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How to customize your WordPress Theme

This post discusses three ways of customizing the new XR Theme for WordPress in view of the upcoming Ycademy Online Seminar:

1. Theme Options
2. Custom CSS
3. Child Themes
4. More Options

Before starting with any customization

Before we customize a WordPress theme, we need to clearly define our project and goals we want to achieve in order to decide at which level we need to intervene.

Also, the project will define the workflow and importance of the intervention.

1. Theme Options

First let’s start by checking out the native theme options; XR theme options allow to implement basic branding options, such as colors, fonts, logo as well as to define layout elements and display of the frontpage.

XO comes with quite a lot of built-in ready to use options. With a few clicks, your site changes face and adapts to most any need.

Most users will be satisfied by just using just Theme Options.

These Theme Options are found from the dashboard under ‘Appearance’.

Other Theme related options are built in shortcodes; these add editing features such as buttons, tabs or others as specified on the shortcode page.

2. Custom CSS

If Theme Options are not sufficient to tweak the theme to needs, then the next step to consider is the Style sheet. CSS customizations can easilybe added right from the dashboard, using the Custom CSS tab under ‘Appearance’ or directly from the top menu bar.

The built in CSS editor helps writing clean code; the code added is stored in the data base and injected into the header script.

For minor modifications, the custom style sheet comes in handy. However, the disadvantage consists in the fact that the custom styles are injected into the header of the theme (check it out from the source code as per below):

This inconvenience can be taken care of by custom optimizing the theme once the design customization is done with.

Alternatively and for more important custom styling, I would rather use a child theme wrapping up the style sheet properly as external style.css file.

3. Child Themes

Child themes are used for advanced customization, namely when there is a need for tweaks going beyond pure style and design elements.

While most design changes can be handled from Theme Option settings and Custom CSS, functional tweaks and structural changes are done by creating a Child Theme, adding namely elements to functions.php as well as template files.

4. More Options

Once you have explored the above 3 levels of intervention, there is still room for more, namely when it comes to add functionality to the site. In many cases this can be achieved by adding plugins.

Advantages of XR The Theme

XR is designed for easy customization. Most users will find the Theme Optimization tools provided in the dashboard sufficient to implement all necessary modifications.

Advanced tweaking is possible, even from the dashboard, whereas I prefer to embed such advanced hacks into a child theme.

XR’s architecture is set to serve most any purpose, making it a truly universal multi-purpose theme. Developers need only one theme as a base for unlimited applications of any purpose, including media and eCommerce.

XR – New Responsive Universal WordPress Theme

Semiomantics is releasing its new flagship theme, the XR for WordPress. The time is right to move on and to take advantage of the most recent WordPress and browser developments.

Influenced by the broad acceptance of HTML5 and CSS3, boilerplate developments and bootstrap as well as easy outsourcing of javascript libraries, fonts and images, I have developed the XR for high performance, smashing loks and unlimited potential for development.

2 editions of XR

The XR Theme for WordPress will be released in two distinct editions:

1. XR Professional
2. XR Developer

XR Professional

The Professional edition will satisfy most end users right out of the box. The fully responsive XR Theme switches automatically to its mobile versions when the site is viewed from a mobile device, tablet or phone or phablet.

A homepage slider, multiple media publishing features, shortcodes, built in Fontawesome icons, and many more features provide great tools to build exceptional websites. Also, the theme customizer provides unlimited looks with just a few clicks.

Don’t forget, XR is built for high performance and excellent publishing: the sky is the limit, starting with efficient Google indexing and ranking.

XR Developer

The Developer Edition is aiming to satisfy two kind of needs:

1. Advanced Editing
2. Advanced Customization

The XR Developer Edition comes with an advanced built in page and post editor which allows users to created page layouts by just pulling in boxes, graphics, media and to place them at will to create smashing layouts and looks.

Also we have added to the XR Developer Edition some features which require access to the script via FTP or from the dashboard, some knowledge of HTML and CSS as well as some understanding of SEO for best performance and advanced customization.

XR can change face with just a few clicks. That’s true for the Pro Edition. With XR Developer you impact on the sou of your website!

Welcome to XR

While you may be reading this post, I will convert my Semiomantics XO powered site to XR … with just a few clicks :-).

 

XO has been created back in 2008 by Semiomantics and it has been developed to its latest version. The development has reached its ultimate limit with the experimental 3.5 version which has been abandoned. It is time to move on and to base Semiomantics’ new flagship theme on a new base, the XR.

Semiomantics XO was the best theme

Back when it was released, the XO was one of the best themes out there to gain Search Engine Visibility with most any content. The combination of a clean coded theme with Semiomantics Optimization lead to astonishing results for all users, irrespective of content and target.

