listing at the end of your posts that looks something like this.

    

Thanks for reading and be sure to ask any questions that you have about the tutorial here, and send any plugin questions over to the author’s homepage.

When setting up a new website, one of the most important things to consider is how well your site will rank on search engines. Arguably the most influential of these is Google. Having a Sitemap is one of the first things Google instructs a webmaster to do (it’s good practice anyway) and Google Sitemaps Generator will create one for you, ping Google when you update, and generally keep your site more optimized for search engines.

This guide will show you how to install the Google Sitemaps Generator on your WordPress website.

1. Download and unzip the Google Sitemaps Generator Plugin. The plugin website also has lots of information about what new features are included in the latest version and how to stay up to date with new releases.
2. Open up your FTP to your wp-contents/plugins folder. You will want to drop the contents of the zipped file you downloaded in step one into your site directory here.
3. Copy the plugin to your FTP. If you haven’t done so already, do it.
4. Log in to your WordPress Dashboard. Kind of a necessary step, don’t you think?
5. Navigate to Plugins. Good thing I’m here to direct you, or you’d be lost!
6. Activate the Google Sitemaps Generator.
7. Navigate to Options>Sitemap. This is where we will configure and create your sitemap.

   

8. Read over the page. Most of the instructions are very nicely laid out, cut and dry. It shouldn’t be hard to determine what options are best for you: only you know your own setup.
9. Give it some time. As with any SEO related issue, time and content is all that separates you from a better search listing. Instead of continually searching for yourself on Google, try writing another post to improve your site. Odds are that will help out and make it worth adding a sitemap to your site.

Using Google Sitemaps Generator to the Fullest

But that’s not all you can do with GSG. Here are a couple ways to enhance your sitemap using this plugin:

• Add other pages if you own other pages that belong with your website. By this I mean that if you are running a blog on a subdirectory, this plugin won’t find that and won’t include it unless you tell it to. Use the directions under Additional Pages to add more if you feel the plugin won’t find them.
• Under Basic Options be sure to check the first and the last boxes. The first will automatically configure the priority of posts based on the comment count. Of course if you don’t want this, un-check it (but why wouldn’t you?). The last option will make the plugin auto-ping Google each time you update your site. Brilliant!
• Keep your sitemap named sitemap. Don’t be so creative with it that Google can’t find it: that’s the whole point. The sitemap needs to be very accessible. In other words: leave that option alone.
• Keep your priorities fair. I won’t claim to be an expert at all, but I would say that by ranking each element of your website a 1.0 will actually degrade your content in the eyes of Google. Be fair. If your homepage is the most important page, keep it at 1.0. If your archives are, then switch them around. But don’t go so crazy ranking yourself high that you wash out the quality of the sitemap.

  

For any questions regarding this tutorial or the setup process, feel free to ask here. Otherwise, for specific plugin questions, direct them over to the official Google Sitemaps Generator Plugin page and ask there.