<title>Page Title</title> or <title>Parent Page Title — Page Title</title>

So after doing a little searching and combining some code, this is what I came up with:

<title><?php
if($post->post_parent) {
$parent_title = get_the_title($post->post_parent);
echo $parent_title;
?> &#8212; <?php } ?><?php wp_title(''); ?></title>

And then there’s photo restoration:

This is a picture of the dining room in a 1890’s house that my husband and I are wanting to buy and restore. I got a little anxious and started early in photoshop. Now if only I could just hit print and see the results in the real life room!

One of my gifts to myself (I already bought the latest Sarah Kelly CD, and did some clothes shopping for myself) is a new design for website. I only started it last night, but hopefully I’ll be able to work on it steadily over the next few days. This design will be the best SEO and the best accessibility that I’ve ever done. It will show a more high class style, and not have use the boxed in feeling I have now.

My husband told me back in November that I needed to keep my design for at least a year, and that was my plan, but in just 6 months, I have learned so much more about design and SEO that I just feel like my site should stay up to date with my own capabilities. So my new design will come out of conformity and stand on it’s own two feet as a creative, eye catching design, and hopefully give me better search engine rankings.

Here is a screenshot of the homepage design so far:

Live Preview

Theme name: Resilience

Widget Ready Sidebar: Yes

Rights: Completely goes to buyer

Unique/Original Design: Yes

Other Features:

• Special frontpage layout with featured latest post, recent posts, and recent comments
• Special post title and meta data on single pages
• Fresh “web 2.0″ design
• Unique previous and next post links
• Horizontal page nav with child pages listed in sidebar of parent pages only

In my project, I wanted widget capability in my sidebar, and in my super footer. I already had my functions.php code ready for one sidebar. I found one site that gave me peices of what I needed to know, but didn’t explain it well enough for me. So I figured it out through good ol’ trial and error.

Here is what my new functions.php looks like:

<?php
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ){

register_sidebar(array(
'name' => 'sidebar',
'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
'after_widget' => '</li>',
'before_title' => '<h2 class="widgettitle">',
'after_title' => '</h2>',));

register_sidebar(array(
'name' => 'footer',
'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
'after_widget' => '</li>',
'before_title' => '<h2 class="widgettitle">',
'after_title' => '</h2>',));

} ?>

As you can see, it registers two sidebars, one called “sidebar”, and one called “footer”. You can repeat these sections for as many sidebars you need and name them whatever you want to name them. But how do you tell which sidebar to be which in the template files?
Here is what the default widget code looks like:

<?php 	/* Widgetized sidebar, if you have the plugin installed. */
if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar() ) : ?>

Here is what it looks like with the name in it:

<?php 	/* Widgetized sidebar, if you have the plugin installed. */
if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('sidebar') ) : ?>

Of course, you should include your <?php endif; ?>where you need it to be.

Another quick note about custom sidebars

Sometimes there are elements that you want to stay in your sidebar, and not be canceled out by widgets. Simply place your widget code above or below these concrete elements, and don’t wrap it with the <?php endif; ?>.

This theme isn’t a very flexible one, but I still feel like it is interesting enough to add to your collection. It is called xSimplify because it does exemplify beautiful simplicity.

The sidebar is widgetized and it works in WordPress versions 2.0.*+ including the latest 2.5. It has a stylized rss section and search area in the sidebar. The pages are listed across the top as tabs. The background extends for a maximum of 1600 pixel wide resolution and features a nice vector art tree at the bottom that gives you a nice surprise when you scroll to the bottom of a long page. There is special styling for an unordered list and a blockquote. The comments are also styled with alternating shading.

Live Preview | Download

xSimplify by Tammy Hart is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

There aren’t any noticeable changes to you on the outside, but here on the inside of the new Admin Dashboard, it’s a whole new world. Everything is so much sleeker and easier to use. The new media functionality is awesome. I did run into a snag there that was fixed with a little help from the support forums.

I’ve been thinking about making some subtle changes to my site design to just spruce it up a bit, but I can’t seem to get settled on it. I have an irritating need for frequent change in my life, but my husband has forbid me to overhaul my design until it’s at least a year old. His “advice” is good though, as I need to establish recognizability. So instead, I’ll probably overhaul MyThreeDaisies, and I’m currently working on overhauling Halo (preview), which is just step one in overhauling Christway which will be taking on my present design from Halo.

This is all being fit between my normal work, of course. The latest trophy added to my portfolio page is the overhaul I just finished for Comag Marketing Group. A lot of work went into making it function just like we wanted it to, but the result was perfect success, as that is the only thing I am satisfied with. I’ll go ahead and take this opportunity to make mention of my new friend Jason Craft from Deft Development for helping me amend a plugin to give it a bit of extra functionality crucial to the success of the site.

We’re four months into 2008, and I still feel like I’m kicking it off!

Website Name

Comag Marketing Group

Web Address

http://www.i-cmg.com

Project Date

April 2008

Work Done

• Logo Touchup
• Unique Overall Website Design and Layout
• XHTML/CSS Tableless Coding
• Semi-Opaque drop down submenus
• highly customized WordPress Integration

Comments

This project pushed WordPress harder than anything I’ve ever worked on. There were times we thought we had found limits to WP’s capabilities, but with the help of a great WordPress developer, we were able to get it to do everything we wanted it to. This site appears to be running three different blogs. One for the Company News, one for the NewsShare, and one for the Hot Issues and main pages, but with the clever use of Categories, all functions are seamlessly integrated.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

So here is my latest idea, and I’m still rolling it around in my head, but I wanted to write some of it down:

Everyone knows that non-exclusive WordPress themes are cheaper than custom made ones. The drawback is, everyone has it, and everyone recognizes it, and where it comes from. (I’m still amazed at how many blogs I run across that use Kubrick’s default theme.) So.. what if there was a site that developed “limited edition” themes. Like.. this theme only goes to the first 100 buyers, and it costs $. Then more elite themes that only go to the first 20 buyers, and it costs $$. Then every once in awhile, you slip in an exclusive theme that costs $$$. It is sold only once, and those only come, say.. once a month. It could even go up for auction.

The first challenge would be to draw in an audience. There would need to be an excitement about the cool new themes, and if you’re going to be one of the lucky few that gets to own it. This could be compared to baseball card collections or Woot. I think to kick start it, there should be plenty of basic, free themes. Then draw them in with more intricate designs. To make that part even more interesting, you could retire themes after a certain period of time.

Breaking off on that thought, what if instead of having individual pricing, the users simply subscribe. And as members, they can download certain themes, upgraded users get access to the upgraded themes.  These themes are only available to a certain amount of downloads for a certain amount of time. Then, you could offer free trial memberships.

It would take some good planning, marketing, and programming, but I think it could gain popularity.