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Genesis Under The Scope

Genesis Under The Scope

By Jeffro on February 4, 2010

At A Glance:

The Genesis Theme Framework is built on a simple vanilla blog-type parent theme, and can be extended with the use of child themes. Each child theme comes with its own home file, that makes extending the parent theme very easy.

License:

Genesis like all the other themes StudioPress.com offers is licensed under the GPL.

Installation:

Installation was as easy as any other WordPress theme. However, things become slightly more complicated when you want to use a child theme. The Genesis theme will need to be installed but deactivated for child themes to work properly since the child theme relies on the Genesis theme to function.

Configuration And Use:

This is the nuts and bolts of any theme and Genesis doesn’t skimp on options. There are options to configure post content, whether or not to display a post author box on a single post, primary as well as secondary navigation, where to display breadcrumbs, header and footer scripts, disabling comments on posts or pages, and how the blog page will be displayed. It’s important to note that the settings not only control the Genesis theme by itself, but also child themes. For example, if you install a child theme that looks better with post excerpts instead of the full post, you can configure that from the Genesis options panel. This makes changing a themes behaviour convenient.

For the SEO junkies out there, you’ll love the flexibility Genesis offers out of the box as there are a wealth of SEO specific options to configure. You can configure Doctitle settings, search engine indexing, link no follow, homepage, and canonical tag settings. I have no idea what half of these settings do so I’ll put my faith in that the default selections will work best. The option panels each have a note that provides more detail with what the group of settings does, but I found myself scratching my head as I’m not knowledgeable in SEO.

If that were not enough, there are even more SEO options when creating a post or page. I have a feeling that with all this SEO stuff built into Genesis, that having All In One SEO installed would be overkill.

When it comes to flexibility, Genesis offers six different layouts to choose from.

  • Content/Sidebar
  • Sidebar/Content
  • Content/Sidebar/Sidebar
  • Sidebar/Sidebar/Content
  • Sidebar/Content/Sidebar
  • Full Width Content

This should be enough for most use cases but one thing you’ll notice is that there is no way to configure widgets in the footer. Whether or not widgets can go into the footer has been delegated to child themes. If you like widgets in the footer, make sure you use a child theme that has them built-in. Genesis also gives users the chance to give posts or pages a layout that is different from the main site. The same six layout options are available when creating or editing a post or page.

Speaking of widgets, Genesis comes with a few custom-built ones.

  • My Tweets – displays an unordered list of your latest Tweets
  • User Profile – displays the Gravatar of a user, as well as their biography and a link to an about page
  • eNews & Updates – displays an opt-in box for users to sign up for delivery of your posts by email
  • Featured Posts – displays post excerpts and a thumbnail to be used in a homepage featured section
  • Featured Page – displays page excerpts and a thumbnail to be used in a homepage featured section

However, I think the one widget that will get exceptional use based on its large amount of configuration options is Featured Posts. Users can place this widget into a sidebar and configure it to show an author gravatar next to the post, a post image, which category to display, and finally, the order in which the posts can be shown. This also includes the random parameter so you can place it on your front page and upon reload, it will display random posts which is pretty neat.

Genesis does not come with any child themes but there are currently two available to choose from, Mocha and Executive. Mocha is a fantastic looking child theme that combined with the flexibility options in Genesis should please quite a few customers. Executive provides more of the business look as the name implies. The most important part of child themes is that they give Genesis a completely new look and it’s almost all CSS/Image based while still retaining the configuration options in Genesis. If you’re wondering about what will happen when it comes time to upgrade, Brian states that:

While the current StudioPress “classic” themes have required folks to load updated versions from scratch, and meant that customizations had to be redone – the Genesis Theme Framework should end that. We have spent an enormous amount of time and energy on the parent theme, and the emphasis we made on semantics and careful naming of CSS elements should mean that most (if not all) theme updates will not affect your customizations.

