studionashvegas | design and social media

WordPress 3.0 has plenty of new features, and all of them are worth mentioning and diving deeper into.  Over the next few days I’ll be diving into the finer features of the newest incarnation of the WordPress platform.  Everything from Custom Post Types and Taxonomies to navigational menus and all of the custom functions you can sink your teeth into.  Today, we start with the most prolific change to hit WordPress 3.0 – the inclusion of a navigational menu generator.

WordPress’ navigation options before 3.0 were very… eclectic.  There were about 3 to 4 different plugins I used to achieve the desired effect (My Page Order, Exclude from Page Nav, 301 Redirect, etc).  With the advent of WordPress 3.0 came a breakthrough in its jump from a blog platform to a content management platform: navigational menus.

The menu above looks like any typical navigational menu, but the difference lies in the backend.  You don’t need to know page ID numbers, you don’t need to use funky page reordering to get things to work right – all you need is two snippits of code and you can add dynamic navigation to any WordPress site.

First, the function (place this code in your functions.php file):

add_theme_support( 'nav-menus' );

That’s it – for the function, anyways.  Now, find in your theme where you want to put your navigation.  You’re looking for either a hard coded navigation, an unordered list (a typically form of navigation styling and structure), or the function <?php wp_list_pages( ); ?>.  Once you’ve found that, replace it (or add in) this code set:

<?php wp_nav_menu( ); ?>

That’s all there is to it.  Your theme is set up for  navigational menus that you can control in the WordPress backend.  One thing worth mentioning is that this is the default setting.  It will pull the class from whatever you name your menu in the next screen.

What’s that?  You want to add some pages?  Sounds great – click on the Menus tab under appearance over on the left side of your dashboard.

You’ll notice three things on the left side of the menu: Custom Links, Pages, and Categories.  Pages and categories are pretty self explanatory: you can add links to category listings or the pages of your WordPress site.  The custom links box allows you to give an external or custom link/label a place in your navigational menu – good for linking to social networks, other sites, etc.

Up on the top-right corner of the page is a tab called “screen options”.  Clicking this will bring up the advanced options for the menu navigation, such as the class you wish to give your links, XFN relationships, etc.  It also brings up menus for inserting posts and tags into your navigational menu – good if you have an intro post you like to point your visitors to.

You should be looking at the new

I love doing un-conferences – there’s something about the community that’s attracted to a conference who’s mantra is all about information flowing freely.  It’s the morning after the combined PodCamp and WordCamp experience in Columbus, Ohio, and my head is still spinning from the fun times.

I gave two presentations: my staple presentation (and my strong point in the WordPress world) titled “How to Use WordPress for Dang Near Anything” – which basically equates to “Using WordPress as a CMS”, and an introduction to WordPress session.  I love doing the WordPress 101 sessions because it gives me a chance to really share my passion with others on WordPress, and it’s typically people who are more curious, eager to learn, and willing to ask lots of questions – which they did.

Ohio has some great people, and I met a lot more of them today (and was bummed because some of my good friends weren’t able to make it).  There are people here who are just as passionate about podcasting, blogging, linkedin, and all other manner of speciality as I am about WordPress.  Getting that many passionate people in a room together to talk means for some high energy – and lots of great discussions.

We’re heading back to Nashville today, but thanks again to all of the organizers, the sponsors, and all of the other speakers and participants for making the event so fantastic.  I’ll miss you guys, but please, feel free to keep in touch on twitter.

Here are my slides from my “WordPress as a CMS” session – they are a little outdated because of WordPress 3.0, but not by much – the rest of the technology will work together with 3.0 really well.

If you missed my session at WordCampFayetteville over the new awesome features WordPress 3.0 will have, never fear.  For one, the new release candidate (a stable version, but not quite ready for deployment) is out, and most of the bugs have been squashed.  Not all, but that’s ok, I’ll talk about that in a bit.

So, what do you have to look forward to in the newest version of the most popular blog/CMS ever?  Well…

1) A New Default Theme (Hallelujah!)

