Learn some basic coding/HTML if you have a WordPress blog
After careful reflection on the fact that I was NOT at WordCamp Victoria 2011, it just occurred to me the kind of talk I *could* have given had I remembered at the time of proposal submission. One of the things that I think facilitates my blogging and allows me to crank as many posts as I do per week is that I learned a little tiny bit of coding and HTML to facilitate my workflow. I know exactly which plugins I want to use, and how a plugin or a theme should be hacked to make it do what I want. I try to write for the web and think for the web (two very useful complementary skills). As Ariane Colenbrander said to me at my WordCamp Fraser Valley talk: “I’m a good art designer”. There’s also a little back story to this, actually two.
The first one: I started using computers when I was very little, inspired by the American TV show Whiz Kids. So, I have had a penchant for computer programming. Yeah, this is probably one of the reasons why I enjoy blogging so much, and doing my own stunts. Heck, the computer geekery has stayed with me even as I grew older. When I was deciding what to do a Masters’ degree in, I dipped my feet wet and took 1 semester of courses in a Masters of Science in Computer Science. Yes, I took Boolean Logic, Set Theory, C++ Programming and Visual Basic.
The second story has to do with my good friend Rebecca Bollwitt. When we first met, I was pretty much a newbie. I had blogged for over a year and a bit, but I hadn’t moved to WordPress, I hadn’t really learned much of the code behind it, etc. I was just a writer. I knew nothing about WordPress. Rebecca taught me A LOT of what I know about WordPress and the PHP and HTML behind/underneath it, over coffee, lunches, liveblogging the same events, etc. And she immediately understood what I meant when I said that I liked doing my own stunts: even if I’m not a web developer, I love being able to create my own websites. Basic as they may be, but I just love being able to do some of the basic HTML coding. Rebecca taught me and enabled me to do that with my websites.
Much of the customization you’ve seen here on Hummingbird604.com was done by good friends of mine: Rebecca taught me a lot of the basic inner workings of WordPress, J. Karen Parker adapted the Deviant art WordPress theme for me, and several other good friends have helped me with stuff here and there (Ianiv Schweber with some of the theme issues, Mike Yurechko, Tris Hussey, Andy Peatling and almost every time I scream for help, someone on Twitter is willing to help me.
But still, I code by hand a lot of the HTML tags that make WordPress do the things they do (e.g. embedding my photos and align them to the left or right, change fonts, etc). I *love* doing this basic coding. It makes me feel that I am independent and self-reliant. So, even if you are a blogger or a website copy writer, I would very strongly recommend you to learn some basic HTML and learn a bit more in-depth.
And a fun fact – I wrote by hand all the HTML code around the photo shown to force it to align to the left and provide the photo credit underneath with a link back to Flickr (pretty much the way my PhotoDropper plugin does). How cool is that?
Related posts:
- 6 Simple Plugins to Make Your Basic WordPress Blogging Easy
- Upgrading and adding WordPress plugins to my blog
- WordCamp Whistler – Tris Hussey on How to Use WordPress as a Basic CMS for Your Website
- Switching to WordPress from another platform: What do you want to hear?
- The move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org and self-hosting
It’s handy to learn the basics of HTML (specially when you follow XHTML standards). You can fine tune your blog posts to show up the way you want them and not how WordPress might interpret (or ignore) them.
Though should someone learn basic HTML? Sure, though what would you recommend one learn? , or , or tags perhaps? Then there is the whole thing about CSS too! If you learn CSS then you can style your HTML tags accordingly. But then there is the mess of cross-browser compatibility right?
I still use the WYSIWYG editor of the WordPress backend. If I have to do some advanced formatting, I drop into the source editor for that. I know some people (believe Rebecca still does it) only write posts in the source portion of the WYSIWYG editor. I sometimes find it messy to see all the tags and no images when I write mine. Though, I have learned there are somethings that don’t get “remembered” when you switch between the two modes though, even after a Save.
I believe that it is quite handy to know some (x)HTML basics for blogging
Tyler recently posted..About to Take Flight
Oh.. it seems that the tags I meant to mention were actually used and not just shown, ,
Tyler recently posted..About to Take Flight
Easily, the article is actually topic on HTML I mean( html tools ) related issue. CommentLuv plugin also a best tool for wordpress.
I want to thank the blogger very much not only for this post but also for his all previous efforts.
Thanks guys.