Brian Krogsgard

Contributing Editor

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Brian is a fan of WordPress, Auburn, and politics. In addition to acting as a contributing editor at WPCandy he is a WordPress and user interface developer for Infomedia. He also blogs on his own and often tweets as @krogsgard.

Brian’s Latest Posts (107 total)

Justin Tadlock unveils big Theme Hybrid redesign

By 6 days agoFebruary 16, 2012

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Theme Hybrid, the WordPress theme club founded by Justin Tadlock, has a new look. Justin’s been teasing the new design for a couple of months, and it went live yesterday. It’s a lot more than a new design though, as he totally reworked the site, with documentation and usability in mind.

Justin has a slew of free WordPress themes and plugins that he maintains utilizing a $25 per year support / membership business model. As an unabashed fan of his plugins and especially his Hybrid Core theme framework, the new site really makes the documentation and tutorials shine.

The redesign includes revamped sections with post types for tutorials, code snippets, php classes, constants, functions, hooks, and shortcodes. In addition to the new site structure, he’s finishing up what he calls some “dark magic” with Gravity Forms to handle the site’s membership system. He’s also working out details to allow club members to submit their own themes to Theme Hybrid, which I find exciting.

One thing that intrigued me in the announcement post is a tease for an upcoming book he’s a part of. Many know him as a co-author of the Professional WordPress Plugin Development book, but his role in this book will be a bit different. He’ll be publishing it as an e-book, and not going through a publisher. Justin is also an editor for the upcoming, updated, edition of the Smashing WordPress book, written by Thord Daniel Hedengren, which will be released this spring.

If you’ve ever had a desire to learn more from Justin than you undoubtedly already have from his popular tutorials, then it may be a good time to check out Theme Hybrid. And you may see me scrounging around the forums as well.

Some screenshots of the new design are below:

Pressbits 006: How to evaluate plugins in the directory

By 9 days agoFebruary 13, 2012

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Pressbits episode 006 awaits you. This time was slightly different, as Ryan and I were both on this episode. We held a very brief conversation about how we look for and decide to use a plugin in the repository.

You can listen to it here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

If you would rather download it directly you can do that, or subscribe to this show via RSS or on iTunes. If you would prefer a written summary, you can also read that just after the jump.

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You just don’t need a magazine theme

By 13 days agoFebruary 9, 2012

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Magazine themes are quite alluring. Sliders, pictures, columns, unique blocks of different content on demos. But beyond the perfectly crafted demo marketed to entice you to purchase what you’ve convinced yourself you must have, you probably don’t need it at all.

I’m willing to bet almost no content driven website actually needs a “magazine” layout. In fact, for those that utilize them, it may hurt what’s most important to their bottom line — me, the reader. My page views and my time on their site.

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Pressbits 005: Don’t delete plugin options on deactivation

By 19 days agoFebruary 3, 2012

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In this episode of Pressbits I discuss my pet peeve of plugin developers deleting my options settings on deactivation, rather than upon uninstallation.

You should listen to it, especially if you’re a plugin developer.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

If you would rather download it directly you can do that too, or subscribe to this show via RSS or on iTunes. If you would prefer a written summary, you can also read that just after the jump.

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Pressbits 001: Introducing our latest show

By 23 days agoJanuary 30, 2012

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I’m happy to introduce the newest addition to the WPCandy shows family. It’s called Pressbits, and it’s exactly what you’d expect: bite-sized thoughts on WordPress. Ryan and I will both be contributing to Pressbits, and you can expect them at a rapid-fire pace (daily-ish).

I got inspiration for Pressbits from Paul Boag’s Audio Boos, which is one of my favorite web related podcasts. Our goal is similar, quick, off the cuff recordings of what’s on our mind. I hope you’ll enjoy, and of course, your feedback is always appreciated.

We’ll update this post shortly with a podcast feed url dedicated to Pressbits. Listen to the introductory Episode 001 of Pressbits after the jump, or download it directly.

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WordCamp Birmingham is in January, y’all

By 71 days agoDecember 13, 2011

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WordCamp Birmingham is coming with full southern flare January 14th and 15th. Sara Cannon is the main organizer of the event, which will consist of a full Saturday session and a Sunday workshop. The theme of this year’s camp is WP Yall, and you can even go to wpyall.com for an easy to remember short URL that redirects visitors to the official 2012 Birmingham WordCamp central page.

The first round of speakers has been announced for WordCamp Birmingham, and you’ll be able to hear from outstanding members of the WordPress community such as Michael Fields, Mike Schinkel, Tammy Hart, and Samual “Otto” Wood, to name a few. If you’re excited about coming down to maybe-less-cold-than-where-you-live Alabama in January, we look forward to having you. This will be my first ever WordCamp (shamefully), and I couldn’t be more thrilled to take part.

Registration is open now, and costs only $35 for a weekend pass. WordCamp Birmingham is also looking for additional sponsorships to help put on the event, and let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to be the first ever (that I know of) Kryptonite sponsor?

I’m happy to say WPCandy will be represented in Birmingham, via myself, and even Editor-in-Chief Ryan Imel if I can get him away from snowy Fort Wayne for a weekend. So go sign up and come on down to Birmingham to talk WordPress and hang out with some of the WPCandy team in January. It’s going to be awesome.

DevPress is now a team of one

By 71 days agoDecember 13, 2011

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There have been some recent changes at DevPress, the WordPress theme and plugin club that formerly consisted of Ptah Dunbar, Tung Do, Patrick Daly, and Justin Tadlock. According to a post by Justin Tadlock in the Theme Hybrid forums (warning: post is paywall protected) and the about page of DevPress, Tung Do is now the sole owner of DevPress.

We’ve covered DevPress quite a bit on WPCandy since they launched over a year ago, largely due to an impressive team of talented developers and an interesting business model. I had a sense something was going on at DevPress a week or so ago when I noticed Tadlock posted his DevPress posts back on his personal blog. Also, there were some questions on the DevPress forums regarding the future of the site that shed some light on what we now know is happening.
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