Semiomantics XO Licenses were not the cheapest in the market, but definitely they were the best value for the money. If we are abandoning the good old XO framework and theme, it is because we are convinced that the most recent WordPress developments as well as the more general acceptance of  HTML5 and CSS3 open new possibilities and challenges to develop and optimize websites and their content.

XO was great right out of the box and it provided unlimited possibilities to configure and style the site without messing up the optimization. XO was revolutionary in as much as it promoted first of all the framework with its target keywords and then only the content. This lead to spectacular results and what we called excellent publishing.

While XO development on the present base will stop, we are working on a new generation of XO: the new version will be released later this year and it will not constitute an upgrade of the existing XO but it will be a completely new XO Theme with exceptional features aiming mainly developers and taking into account a minimalist approach to development, leaving developers and designers utmost freedom of expression on a extremely flexible base. A Semiomantics Optimization Pack for that new framework is under development as well and will complete the new XO.

For the record: The existing XO version 3.4.x remains a great theme and I am sure it has still some great times to come, however, I would not anymore sell it as a modern high performance theme, namely if it is set up without the Semiomantics Optimization Pack.

I expect the new XO to be ready for release not before the second half of 2013. Existing license terms will apply, for new Licenses a new Pricing model will be applied.

The NEW Flagship Theme: XR

The new universal theme developed by Semiomantics and virtually replacing the present XO at this stage is the XR, whereas the letter R stands for responsive. XR is a completely different story than XO, it is built on the base of some developments of Boilerplate, Bootstrap, new Semiomantics stuff and more last cry professional scripts.

XR is a truly universal theme as was XO and it adapts to most any purpose users may formulate.

More about XR shortly.

Please notice: this is the last post published on this site on the XO theme – rise the curtain for XR!

In order to take advantage of XR, this site will experience some structural changes and modifications during the next few days. Sorry for any inconvenience this may case and thanks for any comment relating to problems you may encounter.

 

 

Every week we tweet a lot of interesting stuff highlighting great content that we find on the web that can be of interest to web designers.

The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the best tweets that we sent out this past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that we tweeted about, so don’t miss out.

To keep up to date with all the cool links, simply follow us @DesignerDepot

Good tips: How to Migrate from Google Reader to Feedly http://depot.ly/jjUb5

 

A sweet alphabet book for kids about pizza doing things by Ohara Hale http://depot.ly/jjF8P  (+ animation)

 

Detect Vendor Prefix with JavaScript http://depot.ly/jjEuU

 

24 Awesome Web Design Conferences You Should Know http://depot.ly/jjU73

 

Here Comes Another Button: “Send To Kindle” http://depot.ly/jjG3P  via @marketingland

 

Making Sprite-based Games with Canvas http://depot.ly/jf89y  via @davidwalshblog

 

Handy tutorial http://depot.ly/jf8dL  How to Create a Book Cover and Mock Up in Adobe InDesign – Part 2

 

Outstanding Conceptual Art by Michael Kutsche http://depot.ly/jf7qN

 

A Case Study via @smashingmag: The Art Of Storytelling Around An App http://depot.ly/jf8k9

 

Celebrating 7 years of Twitter – http://depot.ly/jhqAS  – #Twitter7

 

The Future Of #UI Isn’t Invisible, Nor Is It Seamless http://depot.ly/jf7ZX

 

Useful tips: How to Add a Flickr Widget in #WordPress http://ow.ly/jf6iU

 

Cool Firefox Sketches by Martijn Rijven http://depot.ly/jf5YI

 

10 gadgets to keep you busy http://depot.ly/jeTXc

 

Collections by Jim Golden feels like a keyhole peek http://depot.ly/jcMUX

 

Perspective photography http://depot.ly/jcOcE  Hong Kong’s cramped 40-Square-Foot Apartments

 

instasham.me/  lets you fake fabulous ‘Instagram Moments’

 

DC Comics heroes go geometric in the awesome illustrations of Eric Dufresne http://depot.ly/jcLRy

 

What’s in a Name? Writers and Their Anthroponymy http://depot.ly/j9aN6  *Interesting read

 

Fascinating wood installations by Henrique Oliveira http://ow.ly/j99iB  via @fubiz

 

For your inspiration: Alexander Graham Bell on Success, Innovation, and Creativity http://depot.ly/j9bqK 

 Want more? No problem! Keep track of all our tweets by following us @DesignerDepot

Type & Grids: Responsive HTML5 Template – only $27!

Source

Ycademy Seminar February 2013

The upcoming Ycademy Online Seminar will focus on Search Engine Optimization and Loading Speed of self-hosted WordPress based websites, and particularly on sites powered by Semiomantics developments.

While WordPress remains one of the most popular platforms for online publishing, the way it needs to be configured for optimized impact has changed over the years. Important changes on the Google algorithm in 2012 and the resulting consequences have been felt by many webmasters.

In order to help customers to get the best out of their websites, it is important to understand the way Google perceives and evaluates websites and their content.

