New Book Release: Build your own Wicked WordPress Themes



Build your Own Wicked WordPress Themes!

WordPress
Hot. Sweet. Rad.

However you choose to describe it, there’s no denying WordPress is a force to be reckoned with.

At June 2010, there were 11.4 million blogs hosted on WordPress.com, plus 13.8 million active installations of the WordPress.org software. This translates to at least 14 million people using a WordPress theme today—and this number is growing like crazy!

This is where you come in.

Our new book Build Your Own Wicked WordPress Themes will show you how to succeed as a theme author, giving you the potential to earn up to $25K a month! That’s quite impressive, eh?

Want in on the action? Click here for your copy

With an all-star cast of authors including Thematic framework guru, Allan Cole; WordPress wizard, Raena Jackson Armitage; best-selling themes author, Brandon R. Jones; and online marketplace specialist, Jeffrey Way, this book contains all the expertise you need to build WordPress themes that sell.

You’ll learn how to:
• Use design elements effectively to create amazing themes
• Leverage the power of the Thematic framework
• Create color variants and custom widgets
• Apply your existing CSS skills to skin up your themes
• Promote and sell your themes for maximum profit
[URL=“https://sitepoint.com/bookstore/go/254/d00db0”]
Grab your copy here

I have just started learning web designing. So i will make to order and see what is given there. But i am sure this book definitely contain good things.

I just finished reading this book in 3 days and I must say that I am very impressed with the wealth of information contained within its pages.

I am reading it a second time starting tonight and getting my hands dirty with all of the examples.

Thanks for such a great book!

Charles

I bought these PDFs ages ago when they were released. I’ve been getting free updates since then - the latest covers WordPress 3. So you know, I’m getting a wealth of information between the two PDFs.

How To Be A Rockstar WordPress Designer (Rockable) basically covers in detail three types of sites you can build with WP such as portfolio sites, a blog, and a general site. But it also shows other types of sites you can build with tips thrown in. I believe it also covers theme options, building a basic plugin and a basic widget. It is updated to WordPress 3.

Digging Into WordPress v3 covers more of the features in WordPress 3 such as shortcodes, custom page types, custom taxonomies, dynamic menus, etc in detail as well as the usual stuff about what to consider when building WP themes. It basically covers everything from security to SEO with everything in between. IMO it’s pretty comprehensive. Very useful.

At the moment these PDFs has most of what I need to know about creating a portfolio site which is what I’m trying to do. So it looks like I don’t really need to buy another WP3 book, at least for now. But I’ll read your review.

EDIT: After reading your review, I think I will buy this book as well because it looks like it covers how to create/sell themes that people want - which is different from building themes for your own projects. But it’s going to have to wait until next week when my new debit card arrives. Thanks for the review.

Looks like I don’t need to buy this book after all because both the Digging Into WordPress and the Rockstar WordPress Designer eBooks cover most things about WordPress and theming and they have been updated for WordPress 3 (free updates are included).

I did buy the book, and it definitely covers custom pages. Those could very well be apart of the theme.

Custom write panels sounds more like a JS thing since it’s functionality mostly comes in real time. While PHP mostly is processed and executed before output is displayed. Unless you’re talking about the ability to write for different areas on the site. In which you use the same write panel, it’s just a category or something is used in the theme to determine where it goes. At least that’s what I’ve gathered from the book so far.

Anyways, I’ve been reading a bit of it every night. It seems very good and definitely covers what the other one didn’t, which is the how and why of everything. Along with treating you like a person who isn’t afraid of code so you get deeper understanding along with a better idea of how it all works and what you can do with it. At least so far.

The one thing that would make me buy this book is if it had a in-depth explanation of Custom Write Panels and Custom Pages. I’m not a PHP developer so it’s been a struggle for me to get my head around that stuff.

I just finished reading the whole book. As usual Sitepoint has done an awesome job. Still my favourite tech book publisher!

