Another day, another time for another Interesting Articles. Today we will be talking about WordPress hacks, some SEO advice, browser compatibility and (web)typography.

1. Latest Posts by Category Archive – Pretty awesome plugin by Alex from Blogsessive. It gives you the opportunity to display each category’s five latest posts. It is an excellent idea for your archives page!

2. The Best SEO Advice For Bloggers – is guest posts on other blogs. I am sure it works for SEO point-of-view, but what about your content on your own blogs? Why not put it up there and build your blog? Anyway, who wants to guest post on DivitoDesign?

3. WordPress 2.7 Comment Enhancements – Make your WordPress theme ready for the new comments enhancement introduced at version 2.7

4. 10 Webtypography Rules Every Designer should Know – Pretty awesome article about Typography on the Web. Definitely a must-read when you are serious about your typography on your site.

5. 40 Super Sleek Fonts for Clean Webdesign – Alright, to stay in the subject of typography, here are 40 incredible nice fonts to use in clean websites.

6. 7 Fresh And Simple Ways to Check Browser Compability – Yes, this is a great development.  You can now check how your site looks in every browser by their HTML/CSS, not screenshots. Check this article, it’ll help you a lot!

7. WordPress Hack – Bulletproof Page Menu Labels – Awesome solution by Alen of CSS Globe. If you want your Navigation item different then you Page title, use this. Works pretty nice.

Getting more information on subjects you are interested in is always a pleasure. Today, I have compiled a list of interesting blogs that I subscribed to recently because the content is pretty awesome.

Maybe you have an interest in the subjects in these particular blogs too. If that’s the case, be sure to check out all of them, because you might miss a few life-saving posts, if you don’t!

1. Darren Hoyt – Darren Hoyt is the lead designer over at Category4 and is in love with WordPress. His popular Mimbo theme (and Mimbo Pro) are awesome! The articles he is producing are of a high quality as well, so be sure to check his blog out.

2. WordPress Modder – Tips, tricks, hacks and lots of customizations for WordPress themes. I found this blog recently via twitter.

3. Hongkait – This blog gives you tips and resources for the blogger and webdesigner. It features some interesting resources lists I have enjoyed (which I usually don’t enjoy.).

4. PerishablePress – I have been subscribed to this blog for some time and Jeff Star is really picking up speed now. I see his articles everywhere lately!

5. WPtavern – WP tavern is started by WordPress-Weekly host Jeff Chandler and is ment to be a blog about WordPress. However, the main idea behind WPtavern is to create a enthusiast WordPress community in the forums. Check it out! You know I’m visiting because the beers are on the house!

If you have any suggestions with blogs I should be visiting, please don’t hesitate to comment. Enjoy the shitload of new and fresh content!

Illustration by cambodia4kidsorg definite

Blogging

So you want to start blogging, right? That is great news, we never have too many blogs on the internet! Welcome to the new blogging guide written with one goal in mind: help you to start blogging. This guide will tell you exactly how you prepare before beginning with blogging and what points you need to consider before you make the start.

I guess you all have read blogs from time to time. Maybe you already have checked some blogs to see how things work in this world. That is only great but it’s not everything you need to know, there is more. You will learn all those things in this guide.

This guide include six chapters till date and in the future I might write some other chapters that might help the beginner out. What there’s written now is enough for a starter to become a beginning blogger.

You can’t learn everything just from reading, there comes a time you have to take that write-page and write your first article. Remember that.

When the time comes, enter the game.

Content Table

0. Welcome to the Guide
1. What is a blog
2. What pages should a blog have
3. Choose a Niche
4. Store your blog
5. Blogging software
6. Blogging Tips and Tricks

Welcome back to another version of “Interesting Articles”. This version is #16 already! Fortunately, DivitoDesign is still doing fine and many new articles and posts will be entering your feedreader this year. Enjoy.

1. Current Web Design Trends For 2009 – Where do you think web design is heading in 2009? Check out the upcoming trends to see what’s coming.

2. 3 Types of Posts that will grow your blog’s traffic – Interesting to see what my fellow dutchman uses to gain traffic. And I think he’s correct.

3. Skout – Resources - I found this site via twitter and it seems to be extreme useful! Loads of resources are gathered in one place.

