Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog (Smashing Magazine Book Series) [Paperback]

Thord Daniel Hedengren (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2011 | ISBN-10: 1119995965 | ISBN-13: 978-1119995968 | Edition: 2

Smashing WordPress shows you how to utilize the power of the WordPress platform, and provides a creative spark to help you build WordPress-powered sites that go beyond the obvious. The second edition of Smashing WordPress has been updated for WordPress 3.1+, which includes internal, custom post types, the admin bar, and lots of other useful new features. You will learn the core concepts used to post types, the admin bar, and lots of other useful new features. You will learn the core concepts used to build just about anything in WordPress, resulting in fast deployments and greater design flexibility.

Inside, WordPress expert Thord Daniel Hedengren takes you beyond d the blog and shows you how WordPress can serve as a CMS, a photo gallery, and e-commerce site, and more. This edition includes new and upgraded examples of cool WordPress usage.

You Will Learn How To:

• Build Beautiful WordPress Themes, including Child Themes
• Create Custom Login Forms and Admin Themes
• Use the Loop to Control Content
• Build Plugins, including Widget Functionality
• Use Custom Post Types and Custom Taxonomies
• Use Post Formats
• Integrate WordPress with the Social Web
• Use Conditional Control Elements
• Integrate Theme Options
• Build Your WordPress Projects for SEO

Thord Daniel Hedengren is a professional web designer and developer who has created numerous WordPress themes, developed plugins, and put WordPress to good use powering both blogs and big editorial sites. He is the former editor of the Blog Herald, a popular website for bloggers and WordPress users.

Vistit www.wiley.com/go/smashingwordpress2e to download the code examples.

Smashing Magazine (smashingmgazine.com) is one of the world’s most popular Web-design online magazine. True to the Smashing Magazine book series delivers useful and innovative information to Web designers and developers. 

Editorial Reviews

Review

'...a good read'. (Theme.fm, August 2011).

From the Back Cover

Go Beyond the Blog

Smashing WordPress shows you how to utilize the power of the WordPress platform, and provides a creative spark to help you build WordPress-powered sites that go beyond the obvious. You will learn the core concepts used to build just about anything in WordPress, resulting in fast deployments and greater design flexibility.

Inside, WordPress expert Thord Daniel Hedengren takes you beyond the blog and shows you how WordPress can serve as a CMS, a photo gallery, an e-commerce site, and more.

You will learn:

• The anatomy of a WP install and how WordPress actually works
• How to build beautiful WordPress themes – including child themes
• How to create custom login forms and admin themes
• How to use the loop to control content, and even use alternatives to the loop
• How to integrate theme options
• How to build plugins – including widget functionality
• How to build your WordPress projects for SEO
• Integrate WordPress with the social web
• How to create amazing navigation
• How to use conditional control elements

Smashing Magazine (smashingmagazine.com) is one of the world’s most popular web design sites. True to the Smashing mission, the Smashing Magazine book series delivers useful and innovating information to web designers and developers.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 2 edition (June 15, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1119995965
• ISBN-13: 978-1119995968
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #723,046 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thord Daniel Hedengren, or TDH if you want to save in on letters, is addicted to words. He writes books, mostly technical stuff but also novels and short stories, and edits magazines - at least when he's not freelancing. You might have read his words in Web Designer magazine, in the Swedish edition of MacWorld, on various blogs on web design and development, or in any of the numerous other places he has appeared over the years. Thord is also a speaker, open source evangelist, and runs the web design agency ODD ALICE from Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.

That is, he should do just that. Usually you'll find him writing on some new crazy project, racing towards deadlines, and cranking out a new story or article. Thord Daniel Hedengren truly is addicted to words.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

98 of 100 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars In my view the best mid/advanced level WP book written to date February 27, 2010

By D. Day

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Let me preface this review by saying this is NOT a beginner Wordpress book. That said, the folks who leave a mediocre review for this book due to this being over their head are ridiculous. If your looking for a book that teaches you "how to get started" with wordpress this is not your book. You will NOT find sections on how to create a post, add tags, install plugins, etcetera. This book is to teach you how to do advanced secure installs, understand the wordpress framework, template tags (the code snippets that make things work), how to create themes and plugins, and start working with some examples.

