Category Archives: Features

Event recaps, resources, and special stories are on these pages.

WPCandy’s Completely Unofficial Guide to Plugin UI

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On the 29th episode of the WPCandy Podcast we talked about the sometimes poor state of plugin user interfaces. Many WordPress plugins are inconsistent with the native WordPress user interface in how they implement settings in the administration area for users.

I’m writing this guide to outline a (completely unofficial) set of best practices for implementing settings pages that is consistent and current with the native WordPress administration user interface. I’ve based these guidelines on my observations and experiences with using plugins in WordPress. They’re also totally a work in progress—if you have suggestions, feel free to add them in the comments section.

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WPCandy’s 2011 Year in Review

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Another 365 days have gone by, which means it’s time again for WPCandy’s Year in Review. Crazy, believe me, I know.

If you’re the type of person who enjoys stats and traffic numbers, this post is basically designed just for you. Grab a cup of coffee (or your beverage of choice) and reflect a bit on the last year at WPCandy.com with me.

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Everything we know about the newly released WordPress 3.3

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With a new version of WordPress out and about, one might wonder just what’s new under the hood. Wonder no longer dear friend, because in this post I’m going to walk you through everything about WordPress 3.3 “Sonny” that we’re aware of. Before you know it you’ll be the coolest kid on your block.

You know, assuming relative coolness where you live is decided  by how much you know about the latest version of WordPress. In which case you might already be the coolest kid there. So. Yeah.

The real fun starts after the jump.

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WPCandy’s big, huge, giant list of WordPress news sources

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I’m a big fan of the products out of byproducts phillosophy. In other words, pay attention to the sometimes hidden, but very real, value in the tools you just so happen to create when working.

For example: in order to cover WordPress community news the way we do at WPCandy, we’ve developed quite a list of sources. Some prove to create news with every post they publish, and others take more time to release their gems. But every single source is necessary in order to keep a finger on the pulse of the WordPress community (so to speak).

That’s one of our byproducts, and that’s what this post is all about. Just after the jump I’ve included our exhaustive (and categorized) list of sources that I use every day at WPCandy. Each categorized section includes a link to an OPML file so you can subscribe to these blogs easily if you’d like to.

If you see a site that is missing from our list, by all means make note of it in the comments. We’ll be updating the list here and the OPML files every now and then, to hopefully maintain the most exhaustive WordPress news source list online.

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Behind the Site: Adaptistration, a blog for the orchestra business

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We have no shortage of interesting and unique sites in our Behind the Site series. Today’s is no different. The site we will be hearing more about today is called Adaptistration, and it’s a blog run by Drew McManus all about the orchestra business.

And naturally it’s running on WordPress.

Drew will tell us a little bit more about the site and what plugins he is running just after the jump. If you see something interesting, or if you’d like to submit your own site for inclusion in a future installment of Behind the Site, leave a note in the comments.

I’ll hand the mic over to Drew for the rest of the post.

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Behind the Site: wpMail.me, the weekly WordPress newsletter

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Behind the Site is easily one of the most popular series on WPCandy. In each edition of Behind the Site, we welcome a new guest author to the site to walk us through their WordPress site, what they use to power it, and hear a bit about their overall WordPress technique.

This week’s Behind the Site is wpMail.me, a weekly email newsletter that collects and sends out all sorts of WordPress articles each week. Cristian Antohe is the one behind wpMail.me, and will take things from this point on to tell us more about the site.

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Behind the Site: WordPress Multisite shop WPeBooks.com

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The response to the new series, Behind the Site, has been great. A number of you have offered up a look behind the curtain of your sites, so there are plenty on the way.

This week’s Behind the Site is WP eBooks, a site run by Ron and Andrea Rennick. In this post they (well, Andrea) will tell you about the site, what plugins they are using, and what they’ve customized to make it work the way it does.

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Behind the Site: WPCandy.com, unofficial WordPress news blog

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Today I’m happy to usher in a new post series on WPCandy called Behind the Site. It’s not much of a series right now since we’re at post number one, but we’ll get there.

Behind the Site is a series for sharing more about the inner workings of a WordPress site, almost the way you would an interview with a person. We want to get to know the site, find out what makes it tick, and see how we might emulate what it does. If our WordPress Workspaces series offers a bit of insight into the workspaces WordPress professionals work in, Behind the Site should offer some insight into what those professionals have built.

As I did to open up the WordPress Workspaces series, I’ll be offering up a site of my own for Behind the Site’s first round: this one. We’ll look at what makes up WPCandy, what drives it, and hopefully touch on what makes it a unique site.

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Reminisce with the big WordPress 3.2 redesign gallery

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While the design update in WordPress 3.2 is certainly not of the magnitude of the redesign that 2.7 saw, it represents a significant step forward for WordPress as a platform. Despite the many significant updates, it’s odd how quickly we adapt to the change and even forget what things used to look like. After using 3.2 for a few days it’s easy to forget what all the changes between 3.1 and 3.2 were. And that’s a good thing.

If you’re using 3.2 and aren’t quite sure of each of the subtle design changes it brought, skim through the gallery below and reminisce on how things used to be. And in the future, when you want to remember what the 3.1 to 3.2 visual shift was like, don’t forget about this post.

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