Here’s the complete changelog:

• Added: Classic – Setting to disable post date
• Added: Classic – New post thumbnail options, post thumbnails on archive pages
• Added: Classic – Drop-down option to show ‘Menu’ text instead of icon
• Added: Simple – 3D menu (Advanced setting)
• Added: Vimeo, Pinterest, LinkedIn & RSS to footer social links
• Added: Hungarian translation
• Added: Slide transition speed (Advanced setting) for featured slider
• Added: Silk mode user agent for Kindles
• Added: Setting to leave administration panel untranslated even though themes are translated
• Added: Menu setting to change parent menu item to be a link or toggle children
• Added: Better display of slider images
• Fixed: Classic – An issue where the menu would not be shown if tab-bar was turned off
• Fixed: Simple – issue with ads in the header
• Fixed: Issue with WPtouch Pro showing for Windows desktop touch devices
• Fixed: Issue with Featured slider and missing entries on archive pages and feeds
• Fixed: Issue with WPtouch Pro news in overview not loading
• Fixed: Issue with junk characters in email subject line when sharing a post with unicode content
• Fixed: Issue with multipage links on single post pages
• Fixed: Issue regarding licensing in secondary multisite sites
• Fixed: Issue with Web-App Mode, persistent links
• Fixed: Issue that caused comment counts in the WP admin panel to be shown as ’0′
• Fixed: Issue with ads in theme headers
• Fixed: Issue with custom post types not showing on the blog listings page
• Changed: Classic – date, author post settings now respected on single posts as well
• Changed: Classic – comments icon and number now hidden for posts with no comments, or comments disabled
• Changed: CMS – minor usability improvements from customer feedback
• Changed: Added translatable text for Post and Page text in search results
• Changed: Updated FontAwesome module to 3.1.1
• Changed: Improved menu parent/child behaviour in drop-down menus
• Changed: Improved RTL styling in themes
• Changed: Desktop switch-to-mobile links are now output using Javascript and AJAX – resolves desktop caching issues
• Changed: Network activated plugins are now listed in the compatibility section of WPtouch Pro

Download / Upgrade

You can easily download the new version by logging into bravenewcode.com/support, or simply visit the Plugins area of your WordPress admin panel and update WPtouch Pro 3 like any other plugin.

The post WPtouch Pro 3.0.2 — BIG update with new features, fixes! appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

We have always believed that it should be easy and fun to use our admin settings pages. In WPtouch Pro 3 we’ve redesigned them to be even easier to use and extremely lightweight— along with taking strides to better incorporate core WordPress admin philosophies and best practices.

Intuitive Settings Panel

We examined the behaviour of our users in the way they use our settings; the way they read what the settings mean; as well as the way that they move through steps and what they expect to see and do.

This has been very helpful for us in determining what works and what doesn’t. Adding a settings panel may seem like something that’s not very complicated to implement— but it truly is. Too often plugins and themes for WordPress suffer from lacklustre settings panels that are cluttered, hard to understand, and poorly coded.

We place great importance on the way we build settings in WPtouch Pro. The attention and detail we give it is equal to the attention and detail we give to our themes.

Ultimately, when you buy WPtouch Pro as a customer the product you use is the settings panel; while your visitors enjoy the mobile version you’ve created.

Lightweight & Speedy

We’ve also significantly optimized memory, file sizes and load times in WPtouch Pro 3. These improvements can be felt in both the settings panel and themes. The result? An incredibly fast admin panel experience that rivals the fastest load times that WordPress itself can muster!

Give WPtouch Pro 3.0 a try and find out how simple it can be to create and customize the very best WordPress mobile experiences for your site visitors, customers or clients.

Want to learn more about WPtouch Pro 3.0? Visit our product page or contact us through our online form.

The post What’s New in WPtouch Pro 3.0: Admin Panel Updates appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

Our innovative, new tailored themes are aimed at presenting content in ways that fit different types of sites—from high volume news sites to small business sites and more. Each provides a starting point from which you can easily create just the right theme to make your site shine on smartphones and tablets.

Get a idea of what you can achieve with WPtouch Pro 3.0 in the screenshots below. Find out why we believe the quality, care, and elegance baked into our newest release can’t be found anywhere else.

Our new tailored themes

Simple Theme examples

Classic Theme examples

CMS Theme examples

More themes to come

And it doesn’t stop there! We’re working hard to deliver more themes in the future. Keep up-to-date on WPtouch Pro news and announcements by following our blog or connecting with us on Facebook or Twitter.

Have questions about WPtouch Pro 3.0? Visit our product page or contact us through our online form.

The post What’s New in WPtouch Pro 3.0: Customizable Tailored Themes appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

True.

Better mobile optimization

WPtouch Pro takes the same content on your desktop site and optimizes it for mobile and tablet. But your content isn’t simply reformatted. Extraneous desktop formatting and content is stripped out, generating pages that load 3 times faster on mobile.

What’s more, WPtouch Pro works its magic without redirects, separate mobile links or modifying your desktop theme.

• SEO friendly
• Uses your WordPress content
• Shareable links just work
• No proxy server
• No cloud dependence
• Test and develop offline
• Visitors can turn off mobile formatting if they like

Give WPtouch Pro 3.0 a try and find out how easy it can be to create and customize a truly optimized mobile browsing experience for your site visitors, customers and clients.

Visit our product page to learn more about WPtouch Pro 3.0.

