CSS101 with Jill Binder and Backgrounds with Robert Dall

Thurs­day Feb­ru­ary 14th (yes, on Valentine’s Day) Jill Binder and Robert Dall tag-teamed the Van­cou­ver Word­Press meetup with two CSS related talks. About 50 peo­ple attended and we also made our first attempt at record­ing the talks using Google+ Hang­outs (with so-so results).

Below are the videos of the talks along with slides and handouts.

CSS101 with Jill Binder

Jill’s hand­out can be down­loaded here: css101-handout.

Back­grounds with Robert Dall

Slides for the pre­sen­ta­tion and a full writeup with links can be found here.

Give us your pitches, your ideas, and your requests

The Van­cou­ver Word­Press Meetup Group just rounded 1000 mem­bers and our monthly events are always sold out and fully attended. That means there is a lot of untapped tal­ent out there and a lot of peo­ple who have yet to attend an actual meetup! And in 2013 we want to do some­thing about that. So here is your call to action:

Give us your best pitches, your cra­zi­est ideas, your burn­ing requests.

Step up and become a speaker

Every­one has some­thing to con­tribute to the dis­cus­sion, and every per­spec­tive is unique. The Van­cou­ver Word­Press com­mu­nity is diverse and tal­ented, and we want to tap into that tal­ent and make the Meetup a place for peo­ple to show­case what they are up to and share their knowl­edge with the world. And while we are have a blast hunt­ing peo­ple down and trick­ing invit­ing them to present at the Meetup, sub­mis­sions are always pre­ferred. In other words, if you have some­thing to share with the class, let us know! We have added a sim­ple sub­mis­sion form right here on the site where you can pro­pose a talk. Once we receive your pro­posal we’ll look over it, work with you to make it all it can be, and find a slot for you in the schedule.

Any­one who has done it will tell you pre­sent­ing your ideas, your tech­niques, your prob­lems, and your solu­tions to a crowd is a valu­able expe­ri­ence that will ben­e­fit you as well as the audi­ence so don’t be shy.

Hit us up with your best ideas and we’ll get in touch with you.

Got an idea? Let us know!

Even if you don’t feel you have any­thing to present to the Meetup, we have lit­tle doubt you have ideas worth explor­ing and shar­ing. The Meetup is a place to meet other peo­ple and share ideas, and it’s also a place for explor­ing ideas in fur­ther detail. In 2012 we orga­nized the first ever Theme Week­end, and we hope to pull off Theme Week­end 2.0 in 2013, but that’s but one exam­ple of what can be done. We are also involved in the orga­ni­za­tion of Word­Camp Van­cou­ver and if you have an idea for some­thing you think could work, let us know and we’ll work with you to make it hap­pen. The only limit here is your imag­i­na­tion so give it your best shot.

Hit us up through the con­tact form and we’ll see what we can do to make your idea into a reality.

Got a burn­ing ques­tion? Make a request!

Is there some­thing you want to know? Is there some­thing you feel has not been cov­ered, or needs to be cov­ered again at the Meetup? Is there some­thing you want to learn? Or do you know some­one who would be a great speaker at the Meetup? Let us know. We’ve even made a sim­pli­fied sub­mis­sion form just for this pur­pose, and we’ve added a “Sug­gest a Meetup” but­ton right on the Meetup page as well to make it as easy as pos­si­ble for  you to let us know what you want to see, hear, and learn at the event. All you have to do is let us know!

Want more round­ta­bles? More socials? More begin­ner con­tent? More advanced con­tent? Work­shops? Con­tests? Par­ties? Speak up and you will be heard.

Con­tribute to the conversation

Finally, we want to expand the con­ver­sa­tion around Word­Press in Van­cou­ver. And this site, the Face­book Page and the Meetup is part of that effort. All we need to make it hap­pen is your participation.

Have some­thing to share? Share it with us and we’ll post it to the world. Writ­ten a tuto­r­ial, launched a new project, found a great arti­cle? Let us know and it will go up. Want to write an arti­cle for this site? Do it and we’ll post it. Want to redesign the site? Go ahead! We’ll use it. Shar­ing your knowl­edge helps you under­stand what you know in a whole new way. We want to help you make that happen.

If you want to take part in any aspect of the larger Van­cou­ver Word­Press com­mu­nity, let us know and we’ll include you in every way we can.

Design challenge: Make a cool header for WPYVR and the Vancouver WordPress Meetup Group

We got a chal­lenge for all you design­ers out there: Make a cool header graphic for the WPYVR.org site and other enti­ties related to the Van­cou­ver Word­Press Meetup Group.

Specs:

  • Must con­tain the words “WPYVR” and “Van­cou­ver Word­Press Meetup Group”
  • Must be 960px wide to fit in the header space
  • Optional: Cre­ate an alter­nate ver­sion for the Face­book Page sized 851px by 315px

If we end up using your graphic you will be cred­ited with a link on the site.

Send us a mes­sage through the con­tact form when you have some­thing and we might use it!

What do you want to know about WordPress 3.5?

