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Meetup announcement:

The Hands-On WordPress meetups (the second meetup of the month) will move from second Tuesdays of the month to fourth Tuesdays of the month.

Tonight’s meetup:

• Who is WordPress Austin?
• Where are we going?
• How can we improve things? What can we do that’s different? What do people want to see?

Who are we?

• WordPress Austin established March 2007
• 880 members through the WordPress Austin group on Meetup.com (meeting announcements)
• 307 members on the WP Austin Google Group (discussion and questions about WordPress)
• 2 meetups a month: 1st and 4th Tuesdays
• This website: wpaustin.com

Website could be improved:

• Allow registration on website
• Give registered users profile pages
• Weekly roundup of what members are writing on their blogs
• Continue with postings of meetup summaries

Your ideas? Brainstorming…

These are some ideas that came out of our discussion, as people brought them up. It’s a rough list to be sure. Please add your own ideas or feedback on these in the comments for this post.

• All of our ideas on the google group don’t get searched by google in a way that’s searchable outside of the group. Would be great to have the discussion archived under WP Austin. However, the google group option does allow nice functionality including search functions, email or web access. How best to handle this?
• Videotape meetings and post on website; registered members can view. Also livestreaming. We have been livestreaming many of our meetings but some still need to be posted. We need to make sure the links to slideshows, videos etc get posted on the WP Austin site.
• How do we generate meetup topics? Could we use the website to generate ideas/wishlists?
• Discussion forum? Needs development time, moderation.
• What are the goals of the organization? Maybe we need to consider this question…
• We like the idea user/member created content. Build an audience for our topics/conversations on Facebook, Twitter etc.
• Do we want original blog posts from members or do we link to other blogs?
• We can build up the WP Austin group and our reputation.
• We don’t publicize our site. Our online presences (google group, WP Austin, meetup, etc is spread apart and not connected). How do we fix these things and tie everything together? Need to bring content channels together.
• Can we get away from Google Groups?
• Code snippets, tips
• Places to volunteer!!
• Blog AND Forum
• What is uniquely WordPress Austin? What can we offer that isn’t just reinventing the wheel?
• Burning question list… what do we want someone to answer?
• Resource database and Q&A
• Voting on what topics do we want, opportunities to break away to do smaller topics; really important for the user to make decisions and steer the direction of the site, the meetups. We have a great and vital community!
• Membership directory – put that into profiles, everyone can put their specialties in their profile; needs to be searchable
• Don’t forget the beginners!! Beginners’ corner of website?
• Open mic night… membership all contributes ideas on a topic, such as plugins, themes, etc. Five minute presentations on how to solve problems, etc.
• If we bring in new content, we need to be able to index it in an effective and agreed-upon tagging system

Please use the WP Austin Google Group to discuss these ideas more! And if you weren’t at the meetup, feel free to chime in!

Austin WordCamp 2012 – May 19, 2012

It will take place on the AOMA campus on Westgate. Tickets will not exceed $20 and that includes a t-shirt and lunch.

We will have a general track and a bloggers’ track.

Everyone on the WP Austin meetup group will receive a message soon seeking volunteers. You will hear more details about location, signup, speakers/topics. Clark Wimberly will be doing the website which will launch in time for SxSW.

We had a great meetup tonight! The livestream lost connection briefly towards the end of the presentation, but we restarted it and recorded both pieces. The topic was how to move a WordPress site from host to host. For example, you’re developing a new site on your laptop using MAMP, WAMP, XAMP, etc. The steps we went through tonight were that exact scenario. Bill Erickson, who wrote an outstanding blog post on moving a WordPress site, had several tips and caveats for different scenarios: you’re developing a theme for a client’s existing site. You’re building a whole new version of a live site, etc. Nick Batik brought in some more considerations as well.

The first part of the presentation is below:

The second portion is next:

In tonight’s WordPress Austin meetup, we’re opening up the floor to questions and comments.

Announcements:
Hands-On WordPress meetup will be next Monday, July 11th. Focus of this meetup will be Image Handling with WordPress. Sign up on Meetup.com.

Hands-On WordPress will also be offering three classes: one on managing content and users; one on WordPress plugins; and one on Backing up/Google apps/additional functionality. For information on these classes, and how to sign up, go to handsonwordpress.com.

Discussion:
We then launched into a demonstration and discussion about WordPress 3.2, released yesterday.

How many people have downloaded WordPress 3.2? (Live counter; as of this post there had been 376,721 downloads since yesterday.)

