I’ve published the slides to YouTube, since a large portion of the presentation includes screen recordings, demoing some built in features, plug-ins, and showcases. I want to thank the awesome, engaged audience, which ranged from fellow WordPress professionals to novices who have never even opened the software.

In addition to the few snapshots below from this talk, you can find photographs from my presentation and my participation in the Can Your CMS Do That? panel on our Facebook page.

Jeremy Felt and I will be joining Kailey Lampert in presenting lightening talks on the topic of WordPress Coding Done Right, followed by some Q&A. Eric Mann will be covering Automated WordPress Development, which reviews best practices for CSS and JavaScript and the use of Grunt to automate preparation of a theme or plugin for release.

Senior Web Strategist Josh Cunnigham, another Seattle local, will also be in attendance. If you’re planning to show up, be sure to say hello to the 10up contingent!

The news for 10up is even better: we’ve provided direct service for 8 of the blogs on the list. TechCrunch moved up into the top five. 9to5mac moved up two spaces from #33 to #31. Deadline maintained its place on the list at #26. Two of our clients made the list for the first time:  Consumerist at #90 and hip2save.com at #98. Three other blogs enlisted our web strategy services.

With more than a dozen core WordPress contributors on our team, including a guest core committer, we’ve actually written code running on each of the other 44 WordPress-backed blogs. Add in our modest jQuery core contributions, and we’ve made some small contribution to every site on the list!

We’d like to congratulate everyone who made the list! You can find the WordPress statistics at Royal Pingdom and the original list over at Technorati.

Assuming planes run on time, I’ll be there on Monday evening for the Welcome Kickoff Meetup at the Orrington Conference Center, where I’ll look forward to joining lead WordPress developer Andrew Nacin’s WordPress breakout meetup.

The conference fully kicks off on Tuesday, May 14, where I’ll be presenting Publishing Workflows for WordPress at 4:30 pm CST.  On the heels of a session reviewing WordPress’s CMS chops, I’ll dive into scenarios where light weight, out-of-the-box WordPress just doesn’t cut it. Here’s my session description:

You get it. WordPress isn’t just a full featured Content Management System – it’s the industry leader. With a capable engineering team or the right theme, your site can look like just about anything. Shooting off a blog post or editing some basic page content is no problem… but what happens when your content or publishing workflow isn’t quite that simple? What does it mean for a team to actually, you know, manage content for your beautiful, but somewhat complex website?

This session combines captivating case studies that will broaden your sense of what’s possible with a look at off-the-shelf plug-ins and tools like Edit Flow that you can put to work immediately to improve your publishing workflows. From managing unique layouts like a grid or interactive map, to curating reader-submitted or ingested content, to staging big changes, we’ll wrap our heads around tools and methods that keep your site beautiful – without the headaches.

On Wednesday, I’ll be taking the mic again with representatives of other platforms to take part in the second of two Can Your CMS Do That? panels. Here’s the description:

The second in a 2-part panel series, “Can Your CMS Do That?” helps you get the lowdown on the front-end “customer-facing” capabilities of CMSs being used by our panel of experts at CMS Expo. This interactive panel discussion will bring together several panelists who are end users themselves, in “real-world” CMS Site implementations. Together, they’ll share their successes as well as limitations when using their CMS of choice.

This session will focus more specifically on creative, customer-facing and marketing-specific CMS capabilities. This includes design, social media integration, blogging, editing and responsive mobile capabilities. Panelists will both participate in guided discussion, and be available to answer questions from the audience.

Between my speaking obligations, I expect to spend some time volunteering at the WordPress booth with some Automatticians and fellow WordPress speakers.

If you’ve ever spoken to team 10up about CMS choices, you probably know that most 10uppers actually have experience with a variety of platforms. Speaking personally, I’ve built and managed website projects on Drupal, at least three commercial CMS solutions, and of course, completely custom builds. At 10up, we focus on WordPress because we think it offers the best outcomes and creates the happiest customers, 97% of the time (and we’re always happy to steer would-be customers to another platform when WordPress just doesn’t make sense). So I’m particularly eager to refresh myself with the latest offerings, thinking, and approaches that other platforms are bringing to the table.

You can follow me at @jakemgold on Twitter for updates from CMS Expo throughout the week – and if you’re heading there, be sure to let me know!