Gone are the nasty default blue chunky headers, and in its place is an elegant, streamlined photo header complete with drop down navigation and stylish polished features.  There are a total of 6 sidebar areas (2 side, 4 footer) and loads of customization options (background, header, etc).

2) MultiUser (MultiSite)

Taking the golden child of automattic and the still-ok-but-not-one-you’d-take-home-to-your-mother stepchild and merging them together has been no easy task.  But, the awesome people at Automattic have done just that – they’ve merged the codebase for MU and WordPress together to one.  This means that now there’s a new “MultiSite” WordPress option when you’re installing your new WP installation, and you can convert existing installations over with a few simple edits to your wp-config.php file.  There’s also a new role – the SuperAdmin, which will have admin access to all sites, and let the individual sites have their own separate admins.

3) The Menu System

In my opinion this is the “game changer” for the new WP release.  This custom navigational menu system will allow you to create menus from pages, categories, and even external URL’s.  Support for drop-downs can be styled in, as does the new theme, and allows for a super-easy way to customize WordPress like never before (without having to move around, code, or plugin your way to a nice navigation menu).

4) Custom Taxonomies and Post Types

They’ve “sort of” been around a bit, but not in an easy to use form.  Now, they are.  Custom taxonomies allow you to sort posts outside of the normal category/tag elements.  Have a certain color you reference in every post?  Create a color taxonomy and let your users search by color, and not category.  Custom post types let you specify taxonomies inside of them, giving you even further separation (a custom post type would be similar to how Tumblr does things – photos, text, etc.)

5) Choosing Your Own Dang Username

Been missing, been needed, and it’s here – and it should help eliminate 33% of all of the security issues for brute-force attacks.  And, please, don’t set your username as admin – do us all a favor.

6) More Features

Some minor features, such as author templates, a welcome guide, URL shortlinks, automatic inclusion of feeds with a function and others are also included.

What can I do to help?

If you’re willing to go ahead and run the RC (I did, and I have been since beta with 0 problems) then do so.  That way, if you find a bug, you can submit a ticket for it and help out 1000s of other users who may have that same bug.  If you’re a developer, submit your tickets to trac and watch the fun.  Get involved with the mailing list, the IRC chat, or other places to help submit the tickets and get it fixed.  We are what makes WordPress so awesome – the community.

So what about you? What are you most looking forward to about WordPress 3.0?

I’m sitting back at my desk after a looooong series of flights back from Fayetteville, Arkansas today coming back from their inaugural WordCamp.  Chris Spencer did a fantastic job organizing an army of volunteers and sponsors, and the event was fantastic.  I’m hoping I get to go back next year, because there’s an immense pool of talent brimming from Fayetteville.

WordCamps always get me fired up to do cool stuff, and it was a catalyst of sorts for not only getting some cool stuff done with client work, but also for my own personal work.  After seeing the capabilities of WordPress 3.0 and what I can look forward to (and giving a session briefing on what it can do) I’ve decided it’s time to really get serious about a new site design.  So, look in the upcoming weeks as things change around the studionashvegas front – new offerings, new content, and even some new formats [screencasts, video, you name it].

I’m sitting in my hotel room after getting a hot shower after the day’s conference.  I sat outside talking to Brian Collinger for a while (he’s one of Automattic’s Code Wranglers – and the dude knows his stuff).  And that’s what these events are all about – connecting (and reconnecting) with awesome people and getting lots of useful knowledge. 

It’s funny what you have to learn for these things.  Chris Spencer, the event organizer, asked me to present on WordPress 3.0 today as a last minute session.  I agreed, and (although I knew a lot about it) never really got a chance to put it all together.  So, I started a dev site and started diving in.  I learned more just playing around with the development site than I have in a while.

And so, I take one thing, among many, from this conference – don’t be afraid to love what you do, and do it just for fun every now and then.  Because that’s where the moment’s of true learning are. 

