Every website I have developed in the past year has used WordPress as the content management system. Every day I learn new techniques for implementing WordPress into my client websites. Although WordPress is realtively simple to use, it is packed full of features that make it ideal for many website design projects.
I wanted to share with others two of the neat features I have discovered that WordPress allows a developer to implement. Although WordPress is a great system right out-of-the-box, the ability to extend it for more custom applications is what really appeals to me.
- Category Templates
- WordPress allows the developer to specify different category templates for each of your categories. I had never even considered using this feature before, but while designing a website for Nancy Redd I found myself in need of having different templates for each of the pages on the website. WordPress to the rescue! I read up on how to use category templates and my problem was solved!
- Custom Fields
- Once I learned how to use custom fields in WordPress, I could think of dozens of reasons to use them. Using custom features gives the developer a method to add addtional dynamic data to each WordPress record. For instance, the subtitle on this page is displayed using a custom field. Couple this ability with a neat plugin like Custom Fields GUI and you have the ability to add, edit and implement custom fields directly through the WordPress dashboard. Neat, eh?
What are your favorite WordPress tips, tricks, plugins or extensions? I’d love to hear about them!