On the same topic of child themes, the other part of the story around Genesis is the launch of the child theme marketplace. The marketplace idea is a win-win situation for both designers and customers. Designers can send PSD designs to StudioPress who will then code them to work with Genesis or developers can provide full child themes that are then reviewed for code compatibility, efficiency, etc. Since developers don’t need to worry about writing PHP code to handle the layout aspects of the design, it enables designers to concentrate on creating beautiful designs.

One of the slickest things I discovered within the Genesis theme is the Purchase Themes area. This is where users can preview child themes before they make their purchase. The purchasing of a child theme can be completed without leaving the back-end of the site since the shopping cart pops up in lightbox fashion. This will be really convenient for users once more child themes become available.

Support:

StudioPress stands behind their products 100% and offers excellent support. Customers get access to the StudioPress forum which is filled with knowledge not only from the SP Team, but from the very active community around their products. In fact, the Genesis Theme Framework support section already has 184 threads with over 1,000 posts.

Final Thoughts:

The Genesis theme is a solid product. It works well out of the box and has just enough options and flexibility to fit the needs of most publishers. I’m interested in how the child theme market place will shake out. I’m in love with the Mocha child theme which I feel has set the bar. But considering the amount of designer talent that uses StudioPress themes for their clients, I think that bar won’t have a problem being raised. The best part about reviewing Genesis is that I didn’t have to touch any code.

Last but not least, Brian Gardner has announced that prices for the All Theme Pro Plus membership price will rise on Monday, February 8th from $199.95 to $249.95. This membership gives you access to all current and future themes that StudioPress releases as long as your membership is active. This also includes all the child themes that will soon be available for Genesis.

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Clone Themes Are Bad Mmmkay

Clone Themes Are Bad Mmmkay

By Jeffro on February 1, 2010

Twitter, Facebook, WordPress.org. What do all these sites have in common? They are all successful and have pretty decent designs to boot. It’s no wonder that they are used as inspiration but what happens when inspiration goes to far and you can’t tell the difference between the inspired theme, and the original design? Confusion, that’s what. Not only that, but a bunch of people ridiculing you for ripping something off. The line between something being inspirational and a total ripoff is subjective. In fact, a lengthy discussion about this very topic occurred in the WPTavern forum just before Christmas in 2009 regarding mimicking a copyrighted design. Just about all the members who participated in the conversation said it was bad form, not to mention the possible legalities involved.

Legal issues are also part of the equation. I think if you are using a cloned theme for your website design, you’re putting yourself at risk. There is no telling what might happen in the future which is why it’s best to not go down that road. Sadly, based on the conversation in the forum, enforcing the copyright is more than half the battle.

WPLover.com has also published an article on this topic with a great quote that brings up the GPL.

Please stop this. The freedom in GPL does not mean the freedom to steal copyrighted design. Stop making clones of popular websites and turning them into WordPress themes. It doesn’t matter if you release it only for personal use, or under GPL, if you code the CSS yourself, if you painstakingly recreate the graphic elements in Photoshop. It’s still, as Ryan Hellyer puts it, “illegal, immoral, and unethical.”

Since we are on the topic of cloned themes, I thought I’d share a little bit on how I do things. I’m not a graphic designer nor a CSS coder. I use extensions like Web Developer in FireFox to copy CSS from other websites and adapt it to my needs. I also view hundreds of designs in WordPress and showcase websites to look for things that I want to use on my site. This may include icons, graphical elements, color schemes, etc. I’m not going to create a wooden texture in Photoshop if one is already created to use as my Widget header. I will however play around with the image until it suits my needs. I’m not sure if that makes me a thief or not but I’m not going to reinvent the wheel. Typically, I’ll view websites with color schemes I’m aiming to achieve and either use those or shades of them. I’ve never turned a theme or site into a direct copy of anything anyone else had.

Am I a thief if I take a small part of a graphical element found within the header of a design and use it to create a new graphical element in my header? What are the boundaries I should adhere to when it comes to using images and CSS that are readily available thanks to Firefox extensions and right click save image as?

