Internationalization should be common practice, not a feature

By 16 hours agoFebruary 6, 2012

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A subject finally getting some attention in the WordPress community is i18n, or internationalization.

Internationalization is the process of making an application ready for translation. Often this gets confused with localization, which is the process by which the text on the page and other settings are translated and adapted to another language and culture.

Both internationalization and localization are equally important within WordPress, but there cannot be any localization if the theme or plugin has not been internationalized first. Therefore it is of utmost importance for WordPress theme and plugin developers to internationalize their software, regardless of whether it ever actually receives a translation into another language.

In the past couple of months we have seen more and more articles being published on the subject of internationalization. Some are even dripping with frustration!

I must admit that I have left frustrated comments on sites like WPCandy, WPBeginner, WPMU and the like, whenever something is promoted that is not properly internationalized. It seems I finally got someone’s attention as Ryan is the one who asked me to write this editorial after I left yet another frustrated comment on one of the articles published here.

For those whose native language is not English and who want to develop websites in more than one language, it is very frustrating to read any news about Fantastic Hypothetical Theme A or Cool Plugin B that were just released, only to realize after downloading that it is actually completely useless since it hasn’t be internationalized!

And do you know what is even worse? When said theme or plugin costs money (often called premium). Not only is that frustrating, it’s just wrong. Despite the number of features your theme or plugin has, if it has not been internationalized it shouldn’t be sold in the first place.

This is just not open for discussion. Internationalization should be common practice, not a feature!

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Envato removes price adjustment tool from their Elite program

By 4 days agoFebruary 3, 2012

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This morning Collis Ta’eed announced on the Envato Notes blog that their price adjustment tool, previously available to Envato Elite authors on their marketplaces that reached $75,000 in sales, is no longer available. Normally prices on the Envato marketplaces are set by Envato during the product review process, and not by the author of the product. The price adjustment tool, announced last year, allowed certain authors to test out different prices for their products beyond what the marketplace would set for them.

The change, Ta’eed said, comes to prepare for the next major change to Envato’s pricing strategy. The introduction of variable pricing for certain elite authors was Envato’s first step toward dynamic pricing. “While it has had some success,” he said, “it’s become clear to us that it’s not the long-term solution.” The updated pricing solution — while what it is isn’t exactly clear yet — is slated for release “later this year”.

With the pricing tool removed, any marketplace products with modified prices will be left at the last price their author left them at. This affects 160 current authors who have already reached the $75,000 Elite level.

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NASA code site built using WordPress and Bootstrap framework

By 20 days agoJanuary 17, 2012

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Recently NASA announced that it was launching a new Open Source section of its website: http://code.nasa.gov. This is just another step that NASA is taking to help make its code available to the public. The web team over at NASA looked at a number of content management systems available for the website. At the end of their search they decided on using WordPress.

To take it a step further, they ended up using the Twitter Bootstrap framework for building their theme. One really awesome tool that they get to use with this framework is something called “Less.” Less gives greater control over CSS, which allows for the use of variables and many other things within the CSS itself. Normally those kinds of things are not available in CSS, but Less makes that happen.

They also decided to use Super Cache as their caching mechanism for the site.

As I’m such a huge fan of WordPress, I can easily say they made a great choice and that I’m looking forward to seeing what they release on the NASA code blog.

PressTrends out of beta Tuesday, releasing plugin for users

By 22 days agoJanuary 15, 2012

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George Ortiz presented at WordCamp Birmingham today, and announced that PressTrends will be coming out of closed beta this week on Tuesday. The public launch will also bring the launch of a plugin for WordPress users that will offer statistics and analysis based on information gathered by all sites tracked by PressTrends. PressTrends has been in private beta since November, serving statistics to selected theme authors and shops.

Based on the brief demo Ortiz gave (see the photo below) the upcoming plugin will track a site’s posts, comments, and active plugins. Based on performance, Ortiz said, he hopes that the stats will be able to offer bloggers tips for how to improve the number of comments and success that bloggers see.

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Orman Clark is a job creator

By 26 days agoJanuary 12, 2012

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Orman for president! He might be a little late announcing his candidacy, but he’d probably be a strong competitor. It looks like Orman Clark is hiring a UI/web designer for a full time position to help him create WordPress themes and design resources. From the listing:

Working alongside myself (as well as keeping developers in check), you’ll be responsible for producing some of the most pixel-perfect, trend-setting, awe-inspiring, ridiculously-pretty-yet-functional designs this industry is yet to see. Roughly translated, you’ll be working on WordPress themes, web applications and other cool stuff. 2012 will be awesome.

This sounds like an awesome job for a freelancer looking for some stability. I’d be tempted to apply myself if I had forty hours each week to commit. Hit up his post for more details and to submit your application.

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The “Lock in Effect” for themes and plugins

WordPress consultant Konstantin Kovshenin wrote about how certain WordPress themes and plugins can “lock you” into using them and now allow for portability between other options. When building a theme or plugin, I think it’s generally a good rule of thumb to respect a user’s settings and content the same way that WordPress itself does.

WooThemes is looking for another developer to add to their Labs

By 26 days agoJanuary 11, 2012

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WooLabs, which you may remember as the department within WooThemes that formed when Mike Jolley and Jay Koster joined the WooThemes team. Since they joined the team, quite a bit has happened over there for WooCommerce: they’ve seen 45,000 downloads, created 52 extensions, and developed 16 parent and child themes.

The various releases have put a strain on the team, Jay said, and in order to continue the growth the team is looking to hire an experienced WordPress developer to join their team and contribute to the WooCommerce project.

WooThemes is accepting applications on the WooThemes job board, which itself has a number of WordPress related work if you’re a developer that’s looking.

8BIT puts Pro Photo Theme up for sale on Flippa

By 27 days agoJanuary 11, 2012

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8BIT has placed their photography theme, Pro Photo Theme, up for public auction on Flippa. The buy it now price is $35,000 and the bidding starts at $10,000. The auction will close in just under seven days. According to 8BIT’s John Saddington, the team has decided to sell Pro Photo to provide more bandwidth for themselves to support “big changes coming [their] way”.

In the listing the team disclosed their revenue to date, which is likely interesting to anyone who has dabbled in selling WordPress themes before. The theme launched in May and since then has brought in $11,000 in gross sales with a net profit at $8,600. The team estimates that the theme could gross over $20,000 per year. A number of other stats are available, along with more questions and answers about the theme itself, on Flippa.

Normally on this blog we talk about buying themes from an end user’s perspective, and not as a business looking to resell it. What do you think of 8BIT’s auction here, and do you think they’ll see any bites before the auction is up?