The new 3.5 ver­sion of Word­Press will be released in the next cou­ple of weeks. To mark the occa­sion we have a spe­cial WP3.5 focussed Meetup planned next Thurs­day. The meetup is already full, but we know that there are many more who want to join in the dis­cus­sion and learn about the new fea­tures. There­fore we are post­ing ques­tions and answers here on the blog, on our Face­book Page and at the Meetup page.

So, what do  you want to know about Word­Press 3.5 (or Word­Press in gen­eral)? Post your ques­tions in the com­ments sec­tion below and we’ll do our best to answer. And like I said, we’ll post ques­tions and answers from the Meetup itself here as well. Knock your­self out.

WordCamp Vancouver 2012

Word­Camp Van­cou­ver 2012 Tick­ets NOW AVAILABLE!

Word­Camp Van­cou­ver 2012 is com­ing Oct 13, and tick­ets are now avail­able for pur­chase! Click here to reserve your spot.

The full day event will fea­ture two tracks and will cover top­ics of inter­est for Word­Press users, design­ers, and devel­op­ers of all lev­els from begin­ners to experts, and all those in between. For those new to Word­Press, we will be host­ing a Word­Press 101 work­shop to get you started. For advanced users and devel­op­ers, expect plenty of excit­ing top­ics from indus­try experts.

We have an amaz­ing ros­ter of more than 14 speak­ers this year, and may even have some sur­prise Word­Press all-star guests. So grab your tick­ets and stay tuned!

Fol­low­ing Word­Camp this year, we’re also very excited to announce our sis­ter event Bud­dy­Camp, Vancouver’s first Bud­dy­Press con­fer­ence on Oct 14–15. Grab your tick­ets for Bud­dy­Camp here.

Hope to see you all at Word­Camp this year!

Making the Transition from HTML to WordPress

At the last Van­cou­ver Word­Press Meetup Group meet­ing a ques­tion came up that is fairly common:

“How do I start? I cur­rently have an HTML site and would like to con­vert it to Word­Press, but I don’t know where to begin.”

Group mem­ber Chris­tine Ron­deau took the cue and pub­lished an excel­lent intro­duc­tory arti­cle that deals with the topic over at WP Realm called “Mak­ing the Tran­si­tion from HTML to Word­Press. Where do you Begin?”. If you’re just start­ing out, or if you are try­ing to explain Word­Press to some­one just start­ing out, this arti­cle may be a good place to start.

Read the article

 

tryGit - learn Git and GitHub in 15 minutes

Making sense of Git and GitHub with tryGit

tryGit - learn Git and GitHub in 15 minutes

“It would be great if we could go back to how things were before octodog came around and ruined the party.”

The best way to learn some­thing is to use it. And if the process is fun, all the bet­ter. One of the goals of last weekend’s Theme Week­end was to intro­duce devel­op­ers and design­ers alike to the con­cept of ver­sion con­trol, repos­i­to­ries and col­lab­o­ra­tive cod­ing through the use of Git and GitHub. This turned out to be more of a chal­lenge than we expected, and though most of the atten­dees were able to fig­ure it out towards the end of day two, we real­ized a more hands-on approach to learn­ing was required.

It seems like the peo­ple at GitHub must have been lis­ten­ing in, because they just launched try­Git over at Code School, an online app where you get a 15 minute hands-on class on how to use Git and GitHub. That means if you want to get in on the fun of col­lab­o­ra­tive cod­ing but feel it is too cryp­tic and unap­proach­able, GitHub now gives you a safe envi­ron­ment to learn and exper­i­ment before you jump into the real thing.

Check out try­Git over at Code School and report back what you think.

It would be great if we could go back to how things were before octodog came around and ruined the party.

Reg­is­tra­tion for Theme Week­end is now open! Because this is the first ever Theme Week­end, and because we want to ensure that every­one gets the most out of the week­end and we pro­duce some great themes, we are doing reg­is­tra­tion a bit dif­fer­ently this time around:

If you want to par­tic­i­pâté in Theme Week­end, fill out the reg­is­tra­tion form on the reg­is­tra­tion page. We will do our best to accom­mo­date the usual first-come, first-served atten­dance pol­icy; how­ever, we may need to limit atten­dance of a cer­tain skill level or sev­eral skill lev­els. Your atten­dance will be con­firmed and final­ized shortly after you fill in the form at which point we will con­tact you with pay­ment and event details.

Put your best work for­ward and good luck!

The best way to learn a skill, to improve a skill, or to per­fect a skill, is to put it to use and share it with others.

The first ever Theme Week­end will put this to prac­tice. Twenty design­ers, devel­op­ers, and Word­Press enthu­si­asts will gather at The Net­work Hub in down­town Van­cou­ver for a two-day week­end event on June 30th and July 1st, 2012 to col­lab­o­rate and build Word­Press themes.

THE PREMISE

Theme Week­end grew out of requests from mem­bers of the Van­cou­ver Word­Press Meetup Group for a more hands-on workshop-type event where every­one can learn more about build­ing Word­Press themes. This event com­bines skills, col­lab­o­ra­tion, team build­ing, and a bit of good old-fashioned com­pe­ti­tion to pro­duce a learn­ing envi­ron­ment and some great free Word­Press themes.

