Ed: Tripawds is, in all honesty, a very touching site. It is a community of bloggers and users supporting canine amputees. The site is run by Jim and Rene Nelson, and just so happens to be running on WordPress. Jim offered to share some background information on Tripawds when he saw our ongoing Behind the Site series.

In this series, a WordPress site’s owner walks us through what makes their site unique and how it does what it does. At this point I’ll hand it off to Jim, who wrote about he and his wife’s site below.

About Tripawds

Never in our wildest dreams did my wife and I ever imagine that running the largest online community for canine amputees and their people would become our full-time labor of love. But that is exactly what the little blog we started when our dog Jerry got cancer back in 2006 has become.

Home to more than 750 sites now, with over 3,000 members and more joining everyday, the Tripawds Blogs Community offers helpful resources, information and support to anyone facing amputation for their dog. We maintain free three-legged dog blogs, discussion forums, a live chat room and much more. And we couldn’t do it without WordPress multisite.

We have had our share of growing pains with the site over the years, migrating from a simple WordPress install on shared hosting to WPMU and finally to WordPress multisite, now on our own server. But the gratitude of members who find the site helpful makes it all worthwhile. I suggest anyone interested in how to grow a niche website or hearing our tips for maintaining an online community read my guest posts on ProBlogger.

Favorite Plugins

Since I’ve written an overview of all the best WordPress multisite plugins we’re using to build the Tripawds community, I’ll just review a few of my favorites in more detail here.

The Tripawds discussion forums are powered by the massively configurable yet easy to use Simple:Press Forums plugin. Simple:Press can be deployed across a multisite network, but we run forums on the main site only to provide a central location for all discussions. We use various forum topics to keep the community updated about news in our featured blogs. And the built-in Private Messaging option allows members to easily communicate directly with each other using a searchable username directory or their own Buddy List.

Any registered member can have a free Tripawds blog. By upgrading with a Supporter Subscription, however, they will have ads immediately removed from their site, get their upload quota increased, and gain access to additional plugins and premium themes. We do this all automatically using the Pro Sites plugin which allows us to easily offer enhanced features for paid subscribers.

Since the WordPress Admin Bar is only visible to logged in members, and it’s search field will only return results of the site being viewed, we’ve created a Tripawds Search page using the Global Site Search plugin that will search all blogs across the network at once.

Speaking of the Admin Bar, we have facilitated network navigation for Tripawds members with the Custom Admin Bar plugin. This lets us easily create a custom menu with our most popular resources easily accessible from any page, of any site on the network, even within a user’s dashboard.

Another way we direct members to helpful content is with the Admin Ads plugin. Instead of using it to show advertisements in a user’s dashboard, however, we display a list of quick links. This also comes in handy for notifying members about special announcements or site maintenance.

To help all our new members get started blogging, we’ve embedded various Unbranded Help Videos on the Tripawds Help page. We use a Technical Support discussion forum to provide additional help as needed.

Speaking of new bloggers, we use the Default Blog Templates plugin to configure every new site with the specific theme, widgets, blogroll links, and other settings I want them to have. We use this to help novice bloggers with info about getting started in their sidebar and links to our featured blogs in their blogroll.

One more free plugin I like that helps us keep members informed about news from the Tripawds community is the WordPress Multisite Dashboard Feed Widget. This lets us display recent posts from our featured blogs in user dashboards. It works by pulling in posts from a specified RSS feed. Anyone interested in learning how I created a feed for specific blogs should read my post about how to create a recent featured posts feed.

I could go on and on but I’ll wrap this up with bit about our theme and the role it played in improving site performance.

Long Overdue Theme Overhaul

After more than four years, the original theme we chose for Tripawds had become bloated with hacks, scripts and hard-coded widgets. After troubleshooting site performance issues we identified the theme as a primary cause for slow load times. Users were complaining and posts were getting dropped when saved to the forums. A site overhaul was long overdue.