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Great Group Interview With Popular Theme Designers

Great Group Interview With Popular Theme Designers

By Jeffro on January 31, 2010

I just finished reading this great collection of interviews with WordPress commercial theme developers on Designm.ag. A couple things worth noting regarding the interviews. The majority of them say that competition is fierce and that getting in the market now will be very difficult. That might be true, but don’t let those words discourage you. There is always room for someone who does themes better whether it be design, user interface, or functionality. Also worth noting that most of the commercial theme shops involved with WordPress are anywhere between 1-5 man shops. That’s an educated guess but I don’t think I’m too far off. This means you don’t need a superb team to make noise.

I enjoy these group interviews. They give readers a wider perspective on a particular market. If that’s not all, there are folks in the comments who say they are gearing up to launch something of their own. At the very least, their efforts should be rewarded by the possibility of more client work.

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Review Of iThemes Builder Theme

Review Of iThemes Builder Theme

By Jeffro on January 7, 2010

At A Glance:

Builder is a revolutionary new theme developed and released by iThemes. I had the privilege of being a beta tester of the first version and in this review, I’ll be using the latest release version 2.0.2.

License:

The theme is licensed under the GPL as is all of the themes available from iThemes.

Installation:

Installing was easy. All I had to do was upload the files to my themes folder and click activate. I didn’t encounter any errors but I am reviewing this theme on a fresh install of WordPress 2.9.1 on my local server without any plugins activated.

Configuration:

With every theme available for purchase, iThemes includes a My Theme widget which provides links to relevant information when it comes to configuring WordPress or the special features found within the theme. A nice touch since I don’t have to go searching through their support base looking for the same links.

As for the actual configuration of the theme, this is where it gets interesting. First, you tell builder which pages and categories you want to be INCLUDED into the navigational menu. It’s as easy as checkmarking a box next to a page name. The second configuration option enables you to decide on whether the default text widgets should have default text in order to identify them easier. This is like dummy content. I recommend setting this to yes just to make it easier from the get go to see what’s going on with the theme. Next is the familiar tracking code that would normally go into the footer of your theme. Last but not least, Builder includes some SEO options such as using post tags as meta keywords on single posts and category archives being indexed by search engines.

The bread and butter of this theme that I find exciting to use is its layout builder. Builder comes with four created layouts to use but why stick with those when the real fun is in creating one of your own. First, you have to give your layout a name. Second, select between narrow 600px, medium 780px, wide 960px, or a custom width. Third, select an extension. Selecting an Extension allows this Layout to modify the theme’s style.css styling. I decided to use the built in blog extension. You can then tell builder whether the extension should disable the theme’s style.css file. You can also choose to hide the widget areas to make working with the theme easier.

Last but not least, my favorite part of the process, actually creating the design without using any code. Builder currently uses a module system where you choose from different modules that are available to determine the overall design of the site. There are six different modules to choose from: Content, Footer, HTML, Image, Navigation, and Widget Bar. Most of these should be self-explanatory. Using these modules, I will create a layout similar to the one used here on WPTavern.com with Hybrid News.

In less than five minutes, I was able to create a layout similar to the one used here without touching any code. Thanks to the way the design flow works with being able to add modules above or below each other, you can easily create some creative layouts very easily. This is what makes Builder exciting and this is the kind of theme framework I always thought about when thinking of the term. As a non developer type, I’m able to whip up themes in no time without worrying about hooks, filters, or those other weird terms. That’s not to say those don’t exist as I believe over 50 actions and filters are available for developers to tap into.

The next step in the Builder process is to configure views. Custom layouts can be applied to specific posts, pages, etc. This part of the equation takes the building process to the next level as I can create an awesome front page layout but have an entirely different one for the single page view. Sure, you can already accomplish this manually by creating Single.php and assigning that page template to a newly created page. However, while the creation of Single.php would normally have to be done by hand, I can use the View builder to create a page template which in this case is called a view, then assign that view as I see fit. To make things simpler, this component of the Builder theme provides a Page Template builder so that you don’t have to create each page template by hand. Exciting for me since I’m no code monkey!