The post One website to rule them all: Mobile optimization with WPtouch Pro appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

THE FUTURE OF MOBILE WEB DESIGN IS HERE
BraveNewCode Announces WPtouch Pro 3.0

VANCOUVER, May 6, 2013-Designing highly customized mobile experiences just became a whole lot easier. The latest major release of BraveNewCode’s flagship WordPress plugin – WPtouch Pro 3.0 – is packed with innovative improvements including a selection of tailored mobile themes, an all-new approach to mobile theme development and an advanced and elegant configuration interface.

“WPtouch Pro 3.0 includes a new set of incredible, flexible themes that are aimed at presenting content in ways that fit particular types of sites,” explains BraveNewCode product designer Martin Kuplens-Ewart. “Customers are in for a treat whether they’re running a content-rich news blog or promoting a small business.”

Just like past versions of the plugin, WPtouch Pro 3.0 is extremely easy-to-use; the easiest version yet, according to the BraveNewCode team.

“WPtouch Pro 3.0 is just a pleasure to use. Its branding controls make you smile as you set up your mobile theme and watch it come to life with your colors, logos, menus and content. For example, color controls grab your desktop theme’s color palette so you can easily apply it to your mobile template, ” says co-founder, Dale Mugford.

Developers can set up featured content sliders, web fonts, animations and other complex mobile features with a few lines of code. These features can be implemented with a simple click in some cases.

Mugford adds, “We do the heavy lifting. We get you setup to just create. It’s like a platform, but much more. You do as little or as much customizing as you like, but either way, it’s always a great result.”

WPtouch Pro 3.0 also sports a new configuration interface. The configuration panel has been redesigned to be even more practical and intuitive. Customers will also notice extensive improvements to WPtouch Pro’s customer support services, including a new support site and private ticketing system.

The announcement of WPtouch Pro 3.0 is the next event in BraveNewCode’s practice of setting the standard for mobile optimization of WordPress websites. First introduced in 2008, the free version of the plugin has been downloaded over four million times from the WordPress directory, and it powered one third of the top WordPress websites in 2012.

-30-

Additional media resources including our visuals and video on this same subject can be found here.

Media contact:
Joyce Peralta, Community Specialist, BraveNewCode, 1-877-787-8917, media [at] bravenewcode.com

The post Media Release: The Future of Mobile Web Design is Here appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

DELIVERING THE BEST MOBILE EXPERIENCE
The Creation of WPtouch Pro 3.0 [VIDEO]

VANCOUVER, May 6, 2013-Designing highly customized mobile experiences just became a whole lot easier. The latest major release of BraveNewCode’s flagship WordPress plugin – WPtouch Pro 3.0 – is packed with innovative improvements including a selection of tailored mobile themes, an all-new approach to mobile theme development and an advanced and elegant configuration interface.

“WPtouch Pro 3.0 includes a new set of incredible, flexible themes that are aimed at presenting content in ways that fit particular types of sites,” explains BraveNewCode product designer Martin Kuplens-Ewart. “Customers are in for a treat whether they’re running a content-rich news site or promoting a small business.”

Just like past versions of the plugin, WPtouch Pro 3.0 is extremely easy-to-use; the easiest version yet, according to the BraveNewCode team.

“WPtouch Pro 3.0 is just a pleasure to use. Its branding controls make you smile as you set up your mobile theme and watch it come to life with your colors, logos, menus and content. For example, color controls grab your desktop theme’s color palette so you can easily apply it to your mobile template,” explains co-founder Dale Mugford.

BraveNewCode is a small company doing big things. Since the introduction of WPtouch in 2008, it has been one of the most popular solutions for delivering mobile web content for WordPress websites. It powered one third of the top WordPress sites in 2012 and the free version of the plugin has been downloaded over four million times from the WordPress directory.

Find out more about the BraveNewCode team in this new video featuring co-founders, Dale Mugford and Duane Story, and product designer Martin Kuplens-Ewart. Join the guys as they share their thoughts on the revolutionary technical and design improvements baked into WPtouch Pro.

Find out more about WPtouch Pro 3.0 at www.bravenewcode.com

-30-

Additional press resources including our visuals and video on this same subject can be found here.

Media contact:
Joyce Peralta, Community Specialist, BraveNewCode, 1-877-787-8917, media [at] bravenewcode.com

The post Media Release: Delivering the Best Mobile Experience [VIDEO] appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

Delivering the Best Mobile Experience

We recently announced the latest major release of our flagship plugin, WPtouch Pro 3. Over the past months we’ve worked hard rebuilding WPtouch Pro from the ground up. Our goal, to once again set a new standard for designing mobile experiences. Highly customizable mobile themes, an advanced and elegant admin panel and improved support resources are just a few of the incredible new features packed into the release.

Find out more about the creation of WPtouch Pro 3 in our new video that features our co-founders, Dale Mugford and Duane Storey, and product designer Martin Kuplens-Ewart. Join the guys over a cup of coffee as they share their thoughts on the revolutionary technical and design improvements baked into WPtouch Pro 3.0.

Read more about WPtouch Pro 3 on our product page. Discover how easy it can be to deliver the best mobile experience for your site visitors and clients.

Questions about WPtouch 3? Reach us through our contact form.