I chose WPMU-Nelo for its custom homepage, multiple widget areas, menu support, built-in social networking bar and profile panel option; but most importantly for its clean, slim code base. For most people, Nelo’s many configuration options will suffice for designing a professional site to meet the needs of any business or organization. But I like to be difficult.

I added dynamic community user and member stats to the header, implemented random header images, and edited the profile panel which shows a log-in area to visitors or helpful dashboard links to logged in members. Anyone interested can read about how I customized the Nelo theme in more detail.

What’s Next?

The Tripawds community is just one of the WordPress sites I maintain. In the future I’ll be applying the expertise I’ve gained from growing this community to other niche markets.

Many thanks to WPCandy for choosing to take a peek behind the site at Tripawds. We’re always happy to share with the world how it’s better to hop on three legs than to limp on four.

Be featured on “Behind the Site”

Ed: Thanks for telling us about the site Jim!

If you have a WordPress site with an interesting story, an interesting mix of plugins, or a clever use of a theme, let us know and it just might be the next site we take a peak at behind the scenes.

In the meantime, what do you think of what Jim and his wife are doing at Tripawds, and how it works? Did you see any plugins in his list that you are going to check out now?

We’ve recently noticed that a fair number of you have been bringing your tumblelogs over from Tumblr to WordPress.com using one of the variety of Tumblr to WXR conversion tools which exist on the web. We thought you would appreciate an easier way to import your content, so we bring you 3 easy steps to import your content.

Authenticate with Tumblr

To bring your tumblelog’s content to WordPress.com, head to Tools → Import in your WordPress.com dashboard and look for the Tumblr importer. If you don’t already have an account here on WordPress.com then head over and signup first.

Click the link to get started and then enter the email address you used to sign up to Tumblr, your Tumblr password and click Connect to Tumblr.

Start the Import

The importer will then fetch a list of your blogs and let you pick which one to import. Click Import this blog to get going.

Once you have started, the import progress will be shown on the import page and you will be sent an email when the import is finished. We try super hard to make sure that all your Tumblr content, including your Videos, are imported into your WordPress.com blog. Videos you had uploaded to Tumblr are imported into VideoPress and other embeds are converted to use shortcodes. Sometimes the importer finds an embed it can’t convert and a list of these is included in the import completion email for you to check.

If your Tumblr site has a custom domain (like you.com instead of you.tumblr.com), then you’ll need to disable the custom domain temporarily while the import is processed. You can do this by going to your Tumblr Dashboard, clicking on the Settings button and then un-ticking the “Use a Custom Domain” checkbox:

Then you’ll want to set up Domain Mapping on your WordPress.com blog so that your readers can use the same domain to reach your site as before.

Style Your New Site

WordPress.com supports Post Formats which allow you to distinguish between the different types of content you post on your site. While you wait for your content to be imported why not customize the design of your site by picking one of our post-format-enabled, Tumblelog-ready themes.

If you have any trouble importing your blog  you’re welcome to contact support where one of our Happiness Engineers will be glad to help out. To learn all about WordPress.com’s features, we encourage you to check out our handy tutorial. We also provide comprehensive feature documentation at our support site.

I've long wanted to create a database of themes that support my SEO plugin and never came up with a manageable way of doing that. When my buddy Amir from WPML emailed me about their two new plugins, Types and Views, it took me a while to grasp what they did. Turns out I'm daft and it's actually quite easy when you install it and they're perfect for that job. So I thought I'd let you all enjoy what I'd done with it. I'll review both of them, in a 3 post series in which I'll also create my desired database.

Database of Themes that support my WordPress SEO plugin

I've also got a project I'll use this for: I want a database of themes that support my WordPress SEO plugin, with some specific settings info, a screenshot, etc. I want to store these as a custom post type. So the first step is to determine which info I would need to store:

• Basic stuff:
  • Title of the theme
  • Short description
  • Screenshot
  • URL
  • Is this a paid theme or not?
  • Price (if applicable)
• And some more advanced stuff:
  • Does this theme have its own SEO options that "yield" to WordPress SEO?
  • Does this theme support breadcrumbs?
  • Does this theme require force rewrite titles to be on or not?