The views that can be configured are 404, archives, attachment, author, category, date archive, page, post, search, singular, and tag. All of which would be normal page templates in any other theme except in Builder, you can easily control how the page is laid out for that specific template.

Support:

Support for Builder is available for paying customers in the iThemes forum.

Final Thoughts:

Between the layout builder and the view assignments, this theme is killer because of the ease of use in creating unique looking designs with a couple of mouse clicks instead of modifying code. While not ready for prime time, iThemes has already started to put the foundation in place to add a simple Extension editor which will make it really easy to create styles that can be applied to your layouts. Note that in Builder, layout styles are now called Extensions.

While I was a big fan of Flexx, Builder takes the concepts of Flexx to the next level while also breaking down the walls of limitations that Flexx contained. During my conversation with Chris Jean who is the main driving force behind the theme, Builder is aimed at being the tool used to create a theme from start to finish without spending hours within a code editor. It’s also interesting to note that child themes can be built off of Builder and that is one of the topics covered in tomorrows webinar being presented by iThemes.

All in all, the only thing missing from this theme right now is an awesome style editor but as stated earlier, that’s on the roadmap. If you want to easily create different layouts and have the ability to assign those layouts to specific places down to the post level, this is the theme for you. My hope is that WordPress theme frameworks in the future somehow tap into the design ideas inside of Builder and improve upon them.

Also, if you feel luck is on your side, tell me what you think of what you’ve seen of this theme or ask questions regarding it. Chris will be keeping a watchful eye on the comments and one lucky commenter will receive access to the Builder theme for free!

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Personal Blogging Theme By BloggingTips.com

Personal Blogging Theme By BloggingTips.com

By Jeffro on December 6, 2009

At A Glance:

This theme is compatible with WordPress 2.8.6 and was released by Kevin Muldoon of BloggingTips.com. This theme has two columns, one for content and one for the sidebar with the option of splitting the sidebar into two narrow columns.

License:

The Personal WordPress theme is licensed under the GPL and is available for $49.95.

Installation:

Installation of this theme was painless although I did run into one hiccup. On my local server, I use the WP-PageNavi plugin to handle page navigation. When I installed the Personal Blog theme, I ended up seeing the white screen of death. Here is the error I received after I enabled plugins one by one to locate the issue.

Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error.

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare wp_pagenavi() (previously declared in
C:\wamp\www\wp-content\themes\PersonalTheme\functions.php:404) in
C:\wamp\www\wp-content\plugins\wp-pagenavi\wp-pagenavi.php on line 180

After getting in touch with Kevin, he let me know that information will be added to the F.A.Q. that the theme uses its own page navigation feature which will most likely clash with navigational plugins. This is the only issue I’ve run into with the theme.

Configuration:

This has become the bread and butter of most commercial WordPress themes. This one is no exception as it provides four distinct expandable option columns for configuration as seen in the following screenshot.

configurepersonalbloggingoptions

The only downside I encountered with these expandable columns is that after the save button is pressed, the page is reloaded with all of the panels being closed. I’d much rather see them remain open. Changing the color scheme, fonts, etc is as simple as selecting an option from a drop down menu. This theme offers up to 10 different color schemes and provides an easy way to upload a custom background image. There are 5 different font schemes to choose from as well. If you don’t want to use normal full post listings, Personal Blogging provides options to show excerpts only or a number of posts with titles only. This provides a bit of flexibility in terms of the home page layout.

