WordPress Announcements News and Information
WordPress Announcements News and Information

Theme Utility Streamlines Design Process for WordPress

WordPress GADGET, the new theme utility released by a Kansas City web developer earlier this month, is finding its way into the toolkits of WordPress developers who wish to speed up the theme design process and cut out redundant coding. The ability to quickly change design elements such as column width and layout, color scheme, background images, banner images, and site navigation is built into GADGET, with no coding required.

Other GADGET features include the ability to upload photos and artwork without need for an FTP client, a customized font feature using the Cufón Font Generator, the ability to add peer to peer emailing, sharing via social networks, printer-friendly pages, a built-in contact form with anti-SPAM protection and a built-in archive page. While incorporating such a large selection of code-free features into WordPress GADGET was a goal for developer Kent Politsch, GADGET’s archive feature brought the entire project together, allowing the user to save endless combinations of settings, name the combinations and switch between them with the click of a mouse.

“I wanted there to be a way for users to be endlessly creative in their site development. So potentially, they could create as many looks for their sites as they liked, and switch between them as often as they liked. I also ended up with a feature that is pretty useful for WordPress site developers. Say you’re developing sites for companies A, B, C, and so on. Well, you can develop all of those sites with GADGET and save their individual settings right in your GADGET control panel,” explains Politsch.

Although GADGET doesn’t require coding to create an unlimited number of stylish sites, developers still have the option to tweak GADGET elements they wish to modify. By removing the need to write redundant coding and overwrite style sheets, GADGET aims to take the tedium out of the design process, while keeping as much creative freedom as possible. According to Politsch, himself an established designer, writing only the most necessary and creative code was what spurred him to create GADGET. “I simply got tired of creating new themes and porting the same code over and over again. Now I have to write the contact form function… now I have to write the dynamic titles function…. Basically, my left brain got tired. I guess my belief is that any unnecessary code is bad code. And, it’s time consuming for the developer,” he says.

More Info: www.WPGADGET.com

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