The post BraveNewCode & WPtouch: Passion Behind The Product [VIDEO] appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

1. Upgrade to the Latest Version of WordPress

Check to make sure you are running the latest version of WordPress. WPtouch Pro 3.0 is compatible with previous versions of WordPress (version 3.4 and higher) but for security and efficiency it’s always best to ensure you have the latest version of WordPress installed. Detailed instructions on updating WordPress can be found in the WordPress Codex.

2. Specific Upgrade Instructions

Deactivate your current version of WPtouch or WPtouch Pro. Upload and install the plugin .zip file. You can download it via support or your license e-mail once purchased. Activate WPtouch Pro 3. You’re good to go!

View our WPtouch Pro upgrade Q&A on our Upgrade Offer page.

3. Testing and Feedback

Test what your site will look like by using the new Preview button in the WPtouch Pro administration panel. Preview will open a small smartphone-sized window and show you what your website looks like as you change WPtouch Pro’s settings.

You can also enable Preview Mode which will show WPtouch Pro in all browsers – but just for you, not your visitors!

Need help? Contact us through support. Our team is always happy to lend a hand!

Welcome to WPtouch Pro 3.0!

Thanks for upgrading to WPtouch Pro 3.0! Have fun trying out the many new features we’ve introduced including our new, highly customizable mobile themes, a state of the art administration panel and improved support resources.

Stay on top of new additions and announcements about what’s going on with us on our blog and Twitter.

Don’t forget to share what you create with us, we want to see what you make!

The post How-to Upgrade to WPtouch Pro 3.0 appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

New, highly customizable mobile themes, a state of the art administration panel and improved support resources are just a few of the awesome new features we’ve packed into this ‘brave’ major product update.

Themes, themes, themes!

“WPtouch Pro 3.0 includes a new 3-pack of incredible, flexible themes that are aimed at presenting content in ways that fit particular types of sites,” explains our product designer Martin Kuplens-Ewart. “Customers are in for a treat whether they’re running a content-rich news blog or promoting a small business.”

Even easier customization

Just like past versions of the plugin, WPtouch Pro 3.0 is extremely easy-to-use; in fact, we think it’s the easiest version yet.

“WPtouch Pro 3.0 is just a pleasure to use. Its branding controls make you smile as you set up your mobile theme and watch it come to life with your colors, logos, menus and content. For example, color controls grab your desktop theme’s color palette so you can easily apply it to your mobile template” says our Dale Mugford, Co-Founder & President.

“We do the heavy lifting. We get you setup to just create,” adds Dale. “For those who want to customize, it’s like a platform, but much more. You do as little or as much theming as you like, but either way, it’s always a great result.”

For example, customers who want to add featured content sliders, multi-touch gestures and other complex mobile features can do so with a few lines of code dropped into their child themes. In some cases, these features can be added with a simple click.

State of the art administration panel & enhanced support

WPtouch 3.0 sports an all-new, state of the art administration panel. The administration panel has been redesigned to be even more intuitive and easier to use. Improvements in administration page load times and memory efficiency deliver blazing fast speeds.

We’ve also overhauled WPtouch Pro’s customer support services, introducing a new support site and private ticketing system.

Redefining the “Best Mobile Experience”

With WPtouch 3.0 we’re once again defining the standard for providing the right tools to craft great mobile experiences for self-hosted WordPress websites.

Find out how easy it can be to create and customize the very best mobile browsing experience for your site visitors, customers or clients. WPtouch Pro 3 comes with a refund guarantee, so there’s no risk in trying it out to see for yourself!

For more information on the changes and additions included in WPtouch Pro 3.0 check out the new WPtouch Pro product pages.

Questions about WPtouch 3.0? Reach us through our contact form.

The post Announcing WPtouch Pro 3: The Best Mobile Solution for WordPress Just Got Even Better! appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

For the past few years we’ve maintained a WordPress plugin that allows you to show your support for the Earth Hour event and “turn off” your website’s lights. During Earth Hour, your website will display an Earth Hour logo and a small customizable message. The message displays on a black background because, according to researchers at the University of California, black uses less energy to display.

The plugin also shows a small customizable fixed bar on your website leading up to the event, which lets visitors know about your participation, and links to the Earth Hour website.

We created the WordPress Earth Hour plugin to show our solidarity with the environmental community in marking the event. Any worthwhile positive change takes concerted efforts by all of us. The Earth Hour plugin symbolizes that belief with a uniform message across many participating WordPress sites leading up to and during the event.

Find out more about Earth Hour for WordPress on the plugin’s official WordPress.org page. Have a happy Earth Hour, everyone!

Taking care of the environment has always been important to us at BraveNewCode. That’s why we do things like offset our company travel with gold standard carbon credits and work to raise awareness for environmental issues whenever possible.

The post Earth Hour WordPress Plugin, 2013 Version Now Available! appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

Have you checked out the new BlackBerry 10 yet? The new release, announced by RIM (now renamed BlackBerry) this morning includes a polished new visual design, voice control functions, a fantastic new web browser + tons of additional promising features!

Today we’ve updated WPtouch to add support for new BlackBerry 10 devices, along with additional fixes and changes.

Changelogs

WPtouch 1.9.6.1

* Added BlackBerry 10 device support
* Changed: Verified support for WordPress 3.5
* Changed: Updated admin layout and fixed admin styling issues

Don’t forget! You can follow us on Facebook or Twitter for WPtouch and WPtouch Pro news and announcements!

The post New Update: WPtouch 1.9.6.1 with BlackBerry 10 Device Support appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

New plugin updates, the three millionth download of WPtouch, and the unveiling of our new logo were just a few of the stories we were proud to share with you over the past year.

