WordCamp St. Louis 2012

Media Queries! Adaptive Images! Fluid grids! Responsive Design is still very much in it’s infancy, though we are getting closer to adolescence. We’ll be talking about the awkward changes that the web is going through, and how best to prepare for puberty. We’ll also be discussing theory and application, so this is one breakout you won’t want to miss.

Whether you are thinking about starting a audio or video show or currently run one, this session will walk through best practices on building your show on WordPress. Dig into plug-in configurations and see live samples. Investigate file hosting solutions that match your demands. Understand how to use RSS feeds appropriately for subscribers and getting your show in iTunes. Finally look at ways to work with both audio and video including embedding.

What, Why, When & How. Actions and filters are to of the foundational pieces to any well written block of WordPress functionality, and WP’s core is full of them! There are a lot of contributing factors to what make WP powerful, and these two items are the keys to manipulating WordPress properly and efficiently.

Let’s talk about design baby! You can often tell a WordPress site from a mile away. Right column widgets, standard navigation and standard blog. WordPress can be pushed to create absolutely breathtaking layouts that not only meet your client’s objectives, but blow them out of the water. This session will talk about how you can achieve awe-inspiring design and an effective WordPress implementation!

A visual stockpile of great WordPress websites, organized by industry and design style, all showing off just what WordPress can do.

Want to get inspired and push the boundaries of your next project? Come check out this trove of ideas from the classically elegant to the just plain cute and the seriously off-the-wall, from tiny local sites to giant corporations.

Casara Drury will lead you on a guided tour of the limitless abilities of WordPress – and discuss a few best practices you might follow from these examples. Finally, before you head out to start your own next masterpiece, she’ll leave you with a few resources to make the process that much easier.

Custom post types- what?!? For many, they cannot begin to wonder why in the world they need custom post types or how to apply it to their websites. Custom post types extend the functionality of a website beyond the normal WordPress loop. The most common use of custom post types are by photographers, web designers, and graphic designers for their portfolios.

Some of what I am going to cover in this presentation are:
–         Basic information about custom post types
–         Examples of its use out there in the Internet (of course all WordPress powered sites)
–         How to implement custom post types into your theme
–         Some resources on custom post types

If you are not a WordPress theme designer, then this is not for you. However, if you are open to learning and want to extend your website’s functionality to its fullest potential, then by all means, come join in on the fun.

Do you have a theme that you love but whose layout just doesn’t support a small mobile screen?  Does your blog’s content seem to take forever to load for your mobile visitors?Join us as we take a theme that was designed for desktop browsers and tune it for a mobile audience.  We’ll look at some CSS tricks to help you target smaller screens, and a couple of techniques to speed up your page loads in mobile browsers.

WordPress has rapidly matured from a simple blogging platform and this session discusses it’s usage as a full-blown content management system and application platform.