After 2 decades of diy websites (dating back to using notepad & raw html) I'm finally at the point where things have moved beyond me and I've too many other things on my plate to spend time catching up. So, I need what those IM gurus lovingly refer to as "my tech person"... I love to tweak my sites, so this is likely to be an ongoing relationship. They're all currently based in wordpress, however this may in the future extend to joomla and possibly an elearning platform. For now, though, I want/need someone good at php, hooks, css, javascript and wordpress mods - any experience in 'thesis' would be a distinct advantage. PS I'm in Australia so communication is likely to be by email, skype or dm via twitter / digitalpoint The first 'challenge' I'd like to throw down is to tell me how many steps would be involved in incorporating some features from my old 'spartan' theme (child theme of 'options' by Justin Tadlock. Free) into the new Thesis framework I've bought: I want the home page to display a magazine style as I had before (I've restored this so you can check it out at http://crystalsquest.com): top gallery that rotates feature_image with an overlay of post title, (looks REALLY cool) then a set of category tabs (top level categories only) with a thumbnail and excerpt of the most recent at left, and ul list of the next 5 entries at right, finally below that was a simple list of posts with excerpts. The second feature is a widget that was embedded in the theme, giving tabs in the sidebar for random, popular, latest and comments (there were several options besides that but those were the ones I used and liked). The final step will be to give credit back to Justin in the footer, beside the thesis link. Make note of the hook you would use for this, please. I'll be looking to pick someone by Thursday Australian time, so if you can include a quote for how much to make the mods I'd appreciate it. I'll be setting you up with admin access in both my cpanel and wordpress admin, so any references would also help.
Just to clarify: I'm looking for replies with a step 1, step 2 type breakdown for making the above mods. (eg Step 1: download options & spartan templates...) I'm not looking for anyone to post the actual code etc. I'll be looking at replies between now and Thursday (and following any links you give to examples, portfolios etc) so I can work out who I'd best like to work closely with - there will be a high degree of trust involved, cost is definitely NOT the only factor I'll be selecting on - or even the top one. In other words, this 'challenge' is a kind of interview so I can see a) your understanding of the coding involved and b) your communication style. We'll be working together long-term, I hope, so I want to make sure we both operate on a similar wavelength.