4. IconLet – Let you search through thousands of icons via a search engine. I found many free icons I would like to use!

5. 10 Irrational Human Behaviors and How to Leverage Them to Improve Web Marketing – This article was a bookmark for me right away. It features some “normal” human behaviors and how you can use that in your marketing campain. Pretty true!

6. Create a Custom WordPress Plugin from Scratch – Learning to programm a WordPress plugin can be helpful for you and your fellow WP lovers. So, if you have a great idea for a plugin, here’s how you can build that.

Back with a nice round up of interesting articles that I came across via my feeds, our Community News and Twitter. Follow me to send in your interesting articles!

1. 148 Free-From-Restriction Icons – Very pretty icon set and best of all, you can use them in anything you like. Even commercial products.

2. 20 Websites with beautiful typography – Many websites around the web make use of lovely typography in their design. Check out these 20 websites that have done is correctly.

3. Use CSS3 in your Webdesign Blog – As many of you know, CSS3 can’t be generally used until all major browser support it. You can use it in your webdesign blog though, because usually these people are on the latest browsers! Nice on, Chris.

4. Adding a Private Page into Navigation in WordPress – WordPress developers are finding new tricks day in day out. Here’s another one: add a private page into your navigation. Only visible for readers that are “logged in”.

5. Lorem2: An all around better Lorum Ipsum expierence – When you are creating HTML/CSS websites, you most likely use “filler” text to make the design feel “real”. This tool has long paragraphs, short paragraphes, but also lists you can use right away.

6. Alen Grakalic: Owner of CSS Globe Interviewed – Interesting interview with the Alan Grakalic, the brain behind CSS Globe and Templatica.

7. Interesting Podcasts – Roundup of the some great interesting podcast from all around the web. Check them out!

That’s it for today. Stay tuned by subscribing to the RSS feed or follow me on Twitter. Enjoy.

As you might know, I have been diving into WordPress theme development and I’ve learned many tips and tricks along the way. I noticed I was forgetting about some small issues all the time.

That’s why I decided to make a WordPress Theme Development Checklist. Oh, and if I forgot about some things, be sure to let me know!

General

• Stylesheet should start with these codes or your theme will not be recognized as WordPress theme.
  /*      Theme Name:  The Name of your theme
  *        Theme URI: The URL where people can get more information
  *        Description: Description
  *        Version: 1.0
  *        Author: Your Name
  *        Author URI: Designers’ URL
  *        Tags: red, black, widget-ready (etc) */
• Download the Sample Post Collection to have a filled WordPress installation to start with.
• Theme preview image
  • 240 x 180 pixels
  • Name: screenshot.jpg, screenshot.png or screenshot.gif
• Widget ready themes
• Add rules to your Comments form
• Backwards Compatibility (WordPress version 2.5+ is alright I guess)
• CSS sprites for optimizing images
• WordPress PSD framework

Stylesheets

Make sure you have these stylesheets included with your theme:

• General.css
• Print.css
• Reset.css
• Browser specific stylesheet – ie.css
• Compressed Stylesheet?
  

Browser Compatibility

Test your theme in a number of browsers to make sure everyone sees the same theme. Use browsershots.org to get screenshots from your site in the most browsers. The most important browsers are:

• Firefox 2.0/3.0
• Internet Explorer 6
• Internet Explorer 7
• Google Chrome
• Safari
• Opera

Blog Elements

Every theme should have some elements every blog should have:

• Title/Logo
• Navigation of Pages
• Navigation of Categories
• RSS links
• Search Form
• Archives links
• Dates/Timestamps
• Comments
• Copyright message
• Past/Next links
• Advertisiments

Styled Everything?

You never know how bloggers will use your theme and therefore you have to style all HTML elements. Here are some elements you might not have thought of:

• blocknotes
• tables
• captions
• unordered lists
• ordered lists
• img

Pages

The basic pages you need to produce for a good template hierarchy:

• Index.php
  • Header.php
  • Footer.php
  • Sidebar.php
• Single.php
• Archive.php
• Page.php
• Home.php
• Author.php
• Date.php
• Tag.php
• Category.php
• 404.php

Valid HTML/CSS

You can not validate your PHP files, so you have to go to your favorite browser and click the right mouse button > view source. You copy/past everything into the HTML validator.