 The Purpose of the WP SEO Seminar

The purpose of the Ycademy WP SEO Seminar is to

• Learn about the most recent modifications of Google’s evaluation criteria.
• Learn how to set-up, structure, organize and optimize a new WordPress website
• Improve SEO on existing websites
• Implement basic SEO features
• Implement advanced SEO features

 Basic Optimization

• Optimizing Titles
• Optimizing Permalinks
• Optimizing Meta-tags
• Optimizing Media
• Sitemap

Theme Optimization

We are looking specifically at Semiomantics XO for WordPress. As the theme contains basic Optimization elements, we will just look at some optional advanced features which are part of custom optimization at Semiomantics.

Advanced SEO

• Duplicate content
• Strip unnecessary links, calls and requests
• Optimize the site structure
• Internal linking
• Tag related problems
• Comments and how to optimize them
• Conversion, sign-ups, feed readers

Off site Optimization

• Social Networks
• Related content sites
• Conversation

Measure your impact

Measure your impact and improve where needed as an ongoing process.

Recommended Plugins for SEO and Speed

We will have a close look at the most efficient combination of plug-ins which can be used on most any WordPress site to considerably improve performance.

Schedule

Saturday and Sunday 23./24. February 2013, from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. London Time

Saturday

We will build a new website structured for high performance as we go through the curriculum. In fact, the whole seminar will be one big huge workshop. The new site will be not just a sandbox, but also a  model for further custom developments.

Sunday

On Sunday we will focus on implementing new features on participants’ main websites. Modifying existing sites is more time consuming and depending on the content may pass the time we have available during the week-end. That is why we will offer support for the implementation issues beyond the seminar.

Registration

To register, please click on the topmost image and get your ticket. Discounts for Ycademy pros as usual – please mail Bianca at bianca(at)ycademy.com.

I am looking forward to one of the most interesting and important WordPress related seminars we have ever produced. While the above schedule may sound technical, the reality will show you simple to implement improvements with quickly measurable impact.

 

 

Top Performance for Semiomantics

With so many things happening in terms of website development and design, it’s time to monitor the top performance of Semiomantics.

 

 

Top Performance for Semiomantics

A few hours earlier, I published a little article on “How to create an A5 folded Postcard” and just remembered to quickly check whether the Top Performance of Semiomantics Scripts are still spoton – and lo and behold and see it yourself on the screenshot below: Google Number 1 – what else! WOW! And due to so many committments and a lot of writing for print this year – and this continues – I could take less time to publish online.

But WordPress based Semiomantics Scripts keep their promise, are continuously checked and updated – soooo good to know!

 

How to create a Landscape Format Folded Postcard

Just to complete the Postcard creation exercises at this year’s final Ycademy Seminar December 2012, I herewith also publish my horizontally oriented folded postcard! So from my previous article you can very easily deduct and copy how to create a Landscape Format folded Postcard and surprise your family and friends with a beautiful close and personal Christmas Postcard – how about that?

I’m not yet in that kind of mood… so I took a picture from one of our guineafowl families with some of their youngsters here in my garden, in the golden evening light. The lady scratched me nicely today when she thought she’d move into my studio but couldn’t cope with glass. So I had to catch her and bring her back out, where her partner was running frantically up and down. Once released, she was so clever as to not follow him but shoot off into the drainage, where it wasn’t really easy to get her out. After that they were finally reunited and have an adventure to tell when they sit high up in the pine tree under the soft light of a hardly visible moon.

 

 

 

 

Mobile Apps

Apps will be the big topic of 2013, mainly because there is a major shift of web traffic towards the mobile web and consequently traffic harvesting will be more efficient through apps than through browser based websites.

The Ycademy January Seminar will focus on Apps Basics and different ways to convert WordPress blogs to hybrid and native apps.

Apps Workshops

The Seminar will be composed of a variety of Workshops dealing with Mobile Apps and namely on the conversion of a WordPress driven site to mobile apps for different platforms.

You will learn about the differences between hybrid and native apps, HTML 5 apps and the different architecture imposed by platform owners, such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and RIM.

While there are costly and complex developments available, this seminar will focus on basics and the most simple ways of making WP available on mobile; the solutions we will implement will be appreciated by many customers, while for others they will just constitute a starting point for more sophisticated and efficient developments.

More information will follow.

All materials will be provided. Tools needed: Photoshop and FTP Client.

Schedule

January 26 -27, 2013 as usual starting at 1 pm London Time each day and ending at 9 pm London Time.

Tickets

Tickets: $85 with the usual special discount of $50 for Ycademy Pros; please get the Ycademy Pro Discount code from Bianca (@) ycademy.com.

Please click HERE.

Fencing of attacks

It’s never fun trying to unravel a total mess. When sites get hacked it takes a lot of time and a hell of a lot of patience to get a website back up and running again and Google friendly.

