Our User meeting was a solid two hours of Q&A last night, with another full room of WordPress enthusiasts. Thanks to Meredith Floyd-Preston for volunteering to type up the follow notes, enjoy. Our panelists were:
- Kronda Adair, Karvel Digital
- Robert Lilly, Debbie A Taylor LLC
- Daniel Payne, Tualatin Web
Who has run into problems with the auto-update? (specifically with TinyMCE?)
Seems that when there is a theme that loads its own JavaScript library, there is something interfering. TinyMCE is part of WordPress. Seems like lots of big updates cause problems with TinyMCE. Turn off all plug-ins and see if it’s still broken. If so, revert to one of the basic themes to see.
Is it possible to use different designs on different pages, different templates?
Yes. Some themes have the templates. Others don’t have them. If your theme doesn’t have a template you can get someone to code it for you. Basis is a theme that allows you to create that yourself (drag and drop). Made by Theme Foundry. There is also a plug-in called Velocity Page that allows you to create templates with any theme.
Theme choice
Basis – easy, well-done, drag and drop flexibility.
Thesis – some don’t like, takes wordpress a bit out of wordpress way of working; if you go with the flow of WordPress it is easy to do custom stuff. Thesis has its own way. WordPress people aren’t happy with Thesis guy. Violating open-source.
Genesis – good, seems to work in the WordPress way. WordPress endorses Genesis. Nice whole package.
Akismet? Other free spam filter?
Akismet is still free. You just have to put the slider all the way down to zero (only for personal accounts.)
SEO
WordPress SEO by Yoast is a great plug-in. All-in-one SEO is good too, but it does have some history with problems with compatibility. Yoast has a nice red, yellow, green that trains you to write good SEO content.
WooCommerce demo?
WooCommerce bookings has just come out if you have an appointment based business. Kronda showed an example of a WooCommerce site.
Suggestions for teaching clients?
Bobwp.com; others suggested; learn.wordpress.com; videousermanuals.com – adds video tutorials within the dashboard of WordPress, comes in different languages and accents (pay for yearly license). You can also send a client the video.
Karvel.me/wpsitehelp – Kronda is starting to do webinars, etc; go to her site to get on mailing list
Great donation plug-in
Etsy-type site
Possible, create category for different artists.
Should I switch to a well-known theme from the one I found?
I’m using Atomic, should I switch themes? If it works, then keep using it.
Caching plug-ins?
W3 Total cache and WP SuperCache
Web Site Hosting?
Site 5 is Great! 3 php calls at once only? Not possible.
1and1 also recommended.
How do you figure out how much to charge as a developer or designer?
One example $75/hour. Agreement. Bid projects based on hourly rate. Good article on hubspot.com about different kinds of developers and what they charge. People are more open to pricing per project. They are used to hiring admin assistants for $15/hour. Hard to swallow $35-50 rate. Great to charge by project as long as the specs don’t change. Make sure the price applies to certain parameters.
WordPress deployment survey results.
Description of particular need. Quizlet.
How would I go about hiring someone to do this? Pdxwp.com – the site for this group, there is a list of developers.
WordPress lightbox
What is a shortcode?
It’s a shortcut to expanded functionality (rather than typing in the whole code.) It’s something in brackets.
Here’s a list of all shortcodes used at WordPress.com
What is a plug-in?
It’s a new feature that wasn’t there before. Comparison to an app on a phone.
What is a theme?
The appearance of your site. Plug-ins are features and functionality.
Slider question
Basically anything you want to do you can make happen.
Themeforest
Themes tend to have everything in them but lots of developers don’t like this because things don’t play together well. Better to add things as you need them.
Portland WordPress Meetup 