Sat­ur­day kicks off with a pitch ses­sion of theme ideas which are voted on, the most pop­u­lar of which will move on to the next stage. Teams con­sist­ing of design­ers and devel­op­ers and those in between will then be formed. Over the course of the two days, each team will design and build their cho­sen theme and make it avail­able via GitHub.

THE GOAL

Theme Week­end has three main goals:

  • Pro­vide a col­lab­o­ra­tive envi­ron­ment for Van­cou­ver Word­Press enthusiasts
  • Cre­ate a learn­ing envi­ron­ment for all participants
  • Cre­ate some cool Word­Press themes to share with the world

THE PLAYERS

To achieve these goals, we are look­ing for Word­Press enthu­si­asts of all lev­els to par­tic­i­pate. Prior to sign­ing up, please con­sider the skill level which best matches your abil­i­ties. Please be hon­est, as we will orga­nize teams based on this infor­ma­tion. To keep the event as engag­ing as pos­si­ble and a pos­i­tive learn­ing expe­ri­ence for every­one, we ask that you do not sign up if you don’t hon­estly feel you fit into one of these 4 lev­els. We will def­i­nitely have other events that are open to all levels.

  • PRO DEVELOPER: You reg­u­larly build Word­Press themes and/or plu­g­ins from scratch. High level of PHP, HTML, CSS and jQuery knowledge.
  • DEVELOPER: You have a strong under­stand­ing of PHP, HTML, CSS, and/or jQuery. You are not nec­es­sar­ily a Word­Press specialist.
  • NOVICE: You Know how to use Word­Press. You under­stand HTML, CSS and some basic PHP. You’ve edited your theme’s functions.php file on sev­eral occasions.
  • DESIGNER: You are pri­mar­ily a visual or user expe­ri­ence designer. Some expe­ri­ence with design for the web.

There are a total of 20 spots available.

THE SKINNY

Theme Week­end is a not-for-profit project ini­ti­ated by Pink & Yel­low NFP Soci­ety and the Van­cou­ver Word­Press Com­mu­nity. The Net­work Hub is spon­sor­ing us with the space to host the event and we have also received spon­sor­ship from the Word­Press Foun­da­tion to help foot the bill.

Tick­ets are set at $15, the funds of which will go towards lunches and refresh­ments for both days, as well as sup­plies to run the event.

By sign­ing up, you are com­mit­ting to par­tic­i­pate for the dura­tion of the two-day event and help build the theme picked by your team.

All the code from the themes will be hosted on GitHub for easy col­lab­o­ra­tion. A short primer to GitHub will be pro­vided at the begin­ning of Day One for any­one not famil­iar with the system.

You must bring your own com­puter equip­ment, soft­ware and nec­es­sary power adapters. Please come prepared.

At set points on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, each team will be asked to do a short pre­sen­ta­tion of their work up to that point and ask help for any issues they have run into. This will allow the teams to crowd­source everyone’s knowl­edge at the event for ideas, solu­tions, and suggestions.

Teams are allowed to swap mem­bers and bor­row mem­bers at any time.

This is an open source event by the com­mu­nity, for the com­mu­nity. If you have ideas, let us know and we’ll try to incor­po­rate them.

SIGN UP Right Now!

Sign up for Theme Week­end on the reg­is­tra­tion page.

Build your own custom slider without using a plugin with Christine Rondeau

On March 5, 2012, we had the plea­sure of hav­ing Chris­tine Ron­deau present how to build fea­tured con­tent and other slid­ers with­out using a plugin.

Abstract

Image slid­ers are quite pop­u­lar and add a nice visual ele­ment to any web­site. You could use a plu­gin for this, but Word­Press has all of the func­tion­al­ity built-in for you to inte­grate one in any theme of your lik­ing. Chris­tine Ron­deau will demon­strate how to build a cus­tom slider with­out a plu­gin on your Word­Press site!

This ses­sion will be of inter­est to theme devel­op­ers who often:

  • Build cus­tom themes for clients
  • Want to learn more how to inte­grate an image slider using WordPress’s gallery func­tion and NO plugin
  • Want to learn how to inte­grate jQuery properly
  • Do not fear edit­ing theme files includ­ing functions.php

In this pre­sen­ta­tion, Chris­tine will walk you through how to edit a basic theme and include an image slider and port­fo­lio section.

About the speaker

Chris­tine Ron­deau is a Word­Press devel­oper who works mostly with graphic design­ers. They cre­ate the design, gather the func­tion­al­ity require­ments and con­tent and she makes it work. Chris­tine also teaches a 12 week Word­Press class at Langara.

Mate­ri­als and links

Here are two tuto­ri­als that cover all of the mate­r­ial with links to the content.

Chris­tine also com­piled some addi­tional notes along with links to fur­ther read­ing, to be found on her blog.

For those inter­ested in the Lan­gara Col­lege pro­gram where Chris­tine teaches you can find more infor­ma­tion here.