Sidebar configuration is straight forward with the option to show a bio section in the sidebar without messing with code or a text widget. There is also a place to add social media icons by adding your account link to the appropriate boxes.

sidebaricons

As for the navigational section, there are options to show or hide the RSS/Email section. It’s nice to see a built-in way to subscribe via email. If the search box cramps the navigational menu, you can hide it in favor of using the search widget in WordPress.

tophalfofthesite

Last but not least as has been standard on most WordPress themes, there are a slew of boxes to add things such as Googla Analytics code, Feedburner ID links, the ability to exclude links from the menu and footer links. Speaking of menu and footer links, I want to highlight something I have yet to come across in another theme. That is, the ability to have two navigational menus, one in the footer and one in the footer that can be controlled to show menu items in one but maybe different items in another. On WPTavern.com, I simply hard coded the links into the footer as the theme only has a way for me to easily edit what shows up in the top nav menu.

topandbottommenu

Notice how I don’t have menu item 165 in the menu links area so that it shows up in the top menu. I also have it in the footer to show up and sure enough, it’s in both menus. I can easily adjust whether to have it be on the top or bottom which is a very nice feature as most sites these days simply don’t have the room for all of the different pages and menu items created at the top of the site. An alternative to that problem is drop down menus but unless the theme has those built-in, you’ll be spending time using plugins or adding that functionality to the theme.

The only downside I see from this implementation of the idea is that end users have to figure out the ID’s for menu items they want to show or hide. I’d much rather just see a list of pages I have created and check mark the ones I want to hide in the top menu and check mark the ones I want to show in the footer. Doing things this way would add another notch to the ease of use.

Support:

Support for this theme is provided via a special section on the BloggingTips.com forum.

Final Thoughts:

All in all, I didn’t encounter any issues with this theme outside of the navigational plugin conflict. I can’t comment on quality of code since I don’t know enough to warrant a good opinion but the theme works as is. I think there is enough flexibility in this theme between color schemes and font choices where it wouldn’t take much to create a personal blogging theme design of your own. If you want to see the theme in action, check out the demo.

If you decide to purchase this theme, please consider doing so through this link where I’ll receive $19.98 or 40% per sale.

Also, Kevin has allowed me to give away a few copies of this theme. If you are interested in obtaining this theme, let me know why in the comments and you just may get a copy complete with support forum access.

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BuddyMattic – A Myriad Framework

BuddyMattic – A Myriad Framework

By Jeffro on November 30, 2009

There is a new framework in town, this one is called BuddyMattic. Developed by Ron Rennick with help from Daisy Olsen, BuddyMattic is a theme framework based on Thematic that can be used on WordPress, WordPress MU, and BuddyPress. The unique feature of this theme is that BuddyPress functionality is included in the framework and is activated whenever BuddyPress is detected. I had the chance to ask Ron a few questions regarding BuddyMattic.

The designs for BuddyMatic, do they have to be child themes based on Thematic?

No, buddymatic includes a sample Buddymatic child theme and child themes can be created by changing the sample child theme. For example, in creating the Coffee with Friends child theme that is included with Buddymatic, Daisy Olsen started with the Buddymatic sample child theme.

In a WordPress or WordPress MU blog without BuddyPress enabled, Buddymatic and Thematic are interchangeable and any child theme can be switched from one to the other by changing references to the template (and any includes) from one to the other.

Could you go into a little more detail regarding the BuddyPress detection/activation and how the design incorporates that functionality?

After returning from WordCamp NYC I added an explanation to the BuddyPress codex showing how BuddyPress could be detected and conditional code executed based on it’s presence : http://codex.buddypress.org/how-to-guides/checking-if-buddypress-is-active/.

Buddymatic relies entirely on WordPress / BuddyPress hooks & templates to add the BuddyPress functionality. In every function added via hooks, there is a check to see if BuddyPress is active.

Anytime BuddyPress updates, does that mean the framework has to be updated as well?

Generally, no. An example of where a new version might be required would be custom content support in WordPress themes when that functionality is added in 2.9. That type of change should only be on major releases of WordPress and/or BuddyPress.