1. Three Million Downloads of WPtouch
We began 2012 with a celebration of the 3,000,000th download of our flagship plugin WPtouch and, as the year draws to a close, it looks like we may see the 4,000,000th WPtouch download in the not-too-distant future.

2. WPtouch Used By 31% of Top Mobile-Powered WordPress Blogs
WPtouch provides the best mobile experience for your site visitors but you don’t have to take our word on that; just ask the top mobile-powered WordPress blogs on the web which mobile solution is the best. In April 2012, 49 of the top 100 blogs were running on WordPress. Among those 49 sites, of the sites that employed a mobile solution, 31% used WPtouch or WPtouch Pro.
WPtouch Running 31% of the Top Mobile-Powered WordPress Blogs

3. 2012 Plugin Updates
Embedded videos, expanded custom-post types support and full Retina support for iPad are just a few of the many WPtouch Pro improvements we introduced this year. Our 2012 plugin releases also included new versions of WPtouch, WordTwit Pro, Earth Hour and Piggy Lite. Here’s a selection of our 2012 release announcements:

4. The Benefits of Going Server-side
Server-side tools, like WPtouch and Mobile Joomla!, deliver a fast and flexible mobile experience that can’t be duplicated by other mobile solutions. Read our posts to learn the hows and whys of choosing server-side solutions.
Responsive Themes vs. Server Side Optimization: WordPress Mobile Solutions Compared

5. Our New Logo
In April, we unveiled our new logo created by west coast designer Cara McCarthy. Our new logo captures the spirit of BraveNewCode, symbolizing our goal of delivering excellent products that revolutionize standards for WordPress mobile development.
BraveNewCode launches a new look: Introducing our new logo

6. Our First Ever WPtouch Pro Top Site Award Winner, CigarDojo.com
CigarDojo.com packed so much awesomeness into their WPtouch Pro-powered site that we decided to award them with our first ever Top Site Award. CigarDojo.com was just one of many fantastic WPtouch Pro-powered sites spotlighted in our Tips Central series this year.

7. BraveNewCode Goes to WordCamp
We had the pleasure of being involved in fourteen WordCamp events in 2012. We’re very proud to show our support, through our WordCamp sponsorships and appearances, to the WordPress community who’ve provided our bread and butter for many years.

A big thank you to everyone who joined in on the journey! Looking forward to seeing you in 2013!

Keep up-to-date with our news and announcements by connecting with us on Twitter or Facebook!

The post BraveNewCode: Our Top Stories in 2012 appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

Last month I had the opportunity to present at WordCamp Toronto Developers. I spoke about principles and guidelines to building successful mobile websites and spent a fair bit of time looking at the three main approaches to building mobile websites:

• using a single pure responsive theme, which adjusts page flow and hides/shows content based on the device’s width;
• building a separate website for mobile devices;
• server-side optimizations, which is the approach WPtouch enables.

Pros and Cons of Responsive Design

A pure responsive approach to building a website can be a very tempting proposition. After all, it promises to address both your desktop and mobile website needs in one go. Some design firms will even argue that this approach saves you money, especially if your website will involve merely customizing a pre-existing responsive theme. Images are even automatically scaled by the browser to fit the screen. And if the content isn’t helpful to mobile visitors? You can just hide it!

But being able to adapt to changing user expectations and behaviours is critical to being successful in the mobile web. Here, responsive themes’ strongest advantage proves to be their Achilles’ heel. Because your mobile display is inextricably linked to your desktop display, adjusting your sites display for the way people use it with different devices is unavoidably more difficult and expensive than if you use a separate set of templates for mobile and desktop visitors, particularly smartphone visitors.

For example, because desktop visitors are rarely looking to visit your physical location, most website templates will list your address in the footer or on a contact page. But what if, like many business owners, you learn that the first piece of information your mobile visitors actually want is your location? Now you need to retrofit your site templates to add a map or your address at the top of your homepage, too.

Because you’re using a pure responsive template, you can’t just add the content, check it on your phone, and be happy with it. You now need to add additional styles and possibly code to hide the map and address on large screens and then re-test your site in all display sizes to make sure your change hasn’t caused problems. And, over time, your pages become peppered with sometimes-hidden content and elements.

Remember those images you used because they look great on your 20-inch monitor? Mobile browsers can only scale them after the full image is downloaded. The pictures and content you hid? Mobile visitors are forced to download those, too. In fact, many websites using a purely responsive technique will send upwards of a megabyte of media and HTML that can’t or won’t be shown on mobile devices. One American presidential candidate’s homepage was a full seven megabytes though all you saw were thumbnails and small photos!

With many people, particularly in North America, having between 100 and 500 MB monthly data plans, any website that sends oversized and unused images and content that is then hidden from view is placing an unfair (and unnecessary) burden on its mobile visitors.

Server Side Optimization

In these situations, solutions involving server-side optimizations (or as Google refers to it, dynamic serving) prove their worth. By detecting that a mobile device is accessing your site before sending anything to the device, templates specifically designed and optimized for devices are used to display your website’s content.

Rather than sending those large images sized to look great on a large monitor, they are re-sized on the server to fit the mobile device, dramatically cutting file sizes. And because only the information that is being displayed is sent, no content needs to be hidden, and no waste data is sent.

The separation of your desktop and mobile templates also means that you can freely make major changes to adapt to mobile visitors’ needs and also experiment with your desktop site, installing plugins, advertising, and rich media, without an impact on your efficient mobile interface.

