Another cool thing we can do with this new menu is build the sitemap. I was in need the other day of a plugin that would generate a sitemap page (something like an archive page). Not an xml sitemap, just a standard page from where the visitors of the site could navigate more easily. The best solution appeared to be an WordPress menu shortcode.

Since I couldn’t find something like this I realized that I could use the wp_nav_menu function and built a shortcode to insert it into my page.

wp_nav_menu shortcode

To install the shortcode just place this code inside functions.php file of your theme.

// Function that will return our Wordpress menu
function list_menu($atts, $content = null) {
	extract(shortcode_atts(array(  
		'menu'            => '', 
		'container'       => 'div', 
		'container_class' => '', 
		'container_id'    => '', 
		'menu_class'      => 'menu', 
		'menu_id'         => '',
		'echo'            => true,
		'fallback_cb'     => 'wp_page_menu',
		'before'          => '',
		'after'           => '',
		'link_before'     => '',
		'link_after'      => '',
		'depth'           => 0,
		'walker'          => '',
		'theme_location'  => ''), 
		$atts));
 
 
	return wp_nav_menu( array( 
		'menu'            => $menu, 
		'container'       => $container, 
		'container_class' => $container_class, 
		'container_id'    => $container_id, 
		'menu_class'      => $menu_class, 
		'menu_id'         => $menu_id,
		'echo'            => false,
		'fallback_cb'     => $fallback_cb,
		'before'          => $before,
		'after'           => $after,
		'link_before'     => $link_before,
		'link_after'      => $link_after,
		'depth'           => $depth,
		'walker'          => $walker,
		'theme_location'  => $theme_location));
}
//Create the shortcode
add_shortcode("listmenu", "list_menu");

To use the shortcode just place [listmenu menu=Sitemap] into your post and that’s it (replace Sitemap with the id, slug or name of the menu you want to list.)

You can also use all the variables that come with the new wp_nav_menu function, like menu_class, or container so you can customize your menu really easy. Just separate the attributes by space like so:
[listmenu menu=Sitemap menu_class=sitemap_menu]

Conclusions

This is really useful for client sites, where you want to make it easy edit and modify the site without braking the html. We could have just manually created the sitemap, but this is a lot nicer. Another way you could use this shortcode would be to create sub-menus on certain pages only.

If you find use for this shortcode in an interesting way don’t hesitate to share it in the comments.

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A Smart WordPress 3.0 Theme

As mentioned before Smarter theme was designed as a powerful CMS for company websites. It’s a business wordpress theme, with a SEO friendly structure.

This being said, here are some of the new things that Smarter 2.0 has to offer.

The News Items was implemented using the custom post type feature from WP 3.0. Now, adding and editing news is simple and straight forward, leaving no room for confusion.

The custom navigation menu has been set as the theme default menu, so now you will be able to insert and organize things like pages, categories, news or custom links in your theme menu.

Smarter also comes with a big package of different color child themes, giving you the option to choose the right color range for your business.

In case you’re aiming for a multilingual website, Smarter 2.0 has been tested and works great with WPML plugin.

Smarter Theme Options, which let you customize your site looks, comes with a lighter interface which includes all the options from the previous version. So you have options like: selecting between multiple theme layouts, uploading a header image, editing the featured slider page etc.

To find out more about Smarter 2.0 and it’s new features check out the screencast below:

Pricing

For 25$ you can purchase Smarter 2.0, which includes all the functionality of the old version, plus the new features mentioned before. The zip also includes the psd files and the color child themes. Being released under a GPL license, Smarter can be used on an unlimited number of websites.

Support

If you have any suggestions or questions regarding the new version of this theme, please visit our forums (http://cozmoslabs.com/forums/).

Related posts:

1. Smarter WordPress Theme
2. Smarter Theme Teaser
3. Green anyone? Try Commune – Thematic Child Theme!

Here is how to remove Google Buzz from Gmail in three easy steps.

Hide Google Buzz from the Gmail interface

Turn off Google Buzz completely

Related posts:

1. Themes in Gmail

Besides support for the themes I hope to discuss any issues you might have with the code snippets found on the site.

So without further ado I here by present you the Cozmoslabs Forums.

Related posts:

1. Charisma, Free Genesis Child Theme

Since version 2.0 Aptana stopped supporting their own fork of the Eclipse PDT I’ve been searching for another editor. I got feed up with how slow it is, all the bloatware, installing the PDT was made me loose an entire day and I honestly believed there had to exist a better editor for Windows.

I must have lost several days searching and testing different editors!

What I want from a Code Editor:

• Really good and easy to use FTP manager
• Code completion for css (it saves me a ton of time). It has to be automatic. When I write it should start showing suggestions.
• Good code coloring
• Fast and good looking.

Sounds simple enough right? Well… not really. Out of all of the Code Editors out there for Windows (including the ones you have to pay for – except Dreamweaver that is just to expensive to be taken seriously) there is just a handful of editors that fit the bill: Notepadd++ (however the FTP is full of bugs and sometimes just refuses to work), UltraEdit (it flickers when you’re using auto-completion – I think it redraws the screen every time I press a key) and jEdit.

jEdit to the rescue

Why didn’t I try jEdit before? I always thought it was a Java only editor. But boy I was wrong. It appears it just requires Java JRE.

