Next month I’ll be at WordCamp Milwaukee talking about WordPress themes in a session called Theme Choices, When To Have A Baby.

I’ll be talking about using a theme right off the shelf, hacking and forking themes, parent and child themes, starter themes, and theme frameworks. I’ll also discuss what functions should be in a theme, and when to use a plugin.

The organizers for WordCamp Milwaukee were kind enough to setup a coupon code for each speaker, you can use “Leuze” to save five bucks when you get a ticket.

I’m looking forward to yet another awesome WordCamp and also spending some time in Milwaukee instead of just seeing the city roll by on the train. If you’re going to be attending, you should definitely find me and say hi!

It’s the only tool that I have stuck with throughout those years because I have been able to learn so much with Firebug and build projects so much faster by using it.

If you have never used a web inspector like Firebug before, what it does is allow you to bridge the gap between the source code and the rendered out page in your browser. You can look at each bit of code interactively and see how it fits into the page, adjusting the code in the inspector and seeing the updates live in your browser.

This is as close as you can realistically get to a WYSIWYG experience like Dreamweaver when you are building something as complex as a WordPress theme.

Firebug Video Tutorial

In this Firebug screencast I talk about Firebug and other inspectors, show you how to use Firebug to inspect a site, tweak CSS, fix JavaScript bugs, and build faster sites. Watch the video below or read on for more info.

Other Browser Inspectors

I use Firebug because it was one of the first and best web inspectors, I know it well and I like the “feel” of the UI, but it isn’t the only inspector. Luckily all the major browsers finally have a web inspector built right in:

• Firefox Page Inspector
• Chrome DevTools
• Safari Developer Tools
• Internet Explorer F12 Developer Tools

It doesn’t matter which one you use, they are all pretty similar. In practice you will end up using them all occasionally as you are testing sites in different browsers and fixing bugs. The important thing is that you pick one that you like, learn it well, and use it every day!

Several of us from the local MSP WordPress user group have been busy organizing the WordCamp. Everyone’s been doing an awesome job, the schedule, venues, parties, and swag are all coming along nicely. I built the theme, designed by the talented guys at WerkPress, and I’ve been managing the site. We just posted the speakers and sessions, there’s going to be a lot of brainpower to tap into.

WordCamp Season

This will be the start of a busy WordCamp season for me. I remember five years ago wondering if there would ever be any WordCamps in the Midwest. Then in 2009 I went to Chicago for their first WordCamp, and we had our first WordCamp in Minnesota the next year.

Now in 2013 I’m wondering if I will be able to attend all the WordCamps in my area! After WordCamp Minneapolis I’ll be taking a break for a month, and then in June I’ll be heading to WordCamp Winnipeg, WordCamp Milwaukee, and WordCamp Chicago.

I’m really looking forward to all three of these. Even though I was raised on CBC over a pair of rabbit ears and it’s only 300 miles away, I’ve never been to Canada, so I need to fix that. Last year I missed out on the nearest WordCamp next door in Wisconsin because I was speaking at WordCamp NYC. I try making it to Chicago every year, to me it’s the Midwest’s WordCamp San Francisco and I like to think it’s just as awesome!

After all that I’m taking July off and doing some proper camping, with tents.

My robot minion Ampersand has been hiding out lately and I haven’t been spending nearly enough time drawing, so I dusted off my Wacom tablet and did some sketching. First I drew Ampersand going on a 5 star balloon ride after hitting 200 ratings and then I drew a spiffy new donate page with buttons for PayPal and my Amazon wishlist. My reading queue is getting out of control!

I just released a plugin update today, Meteor Slide 1.5.1, which includes a few bug fixes and some new and updated translations. It also has one new feature, a slideshow alignment option.

New Slideshow Alignment Option

One problem that I noticed a lot of newer users having was getting the slideshow to align or layout correctly. Most of the time when I add a slideshow to a site it the full width of the page, or the column it’s in, so the slideshow is on its own line and fits exactly in that spot.

Left Slideshow Alignment

But some users need to place a smaller slideshow in the content of their post or page, and want the text or other content to wrap around the slideshow. This only takes a few lines of CSS to fix, but if you aren’t well versed in CSS or haven’t had to tackle floats before it can be confusing.

So I wanted to add an alignment feature to the slideshow to make it easier for new users, and also quicker for all users. But this isn’t a very common issue, and I don’t want to start adding more options to the settings page unless I absolutely have to.

To keep the settings page very simple and allow users to set the alignment on a per-slideshow basis, I set it up as an option using metadata. So it’s there if you needed, but won’t get in the way. Check out the documentation on changing the slideshow alignment for more info.

