WordPress Post Formats What, When, How kristarella.com 

What are Post Formats? • Post Formats are a new(ish) method of designating content types in posts • Image • Gallery • Status • Aside • Link • etc codex.wordpress.org/Post_Formats 

When to use Formats? • The best time to use post formats is when both: a. your theme supports them b. you intend to share useful content in smaller (more manageable?) chunks, rather than always using long-form 

How can you use them? 1.Find a theme that supports Post Formats well, or modify your theme to support them. 2.Assign formats to your posts. 

Step 2 is easy! Choose the format that matches your post (as you would any categories or tags) 

Step 1 is slightly harder • Trial & error • Test themes to see how they display different post formats (and if they display them differently at all) • OR Build your own child theme to display post formats how you want to NB Theme Unit Test is useful either way 

Theme testing Just because a theme says it supports post formats doesn’t mean it does anything with them! The following themes, except Genesis, are all freely available from the WordPress theme respository 

Twenty Thirteen Different colours Icons & borders Colours & meta Icon & formatting Featured image ↑ title Featured image hidden No page templates! 

Esquire No gallery title Epic image border Big link title Bright quote No featured images Not responsive 

Hum Format labels 1 gallery image + number Quote typography Simple link Image display Not all formats labelled 

Pachyderm Cute format icons... in a range of colours... for all tested formats! Cute featured images (not on single posts) Attention to detail Clever sidebar 

Path No title for short formats Title links to Link Smooth quotes Gallery “excerpt” Status avatar Nicely responsive 

Preference Lite Gallery with feature Subtle Aside label Duplicate images?! Link is okay Status: avatar, but prominent title Quote is nice, but out of flow 

Expound •Not much different for post formats ✘ •Asides don’t show title is the only change •Nice featured image thumbnail display •Responsive ✔ Genesis •Post Format icons hook ✔ •No default featured image display •No default post format display variations Living Journal •No titles for image & quote formats •Featured image thumbnails, not on singles •No featured image for image format ✔ 

Matala •Featured image thumbnails show for image formats too ✘ •Cool post format icons next to title ✔ •Not resposive Montezuma •Nothing different for post formats •but simple enough design to suit formats •Nice featured images, not on singles Vertigo •Nifty audio & video format styles •Cassette tape & video projector rolling! ✔ •Link formats break PHP ✘ 

Else, make a child theme • codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes • Content templates • Understanding get_template_part • Create required template parts: content-{post format name}.php • Add needed CSS styles • Framework hooks & actions