So why use jEdit? Because everything works (at least for what I need it for), good FTP, good code completion, fast and it looks good. Oh! Did I mention that is FREE, GPL and supports plugins?

I honestly hope my search for a Code Editor stops here, if not I’m going to start writing my own .

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Ian Stewart from ThemeShaper released, what I consider, the best step-by-step tutorial series for those who want to learn how to build their own WordPress theme from scratch.

In only 11 individual lessons this WordPress Themes Tutorial is going to show you how to build a powerful, up-to-date, WordPress Theme from scratch. As we go along I’ll explain what’s happening including (for better or worse) my thinking on certain techniques and why I’m choosing one path over another.

Here’s the list of features your finished theme will have:

• All the search-engine optimization you’ll really need
• Including google-supported Microformat markup
• Valid and logical semantic markup structure than can be used to create ANY layout
• Smart default CSS layouts
• Dynamic Body, post and comment classes
• Separated trackbacks and threaded comments
• 2 widget areas coded to disappear when they’re empty
• And all the typical WordPress stuff you expect from a theme

If you’re still not convinced… well…you should still read them. Here are all the links to the tutorials!

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I have Author’s Block. I doubt it’s contagious so if you’re reading this no need to worry. Now to the mater at hand, why blog about it?

For some particular reason I don’t want to write that much stuff anymore. My fear is that I don’t write enough interesting posts! Why write about something that dosen’t resonate with me? Sure some people might find my articles useful, but will they return for more?

So I’m writing about web-design and developing. This is far from being a niche. Not in the internet world at least. I tried to focus my attention to WordPress and in particular Thematic since I’m using both in my business. It helped me differentiate from other blogs out there and some even found my WordPress category interesting. But I feel I need more. I want more variety in my articles. I could write about every WordPress and Thematic trick and post short pieces of code but I wouldn’t be any happier.

Next on my agenda? Short 4 day Easter Vacation Hopefully I’ll have a clearer head when I get back! I already have “some” ideas of what to do next (starting with a redesign) so I’m not completely in the dark.

And you know what? I already feel more confident now that I’ve shared this with the world (theoretically at least). Suggestions welcomed

Related posts:

1. New Web-Design and Development blog

If you’ve been working with Thematic and your not really into HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and everything related (I guess the only thing missing from that list was MySQL ) you probably know that Thematic just doesn’t support drop-down menus out of the box.

After quite a success with my CatDrop Childtheme that replaces Thematic’s the main menu with a drop-down menu of categories, I promised a post and childtheme in the future that will do the same with the pages menu. Although a bit late on my promise here is PageDrop Childtheme!

        

In order to install it you have to download the Thematic Theme (from which this child theme inherits all of the functionality), upload both themes (PageDrop and Thematic) to your server in the themes folder AND THEN ACTIVATE the PageDrop theme.

I hope that this will help you with your Thematic installation!

Related posts:

1. Quickly add a Category DropDown to Thematic 0.9

If you have child themes developed with ver. 0.7 chances are the 0.8 will brake it.

Changes had to be made to the sidebars (they are now future-proofed for further enhancements – like extra widget-ready areas in Child Themes) and the menu (if your Child Theme uses #menu in it’s CSS to target the navigation menu you’ll want to replace it with .menu, plus the globalnav filter was replaced with wp_page_menu). For more detailed explanations go over to Themeshaper, Ian has made a more detailed post about the changes.

I’m happy to say that I’m now part of the team that maintains Thematic. Although my contribution for this launch was rather small, it’s good to know I could help. If you think you can contribute to the project go right ahead and ask Ian to let you in!

To coincide with the 0.8 Thematic launch I’ve created a new Child Theme. You can preview it and download it over at www.reflectionmedia.ro. I decided to launch this theme there and not on Cozmoslabs so I could bring a bit of attention and traffic over to my business.

Sufficient to say Thematic looks like it has a great future ahead of it. There are new options planed for the 0.9 version that will take it even further from a customization point of view.

I already have started work on another child theme that is due to be done somewhere in February, this time a magazine style one so I have for you a sneak peek of the new theme. Let me know what you think!

Related posts:

1. Reflection Media. Finally here.

I haven’t wrote for some time now. I’ve been quite busy. A lot of time spent on client work but most of the time went to paperwork.

So I now present to you Reflection Media . It’s my child business. Basically it’s a web-design and developing firm with big plans for the future.

It’s a big step for me moving from freelancing to my own business even if it’s a small one.

It was thought up by me and my friend Adrian. I’m also happy to have onboard my friend Gabriel who will do all the programing we need for the web (and give me more time to design). Neither the web-site or the business plan are quite finished, but we wanted to go forward with it. One could consider this a beta version of the business .

The website it’s built on the 2.7 version of WordPress. The theme for the web-site is also a child theme of thematic theme. I’ve changed a lot from the default thematic theme, added a single column template for my pages, and made changes to header. I have to give Ian Stewart my thanks for a great Theme Framework.

Also Gabriel made his first plugin for WordPress, WP Post Sorting. This plugin allows sorting of posts by Post Title (ascending or descending) or Post Date (ascending or descending), customizable for each category.

It’s been a slow but good start for us. We’ll have an English version of the web-site as soon as possible. Until then you can keep an eye on the Reflection Media Blog (which is in English).

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