• Style.css (CSS validator)
• Single.php (HTML validator)
  • Normal
  • With Comment/Without Comments
  • Login Required/Non-required
  • Password protected pages
• All other pages (categories/tags/authors/ etc)

Suggestions?

Remember, this checklist is not finished. Because I learn about WordPress theme development all the time, more things will be added as soon as I think of them. My question for you is:

Do you have suggestions that make this WordPress theme development checklist better?

PDF Version

Soon, I will also come up with a PDF version of this checklist so that you can print it and put it next to your computer when you are developing WordPress Themes.

Keep Updated!

Do you want to get noticed when the CheatSheet PDF version gets released? Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, or you can get the latest news delivered right into your mailbox.

Today I will give you a number of articles that I found particularly interesting and that I have bookmarked along the way. Get ready for a nice collection of articles!

1. 15 Key Elements a Website Should Have - You should keep this list bookmarked and check when you are launching a new site or blog. It makes sure your site has everything  a proper site needs.

2. 5 Blogging Business Models – Here are 5 business models how you can make money online with blogging.

3. Upsite Down Text With CSS – Crazy but true, CSS has a possiblity to display normal HTML text up site down.

4. Designers: 6 Tips to Prepare for T-shirt Printing – If you are a designer out there that would like to design and print a T-shirt one day, here’s how you can prepare your design for that day.

5. Tomorrow’s Star-bloggers talk about Blogging – Read some interesting and small interviews about the rising stars of blogging.

6. 10 Usefull RSS tricks – RSS is simple yet extremely powerful. This article gives you some interesting tricks you can pull of with RSS.

7. How to Use Functions.php File – The functions.php file in WordPress themes can get lots of extra functionality to your theme. Be sure to read this if you want to develop a new WordPress theme.

That’s it for today. Many interesting articles have been explored and I hope next time to give you another number of important and interesting articles!

See you around. Maybe on Twitter?

Interesting articles #13 for you, my dear readers. Today we have some typography inspiration, some link-love for upcoming WordPress projects and ofcourse a couple other stuff that grabbed my attention!

1. Typographic Madness – 30 brilliant pieces of work – Noupe has an eye for outstanding subjects for their articles. Enjoy some of the finest typographic designs.

2. WordPress Nexus – WordPress Nexus is a project by WordPress Hacks to provide users with a directory of everything WordPress. There are also WordPress forums online just yet!

3. SEO tip: Google’s XML Sitemap – With Google sitemaps Google hit a good spot. Lots of people use it, why shouldn’t you?

4. 50 Awesome Desktop Setups – This article really made me dream of an awesome Desktop setup. The Apple one’s are sexy? Anyone interested in sponsoring me? =)

5. 5 Steps to a Perfect Tabbed Navigation Menu – Usability Post show you exactly what to check for when developing a tabbed navigation menu.

Want More?

That’s it for now boys and girls. Are you interested in more interesting articles? Check out the community news section of DivitoDesign! It features some awesome articles that helped me along the way. You can subscribe to the community news feed for free, by clicking here.

Enjoy.

Back in Interesting Blogs #1 I have shown you a couple blogs that were the blogs I have been following. Today, I will show you a couple WordPress related blogs I follow and I feel you should be following these as well.

1. WP Candy – WPCandy is a WordPress blog releasing plugins, themes, resources and tutorials on WordPress. Some of the WordPress resources I used to start developing themes like the WordPress Help Sheet and the Advanced Help Sheet. WPCandy also has a WordPress gallery, a community news page and many more. Enjoy.

2. BlogParfume – Blog Parfume will give you information about the latest WordPress developments and the best articles, tutorials, themes and plugins that has been written about WordPress. Take a look and I am sure you find something interesting.

3. WP Engineer – Great blog I stumbled upon a couple weeks back. It gives you smart tips and tricks about WordPress. WP Engineer also cover themes and WordPress related news.

4. Blog Design Blog – A blog focused on the design of your own WordPress blog. BlogDesignBlog offers you free themes and many smart tips and tricks to help you create a better WordPress theme.

