Jeff Gran

Jeff Gran

About the site

This website is the second iteration of the first site I built since learning the value and power of standards-based XHTML and CSS.  It's built on WordPress with the Pods CMS plugin used for this portfolio section.  Some of the features of the site and how I created them are explained below.

Fully custom theme

I developed the WordPress theme for this site from scratch, using the following tools:

  • Good ol' sketchbook and ballpoint
  • Photoshop
  • PHP
  • Valid, table-less XHTML and CSS

Unique, dynamic home page

For the home page, I created a unique design and a custom instance of WordPress's "The Loop" in order to move the standard blog page to the "/blog" URI.

Custom and customized sidebar widgets

Meaning, I both created my own widgets using WordPress's widget API (e.g. the social media buttons, which I also created), and also "hacked" at least one plugin (the "latest tweets" widget) to suit my particular needs and design aesthetic.

Customized Pods integration

For this portfolio section, I created a unique scheme using the Pods CMS plugin in order to display the URLs, the breadcrumb navigation, the listing and detail views of the categories and individual items.  Now adding a new item is as simple as uploading an image and filling in the form with the name, category, etc.