Creating a Custom Post Type

Having determined what I wanted to store, the next step was to create a Custom Post Type. That's as easy as using this interface:

I could add Taxonomies to it as well, but I'll leave that for now, although creating a taxonomy is just as easy through the Types interface. I end up with my WordPress SEO theme CPT:

Adding Custom Fields

You'll think "huh, that hasn't got any of the specific data yet": that's right. It doesn't. That's where the true power of Types comes in, you can create "Custom Field Groups" and add these to post types. So I did:

As you can see you can choose from a lot of different types of fields, and all these types have their own content checks. For instance for a URL, it'll allow you to "force" a correct URL. I've added the custom field group to my WPSEO Themes post type, and now, when I go into edit or create a new WPSEO Theme "post", I get this interface below the title and content area:

So far, no coding was required, thanks to the wonderful Types plugin! You can get that, for free, on wp-types.com or on WordPress.org.

So, what we needed to do:

1. Creating a custom post type + custom fields.
2. Creating a form through which people can submit themes that fills this post type.
3. Creating a browsable interface for this post type.

Subscribe below to make sure you won't miss the next two steps!

Types WordPress plugin – Easy Custom Post Types is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

I recorded a Pressbits episode just for you:

If you would rather download it directly you can do that too, or subscribe to this show via RSS or iTunes (coming soon). If you would prefer a transcript, you can also read that just after the jump.

On simple plugin updates

I try to pay close attention to plugin updates. Not as close as WordPress updates, though when it’s a plugin I’m using it’s just as important to me.

One of my favorite dashboard-tweaking plugins has been, for some time now, the Expandable Dashboard Recent Comments plugin by coffee2code (I believe I mistakenly referenced Viper007Bond as the author — sorry Scott!). I’ve mentioned it on The Sweet Plugin before, but in short it allows you to expand the comments you see on the dashboard (the previews you use to quickly approve or trash new comments). It saves me a page load since I don’t have to visit the comments screen, which I like.

The plugin update (released in the last couple of weeks) includes a user interface improvement. Previously the link to expand the comments was a double arrow placed inline with the comment text. The plugin update moves the control to the comment action links, right next to approve, spam and trash.

This brings the plugin more in line with the standard WordPress dashboard UI, which is something every plugin should aim for. Not every plugin update needs to be something major, or even specific to functionality. coffee2code is making a point to revisit and update all of his released plugins right now. I think stepping back and improving UI in a simple way like this – particularly for something users might be using a dozen or more times each day – is well worth the effort.

Matt Alexander has sold themes on ThemeForest for 2 years now, under the username digitonik. He’s ready to break free and start out on his own.

Matt decided to focus on the business side of themes, and offer them in a bundled fashion just like Elegant Themes is doing.

Matt’s new WordPress theme shop is called the “WP Business Bundle.” Props to Matt for being mindful and not violating the registered WordPress trademark owned by the WordPress Foundation.

I caught up with Matt and asked him why he made the move.

I can’t say it any better than he can, so here’s what he had to say.

1. Older themes that do not sell thousands in the first few weeks do not really get the exposure I feel they deserve. I hate putting in hours or months of work on a theme only to see it barely being used. Creating my own store allows me to highlight older themes and bring them back to life. I never liked the fact that a beautiful theme barely gets used after a few weeks once it is bumped off the first or second page.
2. With so many people joining in on the TF bandwagon it’s harder to compete with some of the ones who really have big exposure. I did fairly well on TF but I though I just could do better on my own.
3. I do not like how they pay affiliates. A one time payment only on the first deposit is great for TF but not that great for the affiliate. I chose a subscription model. This way affiliates will get paid for the initial signup and also every month for the life of that customer. This I feel rewards the affiliate more and also keeps them promoting my theme shop for the long term. My affiliate program is not live but will be soon.
4. Financially it was not making sense. Some people don’t mind it but I feel providing lifetime support for a $35 theme was just not a viable option and is kind of crazy. With a subscription model I only provide support to members who have an active subscription. I believe Elegant Themes does this as well. It is also kind of annoying to deal with support on TF. You have to deal with emails, a different thread for each theme, do I have a support forum or not? Just a lot of ways for support questions to fall through the cracks. With one focused support area I rarely miss a thing. Currently using TenderApp and it rocks!
5. Back to the old debate from a few months back on theme prices. I like having the option to control the prices and also keep my themes and plugins all in one store. Just being able to control that aspect and also change things from customer feedback is great!
6. One more thing to add. I think they (TF) completely under value the price of a great and functional plugin. With standalone plugin shops like Gravity Forms selling licenses anywhere from $39-$199. Authors could totally make sites for their plugins alone and do 10 times more sales with the higher prices.
7. Overall my reason was just the entrepreneurial drive to try new things. I also like building a brand up from nothing and the excitement of growing it and having loyal customers is a great feeling.