I’m heading out for the after party in a half hour… so hopefully I’ll see you guys there.  If you haven’t gotten a chance to connect with me at the conference, please feel free to see what I’m all about here and get to know me – WordPress is not about great software, it’s about the people that make the software great.

Random Quote: “I have a face for podcasting”

Note:
I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with any of the things I talk about –
this is just me putting information out there to think about, and you
can make your own decisions about it.  You’re not sheep – I won’t treat
you as such.

Isn’t it ironic that we have a bit of a double-sided coin going on the Internet at the moment.  There’s a huge debate going on between Apple and Google, Flash and HTML5, over proprietary software.  People are clamoring for Apple to open up their platforms to allow all types of programming (Flash, specifically) instead of closing their boxes.  So, what do people do?  They tweet about it.

On the flip side, those tweets you’re sending out can now be used (and monetized) by twitter for any purpose whatsoever.  What’s more, is that if you post a tweet on your site, and it causes you to get ad revenue, Twitter is legally entitled to a share of that, because you are re-purposing their content:

In cases where Twitter content is the basis (in whole or in part) of the
advertising sale, we require you to compensate us (recoupable against
any fees payable to Twitter for data licensing).

Scary stuff, eh? Your tweets, open to the free world, can now be used by Twitter for anything, including making money.  Makes you want to read those TOS clauses more closely.

So, I want to know what you think.  Where do you stand on either front?  Sure, Apple makes more money locking it’s hardware down… or does it?  Or, should Twitter really have as much power as it seems to with it’s latest Terms of Use update?

This weekend I hit the airways for WordCampFayetteville, and (being an avid conference-goer) I know that there are certain things that I just cannot leave behind.  So, here are some of the tricks I use to make the most out of my conference, whether it’s in my bag, or just some helpful tips.

1. What’s In Your Bag

Make sure that you at least have the bare necessities when you travel to a conference:

• Notebook Computer, Smartphone, or iPad (if allowed) – to check in, post tweets, and talk about the conference.
• Notebook (the pen and paper kind) – to take notes and write down important info if your laptop or iPad is off.
• Business Cards – don’t have a business? Doesn’t matter – you still need them, even if they’re free, freemium, cheap, or professional.
• Space for swag – you’d be surprised how many people forget this one.  You may get lots of stuff – make sure you’re not over-encumbered when you travel.
• Power Splitter – that way, if there’s not enough power, you at least can provide a spot for multiple people to share the wealth.  This will even let you get away with (usually, and after asking) unplugging someone else’s laptop so you can plug in the splitter, and everyone wins!
• Camera – camera photos, besides being nice to have, help you remember faces of people you meet.  Most people won’t mind a candid shot taken of them.
• Water (if you can) – never hurts to have some extra H20 on you.

2. Don’t hit every session if it’s a *camp style conference.

Take time to smell the roses and spend some time in the hallway getting to know people.  Most people will be out in the halls organizing thoughts into blog posts or whatnot, and some friendly conversation (if warranted) can lead to a much more long term relationship down the road.

3. Hit the after parties, even if you don’t drink.

That’s where the magic happens.  If there’s an event that has an afterparty, that’s where most of the fun is going to be, and most of the networking, providing the music isn’t too loud.

Technorati Tags: #wcfay, conference, wordcampfayetteville, wordcamp

If you’ve been following me on Twitter lately, you may have noticed that I’ve nearly completely ditched Windows all together.  I wanted to see if (without missing a beat work-wise) I could switch my laptop over to Linux, and virtualize any pieces of the puzzle that I can’t do natively in Linux.

After nearly a full week, I can safely say that I haven’t looked back.

The process was really simple:

1. I backed up all of my files to a hard disk
2. I downloaded, burnt, and rebooted into the Ubuntu 10.04 Live CD.
3. I replaced the main partition of my laptop with Ubuntu and booted up for the first time.
4. I installed Virtualbox and installed a copy of Windows 7, just for a few select programs.

Honestly, it was cake after that – everything has worked out perfectly, and the content-consuming part of my live has gotten so much easier.  I use Windows 7 for 3 2 program (sets): Adobe CS4, Live Writer, and iTunes (turns out Rhythmbox is not only capable of syncing to the iPhone, but it’s faster).

So, yeah – everything works, it’s super fast, and I won’t look back.  Once I figure out how to install Adobe Suite and LiveWriter (or an appropriate equivalent) then I’ll stop using Windows altogether.

I do have one complaint: Linux blogs are all ugly, minus a select few – come on guys, Linux does not have to be ugly – look at Ubuntu, after all!

I took some time today away from my normal coding duties to go out into Franklin and help with some of the clean-up efforts.  I hooked up with a crew from Rolling Hills Community Church to go out and help people.

I can’t believe just how much devastation is out there. The closer you got to the river, the worse it got.  Videos 4 and 6 have a lot of the major area video, but here are all 5 of the videos I shot.

No, don’t worry, this isn’t one of those esoteric posts to be shared by those who have lived through an event such as 9/11 or whatnot.  This is more like a literal posed question to people who I think deserve to give us an answer. ~Mitch

During and after the flood that hit Nashville in 2010, I stayed glued to WKRN (and the WKRN twitter account) to see what was going on with friends and constituents who were trapped or lost stuff in the flood.

Our local news stations (WKRN, WSMV, and NewsChannel5) did a bang up job keeping everyone informed, up to date, and out of harms way as best as possible.  I mean, when flood waters get into a 500-year flood plain (where floods MIGHT happen once every 500 years) then there’s really only so much planning can do.  But they were vigilant, their news anchors showing signs of fatigue as the night went on.

The twitter stream was on in full force too.  Citizen journalists and news team twitter accounts relayed and received information at supersonic speed.  @tndotcom, @nashvillest, @wkrn and their network of followers spread the news of what was going on to their followers (sometimes) faster than the news stations were.

So… local news stations? A+.  Local Twitter account users? A+.

National Media… White House… Where were you?

It’s 2:15pm CST on May 3rd.  We have only a little coverage on FoxNews and (for most of the morning) neither CNN nor anyone else really was having much to say about it.  Sure, right now there’s concern of the giant gulf oil spill.  I’ll give em that one. But when a bomb almost explodes in New York, a whole day ago, you report on it and go on to something that has a little more meaning.  We had record level flooding, people getting forced out of their homes, and even buildings being swept down major interstates.

Where were you?

We sent a request into the Federal government on Saturday, knowing full well we’d need it after all of the heavy downpours (and we will need help with the rebuilding efforts).

Where were you?

We’ve been watching as friends and family are displaced, sent to shelters, or even lost their lives and livelihoods as the Cumberland river swept over Nashville to levels no one has seen in nearly 80 years.

And what did we get?  2nd billing under a “Happy Birthday Singing Dog” and no word from the Commander-in-Chief.

Where were you?

I guess it’s been enough time to where I can change my question up a bit:

Where are you?

Is it because we’re a red state?  Is it because we aren’t a New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, or other major city?  Is it because we fly under the scandal radar (for the most part) and keep quiet as our citizens prosper and our startups continually do great things?

I do want to go back on a statement I keep hearing: Traditional media is dead – social media is where things are going.  I want to change it a bit:

National media is dead.  Local media, and social media, are the blend of information services we need to survive, and as long as there are television sets we will still rely on our local news teams.

Why? For the same reasons mom-and-pop businesses thrive when chain stores suffer: community.  No one knows our community like we do, and no one knows what we need to hear like the people in it.  Our local news anchors are the community – they live here, they work here, and they have stake in what goes on because its happening to them too.  Some dude sitting at a news desk 1000 miles away – He hasn’t got a clue.

So, hats off to everyone who got us through this mess – i forgot a lot of people, but you know who you are.  And for those of you outside of Nashville that don’t care: yes, we’re still here.  We’re drying out our socks and shoes (and boots) and getting ready to step up and continue to do our thing.

With you, or without you.

Because, the question still bears asking:

Where are you?