And what if you already have a website and just want to add mobile support? Solutions such as WPtouch that enable server-side optimization allow you to do that without rebuilding your desktop site. A pure responsive approach means tearing up your templates and starting from scratch.

Still tempted?

The post Responsive Themes vs. Server Side Optimization: WordPress Mobile Solutions Compared appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

As one half of BraveNewCode’s founding partnership, you may have encountered Dale online providing insights on the BraveNewCode blog, forums and social media channels or in person at WordPress meetups and seminars. Dale started BraveNewCode along with software engineer, Duane Story, in 2008. He has been designing and developing web projects since 1994 including, of course, BraveNewCode’s plugins and website.

This week we asked Dale to share some of his thoughts on WordPress and his favourite plugins.

Why do you work with WordPress?

I’ve been working with WordPress since 1.0 because it was the most flexible publishing tool I’d found that allowed me to deliver what I wanted for websites. Its flexibility, ease of use and amazing community made it an easy choice for me to build our business around it, whether we were crafting client sites or making plugins.

Favourite WordPress Plugins

Gravity Forms by Rocket Genius
It’s an amazing plugin for several reasons. Well-written, well-executed and a joy to use. It makes building forms actually *fun*, which is no easy task from a developer’s stand point! It has the right mix of ease-of-use and power-tools to extend and build forms on websites from simple contact forms to full-fledged conditional multi-page forms. The guys at Rocket Genius do a great job updating and adding carefully to the product, while maintaining its stability and quality. Easily my favourite WordPress plugin that’s not made by us.

Maintenance Mode by Michael Wöhrer
We’ve used this plugin for years, and it’s an extremely handy plugin for WordPress admins to quickly shut off access to a site while changes are being made. Sometimes we have to make website changes and test in the live environment. When we do this we activate Maintenance Mode and it allows us to show a custom webpage explaining the outage, meanwhile we can access the site and view things exactly as they are w/o it activated. A handy plugin that’s always been in our tool belt because it’s simply done and works as advertised.

Theme My Login by Jeff Farthing
Way more than just theming the login page, this plugin allows you to do some nifty stuff for user accounts and WordPress, including easily moderating new accounts. It’s also handy for crafting specific URLs to redirect users upon login/logout. We use this tool to add extra capabilities for our plugin customers, and prevent users from accessing and viewing certain areas of the site.

The post Our Favourite WordPress Plugins: Dale Mugford, BraveNewCode Co-Founder appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

A load more entries feature is basically a link or button, which appears at the bottom of a blog’s feed and allows users to instantly access older entries or posts.  This sort of button has been one of the iconic features included in WPtouch and WPtouch Pro going back to the 1.0 release and has also been implemented on the BraveNewCode blog.  So why is it worth taking the time to add to your blog?

1. A load more entries feature enables users quick access to more content (In more ways than one).
2. A load more entries feature enables users to make their own decisions when navigating a site (Users tend to prefer this option much more than when designers make decisions for them… I know I do).
3. A load more entries feature replaces the WordPress standard “previous posts” link (More seamless, less disruptive).

The most basic benefit of the load more entries feature is fast access to content.  The presence of this link or button enables users to get their hands on more of a blog’s post content quickly and easily, while helping the blogger maintain a manageable amount of default content in the blog’s feed.  In effect, this also allows users to quickly access the important content often stored below a blog’s feed in the footer – without having to scroll past a ton of blog posts in the meantime.

This is where the user decision-making comes in.  Users are allowed access to more info, if they want it, by simply clicking the load more entries link provided.  But naturally, some users will be more interested in finding general information and resources, or seeing all of what a site has to offer, rather than diving straight into more entries or posts.  The load more entries feature allows these individuals to navigate through the site in its entirety by simply ignoring the load more entries link.  In other words, there’s no chance of someone missing out on the info in the footer of your site because they can’t get past all your blog posts; there’s no worry about infinite scroll slowing their roll.

The load more entries feature also replaces the standard WordPress “previous posts” link.  You might be wondering, “what’s wrong with this link, and isn’t “load more entries” just a fancy way of saying the same thing?” The reason it’s worth implementing is not because of the verbiage, but because it’s a much slicker way of actually loading the previous posts.  Out of the box, the “previous posts” link will in fact, load more of a blog’s content, but unfortunately, it refreshes the page while doing so.  The load more entries feature will load more posts on the same page the user is on without refreshing it, which makes the process much more seamless and much less disruptive.

Overall, the load more entries feature is a pretty simple concept boasting benefits of seamlessness, happy users and better access to blog content.  So what are we waiting for?  Let’s add it to your blog! We’ll use the code featured in an awesome tutorial written by Michael Martin to do so.

Michael’s tutorial shows WordPress users how to implement the load more entries feature to a blog by creating a simple WordPRess plugin.  You can feel free to check out the Load Next WordPress Posts with AJAX tutorial in its entirety by visiting problogdesign.com, but here’s a summary broken down into three quick steps.

1. Create the necessary folders
2. Create the necessary files
3. Save, activate and tweak to your liking!

1. Create the necessary folders
Start by opening up your favorite FTP program and creating a folder in your /plugins directory called pbd-ajax-load-posts.  After doing so, create two more folders, one called css and one called js.  Place both css and js inside of the pbd-ajax-load-posts folder.