The book gives an excellent step-by-step overview of how to build a child theme to the Thematic theme - using many of Thematic’s built in functions. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in order to sell a theme would you not have to build it from scratch - not as a child theme of an existing one? Having finished the book I can see that this is much more complicated than hooking into Thematic and would take a lot more understanding of the backend PHP and research into the massive codex to accomplish.

Also, I’m a bit puzzled at the marketing of this book as a sort of “get rich quick” primer. It’s obvious that coding a unique WordPress theme will take a lot more research than reading this book - which they point out, not to mention the marketing complexities of selling a theme at this stage of the game - also duly noted at the end of the book. In my opinion, they should have positioned it as “how to build your own child theme” which would have been a big enough incentive to buy it, since there is so little up-to-date, (which the book IS!) concise, WordPress information out there.

The book is a fantastic starting point to learn how to configure and custom build your own theme, which is what I bought if for. Hopefully the article I submitted back in May (and which Sitepoint didn’t publish :)) provided part of the incentive to write the book. If so, I’m thrilled. I admit my article was not up to Sitepoint’s technical standards, but it was my attempt, as a WordPress newbie, to get a handle on the hundreds of articles and tutorials out there and illustrate how to code and build a simple CMS. I eventually posted it on my own website.

As usual, Sitepoint’s authors are top of their field - way beyond my limited self-taught knowledge and I learned quite a lot from the book. HIGHLY recommended.

Does this book have the basics of how to get started with WordPress? Like how to install it? Or is there another book that’s better for that?

Sorry! Another question… if I also want thumbnails to appear on my category pages do I use the same block of code or just add an extra line!

If you buy the digital pack from sitepoint.com, you’ll get the MOBI, eBUB and PDF versions and you’ll be able to load the book onto your Kindle.

Thanks Louis, I got it. I didn’t know I could save the page as a file.

I have the book and I’m not sure where to ask a question about implementation but I’ll try here.

At the top of page 88 - importing dummy content.

When I do the following starting here:

  1. http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Unit_Test

  2. Download test data: http://svn.automattic.com/wpcom-themes/test-data.2010-08-02.xml

  3. I get a very large .xml page.

My question is how do I save this test data so I can import it here?

http://www.mnlakecams.com/website/wp-admin/admin.php?import=wordpress

Thanks

Hi zahfran, I’m JP Toral, Sitepoint’s customer Service Officer. I’m so sorry we haven’t get back to you any sooner. Can you please send me an email to books@sitepoint.com with your order details so I can fix your problem asap? BTW, we are busy counting the sales but that’s no excuse! Thank you zahfran! Cheers, JP

Do you need to be a designer to take advantage of this book?

@LittleLalu: Awesome! That’s great to hear. It’s feedback like that that makes all the work and deadline craziness worthwhile. Really glad you’re enjoying it.

So you prefer to buy two books instead of one then? Isn’t that going to work out more expensive when by buying the SitePoint book you get everything you need to know about creating themes for WordPress 3 all in the one book. Or is it because you already have those two books and therefore buying the one book that covers the same material would then mean that you would have three books on the same subject.

How much of those other two books deals with selling WordPress themes and all the options that are available in that area - specifically with regard to what licencing options are available since only parts of your theme need be covered by the GPL?

Since I don’t have either of those other two books I don’t know how much ground they cover but this new SitePoint book covers everything you need to know about WordPress themes in the one book - the areas where more detail might be needed are covered in any HTML, CSS, or PHP book.

My review of this Sitepoint book can be found at http://www.felgall.com/wwdpress.htm

About GPL (v2 specifically, the one which WP is licensed under). A blog post that of one of the primary WP shareholders started about this :

http://ryan.boren.me/2010/07/15/wordpress-theme-licensing/

It’s dudette actually. Like I said I was just double checking because I’ve ordered PDFs from SitePoint in the past and never had this issue before. You must be just unlucky. Good luck with it. :slight_smile:

Of course dude I did all of that already. Btw thanks for your advice :slight_smile: