WordPress and Web Development › home of Ben Gillbanks
Web Design posts focused on WordPress software and WordPress development. As well as writing about WordPress I run my own WordPress themes site called Pro Theme Design.
Ghost is a project born from frustration with WordPress. Ironically it seems to be mostly WordPress power users who want to use it. The Ghost team - led by John O'Nolan - put Ghost on KickStarter last week and it flew through its goal in just 2 days - and is now over 4 times the stated goal! The original concept of Ghost was to use WordPress as a base and either create a plugin or fork it and create [...]
So - I make WordPress themes - lots of them Something that's bugged me for a while is that I can't easily use the WP_Query to select posts with featured images. This isn't functionality that's needed that often - but it can be desirable for things like image carousels where you need an image to make everything look good. Today however - I finally found a solution - and it's surprisingly simple. All post data - including the featured image [...]
My main websites (Binary Moon, and Pro Theme Design) are hosted with Liquidweb on a VPS, but I have many smaller sites and I like to run them on NearlyFreeSpeech.net. The service is great, and I like the 'pay for what you use' model, but it's a bit of a pain to update software because I have to log into each site individually, and then upload new versions of WordPress/ new plugins etc. It's only recently that I've started using [...]
I know that I am most productive in the winter months and tend to churn out a lot more of my personal projects than I do during the summer months. I suspect this is due to the fact that I go out less and so spend more time sitting in front of my computer. It seems others have this condition as well - since the new year seems to have brought with it some gifts. Notably there have been a [...]
Anyone who knows me knows that I like to automate everything. I'm sure it's a common trait with programmers - in fact it's the reason I started programming online. My first online application was a very simple cms - that allowed me to easily edit the content on my website. I wanted to save time doing repetitive things so that I have more time for the important things. So recently I have become really interested in automating content creation on [...]
I've now got 2 themes on WordPress.com - Mimbo Pro and Opti - and as such I have spent quite a lot of time on the site. WordPress.com is powered by WordPress - but it also has a lot of custom plugins sitting on top of it making it a lot more flexible and useable for the average user. A lot of the functionality on there is not needed for the average user - but at the same time there's [...]
I didn't realise it had been so long but in February 2010 I wrote a little blog post about creating screenshots of websites automatically. I wrote this after finding that the team at WordPress had created their own system for doing this - and so I created a super simple plugin that let's you use this functionality in your blog. I'm not sure why but I never added the plugin to the WordPress plugin repository. Last week Kevin Leary decided [...]
I don't remember the last time I made a WordPress theme that didn't do all sorts of unique stuff. I've never been interested in making standard blog designs and always want to create something a bit different. This throws up some issues then - most often with pagination - and it's only recently that I found a solution. x_posts_link I had always assumed that the next_posts_link and previous_posts_link functions were for use in combination with 'the loop', but it seems [...]
I really like the idea of a Tumblog - and even have one on Tumblr.com - but I don't promote it anywhere. Conceptually it's great - but I don't like not having control over my content. What I would really like is to have a site that I can design and control entirely... I also want to be able to automate everything. Automation is brilliant - I use it wherever possible. My goal is to pull the content in from [...]
As I mentioned in February I had a conundrum - I wasn't sure how to make changes to my theme Elemental without breaking peoples sites. Thankfully the people who read my site are super clever and suggested I create a version 2 and so, over the last month or so, that's exactly what I have started doing. I am currently in the process of ripping Elemental apart - and near enough rewriting it from scratch - and I thought I [...]
Before I continue I'm going to give some warning for those who still haven't read the Harry Potter books. If, like me, you like to be surprised when you read something new - leave now This post is a follow on from my earlier Harry Potter theory about RAB. So, let's start with the obvious... Is Dumbledore really dead? There are people who seem to think that Dumbledore hasn't died [...]
As I mentioned previously I fancy having a go at working out what is going on in the world of Harry Potter. I'm going to split my theories up into a series of posts, each about a different element of the books. Since I've already mentioned him this one is going to be about RAB. Before I continue I'm going to give some warning for those who still haven't read [...]
So... anyone else read it yet? I bought my copy late Saturday morning, there were loads of copies available, and a rather miserable looking witch handing them out. I bought my copy in Bexleyheath, which is fairly close to where I live, and Alan Rickman was due to make an appearance and sign copies of the book. I couldn't be bothered to wait around (he was already late when I [...]
It's cool to have the WordPress login page customized to fit your own website branding. This is even more significant for multi author blogs, or sites you have set up for clients as it adds that little extra something. Since writing this post in 2007 I have released a plugin called BM Custom Login which does everything described below I was actually inspired to write this post because of a [...]
I often get asked questions about TimThumb and why it doesn't work in certain situations. I can generally tell what is wrong with the script within about 60 seconds of being sent a demo url. Below are my top tips for debugging TimThumb issues. Keep TimThumb up to Date This is super important. TimThumb should always be kept up to date. I regularly publish bug fixes and improvements and often [...]
Previously Harry Potter Theory #1: RAB Harry Potter Theory #2: Dumbledore Before I continue I’m going to give some warning for those who still haven’t read the Harry Potter books. If, like me, you like to be surprised when you read something new - leave now Snape is an enigma. What is he doing? From the very first book it has been made incredibly clear that two things are true. [...]
About BenMy name is Ben Gillbanks. I'm a lover of Video Games, WordPress, Web Development and everything in between.
I have been working on the internet since 1998, and working with computers even longer. I am a hardcore Nintendo fanboy and have owned most of their consoles at one stage or another.
Read more about me on my about page.
RT @m4tt: 'Star Wars Rebels' is Lucasfilm's first animated series under Disney, coming fall 2014 http://t.co/YsS8iJ8mmD