Everything I Wanted to Learn About WordPress

Everything I wanted to learn about WordPress, I learned from WordCamp Phoenix. This was my first time attending a “geek” conference. I really didn’t know what to expect. I was worried I wouldn’t know as much as I think I know and would be lost. I recently relocated to Phoenix from Tucson and haven’t made any “geek connections” here. I need to remove myself from my “Geek Cave” and venture out.

The moment I arrived, I felt at home. All these people knew what “The Loop” was. They were like me and wanting to download as much information as they can. I suddenly felt not alone.

After the Angry Birds attack in the opening speeches I was off to my first class. A bit of confusion on what room I was supposed to be in, I found myself walking into the right class a bit late. Mitcho the creator of YARPP. He was talking about A/B testing. He built an awesome plugin that does control testing without disrupting your visitors viewing experience or having to create a test site called ShrimpTest. ShrimpTest, nice. I like it! It’s a useful tool and I plan on using it on this site here in the future.

The second class was presented by Mark Jaquith, the lead developer for WordPress. I felt a little star stuck by now, you know the only kind of star stuck you can tweet to your geek friends because the “real world” would just look at you funny. He covered the importance of Theme and Plugin security. I learned some great tips and how to use:

 <?php esc_attr( ) ?>
 <?php esc_html( ) ?>
 <?php esc_url( ) ?>

My third class was one I was really excited about. It was Chelsea Otakan. She discussed Typography and it’s use in WordPress. Typography isn’t my strong suite. I just think, eh… this font looks sweet. She taught me the important of feeling and emotion you want to get from a font and how to stick within the same families. I think I am going to revamp the typography on this website in the next week.

Boone Gorges was my fourth class, a philosopher and a BuddyPress developer. I was highly interested in BuddyPress because I am often approached by clients about Social Communities online. I am a die hard WordPress lover and want to use it for everything including Social Site setups. I was scared to use it. I am not sure why, fear of the unknown I suppose. Boone did an EXCELLENT job at explaining BP and how to set it up using a child theme. He even answered my question about how easy it is to upgrade. Nothing like upgrading a site and it falls to pieces over a plugin. **HEADACHE!!** Great Job, Boone!

After an excellent meal, Arizona style of course, I continued to my last 3 classes. Next up, Custom Post Types and the backend taught by Ryan Duff. SWEEETT!!! I am addicted to building custom post types, custom admins and basically anything that will make my client’s life easier when using WordPress. Ryan Duff was spotted wearing pink fuzzy slippers to prove he’s not sexist. He’s officially my hero. Ryan Duff is also a contributor to the WordPress core. And I am excited to learn that I can move my CPT menus in the newest release. I attempted this method on WP 3.0.4 and it failed. I thought I was doing something wrong. Ryan clarified this is a new method that is going to be released soon.

I was going to stay in the class for CPT and the front end, but I already know how to loop in the data and query the meta information. I was interested in Membership sites. They are another question I receive from clients. I was someone disappointed, not in the speaker but in myself for not reading the description. It touched more on how to market a membership site. I wanted to learn how to turn WP into a membership site. With a little direction from Chris Lema on twitter, he introduced me to MagicMembers. A big thanks to Chris.

My final class was Plugins for Designers. It was taught by Cody Landefeld. He showed us several plugins that are helpful to designers. Most of them I use already, such as Contact Forms 7. I swear by that plugin. I used to be a Cforms II stalker but found so much more functionality and ease of use with Contact Forms 7. Recently a great programmer I know developed an Contact Forms add-on for Campaign Monitor. You should get it if you haven’t already.

We finished up the day in the main room with Pat Tillman Donations, and give aways. I won a sweet book, “Build Your Own Wicked WordPress Themes” for being a Chandler resident. It literally took me 5 minutes to drive there.

Other things I learned and OH:

It’s WordPress not wordpress or Word press or word press. Whoops – I have some categories and tags to fix.
WordPress 3.0 has more downloads than IE9 Beta.
Write drunk, edit sober – Chris Conrey
The After Party is where the cool kids go. I just went home to my kids.
Passion without profit is called a hobby. – Cory Miller
Perfectionism is evil – Cory Miller
Don’t over complicate it. >Cody Landefeld
We are sorry about IE6. …Sorry – The Microsoft Guy
eval() is evil.
No non-profit should have advertising on their site.

Overall my experience at #WCPHX was amazing. There were some classes I missed and can’t wait for the PodCasts to be available. I will defiantly be there next year and planning to do the all weekend event not just the Saturday event. And my 5 year old daughter, McKenna, will be hacking it up at the WordCamp for Kids. If I don’t watch it, soon she’ll be out coding me.

Author By Shanda Peterson