WordPress 2.8 Themes Cookbook [Paperback]

Nick Ohrn (Author), Lee Jordan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2010 | ISBN-10: 1847198449 | ISBN-13: 978-1847198440

Each recipe comprises step-by-step instructions followed by the analysis of what was done in each task and other useful information. The book is designed so that you can read it chapter by chapter, or you can look at the list of recipes and refer to them in no particular order. There are plenty of useful screenshots to make learning easier for you. This book is for WordPress developers who want to create powerful themes for their blogs and web sites to impress and influence visitors. This book expects working knowledge of the WordPress platform. Knowledge of HTML and CSS would also be useful.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nick Ohrn

Nick Ohrn has been creating with WordPress for more than five years and has worked with some of the biggest media companies in the USA. In his day to day work, he deals with the WordPress source, creates custom themes and plugins, and helps his clients and customers utilize WordPress to run their sites and their businesses. Nick has a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and works full time as a web developer with an emphasis in WordPress development. He resides in Seattle, WA and works with people and companies from around the world.

Lee Jordan

Lee Jordan is a web developer with a large collection of web technology acronyms on her resume that sound like the names of laundry detergents and cause glazed expressions in school children. She designs and maintains internal and external enterprise-level websites and web-based applications as part of a project team for a privately held technical services company. Her work includes proposing, writing, and editing web content and user guides people actually read. She began her career in 1997 as a web designer after graduating from Florida State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, where she swears that she missed at least one home football game while in the computer lab. Lee later convinced Seminole Community College to give her a Web Programming degree in 2003, even though her final project was a Java-based application that actually contained a usable help file.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (July 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847198449
• ISBN-13: 978-1847198440
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,034,259 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not so much about themes, November 10, 2010

By 

KJ - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: WordPress 2.8 Themes Cookbook (Paperback)

This book goes into details about manipulating templates and how to modify/manipulate the various components that can appear on pages but it does not cover very much about theme development. It is not a book for people who do not have a good grasp of PHP and terms used (such as "wordpress performs a query fetching pages based on parameters passed to the function").

For example, Chapter 2: Creating navigation talks about how to list all the pages, categories, tags in a blog and creating menus but there is nothing about styling these items once they are added to a page, or how to make those items appear on only certain pages within a site. I was hoping to find information about modifying or creating pages within a theme and discussion about how to adjust the layout of the site.

Cookbook is a good descriptor for the book. Everything is in the format: If you want this ... do this.

If I did not already have a good idea where to find files in the wordpress folders I would have been struggling to figure out where and how to manipulate the files the authors talk about. This book may end up being a reference that I refer to occasionally for some snippet of code, but it is not something I will refer to when building a new theme for a client.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pragmatic Way To Learn Theme Development, August 2, 2010

By 

Mr. Panah Mosaferirad "joshua_pan" (Philadelphia, Pa United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: WordPress 2.8 Themes Cookbook (Paperback)

In order to develop a killer theme for WordPress, developers need to have a solid understanding of all aspects of theme development. There is more to a theme that the technologies you use to develop it or shiny features that you decide to add to it. Here are just a few items theme developers need to pay attention to:

* Theme navigation
* Templates
* Sidebars (single or multiple)
* Media integration (galleries, videos, ...)
* Theme usability
* Comments section
* Theme back-end
* Site layout
* Search Engine Optimization

WordPress 2.8 Themes Cookbook takes a divide and conquer approach to theme development. Instead of throwing you in deep waters from the get go, the authors focus on each of the above-mentioned topics to help you become a more well-rounded theme developer. This book may not cover everything there is to know about WordPress, but it gets you on your way towards developing killer themes.

WordPress 2.8 Themes Cookbook, as the name suggests, is written for those of you who respond better to a more practical approach. It has over 100 effective tips that you can take advantage of to design your own WordPress theme or take an existing one to the next level. The book reads like one of those "top 100 tips" lists, but it does provide enough details for you to keep up. The code snippets, demonstrations, and tips discussed in this work make the learning process even easier.

There is no better way to learn theme development than actually seeing things done in practice. That's what this book offers. I was also impressed with the coverage of advanced topics and layouts in the last two chapters. While more topics could have been covered, the chapters still have enough information to point developers to the right direction. If you are just getting started with WordPress development or want to take your existing work to the next level, this book is for you.