Yeah yeah, naming CSS custom properties (CSS variables) or Sass variables is hard. But even that is not the full picture. In ideal world they are shared with design tools like Figma or Sketch. developers, UX, and visual designers can quickly understand what they mean. adding or removing variables isn’t too painful. Changing the values …
I don’t do lists. Not shopping lists, to-do lists. I do not do lists. But here I am listing top 10 songs of all time! And oh boy it’s hard, almost impossible. I could name 10000 songs. I still want to give it a shot because music is so crucial part of my life. Let’s …
I wrote another article in Envato Tuts+ site: Accessibility Tips For WordPress Theme Developers. Same tips apply to any platform though. Why semantic HTML matters. How to structure your pages. How to navigate pages using assistive technology. Remember focus styles. And some more. Most of the resources can be found in accessibility handbook. That’s where …
I wrote an article in Envato Tuts+ site, it’s called Building an Inclusive Web: Why Accessibility Matters. In that article I share my ideas form empathy to accessibility laws. It all boils down to quote from Andrea Fercia. Would you build a bridge that only a specific type of car can use? In the article …
We had vivid conversation about Gutenberg in WordPress Helsinki Meetup. I was hosting the meetup and shared my opinions about Gutenberg. We also got our hands dirty and tested Gutenberg. In short people were worried about the Gutenberg. It’s such a huge change. Here are my slides about Gutenberg Meetup: Gutenberg Slides in Google Sheets. …
What can I say. WordCamp London 2017 was amazing. It was well organised and atmosphere was relaxed. The coolest part was meeting people as always. You know the feeling when you meet people which you have been chatting in Twitter or Slack. I was privileged to be in Theme Panel and have a lightning talk …
Do you still remember my trusted WordPress theme shops? This time I interviewed Matt Medeiros who runs Theme shop called Slocum Themes. He definitely owes me a beer. 🍻 "But there is absolutely nothing you can do to get on the list." Well, damn. I guess this case of Bourbon will stay here. — Matt …
Good start for accessible site is using accessibility ready themes and plugins. I have written technical overview how to build accessible themes. But that alone is not enough. Writing accessible content is big part of having accessible site. In this article I summarise good and bad practises about writing accessible content. It’s mostly for WordPress but same tips …
Teemu Suoranta from Aucor wrote an excellent article about myths and prejudices of accessibility. Article is in Finnish and here is the short summary and “translation” of that article. I added my own twist here and there. Accessibility is not just for people who are in wheelchair or blind As a side note I’m still shocked …
There are several ways to contribute to WordPress. Code WordPress Core. Translate WordPress to your language. Improve accessibility. Help in support forums. Write documentations. Test new features. Review themes. Teach others. Build features for core or default themes. And the list goes on and on. Before I have mainly contributed by helping in support forums …
Underscores is one of the best starter themes out there. I use it as a base for public themes, and very often for custom themes also. It’s that good for several reasons: Build accessibility in mind. Well documented and modern templates. Community effort building it better. It does speed up your work. I usually generate my …
Let’s face it. I’m a selfish bastard. Don’t believe it? I have interviewed myself. How low can you go? Don’t even get me started with my personal life. But there are people out there that still liked to interviewed me. Partly because I started interviewing theme shops that I trust 🙂 Interviews in 2016 Interview in Themetry …
About half year ago I was speaking accessible navigation patterns in Jyväskylä WordPress meetup. Designing Accessible Navigation is part two of that talk. It’s pretty much the same in the end but this time design had more focus. Anyways it was great to meet everybody after summer holidays in our WordPress Helsinki meetup! Here is the …
It’s time for another WordPress Theme Shop interview with Mike McAlister. He has been building beautiful and easy to use themes for a long time. And he knows about theme business. First I encourage you to listen Matt Report’s interview how to start WordPress Theme business. It’s brilliant. Then come back to read insights of Array Themes. Who …
Next WordPress theme shop interview is from Devin Price who runs DevPress. Devin also writes excellent articles about themes and development in WP Theming site. DevPress has long history with couple of different ownership but quality has stayed super high. In this interview Devin talks about his journey and DevPress. I really liked the Gather theme inspiration part for example. …
Next WordPress theme shop interview is from churchthemes.com. Did you guess that they build Church themes? This is perfect example how you build themes around niche like churches. I’ve been following (not stalking!) Steven Gliebe for several years, and for a good reason. He is one of the first pioneers who understood that functionality like …
I love music. I wish I could play in a band. Heck, I wish I was running AudioTheme! They provide WordPress solutions for artists and musicians. This is the place where you should start searching if you’re looking for music related WordPress Themes and Plugins. Brady Vercher was kind enough to answer my WordPress Theme …
Many WordPress Theme Shops say that they offer great support. But it’s nothing compares to Theme Hybrid support by Justin Tadlock. It’s the best place to get themes, plugins, support, ideas, and learn. I’m honoured and lucky that I’ve been part of Theme Hybrid community for several years. It’s the place where I learnt how …
How clever title is that. But seriously, Pro Theme Design have an eye for great design and the code is Pro. What more can you ask. I’m honoured to have them as part of my interview series about WordPress Theme Shops. I can relate to so many things (simplicity, accessibility) that came up in this …
