Aisling from Art-Careers.com has released her own e-Book called Sites that Soar. It’s written from the perspective of a non-web designer customizing a theme for the first time, specifically based around Mimbo and Branford Magazine, featuring tons of screenshots and easy to understand explanations. This is not a paid review, just something I thought was cool and potentially helpful for Wordpress beginners.
An e-Book on Building Magazine Layouts with Wordpress
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1:33 am
You know I just bought this e-book based on your quick recommendation and I must say that I sorta feel misled. I was expecting to get a step by step guide on how to actually produce the types o websites that she examples. But all of her instructions were on how to populate a premium template.
Maybe if you are literally computer illiterate and want a fancier blog that will look like 5000 other templates and you need some help, this book is a great resource. But, for anyone remotely familiar with wordpress, template designs, or just the internet in general, would be better off reading your instructions on how to customize mimbo directly from the source.
On a side note,
What I would be willing to pay $100 or $250 “developer’s” license for is not the same old ideas about “premium” wordpress templates, but for someone to make a book that literally takes a beautifully designed, ajax & javascript filled, and PLUGIN-LESS premium template from cover to cover explaining not how to populate the theme but how to do things like create a custom features page and how to actually make one of those jquery slideshows with the tabs etc… without having to use the same cookie cutter mold as all the rest.
Sorry for the vent. I just feel like I saw a movie that had great previews but had a really bad ending.
6:28 pm
I was expecting to get a step by step guide on how to actually produce the types o websites that she examples.
First, I’m sorry to hear you felt misled. My comments said, “It’s written from the perspective of a non-web designer customizing a theme for the first time,”. When I say non web-designer, I mean someone who is working with an existing theme, not someone who designs them professionally.
but how to do things like create a custom features page and how to actually make one of those jquery slideshows with the tabs etc… without having to use the same cookie cutter mold as all the rest.
I actually began a set of tutorials on some of these challenges last week (”Resizing Images and Associating Them with Posts in Mimbo Pro”). I intend to write more on how Mimbo Pro got made and what is going on behind the scenes so that no one feels that information is locked away (yes, i understand the pricetag does ‘lock it away’ anyway, but I’m making an effort to keep the details of Mimbo Pro transparent as we can).
12:34 am
I don’t know why we have to pay for it. I’d love to look at it but I don’t have money at all. Guess I’ll have to learn the hard way.
9:31 pm
Umm… are people really so thick that they now ask “I don’t know why we have to pay for it”?
Crap. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that we weren’t doing the whole capitalist economy thing now. I’m going to go and demand some free groceries and then come home and download some music on BitTorrent!
3:54 pm
Send us a copy of the e-book Jim, save us all paying for it mate :)
2:29 am
Yeah, David you’re right. Jim, send the very nice copy of the e-book.
1:53 pm
Joel, Your analogy is completely off. Wordpress is an open source platform. I believe that all things related to it should also be open source. I could see if, Automattic decided to charge for tutorials because they are the creators, but all this book does is take those same exact lessons that are in the codex section of wordpress and completely copies & pastes the info. What is unique about the book is basic abc knowledge that anyone who downloads a “premium theme” would more than likely know.
7:55 pm
Open Source has nothing to do with price at all, it just means the source code is available to all. If you create something of off open-source and want to charge for it, go ahead. If its good, people will pay. If not, they won’t.
4:26 am
Darren just to let you know that I bought Sites that Soar today without seeing your review post. I have only scanned the e-book but I find it valuable because it specifically deals with a step by step approach to using a magazine style Wordpress Theme. Even though I have several blogs and websites I am not a techy by any stretch and I have no desire to learn how to design and build a WP template, but I do like running my WordPress blogs . I know some WordPress users think that people like us should use typepad, blogger or wordpress.com, and I have blogged on these platforms.
I also have two self hosted WP blogs and have several tired HTML sites that need upgrading that I intend using WP as a CMS for.
The reason I ended up on your site was that this e-book uses the Branford magazine theme as the example, and mentioned that this was inspired in part by the mimbo magazine theme. She also says that your Mimbo theme is easier to configure in some respects than the theme I downloaded.
My purpose is to get up to speed on optimizing and getting the full use our of a magazine style theme and getting my websites updated as soon as possible.
So spending $17.00 on the e-book that is targeted to do just that represents good value for money.
There are many good free tutorials all over the web for doing specific tasks with WordPress, but not what I wanted to do with a magazine style blog/CMS, and this e-book fills that gap.
So your recommendation for is spot on in my view.
6:47 am
Good information. I like this. Will try to see whether the information provided herein is useful or not by the specific outcome after putting into use in real world practice. Thanks a lot.