Generally, there are no minimums or maximum limits (other than those imposed by PHP itself) for priority, but there’s a very good reason to give consideration to when your code runs. Here’s an example:

Widget registration should be hooked to ‘widgets_init’ as in the following code:

function mytheme_register_widgets() {
  register_widget( 'Mytheme_Widget' );
}
add_action( 'widgets_init', 'mytheme_register_widgets' );

This is also the hook used internally by WordPress to take all the registered widgets and create a global array, $wp_registered_widgets. Specifically, this is in the WP_Widget_Factory class’s constructor function which is called once in wp-settings.php, immediately before the ‘setup_theme’ action hook.

class WP_Widget_Factory {
	var $widgets = array();

	function WP_Widget_Factory() {
		add_action( 'widgets_init', array( $this, '_register_widgets' ), 100 );
	}
...

Any widget registered after the _register_widgets function has run will not show in the admin.

If you are writing a plugin:
add_action( 'widgets_init', 'mytheme_register_widgets', 100 ); will work because plugins are loaded prior to do_action( 'setup_theme' ). What it also means is that folks writing a theme or modifying functions.php will not be able to unregister your widget.

If you are writing a theme:
add_action( 'widgets_init', 'mytheme_register_widgets', 100 ); will not work. Themes are loaded after WP_Widget_Factory’s constructor method.

I can’t imagine any reason to register a widget with priority 100, but there are very legitimate reasons for unregistering a widget. So my advice:

• Register your widgets at or near priority 10 (the default)
• If you are writing a plugin, never register a widget a priority 100
• Registering a plugin at a priority above 100 just flat-out won’t work.

In short, this expanding, thriving technology community is the perfect atmosphere for 10up to begin growing its distributed roots into brick and mortar hubs.

Our Portland team is excited to have a local hub, and anticipate working out of our office for more than half of their working hours. Other 10uppers from across the country have already expressed an eagerness to visit the office throughout the year.

A physical presence in Portland offers all of 10up a greater sense of home. The office will act as a central hub for face-to-face meet-ups and events, including open houses and 10up sponsored hack days. We plan to use our office to strengthen our relationship with the local web design and development and WordPress community, and hope that a physical office will attract some new talent.

As the Director of Web Engineering at 10up, I’ll be responsible for overseeing the office day-to-day. I’m eager to see my Portland peers more frequently, and excited to do more face-to-face brainstorming.

The office is located at NW 6^th and NW Glisan on the border of Old Town and the Pearl Distrct. Originally the Oregon Cracker Company Building, the location is now listed on the National Register of Historical Places. The office is near a number of other creative and online agencies, including at least one of our close partners.

We just received the keys a few days ago, so stay tuned for photographs and updates as we move into our new digs!

I’ve been building the web for more than 5 years. It all started with wiring up HTML templates and DotNetNuke themes as a marketing assistant for a software company. It was a “too much to do, not enough people” situation, so I found myself grabbing anything and everything related to web development. This blossomed into part-time freelance work, building sites for anyone that would let me. A tip to the beginners: don’t find gigs on Craigslist.

Around the same time, I was finishing up a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and slowly realizing that building metal-organic frameworks was not what I was meant to do (though I did whip up a few good-looking crystals in my day). I started reading Seth Godin (a true “gateway” author) and built a blog for both myself and a family member in WordPress. I was hooked and “Josh Can Help web strategy” was born.

I switched to full-time self-employment in 2011 and brought on a contractor to help design and build WordPress-powered websites for a great group of clients. Over the next couple of years, I had the opportunity to work with clients like Alan Colmes, SocialMediaToday, and SmartVault, and agencies like Monster. I submitted plugins to the WordPress repo and created a popular niche theme, which brought me invaluable experience supporting end users and creating products. Anything that keeps me learning, building, and helping people get the most out of the web makes me happy.

My position here at 10up was a total fluke; it started as a casual Skype chat with Jake, discussing ways to grow my business. That turned into a job offer I couldn’t refuse. 10up is the kind of team I dreamed of building and the opportunity to join was impossible to resist. I’m incredibly excited to work with some serious talent while helping an impressive portfolio of clients execute incredible web strategies and projects.

And, with that, I’m going to hop on my Ridley to grab a Stumptown pour-over in Fremont and write some code.

Build Responsively

The first day was split into three workshops that attendees pre-registered to attend. I signed up for the Responsive Web Design workshop, and couldn’t have been more amazed by the content we covered in just 6 short hours. Ben Callahan, our instructor, did a thorough job reviewing the three core techniques: a fluid foundation, flexible content, and media queries. Ben also described how responsive design shifted his company’s mindset away from linear timelines in favor of a continuing “push and pull” within each part of the process, with phased deliverables and releases.