5. ThemeLab – This blog is all about styling WordPress themes, just like any of the others I mentioned. Great thing is that all explanations and tutorials are very detailed and easy to understand. You should check out their free themes too!

6. WpRecipes – WpRecipes gives you “daily recipes to cook with WordPress”. They answer questions from visitors and they come up with some very smart tips and tricks for WordPress.

7. WordPress Hacks – This site is extremely updated and very complete. You can find many things about WordPress: themes, tips, plugins, tutorials and even a WordPress Ebook!

8. WPDesigner – Yes, I hear you sigh. Well, the new owner didn’t offer anything at all, BUT the content and WordPress themes Small Potato has been delivering are still valid. The blog is still a large source of information to anybody interested in WordPress.

Looking for more interesting blogs & content?

There are tons of sites and blogs out there I enjoy and read on a daily basis. You can make sure you stay updated for the next part in this series by subscribing to the RSS feed or receive news via email.

Blogging is a business of many aspects. You need to write quality content, promote your content on social media, network with fellow bloggers and if you are interested in monetizing your blog, you need to find advertisers for your blog as well.

If you have your visitors on your blog, you want to keep them and let them browse around. You can do that by improving your blog design. That’s not today’s subject, we will improve the look and feel of your article.

Most important part you should learn from today’s topic is that you keep your reader focused on your content. They shouldn’t be bored.

Make your article look nice too. Photo by Araswami

1. Strong, Italic and Colors

One of the most important parts of webdesign or blog design is contrast. With a proper use of contrast you can draw attention to the parts you want your visitors to see (for example advertisements or your RSS link).

To make certain sentences or words stand out from the rest of your paragraph and content, we can use strong, italic or text with a color.

2. Paragraphs

As we have discussed before, the paragraph is a very important part of your content. The whole article visitors are reading is build on paragraphs.

The important part of your paragraph is that they shouldn’t bore your visitors. If people don’t like how the letters and words “flows” or “feels” they might skip that paragraph, or in the worst case move on and click the exit button. I suggest you read some tips for styling the paragraph.

You also have to make sure you don’t write paragraphs that are too long. You have to keep the attention on what is important. Usually I keep my paragraphs around 4, 5 or maybe 6 sentences, because that is the length myself am most comfortable with.

Paragraphs that are 10+ sentences “feel” like though and hard-to-understand content while if you keep your sentences shorter, it doesn’t feel like that and your visitors read the same amount of text.

3. Images

You are looking, right? photo by Kamoteus.

Using images in your article can make your post easier to read and scan and make it looks nicer. For example, if you align an image inside a paragraph you rebut the focus from the paragraph to the related image.

And if you use an image you should consider adding a caption below to explain what the readers are seeing. That makes it easier to connect the image to the content and that might help the reader to better understand everything that has been said.

4. Whitespace

Whitespace is the most underestimated part of webdesign and that while it has great power: it can make or break a design.

With whitespace you can make the content feel less cluttered and comfortable on the eyes. A very “busy” layout is less easier to read then a layout that adds enough space between elements. I suggest you read this article by A List Apart about whitespace.

5. Titles

Did you take a look at this article? It is separated in chapters, and all these chapters have a title that stands out and makes a structured article. With one fast look your visitor you can see what each chapter is about.

You can achieve a title that works by making the size larger, bolder and you could also add a color. You have to make your title stand out.

Smaller Tips

6. Lists – Organized data is very easy to read for your readers. With lists you can structure information and you can make it look good too.

7. Links – Make it easy for your visitors to see what are links and what are not. Do you remember those default colors? Why do you think the were styled with the colors blue, purple and red? People recognize them as links. You can use some other colors and styles, but remember to let them stand out from the surrounding.

8. Backgrounds – Another way to make some part of your post stand out from the rest. For example, if you have quoted someone you could make visitors look at it by adding a slight darker or lighter color (depending on your layout style).

Important notes

This article is all based on my experience on the web and how I read articles online. Everyone could have their slightly different ways and views and therefore everyone should be able to create an “article-design” that you prefer.

If you follow the basic rules or pointers given in this article you can produce a nice and structured article. Just remember you shouldn’t overdo certain things. Using bold sentences or colors will lower the effect we have been talking about.