Not exactly WordPress related, but sometimes it pays to stop and reflect on how lucky you are.

So you bought Thesis because everyone said it was a breeze to customize eh? WRONG! Unless you know stuff about (a) HTML, (b) CSS, (c) PHP, (d) WordPress and (e) Thesis, it’s not easy.

So either you need to learn some stuff or you need to find a new WordPress theme framework. I’d suggest learning. It’s far more rewarding.

With that in mind, let me show you how you can use ‘Thesis hooks’ to make changes to the look & feel of your Thesis blog in seconds. Everything you’re seeing here goes on in the custom_functions.php file, contained within Thesis’ custom folder (you could also use the excellent Openhook plugin, but that would be too easy).

Thesis actions & hooks

In WordPress, and in Thesis, hooks are used to make theme development easier. Think of a hook as a placeholder in your theme, e.g. thesis_hook_before_header is Thesis’ hook/placeholder for stuff you’d want to place in your theme, before your header (the bit that contains your logo and tagline).

A great example of hooks in use is an action used to switch the Thesis navigation bar from the top of the header to the bottom of the header, like this:

// Place Thesis Navigation beneath the Logo

remove_action('thesis_hook_before_header' , 'thesis_nav_menu');
add_action('thesis_hook_after_header' , 'thesis_nav_menu');

What’s happening here is that we’re removing the thesis menu (thesis_nav_menu) from its default hook position of thesis_hook_before_header and adding a new action (containing the same thesis_nav_menu function) to the thesis_hook_after_header hook position.

There are a lot of hooks available to you in the Thesis theme, which is one reason why the theme framework is so versatile. DIYthemes have prepared a complete list of Thesis hooks and Greg Rickaby has created an excellent visual overview of the hooks positions.

Thesis functions

A function is a bit of code that makes something happen to your Thesis-driven blog. Functions, not hooks, are the bit that confuse Thesis beginners. The odd thing about functions is that they’re ridiculously simple once you understand what’s going on. Let’s take a look:

function custom_function() {
?>
	<p>Insert your HTML code here...</p>
<?php
}

What’s happening here is that:

1. You’re telling Thesis that you would like a new function, called custom_function in this case (it can be called anything you like, although your function name should relate to what it does, e.g. footer_credits(), header_links(), etc.).
2. You’re adding an opening curly bracket { to start the function.
3. You’re closing out your PHP code by using ?> (this allows you to add HTML in the next section).
4. You’re adding some HTML using the <p> tag.
5. You’re re-opening the PHP code so the function can complete itself using <?php.
6. You’re ending the function using a closing curly bracket }.

You can add anything you like to the HTML section. You could add a div, some PHP, some JavaScript, an image, a whole new page. Anything.

Hooks and functions together

Now let’s say you wanted to add some links to the header of your site. Perhaps you’ll link out to Facebook, Twitter and your RSS feed. We already know (from the DIYthemes hooks list) that the hook (or placeholder) we want to use to place our new links is thesis_hook_header . So all we need to do is (a) create a new function and (b) add the hook. Something like this:

// Add custom links in the header

function header_links() {
?>
	<p id="header_links"><a href="#">Facebook</a> | <a href="#">Twitter</a> | <a href="#">RSS</a></p>
<?php
}

add_action('thesis_hook_header','header_links');

Take a closer look:

1. We’re defining a new function (header_links).
2. We’re using the curly bracket to open the function.
3. We’re closing out our PHP to allow for some HTML.
4. We’re adding our HTML.
5. We’re re-opening PHP.
6. We’re closing out the function with a curly bracket.
7. And finally, we’re adding the function header_links to a hook thesis_hook_header.

Ohhhhhh. Simple, isn’t it?

Today’s life lesson from the Interwebs is: The more objectives you have for your blog the less likely it is to achieve any of them.

Since this is a blog post and not a Twitter stream, allow me to elaborate.

Internet Marketers, or the yellow-highlighter brigade as Sonia Simone calls them, figured out years ago that on a direct sales website you must only present 2 options to visitors; buy now, or leave.

What this means is (a) all direct sales websites are horrible but effective, and (b) Internet marketers are way cleverer than 99.99% of the blog owning population.

Example

You build a new WordPress blog, Internet Marketer style, with just 2 options: Send us an enquiry, or leave our site. This means there’s a 50/50 chance you’re going to generate a sales lead from each visitor (all things being equal).

Now, rebuild the same blog, but throw in a newsletter subscription form, a link to 5 other sites you like, 500 gazillion affiliate links to products nobody wants and for good measure, your Twitter stream in your sidebar.

All of a sudden your visitor has 4 additional options (that’s a total of 6 in case you weren’t counting). According to my calculator you will now realistically only generate one sales lead from every 10 visitors.

Be Frugal with your online objectives

If we lived in a perfect world Angelina Jolie would be my future ex-wife and your business would only need 1 objective. But sadly for Angelina, we don’t live in a perfect world, and most bloggers need at least 2 objectives/income streams to survive.

I blame WordPress. Back in the old days (3 years ago) if you wanted a blogroll added to your sidebar, you damn well added the code yourself. Nowadays, you simply add a widget and you’re done. it’s just too easy to clutter things up.

My advice

Go ahead and add 2-3 objectives to your blog if they’re ABSOLUTELY necessary, not just because they make your sidebar look pretty.

It seems like a daily occurance. I open my feed reader and BAM! someone has written a blog post prediciting Twitter’s demise. I have 2 thoughts on this:

1. Too many people fail to see Twitter’s potential as the greatest human edited real-time search engine ever.
2. I need to find some new bloggers to follow.