The highlight was Mr. Callahan’s application of a preprocessor called SASS, which he uses to generate a single CSS file (improving performance) for visitors using older versions of Internet Explorer or modern browsers. Combing imports, a custom mix-in (written by his company), and some conditional tags, his approach generates a stylesheet with efficient, modern techniques like media queries served to modern browsers, and another stylesheet optimized for older browsers.

Ben wrapped up by reviewing design patterns arising as responsive web design gains popularity. It is truly amazing to watch the web mature as we transition from a desktop-centric experience to an increasingly mobile-centric audience.

Multi-Track Sessions

The second day was split into five tracks: Design, Front-End, Development, Mobile, and Business. Each track took place at a different downtown venue, with perfect weather for strolling from place to place.

I sat in on a couple of Front-End tracks in the morning, starting with “Taking Your Markup to 11″. Emily Lewis discussed semantics, HTML5, and ARIA Landmarks. She stressed good markup, and the understated value of this skill set  A quote from John Ruskin summed everything up nicely: “Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.”

Rob Tarr blitzed through a series of JavaScript tips and libraries that help with responsive web design. He covered popular polyfills, typography manipulation, and even special touch effects powered by the magic of JavaScript. One great takeaway was Hammer.js, a library that adds multi-touch gestures to pages, including a neat “pull to refresh” feature.

After lunch, Johnathan Smiley did a great job convincing me – all over again – that responsive web design is the future. Val Head gave us the low down on web typography, pointing to tools and resources to help us make a web full of beautiful typefaces. Val wistfully informed us that – so far – no single typeface works great on every browser or device, underscoring importance of use case, durability, and testing in a real context.

We closed the day with a keynote from Portland designer, Aaron Draplin, who shared his inspirational story, scratching his way out of a humble midwestern childhood into the carefree life of a highly sought after designer. He inspired us to love what we do and pour all of our passion into it.

A Day of Inspiration

On the last day, we were engaged by speakers with amazing résumés and stories. I came away hopeful, inspired to remember the power that we have in building the future. From leading design for a political campaign, to enabling others to find joy in what they do through education, to running a marathon in Antarctica to raise money for a good cause, we can really make a difference. We need to share what we learn and continue to push the limits of our medium – that’s how positive change happens.

I met colleagues all the way from California to India. I met students and professionals. We learned, we laughed, we shared – some even shed a tear. I’m proud that 10up sponsored ConvergeSE, and hope to relive the inspiration in another year.

Portland’s organizer, a former WordPress.com VIP support engineer, helped organize the workshop and invited Jeremy Felt and me to be mentors. The mentors are talented and diverse, ranging from 10uppers and Automatticians to designers, developers, and editors from newspapers like the Seattle Times.

The primary goal of Code with me is to help journalists understand code so that they can better integrate into their work. Many of the attendees were inspired after reading the New York Times’s “Snow Fall”, a showcase for crafting and coding an online presentation around a single, great story. Snow Fall is a great example of how technology can enhance storytelling without restraining or complicating it.

Jeremy and I are really looking forward to interacting with journalists, and excited to be learning the pedagogy of teaching coding from Tom and Sisi. Since web technologies are constantly evolving, teaching some coding basics can be a challenge. As we interact with publishers on a daily basis here at 10up, learning some better methodologies will be invaluable.

At Code with me, we will be teaching journalists and researchers techniques that make stories more effective, immersive, and interactive. I can’t wait to see how Portland journalists apply these ideas!

If you want to learn more about Code with me, you can follow them on Twitter. Code with me: Portland takes place on May 4-5.

On Thursday, the WordPress.com VIP publisher blog posted a Q&A with Keith Robinson, Manager of Digital Products at Global News, where he took some time to highlight some of our contributions:

“10up helped us come up with a curation system that powers a lot of the site: the navigation, carousel, featured story, top story. It’s all one system that gives different choices.”

“We engaged with 10up in the fall to do the WordPress integration…we were very fortunate to hire some really top talent to work with us, and we’ve been working with really good partners.”

“10up brought a lot in terms of being able to listen to our needs and turn it into a functional site. They were great for us because we were at a stage where we needed things done very quickly and needed to discuss exactly what we were looking to do and how we were looking to do it–they helped us go from the discovery process to the implementation…we really benefited from the partnership and they were good to work with.”

You can read the full Q&A here.