BigSWIG, Big Thanks, Big News

Business News

BigSWIG wasn’t a big idea we had one night, but simply an evolution of our usual SWIG events. A bigger venue, beer on-tap, a PA system, a big screen, and four awesome speakers! No, not loudspeakers, but actual people, talking about all things web, WordPress and design related.

In the end there were very nearly 40 people at our first bigSWIG and a lot who are likely to be new regulars at the monthly meetup. This is great for the group and the community. Not only that, but we made a few decisions – such as expanding the official remit of the group to cover items beyond WordPress. Unofficially that was what was happening anyway – we’d had plenty of talks on design and business as well as WP. So although WP will continue to be a big part of the event in future (after all, it’s a big BIG part of the web) you’ll probably see a bit more variety in the range of talks in future.

Q & A

There were 2 questions from the Q&A so I’ll record the answers here.

  1. How can I modify the main blog page to show a custom post type? – Jake Smith In the latest version of WordPress this is made a bit easier by being able to pick out and modify the main query. The code to add to your functions.php is below:
  2. Is there a way to improve gallery management in the post edit screen of WordPress? – Chris Hough I spoke briefly about some plugins that exist to bring the WordPress gallery management into the forefront in a metabox. One possible route to take if you use post formats is to drop in Alex King’s post formats UI addon.

Pictures from the night: