Weekly WordPress News: New Theme Directory Layout, #VATMESS & 40% Off WPLift Review Offer

I wanted to let you know that we are holding a January Sale here on WPLift for all review purchases, Any review purchased within the next 7 days will receive a 40% discount off our usual $349 price so you can get the review + inclusion in our weekly newsletter which now has 10k subscribers for $209. Reviews can be for any WordPress theme, plugin or service. Reviews typically see a good return on investment as we have many companies who purchase multiple reviews for new products etc.

If you have been thinking about getting a review done then now would be a good time as we will not be posting this offer again this year. Head over to our Promote page, and get in touch to make your booking.

Over at ThemeFurnace we have been working hard this week, after last week's launch of our new Artifact Theme, I teased a shot of our next theme which we are aiming to launch before the month is out. Production name is Stacker but this might change as I just found another theme by that name on ThemeForest. This one is a neat little grid based blog with for posting images and notes.

Hope everyone has a great weekend, Let's get on with the news ...

WordPress News and Articles

• Key CDN Competition: Win Free 1TB Accounts - There is still time to enter our competition to win Free CDN accounts at KeyCDN.
• The Features as Plugins First Model Is a Mess - Read Jeff''s thoughts on the process of testing out new WP features using plugins first.
• Preview the New Design for the WordPress Themes Directory - The theme directory is getting a visual overhaul, take a look at the new layout here.
• WordPress and the new European Union VAT (Value-Added Tax) rules - More about #VATMESS, sigh.
• A Brief History of WordPress News and Podcasts - Remember WPCandy ?
• Envato in 2014 - Lots of stats and monies.
• Distributed vs. In-Person Teams - An Automattic employee's thoughts on distributed workforces.
• Are all demo content for themes alike? - Getting themes to look like the demos is a real problem for end-users a lot of the time.
• The Shelf Life and Feature Creep of a WordPress Theme - A good reason to not follow design trends and build something that will last.

Tutorials and How-Tos

• How To: Allow users to Login to WordPress using Github - Follow our tutorial to integrate GitHub logins on your site.
• Getting Started with WordPress Plugin Development - The ultimate guide, apparently.
• Programmatically Assign Menus To Theme Locations In WordPress - Code to assign menus in your themes.
• The Basic Guidelines of Theme Customization - A simple guide to help in your quest for customizations.
• How To Set Cookies in WordPress - Example code so you can set cookies for users in WordPress.
• Planning a WordPress Knowledge Base - Part one of a series to build a WordPress knowledge base.

Resources & Freebies

• The WPLift Roundup of the Best Free WordPress Themes January 2015 - Loads of great free WordPress theme releases this month.
• Specular: A Multi-Purpose Theme with 24 Demo Sites & Custom Template Builder - Theme review of a very comprehensive multipurpose theme.
• Vertoh Theme Review: Build a Professional Events Website with WordPress - Joe reviewed a theme for creating events websites.
• Guide to Customizing the WordPress Post Editor - Plugins to customize the Post Editor.