2. Create the necessary files
Open your favorite text editor, paste the following code into it, and save the file as pbd-ajax-load-posts.php in the pbd-ajax-load-posts folder you created in step 1.

<?php
/**
 * Plugin Name: PBD AJAX Load Posts
 * Plugin URI: http://www.problogdesign.com/
 * Description: Load the next page of posts with AJAX.
 * Version: 0.1
 * Author: Pro Blog Design
 * Author URI: http://www.problogdesign.com/
 */
 
 /**
  * Initialization. Add our script if needed on this page.
  */
 function pbd_alp_init() {
 	global $wp_query;
 
 	// Add code to index pages.
 	if( !is_singular() ) {	
 		// Queue JS and CSS
 		wp_enqueue_script(
 			'pbd-alp-load-posts',
 			plugin_dir_url( __FILE__ ) . 'js/load-posts.js',
 			array('jquery'),
 			'1.0',
 			true
 		);
 		
 		wp_enqueue_style(
 			'pbd-alp-style',
 			plugin_dir_url( __FILE__ ) . 'css/style.css',
 			false,
 			'1.0',
 			'all'
 		);
 		
 	
 		
 		// What page are we on? And what is the pages limit?
 		$max = $wp_query->max_num_pages;
 		$paged = ( get_query_var('paged') > 1 ) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
 		
 		// Add some parameters for the JS.
 		wp_localize_script(
 			'pbd-alp-load-posts',
 			'pbd_alp',
 			array(
 				'startPage' => $paged,
 				'maxPages' => $max,
 				'nextLink' => next_posts($max, false)
 			)
 		);
 	}
 }
 add_action('template_redirect', 'pbd_alp_init');
 
   ?>

Open a new file in your text editor, paste the following code into it, and save the file as load-posts.js and save it in the js folder you created in step 1.

jQuery(document).ready(function($) {

	// The number of the next page to load (/page/x/).
	var pageNum = parseInt(pbd_alp.startPage) + 1;
	
	// The maximum number of pages the current query can return.
	var max = parseInt(pbd_alp.maxPages);
	
	// The link of the next page of posts.
	var nextLink = pbd_alp.nextLink;
	
	/**
	 * Replace the traditional navigation with our own,
	 * but only if there is at least one page of new posts to load.
	 */
	if(pageNum <= max) {
		// Insert the "More Posts" link.
		$('#content')
			.append('
')
			.append('
Load More Posts
');
			
		// Remove the traditional navigation.
		$('.navigation').remove();
	}
	
	
	/**
	 * Load new posts when the link is clicked.
	 */
	$('#pbd-alp-load-posts a').click(function() {
	
		// Are there more posts to load?
		if(pageNum <= max) {
		
			// Show that we're working.
			$(this).text('Loading posts...');
			
			$('.pbd-alp-placeholder-'+ pageNum).load(nextLink + ' .post',
				function() {
					// Update page number and nextLink.
					pageNum++;
					nextLink = nextLink.replace(/\/page\/[0-9]?/, '/page/'+ pageNum);
					
					// Add a new placeholder, for when user clicks again.
					$('#pbd-alp-load-posts')
						.before('
')
					
					// Update the button message.
					if(pageNum <= max) {
						$('#pbd-alp-load-posts a').text('Load More Posts');
					} else {
						$('#pbd-alp-load-posts a').text('No more posts to load.');
					}
				}
			);
		} else {
			$('#pbd-alp-load-posts a').append('.');
		}	
		
		return false;
	});
});

Open a new file in your text editor, paste the following code into it, and save the file as style.css in the css folder you created in step 1.

#pbd-alp-load-posts a:link, #pbd-alp-load-posts a:visited {
	display: block;
	text-align: center;
	padding: 4px 0;
	color: #444;
	text-decoration: none;
	
	/** Rounded Corners **/
	-moz-border-radius: 8px;
	border-radius: 8px;
	
	/** Drop shadow **/
	-moz-box-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #999;
	-webkit-box-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #999;
	box-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #999;
	
	/** Gradients : http://css-tricks.com/css3-gradients/ */
	/* fallback */
	background-color: #f1f1f1;
	
	/* Firefox 3.6+ */
	background: -moz-linear-gradient(100% 100% 90deg, #e4e3e3, #f1f1f1);
	
	/* Safari 4-5, Chrome 1-9 */
	/* -webkit-gradient(,  [, ]?,  [, ]? [, ]*) */
	background: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 0%, 0% 100%, from(#f1f1f1), to(#e4e3e3));
	
	/* Safari 5.1+, Chrome 10+ */
	background: -webkit-linear-gradient(#f1f1f1, #e4e3e3);
	
	/* Opera 11.10+ */ background: -o-linear-gradient(#f1f1f1, #e4e3e3);
}

#pbd-alp-load-posts a:hover, #pbd-alp-load-posts a:active {
	/** Drop shadow **/
	-moz-box-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #bbb;
	-webkit-box-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #bbb;
	box-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #bbb;

	/** Gradients : http://css-tricks.com/css3-gradients/ */
	/* fallback */
	background-color: #f5f5f5;
	
	/* Firefox 3.6+ */
	background: -moz-linear-gradient(100% 100% 90deg, #eaeaea, #f5f5f5);
	
	/* Safari 4-5, Chrome 1-9 */
	/* -webkit-gradient(,  [, ]?,  [, ]? [, ]*) */
	background: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 0%, 0% 100%, from(#f5f5f5), to(#eaeaea));
	
	/* Safari 5.1+, Chrome 10+ */
	background: -webkit-linear-gradient(#f1f1f1, #eaeaea);
	
	/* Opera 11.10+ */ background: -o-linear-gradient(#f5f5f5, #eaeaea);
}

3. Save, activate and tweak to your liking
Simply save your work using your FTP program, navigate to your WordPress Dashboard and activate the plugin from the Plugins tab.  The load more entries button should now be present at the end of your blog feed.  Remember that you can tweak any of these files to your liking.  For instance, altering the style.css file can change the appearance of the load more entries button, while altering the load-posts.js file can change the button’s text.

