WordPress.tv Blog

Weekly Recap: Your First Plugin, Internationalization, WordPress at School, and Geotagging

Posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 3:04 am by Ryan Markel

More WordCamp NYC videos and a great tutorial from the community round out the videos published this past week on WordPress.tv. Here’s what you missed:

First, there’s John Hawkins’ talk from WordCamp NYC on how to build your very first WordPress plugin. He’s given this talk at a handful of WordCamps this year, but it’s always packed with great information and serves as a great introduction to building a very basic plugin.

Next, Automattician José Fontainhas gives an overview of how to properly provide for internationalization in your WordPress projects, including a brief look at the new GlotPress system. If you’re building something for WordPress, you should take a look at this presentation to learn how easy it is to help the community translate your project. Much of the WordPress community is not English-speaking.

The last presentation from WordCamp NYC comes from Serena Epstein and Shannon Houser: a talk titled “WordPress As a Gateway Drug“. It’s about how the use of WordPress in an undergraduate coursework setting has influenced students to continue the creative process even post-graduation. It has a unique style and flavor—check it out.

And lastly, we were pointed in the direction of a wonderful example of a tutorial coming out of the WordPress community. In this case, it’s Jesse P. Luna’s howto on using the new WordPress.com geotagging feature. It’s great to see these kinds of things come from dedicated WordPress users like all of you.

This is a great moment to remind you that if you have a WordPress feature you think could use a great tutorial, there’s never a better time to create one and send it on to us! If you’ve seen a tutorial or have made one, drop us a line and let us know about it.

If you’re looking for a suggestion, here’s one: are you one of the many people who are working with WordPress 2.9-beta? There are some excellent new features coming in 2.9, and there will be lots of WordPress users looking for information on those features. Why not consider whipping up a brief and to-the-point tutorial on one of the new features coming in 2.9?

Have a great week!

Weekly Recap: WYSIWYG Theming, Plugin Development, jQuery, and Child Themes

Posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 5:40 am by Ryan Markel

We had another light publishing week here on WordPress.tv last week, but we have the first of a bunch of WordCamp video for you tonight in a special weekend delivery to make up for lost time.

The one video we did get out for you was the first video to come out of the excellent WordCamp New York City, and it features an awesome concept that came out of the Google Summer of Code. It’s Daryl Koopersmith’s talk on the Elastic WYSIWYG theme tool; you should check it out.

Tonight, we have three more videos, also from WordCamp NYC. First, Matt Martz gives an instructional course on intermediate plugin development. Jim Doran talks to us about using jQuery when you develop for WordPress. And lastly, Allan Cole discusses the increasingly important role child themes take in WordPress development.

We have more WordCamp video on the way this week. To stay updated, follow @wordpresstv on Twitter.

Last week, I asked for suggestions for future video tutorials, and we received a handful of suggestions that I think are very good. I think you’ll see some information on those topics in the future. This week, I have a different request of the community.

We need volunteer transcribers and translators.

To get started, we have video coming in soon from WordCamp Kyoto. Almost all of it is (of course) in Japanese—and much of the WordPress community would still love to see those presentations but may not understand the Japanese language. If you are Japanese-speaking and could help us by volunteering to transcribe or translate the video from WordCamp Kyoto, please either leave a comment on this post or drop us a line using this contact form.

Thanks, and if you’re celebrating Thanksgiving this week, have a great holiday week. Don’t forget the contest currently going on at WordPress.com—a video contest! There’s some snazzy prizes being given away over there.

Weekly Recap: Community Building, Local WordPress Installation, and a Request

Posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 4:49 am by Ryan Markel

I’m a little late to the party this weekend with last week’s recap, but we have a special request for all you viewers, so let’s get down to it.

This week we published one WordCamp video and one tutorial—a little light considering recent weeks, but this week also saw a great livestream from WordCamp Phoenix. I hope you were able to watch it—there were some great sessions included and we’re hoping to have them available on WordPress.tv soon.

The WordCamp video from was WordCamp Netherlands: Liz Strauss‘s presentation entitled “Meeting Your Audience Where They Are.” If you’re interested in community-building or in building a personal brand, it’s definitely worth a look.

On the tutorial side, we published a run-through by Tom Johnson on running a local copy of WordPress using WampServer. Local copies can have tremendous development potential; if you regularly develop themes or plugins, or just like to tinker with WordPress, local installation can be a great help.

