Rich Tabor

How to add WordPress theme styles to Gutenberg

In a couple months or so, Gutenberg will revolutionize WordPress publishing as we know it. It’ll finally bring a much-needed standardized content creation experience to WordPress. There’s just one small caveat. Innovation can’t happen without WordPress theme developers committing to the Gutenberg experience.

If Gutenberg will become the de facto editing experience for the average WordPress user, why not make it the best experience possible?

So after an inspiring trip to Nashville for WCUS, I decided to jump on the Gutenberg ship myself and start styling the upcoming editor within my latest WordPress theme, Tabor.

rich.blog

40 replies

Dec 19, 2017

WordCamp US, 2017

Following a similar format to my Pressnomics 5 takeaways post, here are a few thoughts and takeaways from my experience at WordCamp US 2017. I did try to keep this “bit-size”, but the sessions were so good this year!

rich.blog

1 reply

Dec 5, 2017

Meet Login Designer

Over the years of working the WordPress Customizer, I’ve learned the ins-and-outs to leveraging the Customizer to build a truly brilliant customizing experience. Using those skills, I made Login Designer, a new WordPress custom login plugin designed to level-up your WordPress login page.

rich.blog

Nov 30, 2017

Context-aware WordPress Customizer

The WordPress Theme Customization API is an incredibly powerful tool, enabling folks of all skillsets to dive in and customize their websites — if their current theme supports it.

Having worked quite a bit with extending the WordPress Customizer at ThemeBeans, I started production on a newly minted Customizer-dependant commercial plugin, coined Login Designer.

rich.blog

6 replies

Nov 16, 2017

10 tips to building quality WordPress themes

A few weeks ago, I published a guide on three key principles to designing functional WordPress themes. This week’s article stays on the topic of WordPress theme design but leans towards actionable tips and techniques to building quality WordPress themes.

rich.blog

9 replies

Oct 24, 2017

Tabor, a theme for growing your audience

Over the last few weeks I have had quite a lot of requests to release the WordPress theme that runs this website. I’m happy to announce that my WordPress theme, appropriately named “Tabor“, is available.

I built the Tabor WordPress theme out of a need for a lightening-fast and highly-optimized theme to share my words and grow my audience. Unfortunately, these type of hyper-purposeful WordPress themes are becoming few and far between. So I did what any sensible WordPress theme developer would do—I made one.

rich.blog

41 replies

Oct 17, 2017

Improving the WordPress Customizer Logo

I’m currently in the process of migrating the older WordPress themes in my catalog to utilize the core custom logo functionality, instead of a theme-specific WordPress Customizer option.

Along the way I ran into a bit of a snag, so here’s a quick tip on how I improved the custom logo WordPress Customizer shortcut.

rich.blog

Oct 10, 2017

Designing highly functional WordPress Themes

Designing beautiful and highly functional WordPress themes is not as simple as opening your design editor of choice and going to town. There’s a lot more to think about when it comes to developing beautiful WordPress themes that intentionally focus on both form and function.

rich.blog

2 replies

Oct 3, 2017

What’s on my Desk, 2017

Inspired by Matt Mullenweg’s annual “What’s in my Bag” post, I thought it’d be fun to share the gear that gets me through the day-to-day grind at my home-office workstation.

rich.blog

4 replies

Sep 13, 2017

Merlin WP, now on GitHub

Good news! After a couple weeks of nailing down some issues and cleaning up the code base, I’m pleased to announce that the public beta of Merlin WP is now open to all.

rich.blog

2 replies

Aug 16, 2017

Better WordPress onboarding with Merlin WP

You get one chance to make a fantastic first impression. Just one. WordPress itself isn’t particularly known for its first impressions, and WordPress themes in general are notoriously difficult to get rolling.

Sure, it’s easy to install WordPress and upload a theme. But what happens next? Why not make this first impression blow the user away, offering a simple, intuitive, and clever interface to help them get started?

rich.blog

49 replies

Jul 26, 2017

My experience at PressNomics

PressNomics 5 was an incredible experience – one that I’ll remember for sure. I put faces to names of folks I’ve chatted with for months – even years, and made strategic (and more importantly) personal connections with the people who basically power the WordPress business economy.

I had the idea to sum up my thoughts, ideas, and takeaways from my experience at PressNomics 5 into bite-size chunks.

rich.blog

Apr 17, 2017

Maximizing the profitability of freemium themes

Over the past couple of years, the freemium pricing strategy has become more and more popular among WordPress theme and plugin shops. Having a bit of experience with selling freemium WordPress themes, it only seems right that I take the time to share what I have learned so far. So here we are!

rich.blog

7 replies

Jan 31, 2017