WordPress Freelancer

New WordPress Freelance Project: JDMNagoyaAutoParts

I have been working on a lot of WordPress freelance projects lately, that’s I why I have been lazy posting. One of the most successful one is for sure JDMNagoyaAutoParts, a showcase website for Japanese cars in Canada. I say it was a success because the project consisted on a lot of out-of-the-box theme development techniques and a lot of features that turn this site into a really flexible, scalable, time-saving CMS.

Approach

I began developing this theme with three objectives in mind – I wanted to built a powerful, easy-to-use, automated CMS with WordPress. I can proudly say I fulfilled those objectives the best way possible. This approach required a set of wonderful features to meet the objectives. I am going to share with you each of them below.

Custom Write Panels

To make things easier, I developed a set of custom write panels for the client. Can you imagine how much time would it require to use the default custom field functionality to enter something like 30 fields for a post (the cars details)? That would take forever. This is why I implemented custom write panels, so that the time-saving and easy-to-use objectives get met. However, this is not all.

Automated Image Placement

This is a great feature that does not come by default with WordPress themes. It is sometimes tricky to make it work it right. But, using this feature on your site, after several months you will realize that his has not saved you hours, but whole days and I have no shade of doubt when I say that. Here is why. My client uses about 10 images per post that go to the gallery, one of the images must go the the homepage and another in thumbnail size must go the the category. Normally, that would mean 12 more custom fields for image links. You get what I am saying, right?

Galleria Integration

Galleria is one of the best JavaScript image galleries out there, written in jQuery. I have implemented it in many WordPress driven sites and I am very pleased with its results. As I pointed out in the previews point, the gallery is completely automatic – just upload the images in the media library of the post you are writing and they are at the same time at the gallery. It cannot be easier or more time saving.

Glider Integration

Glider is a great script that makes it easy to create a sliding component in a website. I love that script and I have been using it in several other projects too. It is fully automated for sure. In the site I am talking about it show up the first image the latest post of six car categories I have set to. It is a great effect to the site, in my opinion.

Suckerfish Menu Integration

Suckerfish drop down menu is a complete XHTML/CSS drop down menu invention, except for IE6 which needs to use a small piece of JavaScript to make it work right. It is quite well known now on the web right now. What makes it special in the site is the fact that it makes use of categories and pages at the same time, it has rounded corners and I find it cool.

Open Source Works

The last but not the least, what I cannot forget to say is that this site is completely developed with and on open source. It is built on Ubuntu, designed in Inkscape, developed on Bluefish and run on WordPress, my lovely combination of Open Source Web Development tools.

Have to Say

I would love to hear what you are thinking about what you just read. Your opinion is very much appreciated.

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