Category: Theme Tips

How To Set Line Endings in Smultron for your WordPress Themes

About 5 minutes after releasing my first WordPress theme, Theseus, upon the world, I had my first support ticket to deal with: A Parse Error. The problem is, I work on a Mac and Macs handle line endings differently than everyone else. Different as in, make Unix computers explode. Unfortunately for me, a lot of web servers are UNIX computers. That explode.

About 5 minutes after releasing my first WordPress theme, Theseus, upon the world, I had my first support ticket to deal with. Check it out:

Thank you for this awesome theme, but it doesn’t seem to be working for me.

This is what it says after installing and testing it.

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in /home/javitsin/public_html/wp-content/themes/theseus/index.php on line 1

Now a Parse Error happens when, essentially (I say essentially, not exactly, because I’m a designer not a programmer), you make a typing mistake in a PHP file. Thing is, I hadn’t made any typing mistakes—that I could see.

The problem is, I work on a Mac and Macs handle line endings, you know, where you press return, differently than everyone else. Different as in, make Unix computers explode. Unfortunately for me, a lot of web servers are UNIX computers. That explode. Continue reading “How To Set Line Endings in Smultron for your WordPress Themes”

Increase RSS Subscribers With WordPress Conditional Tags

This is the scenario: a new visitor, or a visitor returning after some absence, reads through the main page of your blog and clicks a “previous entries” or “older posts” link. Who is this visitor? What do we know about them? Well, 1. they want to read more content (congratulations!) and 2. (in the case of the returning visitor) they’re not subscribing to your blog.

How can we remind them of the benefits of subscribing at just the right moment, when the benefits are clearly apparent? Easy. Use a WordPress conditional template tag.

Continue reading “Increase RSS Subscribers With WordPress Conditional Tags”

3 Google Code Projects That Will Save Your WordPress Theme

Google Code LogoGoogle Code is Google’s hosting repository for open source projects. Got an open source project? Google Code will host it for free. Want to make a killer WordPress theme that just plain works? Then Google Code is your best friend. Three projects on Google Code will help you get your WordPress theme done right. A trinity of open-source WordPress theme development tools: Sandbox, Blueprint and IE7.js.

Continue reading “3 Google Code Projects That Will Save Your WordPress Theme”