I’m more than happy to publish my next WordPress Theme Shop interview. This time it’s about Anariel Design. They are one reason I decided to interview other theme shops in the first place. There are so many good themes, and good people out there. Anariel Design is run by Ana and Marko. I can honestly …
I created WordPress Theme Shops list and I’m happy to start interviews with Themetry. As a math teacher I really like their slogan. And that’s not only slogan. It’s the fact: Making WordPress themes with mathematical precision to detail I’ve been following man behind Themetry (Leland Fiegel) for a while and we are totally on …
WordCamp Europe 2016 in Vienna is over. I feel tired and sad. But in the most positive way you can imagine. It has been so much fun to meet new people, and hang out with our WordPress Finland community members. In this post I’m not going summarize amazing talks we all witnessed. Talks will be …
I was happy to visit in WordPress Turku Meetup and talk about accessibility. Topic was how to create better and more accessible themes. This was my third talk in this month and sixth talk in my first year as a freelancer. #WPTurku @samikeijonen showing the right path to #a11y… I have to redo everything… #wpfi pic.twitter.com/wEKumpn2Ts — …
This has been busy month for WordPress talks. First freelance talk in WordPress Helsinki meetup, today SVG talk in WordPress Cafe hosted by Exove, and finally talk about accessibility in Turku WordPress meetup. Today topic was switching away from icon fonts to SVG. You can check the slides from here. We talk about these subjects: …
Actually, title should be my first nine months as a freelancer because I started my full time freelancing on August 1st, 2015. I was privileged to talk about my freelancing experiences in WordPress Helsinki Meetup. Thanks for having me, it was great to meet you all and have couple of beers! And I really appreciate all …
I feel tired but so happy happy. That’s because of Wordcamp Finland 2016. Once again I’d like to thank all attendees, sponsors, speakers, volunteers, Virgin Oil staff, and organizers. You’re all amazing, we did this together! I’d like to talk about organizing WordCamp Finland 2016, how all went, were there any issues, and what we learnt. …
It’s been interesting past eight months for me. I took some time off from teaching math in Pohjois-Tapiola highschool and have been WordPress freelancing. It mostly involve custom WordPress sites for clients, public themes and plugins. But I really, really like when I get a change to educate others. WordPress Education There are many ways how I …
Me talking business? Whaaat. Well, I had a fun day. First I had a meeting in Olari highschool. They’re switching to WordPress. I can help with that. Then I went to my own school in Pohjois-Tapiola highschool and talked about business! After that I had a meeting that I can’t talked about yet. But it was …
You are already familiar with HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP or MySQL. You do web development as a hobby or even a full time job. And now you’re entering in WordPress world – brave new world. Welcome! But where can you learn WordPress development? There must be thousands of places where you could start. But this is not …
New WordPress Meetup groups have been popping out lately more and more here in Finland. Jyväskylä WordPress Meetup and Turku WordPress Meetup are the newest meetups. I visited in Jyväskylä Meetup and talked about accessible navigation patterns. My goal was to bring awareness about accessibility. It’s not hard but needs a certain mind set: Can …
I love WordPress! I love everything about WordPress! WordPress is so awesome that I’m falling in love with it! I love WordPress community! I originally posted this article in WP Daily which is now Torque Magazine. You can still find and read the original article. But since it’s my article I wanted to publish it in my …
It’s time for another experiment. I already did it with Mina Olen theme. Was it success? Well, not huge one but it’s a start with these sales in year 2014. .org version: 1500$ .com version: 3500$ Should I do another experiment but using a plugin this time? Hell yeah! EDD Members – commercial plugin for free I’ve …
You might wonder why build EDD Members add-on Plugin for Easy Digital Downloads? There are good membership plugins already out there like Restrict Content Pro. Or why not build something from scratch? Wouldn’t that be how all the cool Ninja developers do? First of all, I’m no Ninja. There is no way I could build as good …
I started my journey in WordPress.com with Mina Olen theme. But it’s completely different theme than WordPress.org version of it. WP.org version is build from excellent Hybrid Core and support several plugins like Easy Digital Downloads. WP.com won’t allow Hybrid Core in their themes and they have their own plugins build in Jetpack so I …
Let’s be honest here. My site title says it all: No, not another WordPress Themes shop. I got $877.10 from this site in the year of 2013. At least $200 of that was testing purposes. Am I disappointed? Goes without saying that I am.
Is your theme or plugin translations up to date? Would you want your theme or plugin translated to a several languages? Have you translated a theme or plugin and found out that the guy next door is doing the same thing in the same time? Do you feel like it would be easier to translate …
Well, yes and no. There are no new themes in Foxnet Themes site but I’ve been working some really cool custom themes for clients really hard. I let you know when sites are up and running. I got plenty of ideas for new public themes, just need some time to put them in action. I …
When you wake up in Saturday morning and receive this kind of twitter status you’re literally speechless. I know I was, still am, always will be. I’m without speech. I hope everyone recognizes that @samikeijonen is one of the best WordPress theme developers in the world. – Craig MacMillan