Book Launch! My fourth book, WordPress Themes In Depth, focuses entirely on WordPress theme development. It goes in-depth on how to build, customize, and distribute your own WordPress themes. It’s 10+ years of experience with WordPress jam-packed into 450 pages of non-stop theme-building action. Continue reading »
In this tutorial I am going to show you how to build a pure CSS drop down menu in WordPress. I will walk you through the steps of creating a menu in WordPress, customizing it with CSS, and then printing the menu in your theme file. This tutorial requires that you have access to edit your WordPress theme files and also a basic understanding of HTML and CSS. I will walk through the process step-by-step so don’t worry if you […] Continue reading »
After months of deleopment and a low-key “soft-launch”, I’m pleased to announce my first premium WordPress plugin, USP Pro, the supercharged version of my free WP plugin, User Submitted Posts. USP Pro enables you to create and customize infinitely many front-end forms and display them anywhere on your WordPress-powered site. Continue reading »
Just a quick post with some tips for troubleshooting and testing HTTP requests. For example, if you have a plugin that sends requests behind the scenes via Ajax or cURL or whatever, it’s nice to have a way to view request details such as headers, the response, and everything in between. This article is aimed primarily at WordPress users, but contains more general tips and tricks as well. Continue reading »
shapeSpace is the starter WordPress theme that I use to build sites like Plugin-Planet.com and DigWP.com. I use it because it includes all of the most commonly used template tags and a minimal amount of clean markup. Additonally, shapeSpace includes a robust set of custom functions that make it easy to add and modify theme features and functionality. Continue reading »
shapeSpace is the starter template that I use for creating my own WordPress themes and WordPress–powered sites. Over the years, the shapeSpace theme has evolved with WordPress, striking what I find to be a good balance between utility, flexibility, and performance. shapeSpace is basically a starter theme that combines a robust set of theme functions with a lightweight set of template files. It’s a “premium” starter template that’s clean, current, and 100% free and open source (via GPL License). Continue reading »
New version of Ajax-Powered Error Logs for WordPress now available for download. The functionality is the same, but the script is rewritten for better design, performance, and security. Continue reading »
It’s been quiet around here, but I have a good excuse. I spent the last six months writing, designing, and publishing my third book, The Tao of WordPress. This is an excellent book for beginners, students, designers, and basically anyone who wants to learn how to get the most from WordPress. The book “soft-launched” last week, and now I want to share the news with readers here at Perishable Press. Continue reading »
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to install and run WordPress MultiSite on a MAMP webserver. Running multiple sites from a single installation simplifies and streamlines administration, and serving it all from a locally installed version of MAMP gives you everything you need to develop your network of sites for the Web. Continue reading »
To run WordPress on the Web, you need a domain name and web host. But you don’t need either of those things to run WordPress on your own computer. You need only to set up a local server environment that includes Apache, MySQL, and PHP. That may sound like a tall order, but thanks to packaged software bundles such as MAMP and WAMP, setting up a robust server environment on your computer is a relative breeze. Continue reading »
Free WordPress theme! The dark/minimalist design of the Introspection theme was originally created for a Pink Floyd fan site. After taking the site down to clear room (and time) for new stuff, I felt the design was too sweet to just let rot away in the archives. So after a few days of generalizing Introspection for public use, I’ve made it freely available for download so it can shine on.. Continue reading »
It was recently reported about a WordPress Pingback Vulnerability, whereby an attacker has four potential ways to cause harm via xmlrpc.php, which is the file included in WordPress for XML-RPC Support (e.g., “pingbacks”). In this post, I offer a simple .htaccess technique to lock things down and protect against any meddling via the xmlrpc.php file. Continue reading »
Simple Basic Contact Form is a clean, secure, plug-n-play contact form for WordPress. Minimal yet flexible, SBCF delivers clean code, solid performance, and ease of use. No frills, no gimmicks, just a straight-up contact form that’s easy to set up and style for any theme. For a contact form with more options and features, check out Contact Coldform, or continue reading to learn more about Simple Basic Contact Form. Either way, thanks for visiting. Continue reading »
Here is a list of all CSS hooks available for the User Submitted Posts submission form. If you notice any errors or if I’ve missed anything, please let me know with a comment or by sending an email via my contact form. Thanks! Continue reading »
Simple Ajax Chat displays a fully customizable Ajax-powered chat box anywhere on your site. SAC makes it easy for your visitors to chat with each other on your website. There already are a number of decent chat plugins, but I wanted one that is simple yet fully customizable with all the features AND outputs clean HTML markup for easy styling. Continue reading »
Show Support Ribbon is a free WordPress plugin that displays a customizable “show support” ribbon, banner, or badge on your site. Show support for your favorite cause, event, charity, political event, or anything else that’s awesome. Show Support Ribbon includes four built-in ribbon styles and makes it easy to customize further with your own CSS. Continue reading »
Perishable Press is operated by Jeff Starr, a professional web developer and book author with two decades of experience.
Here you will find posts about web development, WordPress, security, and more »