One of the best things about being a designer/developer/geek is that there is always something new to learn. Even if you’re not keeping up with current trends you can always take time to learn the things of the past.

One of the areas of development I’ve briefly glanced at was e-commerce. It’s not that I don’t enjoy e-commerce, it’s just the opportunities to create full sized e-commerce websites has never come up.

Naturally, when I was contacted by Packt Publishing to review a book on WordPress I was excited. Getting to learn about WordPress, awesome. Getting a (free) book, awesome. When I noticed it was about e-commerce it sparked my interest to new levels.

WordPress 2.9 e-Commerce

Now, this is just a preview of the review. A “yes-i’m-going-to-write-it-soon” post if you will.

Feel free to download the sample chapter “Shipping, Taxes, and Processing Orders”

Be sure to send me friendly reminders on twitter (@envex) to remind me that I should be reading!

HoJoe Coffee & Books is a proud local business located in the heart of downtown Kenora on beautiful Lake of the Woods in Northwestern Ontario.

Vantage Studios Inc. is proud to launch the new HoJoe Coffee & Books Website.

I was responsible for design and development of a functional WordPress theme, content organization and plug-in development/management.

All content property of Vantage Studios Inc.

Luckily, we can write our own comment function, using our own code, to make styling the comments 100% easier and 50% more fun

The Function

In your WordPress theme folder (root/wp-content/themes/your-theme/) there will be a file called functions.php. This is the first file we are going to edit, so open it up. Add this code to the bottom of functions.php.

<?php

function envex_comments($comment, $args, $depth) {

$GLOBALS['comment'] = $comment;

//grab the commenter id
$user_id = $comment->user_id;
$user = new WP_User( $user_id );

//set the current role of that commenter to the role variable
//most of the time, you'll just be worrying about you, the administrator
$role = isset($user) ? $user->roles[0] : ''; ?>

<li <?php echo $oddcomment; ?>id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">

<div>
<?php if(function_exists('get_avatar')) { echo get_avatar($comment, '45'); } ?>
<p><strong><?php comment_author_link() ?></strong><br /><?php comment_date('m/d/y \@ h:m a') ?></p>

</div> <!-- comment_grav -->

<div>
<?php comment_text() ?>
</div> <!-- comment_text -->

<div>
<?php comment_reply_link(array_merge( $args, array('depth' => $depth, 'max_depth' => $args['max_depth']))) ?>
</div>

<?php
if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?>
<p><em>Your comment is awaiting moderation.</em></p>
<?php
endif; ?>

</li>

<?php
/* Changes every other comment to a different class */
$oddcomment = ( empty( $oddcomment ) ) ? 'class="alt" ' : '';

}

?>

In a nutshell, WordPress is going to run this function for each comment.

We’ve created an li element that will hold all of our comment info.

The Gravatar

The first div, comment_grav, will display a gravatar is the current commenter has one setup. We use get_avatar($comment, ’45′) and pass 2 variables to it. The first one being the comment info and the second is the size of our gravatar.

You can read more about gravatars over at their website!

The Comment Text and The Reply Link

These next 2 functions are pretty straight forward. To display the comment text we use comment_text().

To display the reply link we use the comment_reply_link(). The arguments that are being passed are to deal with threaded comments (*if they’re enabled).

*Threaded comments are enabled in Admin panel –> Settings -> Discussions.

The Approval

We don’t want to show any unapproved comments, so we check to see if $comment->comment_approved is false. If it’s false we display that it’s awaiting moderation.

The Template

Now that we’ve created our own comments function, we need to tell our theme to use it instead of the WordPress one. Open comments.php and find wp_list_comments(). It should be around line 29.

We are going to pass a few arguments to this function.

wp_list_comments(array('reply_text'=>'Reply to this Comment','type'=>'comment','callback' => 'envex_comments'));

These arguments tell the wp_list_comments() function to use envex_comments() to display our comments.

Conclusion

You now have the basic structure for some new comments on your blog/cms. All that’s left is to style them up to match your site, and i’m going to leave that up to you!

