In December, WordPress 2.9 introduced support for post thumbnails, eliminating the need for my custom meta hack. WordPress 3.0 (which should be released around May) will solve the problem of secluding portfolio content from your blog with the introduction of custom post types.

Instead of corralling your portfolio content with tools like “category excluders” or relying solely on nested pages (as I suggested), you’ll soon be able to create a custom “portfolio” post type in a supported and predictable fashion.

As Frank Bültge details on the WP Engineer blog, adding a whole new section to your WordPress sidebar will be a straightforward and extremely flexible process you can bake right into your theme. No crazy plugins or hackery required!

This change is exciting not only for the impact it will have on  sites like my own, but because it increases WordPress’ prospects as a hardy CMS solution.

All that’s left to render my presentation completely obsolete is a more robust and customizable gallery solution. I’ll be crossing my fingers.

When I discussed building WordPress-Powered Portfolios earlier this year at WordCamp Portland, you may recall my rather obtuse solution for supporting thumbnails. Basically, you were required to upload an image, copy its filename, close the media browser, create a new custom field called “tn,” and paste the filename into it.

No longer!

With support in your theme for 2.9′s post thumbnails, simply upload an image and assign it as the thumbnail with a single click (or through the handy new “Page Image” box in the lower-right corner). No custom fields to mess with, no copying and pasting filenames.

Implementing this feature in a portfolio already using my WordCamp functions is a three-step process.

1. Tell WordPress that the feature is supported by adding add_theme_support('post-thumbnails'); somewhere in your theme’s functions.php file.
2. Log in to WordPress and assign each of your portfolio items an image. If you’ve already used the “Upload/Insert” tool to add them prior to 2.9, just click the “Add an Image” button, then “Gallery,” “Show” the image you want to use and click the “Use as thumbnail” link toward the bottom.
3. Adjust your functions to support the new feature. Refer to my updated list_work function snippet as an example.

Your mileage may vary depending on the volume of portfolio items you’ll need to switch over, but it took me roughly an hour to support the feature on this very site.

I recommend reading Justin Tadlock’s excellent blog post on the subject, which details the post thumbnails in much greater detail than WordPress’ documentation and was of great help to me in supporting them.

I do have one bit of extra theme development knowledge to bestow on other developers which I was unable to find elsewhere online. To echo only the URL of the thumbnail image file, use the following:

<?php echo get_post(get_post_thumbnail_id())->guid; ?>

A technical problem resulted in the footage starting a few minutes into my presentation. All you missed was an introduction of who I am, and of my background as a cartoonist.

I apologize for having to look down at my notes so often; I didn’t expect to be holding the microphone! Other than that, enjoy.

My presentation was meant to solve the problem of simply and easily associating imagery with pages and/or posts in order to build a killer portfolio theme. I hope designers, artists and hobbyists will use these tips as a springboard for pushing what we can do with this constantly-evolving platform.

Thanks to all in attendance! Here are the goods.

Presentation

Code Snippets

These are hosted on Snipplr for easy viewing, copying and pasting.

• Portfolio item gallery functionality
• Retrieve portfolio items
• Display list of portfolio items (Updated version to support WordPress 2.9 thumbnails)

Other WordPress-Powered Portfolios

Toward the end of the presentation I was happy to show off three other sites with WordPress at their core, volunteered via Twitter. In order of appearance:

• RGB Design Studio by @EricCurtis
• Melissa Delzio Design by @meldel_pdx
• Thoughts & Deeds by @swestbrook

Potentially Helpful Plugins

While none of these are required to execute the above code snippets, they are referenced occasionally in the presentation as ways of taking things to the next level. Or if you’re squeamish about PHP.

• Flutter
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

@devinsays created a really neat trio of screencasts showing how to streamline this portfolio setup process using Flutter.

Portfolio Designs I Dig

Mentioned briefly as sources of inspiration (I have no idea if any of these have WordPress under the hood).

• 45royale
• Happy Cog
• Odopod
• SimpleBits
• Stuff & Nonsense

Update (September 20)

Following the presentation, someone asked me how I moved my blog to a page other than the index (if you’re reading this, please comment so I can attribute your question). The method I used is detailed in the WordPress codex article Creating an Archive Index.

While holding a microphone and my presentation notes simultaneously was more challenging than I anticipated (I apologize if I had to glance down far too often), the positive reaction the presentation received was overwhelming. Thank you all for your heartwarming comments!

Update (December 19)

WordPress 2.9 introduced a new post thumbnail feature that’s really cool. I’ve created an updated code snippet for displaying work samples that uses this feature, as well as an accompanying journal entry.

My presentation won’t revolve around the visual design of portfolio sites for two important reasons:

1. The principals of compelling interaction design are not exclusive to the WordPress platform.
2. I’m still way too new at this to represent myself as any sort of authority on the art of portfolio design.

What you will learn is whether or not WordPress is the right platform for your online presence and, if so, the surprisingly simple snippets of PHP you’ll need to get there.

As excited as I am to present, I’m even more excited to see the other wonderful speakers, including WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg.

I was surprised and delighted to hear that the premier sponsor of the event is Microsoft. I acknowledge their generous support by drafting and publishing this post in their intuitive Windows Live Writer application.

See? WordPress brings people together.

Tickets are $20 per person which includes access to the event, lunch on both days, snacks/refreshments, a T-shirt, some swag, and the ability to meet a couple hundred really great people including some really great speakers

In addition to my presentation on how to build a killer WordPress-powered portfolio, there will be armfuls of wonderful sessions from the likes of Micah Baldwin, Jason Grigsby, Cami Kaos and Dr. Normal, Will Norris, Scott Porad, Garron Selliken and Duane Storey.

As both a speaker and attendee, I urge you to relinquish a single Andrew Jackson for two full days of open source wonderment.

For more information, visit WordCamp Portland or @wcpdx on Twitter.

I’ll see you there!

A great summary of the event excerpted from Rick Turoczy’s Silicon Florist writeup:

Without a doubt, one of Portland’s favorite blogging platforms is WordPress. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s open source. It’s easy to tweak and extend. And it’s got a great developer community both here in town and throughout the world.

And there’s no better place to learn about using, manipulating, and generally mucking with WordPress than WordCamp Portland.

I’ll have more to say about my presentation as the event approaches (September 19-20 at WebTrends), but I have to point out how stellar my fellow speakers are: Micah Baldwin, Jason Grigsby, Scott Porad and Duane Storey. I think I’m even more excited to attend than to speak!

You can keep an eye on WordCamp Portland developments on their web site or on Twitter.