This book was an amazing for me because of where I am at in my wordpress development. Before reading this book I knew how to install wordpress, set up permalinks, work with .htaccess files, create posts, add plugins, and even do some minor tweaking. I did not however understand the core code concepts of wordpress that make it work, thus I could not advance beyond an "advanced beginner." When I would go to read advanced wordpress books they were all written in techie speak and I always ended up feeling lost.

Enter Smashing Wordpress:

From the moment I started reading this book it was right at the level I needed. I had finished my knowledge of the beginner to mid level stages of wordpress and Smashing Wordpress took me to a solid level of advanced wordpress techniques and theme/plugin building. It is written in PLAIN ENGLISH and not techie speak like most advanced technology books (please remember you must have a solid beginner level understanding or this book will seem complicated).

If your looking to start understanding all that code that makes themes and plugins work and you have a solid understanding of the basics of wordpress this book is for you.

From the very first chapter this book I stated to absorb the wordpress code concepts and advanced techniques I was craving to learn. I am half way through this book and I am quickly becoming the advanced wordpress theme creator that I have been wanting to be. (This book will also give you a solid ability to modify even the most advanced themes)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO WORDPRESS USERS READY TO UNDERSTAND AND BUILD OR MODIFY WORDPRESS THEME AND PLUGINS.

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular Content/Poor Book Design February 13, 2010

By Mark Luetke

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am fairly new to web design and wordpress theme development and have been searching for ways to go beyond the typical wordpress theme. This book gives you exactly what it says it will. It really does go beyond the blog. This is by far the most thorough wordpress themeing book I have found. The content within this book is dense and every bit of it is useful.

I would not recommend this book to the absolute beginner unless you really like jumping headfirst into the very deep end. You really need to have at least a moderate understanding of html css and php to get through this book. The author is able able to cover as much as he does in large part by assuming you can keep up.

The biggest problem with this book and the only reason I am not giving it 5 stars is the layout. I have heard this complaint regarding other books from smashing magazine and unfortunately it is very true. The guys at smashing mag are brilliant web designers but would do well to hire some equally brilliant print designers to layout their books. The biggest problem is the inner margins of the book. They have been designed as though this book were to be read on a vertical blog with identical margins on both pages instead of reflected margins resulting in having to force the book open to read the left page. Sorry to go on about this but it really is a big problem and I hope they will fix this in future versions (or at least in future publications).

Pros:
1. Spectacular content not found in any other single book
2. Covers up and coming wordpress features such as child themes
3. Tutorials for designing functioning job boards, faq knowledge bases, e-commerce sites, portfolio sites and more
4. 2 chapters on functions.php and plugin development
5. Too many great things content wise to list!

Cons:
1. Not recommended for the beginner
2. Layout of the book is quite poor and makes reading difficult

Overall:
If you are serious about creating your own wordpress themes and have experience with css html and php then this is absolutely the book you want.

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars A spectacularly bad book May 10, 2011

By J. R. Tyson

Format:Paperback

OK. I'm not a wordpress beginner; I'm not a computer newbie. I have installed, configured and developed with wordpress as a CMS professionally and installed it to run blogs. I have a higher degree in computer science. I say this because I want to be absolutely clear that this book is bad for anyone at any level.

The book is badly written. It makes no attempt at all to introduce things in an orderly way. I had a more confident grasp of themes *before* I read the chapters on themes than after! Terminology is not regularly explained and where it is the explanations are sometimes of a vague, kind of, sort of like this variety and then the author moves swiftly on.

Instructions are often incomplete. This is a problem because the *context* is not made clear. You can tell me to finish off some settings without being very explicit *if* you've made it clear *where* those are to be found. If you don't then it's just frustrating.

There is no progressive nature either overall or in individual topics. You jump in and jump around and if you persevere you may just make it back to sure.

This book has no use to a beginner and no use to anyone more advanced. This isn't because it tackles intermediate or advanced topics but because it's written by someone who has little idea of instructional writing and no talent for clarity of exposition. If you are a beginner I'd go with Wordpress Complete or Headfirst Wordpress and if you're after something more advanced then the Wrox design and develop book.