Looking forward to WordCamp UK 2012

I had a great time at WordCamp UK last year in Portsmouth. It was exciting to share a space with so many other WordPress nerds & a surreal experience to meet the people behind some the WordPress sites / businesses we’re so familiar with. It was most humbling to learn that some attendees were even familiar with mine & Mikes work.

This year WordCamp UK makes it’s way up North to Edinburgh. I’ve never been to Scotland before, but from what I’ve been told Edinburgh is a beautiful place. Although if there’s plenty of beer and WiFi it might be difficult to make time to sight-see!

We’re sponsoring this year and have submitted a content idea in an attempt to further contribute to an exciting looking lineup of talks & presentations. So be sure to stop by the WooStand and say ‘Hi!’. I’m certainly looking forward to meeting new people, as well as some friends I’ve made since starting this WooCommerce adventure.

See you there!

Download this theme

Title says it all really. I’ve decided to upload add this WordPress theme to Github because sharing is cool and someone might find it useful (or want to improve it). I was going to add it to the WordPress.org theme repository but the iconic font license (SIL OFL) unfortunately isn’t GPL compatible.

We’ve been using Github since we launched WooCommerce and it’s proved to be a invaluable tool and excellent way to encourage community involvement/contribution.

Download from Github.

Brand new – WooCommerce codex & documentation suite

For the few people who end up on my site looking for help with WooCommerce, this one’s for you!

Earlier in the week we released WooCommerce 1.4 baked in to which there are a butt-load of new features and code improvements/optimisations.

But that’s not all, we also improved our support resources dramatically with the addition of two new sections on the WooThemes web site;

  1. A Dedicated WooCommerce Documentation Suite
  2. A Community Forum

The new documentation suite is a big improvement on the restrictive Codex we had previously. Running on our own Wikeasi theme it’s now much easier to browse/use, and more importantly it is much easier for us (and our third party developers) to update. The user guide is now rich in detail, the snippets library expanded and the core functionality of the plugin better documented. Eventually, all WooCommerce extensions will be documented here also. This is a resource that will grow over time and become a cornerstone for those looking to build WooCommerce stores, or extend WooCommerce itself via plugins & themes.

The community forum is a big one for us, as all our support forums were only accessible to customers. However, with a large number of users using WooCommerce on it’s own, we wanted to give them a platform to discuss the plugin with their peers, showcase their work and generally get in touch with the growing WooCommerce community.

What’s next?

It’s certainly been an exciting week for us, and with 1.4 out the door we will be aiming to increase momentum as we go into February. Indeed we have some awesome extensions coming this month plus a new theme or two. Stay tuned!

Layered paper effect using CSS3 box shadows

Just a quick one today. I originally planned to achieve this “layered paper” effect using :before and :after pseudo elements, but then set about trying to do it purely using the CSS3 box-shadow property. That way I’d have an :after free and can add as many “layers” as I want.

Pretty straight-forward, but quite a neat solution I think, check the result below;

This snippet was featured on CSS-Tricks.

Enjoy!

Argentum – a mobile optimised WooCommerce theme

A few days ago we launched Argentum, the first fully mobile optimised WooCommerce theme.

It was an exciting moment for me personally as I designed the theme myself from the ground up. The Markup is valid HTML5 and CSS3 has been used throughout to reduce bandwidth consuption, improve accessibility and achieve some neat little animations.

Best of all Argentum is fully mobile optimised, truly putting your WordPress shop in the hands of your customers.

Take a look at the demo or buy Argentum now.

If you use the coupon ARGENTUM11 you can get an 11% discount off this theme. Woo!

WooCommerce is here!

Since I joined WooThemes last month, Mike and I have been frantically working away at WooThemes brand new eCommerce plugin (WooCommerce) plus a bunch of themes, child themes and extensions to supplement it.

Today, those products have been officially launched. I’m extremely excited and proud of what we’ve achieved in so little time, and can’t wait to carry on the evolution of the WooLabs. So go check it out.

Onwards!

I’m a Woo Ninja

I should have written this post a couple of weeks ago but frankly I’ve been too busy. Here’s why;

During August I was given the incredible opportunity to join WooThemes, a company I’ve admired for years, on a permanent basis. I happily accepted the offer and officially started on September 1st.

My role at Woo is to head up their “Labs” division. This will involve pioneering new technologies in app and eCommerce themes as well as managing the direction of the much anticipated WooCommerce plugin alongside my good buddy Mike Jolley.

I’m extremely excited to get back into the challenge of designing products rather than one-off web sites. That creative freedom has always brought the best out of me ever since I dipped my toe into this industry nearly 10 years ago.