This article was written by BraveNewCode community member and guest contributor, Jeff Chenoweth. Connect with Jeff on Twitter at @mrjeffchenoweth

Are you interested in writing a guest post for our site?  If so, contact us via our contact form.

The post Load More Entries: A User-Friendly Approach to Providing Access to Older Posts appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

Today BraveNewCode welcomes a new member to its team, Martin Kuplens-Ewart (@mkuplens), in the role of Product Designer. Martin will be adding his expertise and passion for crafting great user experiences to our products and services.

Martin fits the ideal package in an employee— hard-working, dedicated and passionate, with the ability to learn and adapt. Martin also has the kind of vision and deep understanding of technology interaction from a user perspective that we rely on in everything we do to try and bring the best experiences for our customers.

Martin’s web development background is extensive— his most recent role was Director of Web Development at the innovative Hamilton, ON web shop Peapod Studios. He’s also previously been involved in iOS app development, including specifying and designing Canada’s popular travel deals application for iOS at Target Vacations Limited in the role of Manager of Online & Interactive.

Please join us in welcoming Martin to the team— we expect he’ll expand what BraveNewCode offers in its products and services in ways that customers and users will love.

The post BraveNewCode Welcomes Martin Kuplens-Ewart To The Team! appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

WPtouch was built as part of a project designer and developer, Dale Mugford, took on to create a site for Canadian musician, Matthew Good. It was 2007 and the project entailed building several themes for matthewgood.org. Dale decided a mobile theme should be included as a surprise add-on. Software engineer, Duane Storey, was enlisted to help out on the job, and the roots for the founding of BraveNewCode began to form.

As Duane recalls, “I was actually working on the last pieces in a hotel room in Ottawa, and then I flew out to Toronto to meet Dale and for both of us to go to one of Matt’s shows at Massey Hall.  I think it was the morning after when we met Matt in his hotel room and showed him how it all worked.”

In 2008, WPtouch became available in the WordPress Plugin Directory and by mid-2009 was approaching 100,000 downloads. Towards the end of 2009 the plugin also became available at wordpress.com.

Today WPtouch is one of the top 10 most downloaded plugins in the directory having been downloaded over 3,500,000 times, in March 2012 it was found to be one of the top 20 plugins used across 30,000 WordPress sites by Presstrends. In addition, recent research we performed indicates it is used by over 30% of the top blogs using WordPress.

Next month we’re celebrating the 4th anniversary of BraveNewCode, founded on a relationship  that began with the development of our flagship plugin, WPtouch. Check out our BraveNewCode timeline on Storify to find out more about how we’ve grown through the years.

The post Did You Know?: The Origins of WPtouch appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

Seattle Art Museum

The day got off to a great start with fine weather and good strong coffee at the Seattle Art Museum – a fantastic venue within close proximity to Pike Place Market in lovely downtown Seattle. Things were hopping at the sponsor table when I arrived, so I didn’t have time to sample the delicious treats I noticed were being offered at the coffee station. I did have time to enjoy some great conversations with folks who stopped by to talk about their mobile sites and pick up an </allnighter> shirt or pin. As to be expected, I met a great group of WordPress peeps with a wide range of backgrounds and interests – from developers to ministers to marketers.

It was very difficult to choose from the amazing selection of sessions for the day. I ended up taking in ‘Going Beyond the Basics’ with Lucy Beer of Web Training Wheels, and ‘The Art and Science of “Premium”‘ with Shane Pearlman of Modern Tribe in the morning. Both sessions were chock full of great resources and useful insights. The morning sessions also included Scott Berkun’s keynote address, ‘Lessons from History and Blogging Everyday’. Berkun delivered a memorable and thought-provoking talk on the importance of the writing process and focusing on content.

Kudos to the organizers of WordCamp Seattle for providing a lunch that was both delicious and easy to grab. The lunch bag format kept lines moving quickly and ensured everyone was quickly able to get down to enjoying lunch over more great WordPress conversations. A big plus!

Our </allnighter> shirts and pins on the sponsor table at #wcsea

In  the afternoon I slogged my way through Automattic’s Daniel Bachhuber’s talk, ‘WordPress at the Command Line – An Introduction to wpshell and wp-cli’. Bachhuber’s presentation provided lots of useful information and was peppered with fun, geek-quips like, ‘You can’t mention a GUI in a presentation that talks about wp-cli’.  I also very much enjoyed Laura Kimball’s ‘How to Promote Your Blog Without Losing Your Soul’ and picked up a ton of great takeaways from Justin Brigg’s ‘SEO for Bloggers’.

When things began to wrap up just after 4pm it was hard to believe a full day had gone by. WordCamp Seattle organizers and volunteers should be very proud of their accomplishments in putting on a fantastic WordCamp event! Can’t wait for WordCamp Seattle 2013!