Some Bug Fixes

I fixed a few minor theme conflict bugs and one bigger bug that was breaking the slideshow script when cached and minified. Also fixed an issue with the touch navigation that wasn’t allowing vertical scrolling over the slideshow on touch devices.

I also added support for slideshows with one slide. This happened to work in earlier versions, but I wasn’t testing for this use case specifically and with Meteor Slides 1.5 I learned the hard way that quite a few users sometimes only load one slide.

More Translations

Meteor Slides is now available in twenty-two languages thanks to these awesome translators!

• Chinese (Traditional): Translation by Danny
• Updated Danish: Translation by Kim Hansen and Rune Rønde Møller
• Updated Portuguese (Brazilian): Translation by Raoni Del Pérsio
• Updated Swedish: Translation by Simon Wämmerfors
• Vietnamese: Translation by Duy Duong

Thank you everyone who has rated or reviewed my plugin or donated to help support Meteor Slides! It’s always great to see cool custom slideshows if anyone wants to share, and if you’d like to follow along with the plugin’s development, check it out on Github.

The format for WordUp will basically be a mini-WordCamp. We had our first WordCamp Minneapolis in 2010 and WordUp 2012 will hopefully be a solid stepping stone towards our next WordCamp in early 2013!

We’ve got a lot of good sessions planned for users of all levels and interests. In my session I’ll be talking about creating easy to use post types, using existing plugins to build unique admin interfaces for the end user with custom taxonomies and metaboxes.

I’ll also be staffing the tech shop, it’s like a live support forum where you get your answer right away, but you have to be nicer, and no bumping! So if you’re in Minnesota and you’ve got ten bucks, you should definitely grab a ticket.

First I’m headed to the Twin Cities for the MSP WordPress meetup. After that, Kiko Doran and I are road tripping down to Chicago for WordCamp Chicago 2012.

This will be my third time attending WordCamp Chicago and it looks like it will be the best one yet. There are a lot of awesome speakers and sessions on the schedule, but I’m really interested in the interactive talks track, hopefully those will start some good conversations.

Here are some notes from my session, jQuery The WordPress Way. You can view the presentation slides or download a child theme for Twenty Eleven with all the demo code.

Also, check out the documentation on adding jQuery to WordPress and definitely read this great post on WPCandy about properly adding jQuery to a theme.

My session is about using jQuery the WordPress way, I’ll be talking about some of the common jQuery problems I run into while supporting Meteor Slides.

Responsive Slideshows

I have been building more responsive websites lately and receiving more and more requests from users for responsive slideshows, so I have updated the slideshows to scale automatically.

If you are using a fixed width theme the slideshows will remain unchanged at their original dimensions. But if you are using a fluid or responsive width theme those are used as the maximum dimensions and the slideshow will scale, shrinking to fit the theme on smaller screens and devices.

Any custom slideshow templates, stylesheets, or scripts you are using would have to be updated from the default versions in 1.5 to add this responsive functionality.

Try resizing the Meteor Slides homepage in your browser to see the responsive slideshow in action!

Touch Wipe Navigation

Another mobile friendly update in Meteor Slides 1.5 is support for touch navigation. I added the jQuery Touchwipe plugin which allows previous and next navigation with the swipe of a finger. This works on many touch devices including the iPad, iPhone, and Android mobiles and tablets.

Built In Support

The contextual help feature has been updated to use the new help functions in WordPress 3.3 and expanded with more information and links to relevant documentation.

Click the help tab in the upper right corner of any Meteor Slides admin page for more information.

Improved Slideshow Widget

The Meteor Slides Widget has been updated with a new slideshow selector. This option only displays if you have created one or more slideshows, allowing you to easily choose a slideshow from a dropdown without having to enter the slideshow’s slug.

Even More Translations

Thanks to these translators, Meteor Slides is now available in twenty languages!

Belarusian: Translation by Alexander Ovsov
Czech: Translation by Ondřej Carda
Danish: Translation by Kim Hansen
Dutch: Translation by Leon Buitendam
German: Translation by Maximilian Brandl
Persian: Translation by Peyman Asadi

A Five Star Year

Since 1.4 was released last year the downloads have more than doubled to 93,000, and it has zoomed up to a 145 ratings.

I have gotten so many awesome comments, tweets, emails, and even donations from Meteor Slides users this year, thanks everyone for your feedback and generosity!

If you want to keep up with and participate in the development of Meteor Slides, check out the project on Github.

Update: It looks like WordCamp Omaha didn’t happen this year either, better luck next year…