Have you downloaded and installed it on your site? Did it go smoothly or did you have issues? Check your plugins, make sure your server/host has the most recent updates to PHP and mysql. Run the Health Check plugin to see if your site can run 3.2.

Beware: some (popular) plugins will run an older version of jquery, and if it loads jquery separate from WordPress, the plugin may no longer work. Apparently a NexGen Gallery slider isn’t working with 3.2,

Nick and Pat recommend backing up your site and your database before upgrading to 3.2. If you don’t have a backup and something goes wrong, you may not be able to downgrade to 3.1.

From there we started discussing the differences between WordPress multiuser and installing WordPress into subdirectories on a single domain.

Pat showed off Twenty Eleven, the new default theme for WordPress 3.2, with audible gasps of approval from the crowd. A beautiful redesign of an already very nice theme. He showed how the new theme handles header images (and showed it rotating images randomly) what is now being called “zen mode” which gets rid of all of the admin boxes so you can focus just on your writing.

Discussion drifted into conversation about site backups and SEO plugins, with a lot of recommendations. We also talked about our shared frustrations with the WordPress plugin directory.

One of our attendees had an excellent and easy tip for YouTube videos: if you grab the actual URL for the video and place it directly into your post (in HTML view only) on its own line, without the link code, WordPress will do the embed for you. (If you do it in the visual editor it will wrap it with the link code).

If you have problems with your upgrade to 3.2, are looking for a good plugin recommendation, or have other questions about WordPress, be sure to join the Austin WordPress Google Group and post your question to the collective.

At last night’s WordPress Meetup, we looked at ways you can add meta boxes to your WordPress content. When the basic “chunks” of content aren’t enough (title, content, excerpt, category, tag), adding meta boxes is a great way to add those extra bits of information & are easier to work with than Custom Fields.

The first method was the plugin More Fields. Easy to use interface for creating boxes with all the different input types you might need. Pros: easy to use. Cons: easy for someone to mess up or uninstall.

The second method was using the Custom Meta Box code developed by Bill Erickson, Andrew Norcross & Jared Atchison. This code allows you to build meta boxes into your theme. Pros: no plugin to install, harder for someone to muck up after you’ve got it set ‘just right’. Cons: If you’re not comfortable editing your functions.php, this may be intimidating for you to work with.

New web design classes

Members of WordPress Austin and Geek Austin are happy to announce three new classes designed to help you get started on the road to having your own website (or making an existing site bigger, faster, stronger!).

Each class is $75, and you can register and pay online using the links below. All classes will be held at Cospace, 911 Anderson Lane Suite 203.

Register early and save your spot!

Hands-On WordPress Class

taught by Nick Batik, Sandi Chevalier-Batik and Jackie Dana

April 16, 11 am-5pm

This class focuses on helping the traditional business owner, the web-based small enterprise or the stay-at-home blogger benefit from learning how to get the most from WordPress. This 6-hr hands-on course is designed to take you from newbie to confident user.

During your Hands-on WordPress class you will work real-time with the instructors as you learn and implement the steps to plan and build a site.

More information on topics that will be covered

Online registration for Hands-On WordPress class

Basic HTML Class

Taught by Pat Ramsey

The basic HTML class consists of three two-hour sessions, and will meet on the following dates:

Monday, April 18 7PM-9PM
Monday, April 25 7PM-9PM
Monday, May 2 7PM-9PM

Online registration for HTML class

Basic CSS Class

Taught by Pat Ramsey
The basic CSS class consists of three two-hour sessions, and will meet on the following dates:

Monday, May 16 7PM-9PM : Typography & Color
Monday, May 23 7PM-9PM : Box Model: positioning, widths, margin & padding
Monday, June 6 7PM-9PM : CSS3

Online registration for CSS class

When the weather turned ugly earlier today, making Scott Kingsley Clark’s drive down to Austin problematic, we decided to postpone our PODS presentation until next month. With only a few hours notice Clark Wimberly stepped up and pulled together a great presentation — Post Formats — New in WordPress 3.1.

His talk was well organized, clearly presented and stimulated a lot of ideas as to how this new and very powerful feature can be used.

Clark has posted his Post Formats notes and links at: http://wpatx.tumblr.com and slides: http://goo.gl/f4R2v

Visit Clark’s sites at: http://www.clarklab.net and http://www.droidweek.com/archive/android_and_me/

Thank you Clark for sharing your expertise and answering all the questions. We all really enjoyed your presentation.