My opinion on Twitter

Here’s my take on Twitter (or Facebook, or whatever the social media darling of the week happens to be):

1. Social media is constantly evolving.
2. Twitter will probably be beaten by a better idea someday.
3. We’ll all survive.

Look back at the history of modern communications and you’ll see a pattern emerging:

• The fax machine killed off the telex machine.
• Email kicked the fax machine in the gut.
• Blogs, Flickr, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter are making email seem less important (socially).
• Soon something new will come along and we may all abandon Twitter like a rain-soaked cricket match that’s heading for a draw (if you don’t watch cricket, you should).

Twitter is a great communications tool. I say you should invest everything you have into building a powerful network of Twitter customers, suppliers and friends. Don’t worry about it disappearing, because if/when it does you and your network of followers will probably already have moved on.

Twitter isn’t dying. It’s teething. Now stop putting ‘the end is nigh’ posts in my feed reader!

Edit: With the release of Thesis 1.6, Chris has fixed the framing issue discussed below. If you’re still running 1.5, this post is still relevant. If not, not.

Today I stumbled across an annoying bug in Thesis 1.5.1 that stops image frames from displaying even when the Thesis options panel and individual WordPress post settings are set to display frames.

So, armed with my trusty DIYTHEMES FORUM username and password, I set out either to fix the problem or find a hack. It seems this is a problem a few Thesis users have been having under WordPress 2.8, and a simple hack is in place to make all your images look pretty again.

First off, not everyone will experience this (only us special people). It’s an intermittant problem. Second, the bug is likely to be stamped on in an upcoming release of v1.5.2. Until then, we can use CSS to work around the problem.

Here’s how to add the default gray frame around your images using CSS:

1. Open your custom.css file (wp-content/themes/thesis_151/custom/custom.css) in your favourite text editor, or if you’re using Thesis Openhook (which you should be; it’s great), go to Appearance > Thesis Custom Styling in the WordPress backend.
2. Find a space near the bottom and add the following CSS:

.custom .headline_area .post_image {
padding: 1em;
border-width: 0.1em;
background:#EEEEEE none repeat scroll 0 0;
border-color:#DDDDDD;
border-style:solid;
}

.custom .format_text .post_image {
padding: 0.714em;
border-width: 0.071em;
background:#EEEEEE none repeat scroll 0 0;
border-color:#DDDDDD;
border-style:solid;
}

.custom .teaser .post_image_link .thumb {
padding: 0.8em;
border-width: 0.1em;
background:#EEEEEE none repeat scroll 0 0;
border-color:#DDDDDD;
border-style:solid;
}

.custom .format_teaser .post_image_link .thumb {
padding: 0.333em;
border-width: 0.083em;
background:#EEEEEE none repeat scroll 0 0;
border-color:#DDDDDD;
border-style:solid;
}

Save your file using the ‘little ass save button’ in Openhook, or upload your custom.css file using an FTP client. This should fix your problem.

There are 2 ways to make WordPress into a better CMS. The first way involves a lot more time spent building your theme and ultimately a lot more cost. The second way uses third party plugins to extend your CMS’ functionality.

If I could install any 10 plugins to make a CMS more CMS-like, these would definitely be on my list:

1. Page Link Manager – If you’re using WordPress as a CMS, it’s quite likely that you’ll be using pages instead of posts. The Page Link Manager plugin installs a simple menu that allows you to check which pages you want included in your main navigation.
2. My Page Order – Often, you’ll want to display your WordPress page navigation in a list, and you’ll probably want to have some control over the way those menu items display. My Page Order allows you to move pages around the list. It can also be used to move child pages around the navigation menu.
3. Widget Logic – This plugin allows you to display different widgets on different pages. So now you can display a specific set of widgets on your blog, another set on your home page, and yet another on your product pages. The plugin uses conditional tags to trigger the logic bit.
4. Yoast Breadcrumbs – Since the early days of the Internet, breadcrumbs have been used to show visitors where they are on your site. This simple plugin installs above your content and can easily be styled to suit your theme’s look.
5. Search Everything – The default WordPress search function searches only blog posts. On a CMS, you want both pages and posts to be searchable. Search Everything gives you this added functionality.
6. Analytics360 – I wasn’t going to add this one to my list, but 2 days into it, I’m loving having a Google Analytics system right on my WordPress Dashboard. Not only does the plugin display Google stats, it also shows when you published blog posts and can be integrated with the Mail Chimp e-mail management app. This one is great for blogs and corporate sites.
7. WP-CMS Post Control – Even though WordPress has a simple page editing interface, it can still get cluttered, especially for new users. The WP-CMS Post Control plugin lets you set which write panels appear in your editing pages, de-cluttering it beautifully.
8. Widgets Reloaded – 2 words. GET THIS. Justin Tadlock has created a widget set that pushes WordPress further than anything anyone has ever done before. In a nutshell, the plugin gives your widgets the ability to do anything. They’ll even make you coffee. OK, not really.
9. Flutter – I haven’t quite got to grips with Flutter yet, and the video tutorials on the Flutter site leave a lot to be desired, but the idea is brilliant. You can set write panels to do pretty much anything on a post or a page, including adding images, file uploads, video or content. So, for a company CMS with loads of repetitive page structures, the Flutter write panels could be a massive time saver.
10. Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu – This neat little plugin converts the WordPress admin panel’s navigation from the left of the page to simple drop down menus on the top of the dashboard. The result: All the plugins you’ve installed in steps 1-9 above are a heck of a lot easier to find.

Obviously you can have too many plugins, so it pays to only use a plugin if it’s really going to help make your site easier to manage. Know of any more I should have included?