The University of Winnipeg Students’ Association democratically unites the students of the University of Winnipeg in order to advance student interests. Our efforts include promoting the exchange of ideas and information among students, and within the greater University community.

Vantage Studios Inc. is proud to launch the new and improved UWSA website.

I was responsible for converting the design (by Vantage Studios Inc.) to a functional WordPress theme, content organization and plug-in development/management.

All content property of Vantage Studios Inc.

When most people think about WordPress, they think about blogs. If you look at the front page of WordPress.org, they talk a lot about blogging as well. What they don’t tell you is that WordPress can also double as a very powerful CMS; you just have to set it up properly. It can be a bit tricky to get setup and working the way that you want; but this is where I come in.

In this 3-part tutorial + screencast series, I’m going to take you through the three steps of using WordPress as a CMS.

View the 3-Part Tutorial/Screencast

This tutorial is now owned by NetTuts+, I’m just the author.

EnvexLabs is proud to launch the new face of TheMacFeed.com

We were contacted by TheMacFeed to create a fresh new look for their site and between you and me, I think we delivered! Be sure to take a look around, they provide a lot of information about anything Apple/Mac!

TheMacFeed is a fully staffed website dedicated to bringing quality reviews and news for iPhone and Mac users. We take a more practical approach to the way we operate. We look at how products are used in every day situations and compare them to differing alternatives.

Our news section is filtered for news that we find is pertinent and relevant to most users, rather then being another Apple prediction site.Our staff is extremely friendly is always looking for new ideas or suggestions, so always feel free to leave any comment or question on any story you have.

In addition, our staff comes diverse backgrounds with common threads being extensive experience using Apple products and a desire to share their experiences with the rest of the community.

I’ve stripped it down and this is the CSS I use when starting with a wordpress site.

It’s valid CSS but take it with a grain of salt as it’s not for everyone. It’s helped me and I hope it helps you!

body{font-size:62.5%;}
.narrowcolumn{float:left;padding:0 0 15px 0;margin:10px 0 0 0;clear:none;width:100%}
.post{margin:0 0 40px;text-align:justify}hr{display:none;}
.narrowcolumn .postmetadata{padding-top:5px}
.postmetadata,.clear{clear:both}
img.centered{display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto}
img.alignright{padding:4px;margin:0 0 2px 7px;display:inline}
img.alignleft{padding:4px;margin:0 7px 2px 0;display:inline}
.alignright,.alignleft{float:left}
html>body .entry ul{margin-left:0px;padding:0 0 0 30px;list-style:none;padding-left:10px;text-indent:-10px}
html>body .entry li{margin:7px 0 8px 10px}
.entry ol{padding:0 0 0 35px;margin:0}
.entry ol li{margin:0;padding:0}
.postmetadata ul,
.postmetadata li{display:inline;list-style-image:none}
.alt{margin:0;padding:10px}
.commentlist{padding:0;text-align:justify}
.commentlist li{margin:15px 0 10px;padding:5px 5px 10px 10px;list-style:none}
.commentlist li ul li{margin-right:-5px;margin-left:10px}
.commentlist p{margin:10px 5px 10px 0}.children{padding:0}
.commentmetadata{margin:0;display:block}
.thread-alt{background-color:#f8f8f8}
.thread-even{background-color:white}
.depth-1{border:1px solid #ddd}
.even,
.alt{border-left:1px solid #ddd}
.navigation{display:block;text-align:center;margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:60px}
.aligncenter,div.aligncenter{display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto}
.wp-caption{border:1px solid #ddd;text-align:center;background-color:#f3f3f3;padding-top:4px;margin:10px;}
.wp-caption img{margin:0;padding:0;border:0 none}
.wp-caption p.wp-caption-text{font-size:11px;line-height:17px;padding:0 4px 5px;margin:0}

The Tripwire Media Group strives to create compelling new media products while adhering to the highest standards of ethical and moral policy. We deliver value to our customers both in the products we create and the personalized service we provide. Our goal is to grow with our clients – your satisfaction is our absolute priority. We will not rest until The Tripwire Media Group is recognized as the most progressive enterprise in the new media marketplace.

Check out the site now!

All content property of Vantage Studios Inc.