WordCamp Seattle 2012 – An outline of the event in tweets we posted and shared from WordCamp Seattle 2012

View our WordCamp Seattle 2012 Photo Album on Facebook

The post WordCamp Seattle 2012 appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

Both easy to access and quick to edit, the functions.php file of a WordPress installation has been the focal point of countless tutorials and how-tos, which guide users through adding custom features and functionalities to their blogs.  Though editing this file is no doubt a legitimate and commonly used way to add custom functions, it is subsequently, a far-from-best-practice solution for multiple reasons:

• The customizations are theme-specific, not site-specific
• Syntax errors in the customizations can break a site
• Custom code crammed into the file can be difficult to keep organized

For these reasons, more and more developers are avoiding extra work by ceasing to edit the functions.php file and creating a site-specific plugin to store their custom functions.

What is a site-specific plugin?
Think of a site-specific plugin as a file made specifically for a developer to add custom functions to.

• A site-specific plugin is used the exact same way one would use a functions.php file to add customizations
• A site-specific plugin contains no code except a developer’s custom functions
• A site-specific plugin adds functions to an entire site, and not just to a theme

So why is creating a site-specific plugin to store custom functions a better solution than storing them in a functions.php file?

• More flexibility and seamlessness
• More safety and reliability
• More organization and efficiency overall

1. More flexibility and seamlessness
Adding custom functions to a WordPress blog by editing the functions.php file will, almost certainly, cause unnecessary work down the road.  Since the file lies in a WordPress blog’s theme directory, customizations made there are theme-specific, a fact that is often overlooked until an upgrade or change in themes is attempted.  In the simplest terms, this means that any customizations a developer has added to a blog by editing the functions.php file will not be present when the new theme is activated.

When utilizing a site-specific plugin, switching between themes becomes a seamless process with all relevant customizations intact; no additional work is necessary.  Any change in theme can be tested and applied with ease since the developer doesn’t have to worry about copying and pasting code from an edited functions.php file, or creating a duplicate, to replace the new theme’s existing one.

Using a site-specific plugin also allows a WordPress blog’s other active plugins to access its custom functions.  It eliminates the need for a developer to make any extra customizations to ensure newly added plugins integrate with the site-specific functions as intended.  It makes working with mobile themes, such as those supported by WPtouch Pro, especially easy for developers.

2. Safety and Reliability
Since the functions.php file contains a blog’s default features and functionalities, tinkering with it can be dangerous.  When editing the file, any error in syntax can lead to what many developers refer to as “the white screen of death,” which breaks the site, and locks the developer out of the admin area.

Site-specific plugins create a much more user-friendly environment for adding custom functions, since by default, the plugin is deactivated right away if it causes a breakage.  In other words, if something goes wrong, the plugin shuts down, not the entire site.

3. Organization and Efficiency
Instead of packing the functions.php file to the brim, making it extremely large and extremely difficult to navigate, a site-specific plugin provides developers with a single area to store all their custom functions, separate from where the blog’s default ones are stored.

Site-specific plugins allow developers to be more efficient, eliminating both the need to recreate customization efforts, and having to search through an edited functions.php file to find them.

The Process
Creating a site-specific plugin takes less than five minutes.

Simply create a file in the directory /wp-content/plugins/, name it, and add the code below:

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: My Site-Specific Plugin (or whatever you like)
Description: All site specific functionality goes here.
*/
/* Add your functions below this line */
/* Add your functions above this line */
?>

When editing the functions.php file is okay
There are definitely specific instances when editing a functions.php file is the best way to go, but only when a developer’s intention is to create custom functions that apply directly to a specific theme.  A good question to ask when making a judgment call between which method to use is, “Upon changing themes, should this functionality or feature stay active on the site?”  If the answer is yes, the function should be stored in a site-specific plugin, not the functions.php file.

- This article was written by BraveNewCode community member and guest contributor, Jeff Chenoweth. Connect with Jeff on Twitter at @mrjeffchenoweth

Are you interested in writing a guest post for our site?  If so, contact us via our contact form.

The post Site-Specific Plugins: A Better Alternative to the WordPress functions.php File appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..

We’ve very pleased to debut our new logo which kicks off the first of a number of exciting new changes we have planned for the coming weeks (more on those other new developments to come, stay tuned to our blog and social media channels for updates).

Our new logo captures the spirit of BraveNewCode, symbolizing our goal of delivering excellent products that revolutionize standards for WordPress mobile development. The logo’s design includes elements that reflect our identity as a development shop and our attitude as explorers and innovators.

Ship motif
Early on in our design process it became obvious that the image of a ship would best represent our company identity. The ship reflects our brave attitude as well as our respect and appreciation of the environment we live in. It expresses our approach to searching frontiers while recognizing the need to keep the processes as down-to-earth as possible.

Other elements
Nods to technology in our logo include the code element in our company title and the round status symbol enveloping the ship. The full sail and wake thrown up at the bow of the ship represents the speed of our progress on these travels we take with you, our valued users and customers.

Our logo was designed by talented, west coast artist and designer, Cara McCarthy. We are grateful to Cara for her dedication and attention to detail in delivering our new logo to us.

In the coming weeks we’ll be living up to the ideals symbolized in our logo in ways we expect will surprise and delight. Looking forward to sharing the journey with you!

The post BraveNewCode launches a new look: Introducing our new logo appeared first on BraveNewCode Inc..