So here’s the special request: I’d like you to take a moment and think up one thing—just one thing—you’d like to see covered in a video tutorial here at WordPress.tv. It can be anything WordPress-related, but here’s an exercise to focus your thinking.

Think of questions like: What do I wish someone had told me when I started using WordPress? What kinds of things seem hard at first but really aren’t once you get down to it? What feature of WordPress do I wish more people knew about and used? What’s the feature, plugin, or whatever that gives me an awesome productivity boost or makes me a better WordPress user?

Come up with one thing you’d like to see covered in a future video tutorial, and then send us an email using our handy contact form. We’ll take a look at those suggestions and report on them in a future week’s recap so you know what your fellow community members are asking for.

Until then, stay tuned for more WordPress.tv!

Weekly Recap: WP for iPhone, AStickyPostOrderER, and More

Posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 2:45 am by Ryan Markel

This week was a light one compared to the last four, with a break in the stream of WordCamp videos. We’re eagerly awaiting the arrival of a fresh batch of WordCamp video, with more sessions from the great speakers lined up for WordCamps both from the last few weeks and also from the next couple of weeks in November.

There were a handful of videos published this week:

We announced the arrival of the new WordPress for iPhone 2.0 with a brief overview of its features and quick introduction, and published a great plugin tutorial from Adam W. Warner on the AStickyPostOrderER plugin.

We also received and published yet another fantastic French-language tutorial from WordPress Channel: Effectuer une mise à jour de WordPress.

Next week will see the first videos from WordCamp Netherlands, and we hope to get you back up to a daily dose of WordPress video starting on Monday.

Off-weeks don’t have to be light like this! We’re always looking for new videos from the community—this is your resource. A great example is Adam’s plugin tutorial from this week. Is there a plugin that you absolutely can’t live without? One that you think more people should be using? Check out this list of screencasting resources and put together a quick tutorial. It’s really quite easy to get the hang of it.

Then drop us a line here at WordPress.tv and let us know about your great tutorial!

Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you on Monday.

Weekly Recap: The Image Widget, Pods CMS, and Interviews with Matt

Posted on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 3:34 am by Ryan Markel

Happy Halloween!

This week, we took a little break from WordCamp videos to post a couple of tutorials, a couple of interviews, and one introduction to a different way of using WordPress.

We published one tutorial on a newer feature of WordPress.com: the Image Widget. If you’re a self-hosted WordPress user and like the widget in the video, there’s a great suggestion in the comments for a plugin you can use.

Matt Gibbs sent us a great overview of the basic functionality of the Pods CMS plugin. You’ll need some basic PHP knowledge, but if you’re interested in some of the different ways people are using WordPress, it’s definitely worth a look.

We also made available two French language tutorials:

Lastly, we posted more in the series of interviews with Matt Mullenweg, one with his thoughts on the current state of the WordPress platform, and another regarding the role and importance of open source to WordPress.

This week, there’s been some great discussion after the event on some of the video from WordCamp Seattle. Check the list of sessions here, and if you see something that interests you, join the conversation!

Next week, we have even more from the WordPress community, and we’re looking forward to more WordCamp sessions from around the world. If you have a tutorial or other WordPress-related video you’d like to share with the community, please send us a note and we’ll be happy to check it out.

More video to come on Monday!

Weekly Recap: Finding Themes, Bulletproofing WordPress, and More from WordCamp Seattle

Posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 2:43 am by Ryan Markel

Another week, another great set of presentations published this week from WordCamp Seattle. This week brings the Seattle video to a close, and we hope you’ve found the presentations to be informative and useful.

The first set of sessions posted this week were a neat experiment from the Seattle organizing team: WordPress presentations done “Ignite-style”, where each presenter was given only five minutes in which to deliver their talk. As a result, you’ll find these talks move quickly and give you lots of information in a short amount of time:

We also published the closing session from Seattle, given by Liz Strauss:

Remember that if you missed any sessions from WordCamp Seattle, you can view the whole list of them here.

Next week, we have a small series of videos that have come in from the community to publish while we wait for a short lull in WordCamp activity, but with WordCamps happening over the next few weeks in more places all over the world, we’re looking forward to more sessions from great speakers.

Stay tuned for more from WordPress.tv!