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PremiumThemes.net Club Membership Winners

PremiumThemes.net Club Membership Winners

By Jeffro on November 18, 2009

premiumthemesnetlogoLast week, thanks to the help of BHavesh, I was able to offer readers of WPTavern a pretty cool deal. Five PremiumThemes.net club memberships. The only thing you had to do was tell me how you would use WPTavern.com if it were in your hands. The post received a number of comments and in fact, a couple of ideas mentioned I’m going to try and aim towards.

Each comment was given a number. Since there were 38 unique comments, the numbers range from 1-38. The winners are as follows:

  • RGregory
  • Jon Shaw
  • Benjamin
  • Brian – CodeClearly
  • Marlon Burrows

I will be emailing Bhavesh the email address you folks used when submitting a comment and he should be in touch with you regarding your club membership within the next few days. Thanks again for your ideas and a special thanks to PremiumThemes.net for not only offering up a cool prize package but for embracing the GPL as well.

To the winners, feel free to contact me to show me how you’ve put the membership to good use.

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Q And A With Darren Hoyt Regarding TheLocal

Q And A With Darren Hoyt Regarding TheLocal

By Jeffro on November 12, 2009

thelocallogo I recently had the chance to send some questions over Darren’s way regarding the newest theme released by Pro Theme Design called TheLocal. This theme is aimed at the HyperLocal news market and contains specific items such as the weather, date and time, and an awesome front page that is all widgetized. On with the interview!

To start things off, what inspired you to create this theme alongside Ben Gillbanks?

Since before the first Mimbo theme, I had a fair amount of experience designing for newspapers and magazines and I always liked that format.

As traditional media began changing in the last few years, I got more frequent emails from journalists who were either fired or were striking out on their own. I convinced a few of them to trade some insider knowledge for some WordPress help.

One journalist in particular gave me a long list of features that followed the hyperlocal model which was starting to grow. I pitched them to Ben and he was able to take about 90% of them and turn them into widgets or control panel options, which really thrilled this particular writer.

I also started signing up for a lot of journalism communities and Ning networks, etc, to connect with writers and find out what they were looking for. The Local is really just the first step, as we already have a lot more we want to add.

Why have you decided to go down the route of single site and multi-site licenses?

There are people who use our themes to set up quickie websites for their own purposes and may only have a question or two in the forums. The single-license offers support for only that one domain.

Then there are developers who use a single version of Elemental to build out 10 client sites with multiple child-theme designs. When they buy a multi-license, they get PSDs, sample child themes, as well as ongoing support for a number of domains.

thelocal2

What are some of the key points of differentiation from other premium themes?

I think a big selling point is the custom widgets and the fact the homepage is entirely widgetized. Ben has coded it so that no matter which column you insert widgets, the widths change dynamically so it’s difficult to break the layout. This is really important when the audience is writers with limited technical knowledge.

Also the Adsense widgets are nice. They can be used in 6 different sizes throughout the site. All you need is an account number and it generates the widgets, which are sized according to whatever column you insert them. The homepage grid was specifically chosen to accommodate the standard sizes.

How easy is TheLocal to modify outside of it’s given purpose? For example, what if I want three sidebars on the top half of the page instead of four?

Since most of the heavy lifting is done via the parent theme Elemental, the index.php file for The Local is only a few lines -

 
<?php get_header(); ?>
 
<div id="widgetcol-1"><?php bm_dynamicSidebar('home-widgetcol-1'); ?></div>
 
<div id="widgetcol-2"><?php bm_dynamicSidebar('home-widgetcol-2'); ?></div>
 
<div id="widgetcol-3"><?php bm_dynamicSidebar('home-widgetcol-3'); ?></div>
 
<div id="widgetcol-4"><?php bm_dynamicSidebar('home-widgetcol-4'); ?></div>
 
<?php get_footer(); ?>

Even for a new user, styling or moving around the columns or inserting standard content is straightforward.

