Bob CooperBob Cooper (bob-cooper.com) just wanted a “resume” site. Just a quick list of what he writes, some of his writing, and maybe a few articles posted here and there. Easy enough. Could have put up a quick HTML site with the three-columns that he was looking for and finito. But of course he should really add his new articles to the site. News, awards, events, speaking engagements, etc. All should be added. Hmm, that static home page he was talking about isn’t so static anymore.

So rather than have a completely static home page, I always try to “future proof” sites so even if there are changes or updates later on, they’ll be easy to add.

The three-column, mutliple-row theme we found was great, but only if we back dated posts. Hmm, that wasn’t going to work. As soon as Bob adds a new entry, those top entries on the home page would be pushed down. Maybe sort by reverse date? Could get ugly. Enter simple query language. In the old days, I would have had to run some sort of voodoo SQL script that I didn’t understand. But today I was able to paste in a tiny bit of query code and voila! The home page only shows category 9 (“Front Page”).

[code]< ?php if (is_home()) { query_posts("cat=9"); } ?>[/code]

WordPress is so flexible I can take a layout and some functions and turn them around to do what I need them to do.

Original theme code thanks to JWM.