All that to say, he is still likes ThemeForest and thinks they have a great service, but he had outgrown the need for the service. In fact, his website actually uses a theme purchased from ThemeForest, at least until he gets off the ground running and has time to develop his own theme for the shop.

Founded in 1993 by Shagrath, Silenoz, and Tjodalv and named after unusually shaped lava fields and rock formations east of Lake Mývatn in Iceland, Norway’s DIMMU BORGIR made their debut into the underground metal scene via unofficial rehearsal cassette tapes in 1993.  Inspired by incarnations of black metal from the ‘80s and ‘90s and inspired by the works of classical composers such as Wagner and Dvořák, the band’s music was resplendent in its raw & melodic vocals, somber guitar work, destructive drums, and haunting keyboard melodies.

Why it’s in the Showcase: The site uses a graphic-heavy theme, custom fonts, and plugins to create a WordPress-based hub for fans of Dimmu Borgir.

Responsive design is definiteively a topic for 2011 and converging into 2012. Having a responsive design is more than just having a “mobile friendly” site. It’s about having a site that will look great and functionally work on nearly any device; whether it’s an iPad, a Kindle Fire, an iPhone or Droid, all the way back to the desktop.

Take WPCandy.com for example. If you were to resize the browser, it would work seamlessly without any issues. Not all sites do this, and most WordPress themes are not responsive yet. A few theme and framework creators have started creating responsive themes, but it’s still a long ways away before all of them are.

Enter stage left, ResponsivePlugin.com; created by Marios Lublinski, who runs Dessign.net, a site about creating modern and clean WordPress themes, conceived the idea of helping making all WordPress themes responsive.

There’s no mention yet about whether it’s going to be a free or premium plugin, but I imagine it will be a premium plugin, given that it has its own domain. Most free plugins offered, don’t have their own domain.

I’m really excited about this plugin because, if he can execute it properly, it will help make so many websites responsive and easier to read on non-desktop experiences. It’s a great idea and wish him all the success in creating the plugin.

When the plugin is released, do you think you’ll grab a copy to help make your site responsive?

AIGA supports the interests of professionals, educators and students who are engaged in the process of designing, regardless of where they are in the arc of their careers. The disciplines represented in the profession range from book and type design through the traditional communication design disciplines to the newer arenas of interaction design, experience design and motion graphics.

Why it’s in the Showcase: AIGA Portland uses a custom, well-designed theme and WordPress as a CMS to organize and bring together design professionals across the Portland area. It features robust new content, better user experience, and a bold new platform from which to excite, inform, engage and delight.

The Los Angeles Times Media Group (LATMG) businesses and affiliates include the Los Angeles Times, The Envelope, Times Community News, LA, Los Angeles Times Magazine and Hoy Los Angeles and reaches approximately 5.1 million or 38% of all adults in the Southern California marketplace.

Why it’s in the Showcase: The site uses WordPress as a backbone for allowing advertisers and users to find a depth of information about the Los Angeles Times Media Network.

LIFE magazine has relaunched, powered by WordPress.com VIP. I’m a huge fan of the magazine’s history and the work of photographers like John Dominis.