Also since it inherits all of Elemental’s functionality, the theme comes with a control panel that lets you edit your nav (pages vs. categories), typography, weather, footer categories, header image, and so on.

thelocal3

Would you consider this a magazine theme, or something different?

I think a magazine has more emphasis on original content whereas The Local does a lot more aggregation and appeals to community interests.

Can you explain what “Additional customizable content areas via action hooks” and is this geared more towards the developer crowd?

This has become more common in frameworks like Thematic and Hybrid and we wanted to include it here so that people were free to add PHP functions or HTML within certain pockets of the layout without having to touch the templates and interfere with the upgrade process. There are 12 different regions that you can edit this way.

Anything else you’d like to add or say?

A better way to tour the theme and really see what it can do is to check out
the product screencasts – http://prothemedesign.com/themes/thelocal/

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PremiumThemes.net Club Membership Giveaway

PremiumThemes.net Club Membership Giveaway

By Jeffro on November 6, 2009

premiumthemesnetlogoIn the market for some new themes? If so, you can easily put yourself in the running to obtain a PremiumThemes.net club membership. PremiumThemes.net is a commercial GPL theme club which provides great support and designs all under one up front package price. I’ve worked with Bhavesh to obtain five theme club memberships to give away (Thanks Bhavesh!). That’s a total giveaway price of around $2,000.00. So what’s the catch?

Here is what I’m looking for. If you were in control of WPTavern.com, what would you do with it? Your answers can be serious or they can be playful. I’m more interested in the serious ones though. Each person who leaves a comment will be assigned a number that will be put into a random number picker. The numbers that are chosen will receive the theme club membership. Comments will be open until next Friday so get cracking! Oh, and if you could, please spread the word.

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Nomad-One Interviews Six Great Theme Developers

Nomad-One Interviews Six Great Theme Developers

By Jeffro on October 6, 2009

nomadonelogo When I was on vacation, I took notice of a particular tweet by Ian Stewart regarding a blog post that contained an interview with six of the mainstream WordPress theme developers. Each person had to answer the same question. The entire post is filled with great information but of course, the one that stuck out in my mind is the question of what was their favorite WordPress based site?. I had to blush a bit when I read the answers.

Darren Hoyt – I like WP Tavern and the Tavern forums because Jeff genuinely seems to love what he does and the crowd there are productive and helpful.

There was also the question of what their favorite place was to get info about WordPress.

Adii Pienaar – There’s no one website / blog, so I tend to follow all the main peeps. WPTavern as however emerged as one of my favourites.

Ptah Dunbar – WP Tavern and twitter tidbits.

Ian Stewart – The WordPress Tavern. I think it should be in the official dashboard news. It has a real voice and never stoops to bland pointless posting of lists or parroting of rehashed official news. And get this: the posts aren’t built around driving affiliate sales. It’s a must read if you want a handle on the WordPress community. The WordPress Tavern Forum is great too. There’s real live WordPress nerds in there. Approachable ones even. There’s nothing like it. And when Matt Mullenweg needed to get the skinny on Commercial GPL Themes, where do you think he went first?

I’ll be honest, I was on the deck of the cabin using my notebook to read this post. When I read through the questions and the followup answers, I looked out over the mountains and had one of those self reflecting moments. In only six months, I’ve managed to create something that so far, has been kick ass. It’s not kicking as much ass as I’d like just yet but I figure in due time with some additional elbow grease, it will happen.

While I let my passion shine here in the Tavern as one person, many of the shining aspects of this community within a community are the people. For example, everyone who was interviewed are members of the Tavern forum. These people are successes in their own right. When you have these types of people congregate in one place that is free from bickering, personal assaults, and just want to see and create progress, great things happen. I take a lot of pride in running this tavern and having these folks consider this a watering hole so to speak is in a word, awesome.

What is it about WPTavern that creates this atmosphere? What’s the best part of the Tavern that keeps you coming back for more?

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