Blog theme advanced usage and outling for WordPress blogs

Advanced Theme Usage

To step further from traditional WordPress sites, which build upon the platform’s weblog basics, you need to be aware of some of the more advanced features that are available to the theme developer. Most of them build upon the template tags and conditional dittos that you have been using thus far, but the usage may differ. Some techniques, however, will change or add to the functionality of WordPress from within your theme, which may not always be such a good idea if you’re looking to release it for general use, but may be a good fit for the project you’re working on right now.

That’s what it all boils down to, really: taking Word- Press and putting it to good use for the task at hand. Building a WordPress theme and releasing or even selling it is one thing, but building a fully-fledged WordPress-powered site is something completely different. This article is all about taking that extra step and putting WordPress to good use.

Outlining the Theme

The first things you should do when you’re starting a new WordPress project is consider what functionality you need from the theme. Simple weblog designs usually aren’t very complicated you just start from the top and go from there but if you want to build a newspaper-like site using WordPress there are more things to consider. One of the most obvious ones is how you make the site look customized, because, although we all love WordPress, one of the reasons for developing your own themes is to make your site look the way you want, otherwise everyone would just build everything on the default theme and be happy with it.

Before actually starting to design and code a site, you need to figure out some basic things, outlined in the following list. When you have, you can start mocking up, doing paper sketches, playing around with code snippets, and whatever else is in your workflow when creating fabulous Web sites.

The main Web site layout. What sections, pages, and major elements are there to make room for, and how will you populate these with content from WordPress? This usually involves multiple loops and what template files are needed where.
Sorting the content. This is usually all about what categories to choose, and which parts of the site are static enough to be Pages. Also, will there be a need for public tagging? If not, you can use that to do custom stuff.
The small stuff. Will you need living elements in this site, where you can drop poll widgets and special promotions? These areas should probably be widgetized.
Commenting. Most, but not all, modern Web sites with editorial content have commenting functionality these days, so you need to decide if it is the right way to go for this project.
Special functionality. Is there anything you need that WordPress can’t do out of the box? If there is, you need to figure out if there is a plugin that can help (or develop your own), or perhaps even find an external service to integrate into the site.

Knowing what you want to pull offis essential to outlining the perfect theme for the job. This is very important if you’re doing advanced stuff, though not so much when it is a more straightforward production. Either way, the more you know about what you want and need to accomplish, the better.

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