Weekly Recap: Publicize!, Community, BuddyPress, Q&A, and More from WordCamp Seattle

Posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 1:05 am by Ryan Markel

As Matt mentioned in last month’s wrap-up, the Automattic crew has been meeting up in Quebec, but that hasn’t stopped us from publishing another week of quality content to WordPress.tv. We hope you’ve been watching. In case you missed something, here’s what’s been released this past week:

The first round of sessions from WordCamp Seattle were posted, including:

Next week, we’ll be publishing a somewhat different set of sessions from the same WordCamp. WordCamp Seattle entertained a series of “Ignite-like” presentations, where the presenters were given only five minutes in which to deliver their topic. We’ll close next week’s WordCamp TV publish with Liz Strauss’ closing presentation from Seattle.

In upcoming weeks, we’re looking forward to video from even more WordCamps, like WordCamp Philippines, WordCamp Netherlands, and WordCamp Phoenix. Are you interested in attending awesome sessions like these and meeting up with other WordPress users? Check the WordCamp schedule to see if one is coming to your part of the world.

This week, we also published a tutorial on the new Publicize! feature for WordPress.com, a French-language tutorial on Gravatars (Utiliser les gravatars), and an interview with Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg on WordPress and the GPL.

Remember that WordPress.tv is your visual source for WordPress. If you have suggestions for future video tutorials—or if you’ve made a tutorial—we’d like to hear about it. We’ll be back with more video on Monday!

Weekly Recap: The WordPress Family, E-Commerce, Failure, and WordPress.com Howtos

Posted on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 2:14 am by Ryan Markel

Welcome to the weekend from WordPress.tv!

It’s time to recap the last week in video tutorials, and this week we have the continuation of a very strong lineup of WordCamp video from the busy final weeks of summer. This week’s batch is from WordCamp Los Angeles, which was held on September 12 at Loyola Marymount University:

Once again, this is a great lineup of speakers put together by a wonderful group of volunteers. If watching these and other WordCamp sessions piques your interest, you should check to see if there’s an upcoming WordCamp in your area.

We also posted a great bunch of how-tos and announcements for WordPress.com this week:

And one French-language tutorial:

I’d like to take a second and recommend that you watch the tutorial on translating WordPress.tv videos. We have a broad selection of videos available here, but the vast majority of them are voiced in English. As time passes, and WordPress users become more of an international community, the need for translated subtitles will only grow—and you can help to create those translations. The short tutorial linked above will show you how you can contribute.

Of course, we hope that you find the content available here on WordPress.tv to be useful and informative as you continue to use and learn more about WordPress. Remember: if you’re a plugin developer or a WordPress whiz, and you don’t see a tutorial you think should be here, you can always create one and get in touch with us. We’re always seeking videos from the community and publishing the best of them here on WordPress.tv.

With your contributions, and your suggestions, you’ll help us truly make WordPress.tv your visual resource for all things WordPress. Enjoy your weekend! We’ll be back on Monday with more video, including the sessions from WordCamp Seattle.

Weekly Recap: Speeding Up WordPress, Podcasting, The Mobile Web, Portfolio Sites, and More

Posted on Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 at 2:11 am by Ryan Markel

It’s time to breathe a little life back into the WordPress.tv blog, and what better way than to begin a regular series of posts detailing for you what’s new on WordPress.tv?

Each week, we’ll recount for you the tutorials, WordCamp sessions, and interviews that have been posted to WordPress.tv to try and help you find content that speaks to you and teaches you more about WordPress.

This week, we posted a whole bunch of WordCamp sessions and a few new tutorials.

From WordCamp Portland, on September 19 and 20:

We also published a handful of tutorials this week, on:

This was a great week with lots of great WordCamp content, and there’s more to come. I hope you find these sessions and tutorials useful and informative as you learn more about what’s possible with WordPress. If you have any ideas for future tutorials you’d like to see, please feel free to leave a comment here or to drop us a note using our contact form.

Next week, we’ll be publishing sessions from WordCamp Los Angeles, and we’ll have another set of tutorials for you as well. Stay tuned!

WordPress.tv is hiring!

Posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 3:27 am by Michael Pick

I’m super-excited to say that we’re hiring here at WordPress.tv towers!

With our combined focus on community content and putting out fresh tutorials for you, there are only so many hours a day in the average week. So, to make sure that we cover the gamut of WordPress video, we’re going to need an extra pair of hands.

You can find the job description at our Automattic jobs page – the job you’re looking at is the “Reel Wrangler”. Here are a few more details:

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