Torn Elements

As much as I adore the current theme I’m using, there’s one huge problem with it…

I didn’t create it!

The blog still feels like rented space to me and not the ‘home’ I’m ultimately seeking. So, let’s do something about that, shall we?

In my very first post here I discussed our options when selecting themes. The last option I mentioned was the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) route. We’re going to explore this more in the coming weeks as I start this series of posts on the topic.

Before I go any further I should point out that I am not an expert theme coder. I expect to make mistakes, blunders, and bone head moves (all in public, no less!) which I ultimately hope to be called to answer for via comments from my readers. I simply mean to come at this as an ‘intermediate’ because let’s face it, newbies and experts aside, a lot of us fall into this category of skill level.

Who knows. Maybe we’ll all learn something in the process.

Preparations:

I’ve setup two sub-domains to aid in the development of the new theme. The first sub-domain will house a default WordPress setup with a theme switcher plugin installed. This way, I’ll be able to post about my progress and provide a link to a working version of the theme on a post by post basis. That’s to say if someone a year down the road is reading the post, the link provided will demo where the work stood on that particular day. A visual timeline of sorts.

The second sub-domain will house the theme images. Most browsers can only load 2-4 images simultaneously from any single domain. By keeping theme images on a sub-domain and content images on the main domain, I can increase the load speed of the site dramatically by allowing an additional 2-4 images to be loaded at the same time. (A preliminary step in page optimization)

Today’s Link simply takes you to the default WordPress theme. Nothing special there.

In my next post we’ll be stripping that puppy down to basic code. From there we’ll start building our new theme based on what’s left. Ripping apart and rebuilding a default theme is a great learning technique, not only for WordPress, but other CMS’s as well.

Themes Coding, Optimization, Themes

I’ve been surfing around to other blogs quite a bit recently and I’m shocked at how much sidebar pollution is out there. Specifically – advertising.

I’m all for making a few bucks and I’m hoping the few spots I’ve allocated to ads will at least cover my hosting at the end of the year. The last thing I want to do is distract people from the content. Or worse yet, send them screaming for the hills just because it takes forever for the site to load.

If you’ve taken the pains to optimize your theme, then why are you going to turn around and slow things down by overpopulating your sidebar? In some cases I’ve been able to finish reading a post before the page had even finished loading. (Thankfully, content was rendered first.)

The first thing I learned in web design was the fact you have approximately 15-20 seconds to grab a user’s attention. After that you can consider them gone. In these days of high speed access, most designers and site owners have pretty much forgotten about this. We still have a certain portion of the Internet population that still uses Dial-up.

Slow loading sidebar? Here’s a few things to look for:

• Flash Video Ads. These things take a fair amount of resources and bandwidth. I have the luxury (?!) of running an older computer. These ads, especially when more than one appears on a page, bog down my system to the point where I have to wait for the ad to finish playing before I can do anything else. The quickest solution to this is to simply close the window or tab. Not something a blogger wants. Not all flash video ads demand such resources but a good portion do. (Especially those Telus ads which dominated Adsense prior to Christmas)
• Plugins and Widgets. Some people are just wild about adding all the latest greatest sidebar widgets and plugins. Truth be told, many of these make a huge amount of http and database requests. Some plugins are just coded poorly which doesn’t help matters either. If you think your sidebar is slowing things down, deactivate all plugins and corresponding widgets then start them up again one at a time. Eventually you’ll find the culprit.
• Community Avatar Widgets. Yay! It’s great to see who’s been visiting, but each one of those tiny little avatars require an http request to load. If you run several of these community widgets (each displaying last 100 visitors) then you slow down the load time considerably. Next to flash ads, I found these to be once of the highest load times on many sidebars.
• External Content. If a plugin or widget needs to pull it’s information from a 3rd party site, this can slow things down if the target site is either busy or experiencing technical difficulties. Ensure that the site provides it’s content on a timely basis, otherwise lose it.

I’m yet to finalize exactly what will appear in my sidebar, but rest assured. I’ll be watching the above points very closely.

Plugins Optimization, Plugins, WordPress