Although WordPress is a blog (journal) solution with a lofty inventory of features, more and more designers and developers are starting to employ WordPress as a micro CMS solution. CMS solutions like Joomla and Drupal (pronounced Dru-Paul) for instance are very robust and capable enough to easily handle large corporate level websites but is essentially overkill for the average website. The main advantage in using a CMS solution is the ability to manage the interface and individual content elements without the need to alter the core structure or template of the site. One particular CMS feature lacking in a WordPress blog is the ability to effectively manage navigation elements, the ordering and the structure of the links.

For the most part menu links are generated in WordPress dynamically each time a page or post is published usually in the default ordering according to post date. Menu management in WordPress is certainly possible for a skilled coder who can understand and manipulate WordPress template tags as I had demonstrated on the Las Vegas Real Estate blog in a previous post. But this technique is not easily applied for novice site designers and rarely an option for the end user without a lot of trial and error. The solution many seek is to use the drop in code snippets from WordPress’s own codex library which can provide a quasi solution to provide reasonably easy to manage menus. Most of the time the technique employed is to use the built in feature for category links where the sort order is known before the links are added.

What if there was a solution that could provide full menu management for WordPress? Maybe one that would include link ordering, link names and even link destination more like a CMS solution? Would WordPress developers and designers be more inclined to take advantage of WordPress features they have come to love and apply it to their CMS projects? I would boldly venture to say yes.

WordPress CSS suckerfish drop down menu

The Brokers Edge faced the same frustration with menu management on sites requiring CMS features but none so lofty as to suggest a solution like Joomla or Drupal. So, we put our heads together and came up with what we believed would be the best possible all round menu management solution called WP Menu Creator During our initial planning, the developers at The Brokers Edge kept in mind that the menus it would generate need to be as SEO friendly as they can be and must not have any real significant limitations in the structure and layout of the menu once it renders. We all essentially agreed that the menu structure should follow the XHTML / CSS standard unordered list method for producing link lists. This would provide endless possibilities for styling the aesthetic appearance of menus.

What the plugin does is quite simple on the surface. It simply provides an administrators interface for blog owners to manage their menus and links in an easy to understand format. Then by simple inclusion of a template tag into the sidebar or other areas of the template files, it renders the menu in that location. The output is plain old unordered lists which can even include nested lists if you require a suckerfish type cascading drop down multi level menu. Unique CSS ID and Class Selectors are added to the menu for endless styling options and control. Although the CSS and XHTML part of the menu can be complex for some users, it is none the less easily adapted for most navigation structures on many popular themes. To find out more about this FREE WordPress Plugin please feel free to visit The Brokers Edge

One thing that frustrates many designers who build templates is the unbelievably high cost for purchasing images that can be redistributed within their templates.  Purchasing a template at iStock photo or Big Stock for example nets you a use license of a single domain or single purpose NOT for redistribution. 

Large companies like Template Monster and others have the kind of budgets necessary to either employ a photographer or purchase royalty free distribution rights to photos.  To give you an idea as to what cost I’m referring to, consider this;  iStock has an option for a limited use distribution costing $100 per image.  Getty Image charges anywhere from $200 – $1800 per image.  These kinds of expenses make delivery of commercial or even free templates cost prohibitive resulting in people using freeware images which are frequently of lesser quality.

Royalty  FREE Stock Images – Template Designers – Distribution

I’ve discovered in the forums I’m a member of that a new company is about to launch that provides an answer to this pressing need by selling images on CD in packages, each of which is Royalty Free and can be used in your commercial and non commercial templates.  What this means for guys like us is that when we publish a new template and we need images and photos for various aspects of the template, we will soon have an affordable resource that not only gives us an inventory of images but a quality selection for one low price. 

Although price has not been set in stone, it was told to me that the $75 – $200 range will be chosen depending on image set and category.  So for the cost of a single commercial royalty free image we end up with a CD ROM of images for us to select from.  It appears that the first categories photographers are working on at this point is those associated to industrial and commercial real estate with residential real estate scheduled for the mix soon. 

I’m excited about this concept and I think this is a long over due service for designers and desktop publishing professionals everywhere.  I know all to well how frustrating it is for small mom and pop rag sheet publishers to find good quality royalty free images at an affordable cost is.  Many small publications google for images and publish them in hopes not to be caught but with this solution you can receive high resolution images at a price that doesn’t break the bank.

My suggestion to this new company should they ever stumble upon my blog is that they should include a feature on their site called "CD Builder" in which a buyer can assemble their own collection of images from those available and pay accordingly.  This would be a service that would make millions in my perspective.  Best of luck to the EZ Royalty FREE and their venture.  When a link becomes available I’ll publish a link.