Yet again the Eval base64 has attacked some of our WordPress based websites redirecting them to their own hacker website or html pages. The malicious executable code is inserted into the first line of the index.php which is the first most noticeable instance. Other instances of malicious code have been found in the different folders, as well as new folders having been introduced. The image folders too were compromised with additional images added. Every file, folder has to scanned to seek out additions and changes and repaired.

Wordfence Security

To this end, there is a security plugin that can be used on WordPress websites and works well too on version WP 3.4, and that is ‘Wordfence’. With the Wordfence plugin you can scan your website periodically for viruses, trojans, malaware, fake googlebots and it emails you an alert. So far I have used the free version which appears to do quite a good job scanning and finding issues. The warning also provides you with some basic information or have Wordfence fix the problem by restoring it from a repository. On the Pro version you can schedule the scanning to be automatic.

Certainly a good basic plugin to help protect your website from hackers. A good rule of thumb for any webmaster to help keep a web site clean is to keep it updated, delete unused and unwanted plugins, check all permissions on a website and don’t allow access where it’s not needed and most important of all, do backups and keep backups.

Wordfence Live traffic reporting

One of the features I really like in this plugin is the Live traffic reporting, seeing where the traffic is coming from – humans or crawlers and logins. The pro version has a few additional features as well the possibility to block malicious traffic in the even of a targeted attacked. (I could have done with this feature a few months ago when a certain website was under constant bombardment by hackers).

So far so good scanning with Wordfence, however, from past experience of these issues I know one must be forever vigilant: you block one door, they sneak in through another, and no plugin in 100% virus or hacker proof.

WordPress and Blurb

Semiomantics is ready with an XO release candidate for WordPress 3.5. We will therefore look into the latest WP developments and the theme updates. Also Blurb has released the integration software for InDesign, which provides smashing professional editing features for off and on line book publishers.

Here is the Schedule for the October Seminar:

Blurb on Saturday October 27, 2012

Blurb is expanding fast and adding new features and tools rapidly. New high quality paper, covers and integration tools namely for Word and InDesign provide all we need for prestigious publications. But there is more, such as Facebook book publishing …

We will give an overview over the recent developments of Blurb and Blurb ProLine before integrating Blurb with InDesign.

Creating a book with InDesign and Blurb

Creating a book is a bit like developing a Website in as much as planning is required and some important decisions should be taken before starting the editing job.

• Title or Topic of the book
• Content (example Photos, Images and Text, etc)
• Approximate number of pages
• Format of the book
• Paper (type, weight and color)
• Cover
• Layout
• Fonts
• Eventual color scheme

We will go through each of the above with each participant to make sure everyone gets the basics right from the beginning. While doing so we will highlight some generally accepted standards and explain the needed technical terms, such as thick margins, thin equal margins and full bleeds and their significance and perception. Other issues such as the gutter and the cover page, the half title and the full title page, page numbers and plate numbers, index and plate table will be detailed and implemented in the work shop.

Then we will create a grid and help lines and as the case may be customized master spreads.

Particular focus will be on typefaces, their meaning and perception as well as on some guidelines about how to use which font for a particular purpose.

Also, we will work on the cover once we know the exact number of pages. The Cover bears usually some defined information as well as graphic and or photographic work.

By the end of the day each participants book will be at a finishing stage with pending fine-tuning.

IMPORTANT: Have your photos/images prepared for print with 300 dpi. Cropping and adapting to fit the requirements of the layout will be done during the session, however the image editing process should be completed.

Semiomantics XO v 3.5 RC for WordPress

The universal theme and framework XO for WordPress is getting ready for WordPress 3.5. We will deliver and test a Release Candidate of Semiomantics XO 3.5 and go through the details on the second day of our Seminar. This will be an important session as we will focus not just on styling, but also on code for advanced customization. These will be the highlights:

• XO 3.5 RC
• A new responsive slider
• A New Child Theme (similar to what you can see on my author site)
• A New Security Plugin
• A new Optimization Plugin
• Introduction to CDN
• Custom templates
• MySQL queries to troubleshoot your database.

All materials are provided.

As you can see from the above, we are looking forward to an extremely interesting and busy week-end. I am determined to go through all of the above sections and the workshops considering that in November and December there are new challenges waiting for us :-).

Seminar Schedule and Tickets

Schedule: as usual on Saturday and Sunday, October 27/28, 2012 each from 1 pm London time till 9 pm London time; breaks as usual.

Tickets: as usual, please click on the below icon and request Ycademy discount as usual from Bianca.

WordPress and Adobe CS6 Seminar

Ycademy September seminar focuses on Marketing with WordPress & Adobe CS6. A 2 day online seminar from the comfort of your own home. Preparations have already begun this week. Busy days ahead.