I am pleased to report the launch of my latest web project for a birding tour company. This was a fantastic collaboration between my web team (Katherine Koch, lead designer and Bill Klingensmith, Rob Mauer, and Sean Koch) and the owners of Tropical Birding (a birding tour company based in Quito, Ecuador).

www.tropicalbirding.com

The result is a sophisticated, Web 2.0-friendly WordPress implementation that stretches the limits of what WP can do as a content management system.

Our mission was simple: craft a sexy, eye-catching site that gets visitors where they are going fast, then add video, stunning photos, and social media. We customized the  framework and functionality around the client’s top-notch content, so the pages are filled with sharp photography, videos, and tour descriptions as well as awesome tables, maps, forms, and graphics.

One of the greatest challenges of this site was to develop a tour page that effectively displays the gobs of information related to each tour. Some of the tour info is static–it rarely changes; we kept that in the main content area. Other tour information can change annually if not more often. We decided the best approach would be a tabbed accordion menu on the left sidebar to hold all the tour-specific information on dates, prices, extensions, trip reports, etc. The client has full access to update this information in the custom fields area of each tour page.

Other site highlights include:

• Custom css overlay to enhance the core Thesis theme
• Custom double navigation designed to get site visitors to their preferred tour destination immediately.
• Google Maps implementation for site visitors who prefer to surf a world map to find their desired tour destinations
• Sortable database table of tours for site visitors who prefer to browse tours by date, type, region, etc.
• Interactive forms: registration form, contact form, and feedback form
• Custom slideshows with NextGen gallery and Monoslideshow
• Multi-author Blog
• Full social media integration (Sociable and MeLikey plugins, Twitter feed on home page)
• Video testimonials embedded in sidebar
• Live chat installation to help client service site visitors in real time.

I always say that the best websites are built on a “three-legged stool” of great design, great functionality, and great content. It was truly a pleasure to build a website with all three. Thanks to the owners of Tropical Birding for bringing me the opportunity to improve their online business, and to my web team for making it happen.

Now check it out! www.tropicalbirding.com

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Alert: Techy post ahead! 

I dedicate this post to the subset of nature/bird bloggers who not only use the WordPress blogging platform, but who also use the “Thesis” theme as their premium design overlay (WordPress is just the background of the site, the design you see “over” it is called a theme). You’re out there! I’ve seen you…it’s so easy to spot a DIY Theme once you know them. In fact, I’ve been surprised at how many of us have independently floated to the same theme… 

This was a big week for WordPress fans because on Wednesday, developers released the upgraded version of WordPress 2.8 “Baker”, affectionately named after the noted trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker (!). The upgrade fixes several known bugs, but is also faster and allows greater flexibility with widgets, plugins, and easier theme selection and installation.

I backed up my site (highly recommended!) and then clicked the “Upgrade to WordPress 2.8″ button, hoping for the best. For me, the installation went well. but eventually I noticed that my sidebars were not behaving. My Blog page lost its Recent Posts column, which was moved to my Home page. My Home page lost its navigation (“Look Around”), which wound up on my Blog page. To make matters worse, I could not fix the errant sidebar components. In WP 2.8, widgets were built to be dragged and dropped to and from the sidebar during editing, but that wasn’t happening for me.

It’s a wee bit complicated to have different sidebars on different pages of my website, which is a combination static site (from left to right, Home Page through Writing tabs) and a continually updated Blog (last tab on right). That’s why I use a WordPress Plugin called Widget-Context. This allows me to have all sort of neat content on my right-hand sidebar (text boxes, blog rolls, recent posts, images, etc) which appears or disappears on relevant pages. 

Whenever a problem with my WordPress site pops up, I  turn to either WordPress Support Forum or the DIY Themes Support Forum. Many users suggested turning off all my plugins to isolate the problem. I tried, but no dice. 

Then I learned: there is a known incompatibility between Thesis 1.5 and WordPress 2.8 which dismantles the Widgets Panel.  After some reading, I performed the Quick Fix suggested by Kingdom Geek, which meant I had to modify some core php files. Doing so is not hard, but, as a non-programmer,  I tread vewry, vewry lightly (and backup often!).

But that didn’t resolve everything. So, after more searching I found there was an upgrade to the open source Widget-Context plug in that is compatible with WP 2.8 (which, by the way, I had to search and download manually from the developer’s site). Bingo! I could drag and drop widgets and the context function worked great.

I was rather proud of fixing my own problem without dismantling my entire site. So I poured a glass of wine, sat down and started to share it here in my blog. 

And as I typed, my computer beeped. It was an e-mail from Chris Pearson, the developer of Thesis, saying he just released a new version of the theme (Thesis 1.5.1) that solves this problem plus a few others. 

Looks like I could have saved myself a few hours of query and keyboard taps.

But it’s nice to know that developers are out there, working hard, trying to make these awesome but disparate functionalities synchronize and work better for us publishers at little or no cost. I just promised myself I’m going to pick two of my favorite plugins and send a few bucks to the developers within the next month. After all, if I can send  $0.99 to iTunes in exchange for Adam Lambert’s Mad World, I can send a few bucks to a programmer who makes my website look better!  Just like comments and retweets keep us bloggers going, we gotta keep these open source programmers doin’ their thang.

I’m going to install Thesis 1.5.1 tonight and hope for more synchronicity! Happy Friday, and happy upgrading to you!

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