In this article, we take a break from some of the more advanced ways to customize WordPress, and share some super-easy customization techniques for the WordPress Admin area. If you’re just getting started with WordPress, or have been running with default functionality for a while and now want to dig in with some useful and easy ways to customize your WordPress site, a great place to start is the WordPress Admin area, or backend. One of the great things about WordPress is that each part of the backend is easily customized using simple PHP functions. In...

   If you run an online magazine, most of your readers will never go through your archive, even if you design a neat archive page. It’s not you; it’s just that going through archives is not very popular these days. So, how do you actually make readers dig in without forcing them? How do you invite them to (re)read in a way that’s not boring? How do you make your WordPress magazine more interactive? Have you tried random redirection? Call it recycling if you like, but random redirection doesn’t have to be about retreading familiar territory. Through random...

   In a post on her blog last year, WordPress designer, business woman and author Lisa Sabin Wilson, talked about how thankful she is to be part of the WordPress economy. It’s an economy that thousands of people, the world over, are benefiting from (including me!). It is an economy built on free, open source software. In this article I’m going to talk to people who are active in the WordPress economy, people from all over the globe. It’s amazing to see how even in the past few years the economy around WordPress has grown, and what new, innovative,...

   If you’ve ever tried working with, coding for or just thinking about anything to do with events, you know they are a total nightmare in every possible way. Repeating events, schedules, multiple days, multiple tracks, multiple prices, multiple speakers, multiple organizations, multiple payment options — the list goes on on for quite some time. Today we’ll show you how to make event management an easy — nay, enjoyable — task by making WordPress do the grunt work for you. We’ll be looking at out-of-the-box WordPress features,...

   Every year designers are pushing the boundaries of what WordPress can do. 2012 is no different. In just a few short months we have seen a large increase in the number of premium WordPress themes being released, and the bar is certainly being raised with the new additions to the ranks. It’s encouraging to see so many designers making their themes responsive so that their themes look great on desktops, tablets and mobile devices. Designers are also adding more custom page templates, short codes and portfolio functionality to their WordPress themes too. Today we...

   If you’re looking for some great ways to improve your WordPress workflow, read on for a massive collection of free themes, plugins, tools and tutorials. These resources were all linked via the Smashing Magazine Twitter stream, Facebook stream, and other social-media streams around the Web. These awesome resources have now been organized and consolidated for easy reference to help you get the most out of the world’s #1 publishing platform. Enjoy! Free WordPress Themes There are probably a billion WordPress themes available these days. But not all of them...

   The WordPress Admin Bar, first introduced in version 3.1, debuted to mixed reactions. A Google search for “wordpress admin bar” returns multiple articles about how to disable or remove it. Version 3.2 of WordPress introduced new features and functionality, and version 3.3 has not only further enhanced it but integrated the header of the admin section into the bar itself. Since this feature is not going anywhere and it figures largely in WordPress’ plan to implement front-end editing, I think we would all benefit from looking at where its features come from...

   Controlling who is able to view a post is a simple task once the system is established. Limiting access to certain users has several applications, such as enabling a design studio to distribute artwork to its various clients, or enabling a small school to arrange for homework to be posted online using a cheap and easy solution. The easiest method to get this system working is to make the recipients of the information “subscribers” (since they need not be able to post) and the distributors of information “authors” (since they should only be able to edit...