My apologies to those who have waited for replies while I straighten out my life!

More later….

I started making my own soap back in April, and for the past months have experimented and tweaked my formula with various oils and goodies, and have developed with I think is an awesome shower experience!

It will be Spring before I’m ready to start selling my wares, but I love talking about it, so be ready! I’ll also be changing this theme – we’ll still have roses, but I think I’m going to get rid of that keyboard….

Much has changed in my life since then, and none of it has/had anything to do with WordPress! While I still use it and think it’s a great application, I no longer work in web development, and have developed other interests besides WP.

My themes are still available for download at WordPress.org and I can answer simple questions if I am around, but cannot guarantee a timeframe on answers to questions or comments.

Best holiday wishes to all!

In a couple of days I should be back on track. I am going to finish the next WordPress theme before I finish BK2K Web Design – I’ll probably submit it to WordPress.org on Friday, and you should be able to download it the following week.

Until then…

When you’re done creating your outline, and adding the titles and descriptions, you’ve got the basis for a perfect list site map. Not the same as your Google XML site map, this is for your users’ benefits, although search engine bots may very well  find your site map page to be very tasty! Here is my basic outline, with links and descriptions added:

1. Home
   Learn and work in web development, web design, or graphic design. Technology jobs from across the U.S. posted daily, many telecommuting jobs so you can work from home.
2. About BK2K Web Design
   1. About the Web Wench
      I have studied web page design and development since 1995, learning from open source software and online tutorials.
      
   2. About this WordPress Site
      Details of what and how I built BK2K Web Design and what tools I used.
3. Learn
   There are several options available to learn web development – online schools, online tutorials, and tutorial videos.
   1. Online Schools
      An online school to learn web development/design might be right for you if you prefer a structured learning environment.
   2. Video Tutorials
      Online video tutorials are an easy, inexpensive way to build and polish your web development or graphic design skills.
   3. Tutorials
      There are many web design and web development “experts” and articles to choose from. Make sure that you’re using a reputable source so that you learn it right the first time.
4. Tools
   Web development tools and resources: hardware and opensource software
   1. Hardware
      The essential hardware you will need to pursue an education or a career in web development or web design
   2. Software
      At the minimum, you need a good text editor for web development. If you want to learn graphic design on a professional level, you need a high quality graphics program that supports layers.
   3. Open Source Software
      There is opensource software available for any web development project you could imagine – static sites, blogs, news sites, eCommerce sites, community sites – the list is endless.
5. Jobs
   Web development, web design or graphic design. Fresh job postings daily from all over the United States.

And there you have it! A basic site outline, with link titles and descriptions that match the document title and meta description. The pages will be organized with heading tags as well, with first level pages having and <h1> title tag and second level pages having <h2>.

The site map is something you’ll have to do by hand – unfortunately WordPress doesn’t have a plugin that does it for you. There are sitemap plugins, but none that allow the page description to be included. So I code a list sitemap of my pages, and then add a sitemap plugin for articles/posts. For the sitemap, I change the <ol> tags to <ul> – from ordered lists to bulleted lists, but you can leave it as it is if you like.

1. Home
2. About
   1. About BK2K
   2. About Me
   3. About this Site
3. Learn
   1. Online Schools
   2. Video Tutorials
   3. Tutorials
4. Tools
   1. Hardware
   2. Software
5. Jobs

That was easy enough! Tomorrow, I’ll decide what the title and meta description tags for the pages will be, keeping SEO, and which keywords I want to target in mind.

While I’ll be around for a few years yet, I have a bad liver problem and that means that my energy level is pretty limited. Sometimes I have to leave things for a day or two and catch up when I’m feeling better. I am so sorry to let down the wonderful users who like and download my themes. Be assured that I will be making WordPress themes as long as I can use a keyboard. Whether or not they will be usable is an entirely different story!

I wish they’d made it a bit more flexible. it would be nice to upload both a background to the header div AND replace the headerimg div lext wtih a logo. And leave the description part alone, electing to hide it separately.

I am sure that all this can and will be soon accomplished by a WordPress geek soon! Just don’t expect it to be me!

So, I elected to trash the idea of custom image header in the next theme. What I am going to start doing though, is opening both support forums and making videos of how to do these manually,

Here’s my code I couldn’t bear to part with: goes in header.php, replacing everything in the <headerimg> its ending </div> tag.

<?php if (is_front_page()) { ?>
<h1><a href=”<?php echo get_option(‘home’); ?>/” title=”<?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?>”><?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?></a></h1>

<?php } else { ?>
<a href=”<?php echo get_option(‘home’); ?>/” title=”<?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?>”><?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?></a>

<?php } ?>

So, production on the promised theme shall begin again soon!

Good morning, world!

Now I’m going to spend the next 2 weeks beta-testing the next scrumptious theme! I think I have finally mastered the custom header image API (go on and laugh at me, it seems to be such an easy task for everyone but me! )

The new design will be neutral and brown shades, liquid with a wide sidebar. It will be Scrumptious! If any member wants to beta test please let me know! I’m starting the support threads in the forums today.

Does anyone know of a WordPress themers community, that is not WordPress.org? I used to try and answer about 5 questions a day but it gets tiresome because they just don’t reply so you don’t know if your suggestion helped or not, or there are page after page of unanswered questions…

I understand the perception from both points of view – both the halper and the helpee, but first doing a search to see if your question has been answered might save you some time, and if someone does help you, a thank you doesn’t hurt!

Anyway, you can download Blossom 2.3 at WordPress.org. in a couple of days or download here at Rose City Gardens

Sorry for the boo-boo! It looked just awful I’m sure and I hope you’ll keep using Blossom for your WordPress blog!)

Note – I’ll be creating a support forum specifically for theme bugs and problems, with each new theme having it’s own topic. It’s a lot easier to keep up with requests on a forum for me, and the answers to questions will be there for future users to find.

All the best – again, please forgive this old web wench!