wordpress – Alex Bezuska

Stuff I need to learn this week

Google Packaged Apps w/ PhoneGap (Cordova)
A big goal of mine For Two Scoop Games is to get our games packaged and up on both the Google Play and Apple iOS App stores. Because of the engine we have developed being based on HTML5 Canvas (JavaScript) it is cross-platform without any extra effort, but to avoid the varied nature of mobile browser quality, I would prefer to have our games as ‘apps’ . This is where PhoneGap comes in, I have succeeded in getting a game packaged with PhoneGap, but the canvas performance by default is low. A friend has suggested Google Packages Apps and I need to do my research and get this working!
PhoneGap

WordPress SEO plugin
SEO is something that would really benefit me to learn more about, both in my day job and for my games – is art, art if nobody ever sees it? Is a game, a game if nobody ever has the opportunity to play it?

WordPress social integration
For Two Scoop Games I would like to sync posts or more ideally post similar updates to all of the social networks at once.

What software do I use part one

Sublime Text 2 $70
http://www.sublimetext.com/2

Code Kit $25
http://incident57.com/codekit/

Sublime text 2 Plugins

SFTP $16
http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/sftp

Package Control -free
http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/package_control

Bracket Highlighter
– Install via Package Control

CSSComb
– Install via Package Control

Emmet
– Install via Package Control

Hex to RGBA
– Install via Package Control

SidebarEnhancements
– Install via Package Control

WordPress Plugins

WP Migrate DB Pro $99
http://deliciousbrains.com/wp-migrate-db-pro/pricing/

Perch Add-Ons

Redactor

A really clean and simple text editor that was edits super easy for my clients

http://grabaperch.com/add-ons/plug-ins/redactor

_s (underscores) A Completely Blank Starter Theme for WordPress

So when you first get into theming for a Content-Management-System you will more than likely take one of the existing base themes included with the CMS and start snooping around in the various files. You might just edit the ‘style.css’ file or equivalent – or you might go straight for the jugular and strip out all the html leaving only the relevant tags the CMS uses to fill in dynamic content, then add in your own markup around them. This is what I did when learning Drupal, and now that I am working with WordPress I started down the same path for a couple of client sites – but now I have found a real gem for any WP theming beginners out there and that gem is underscores.

A completely blank theme agnostic to any design direction to give you a blank canvas to work your creative magic however you want. No pre-supposed boundaries or grids, just a clean slate.

I really dont know what else to say – its exactly where you should start as a WP themer – and its open source and being refined and updates all the time via the GitHub repository.

Check it out here:

http://underscores.me/

And let me know how it worked out for you.

-Go make the web a better place.

-Alex Bezuska