About 11worth.com

Website Design and More

I initially set up 11worth.com as a test bed for 11worth Design’s website creation and development. As things progressed, 11worth.com became much, much more. The site’s flexibility and built-in features enabled me to showcase Leavenworth, Washington’s unique lifestyle and personality.

11worth vs. Leavenworth

The name “11worth” came into use in the late 1800s by railroad employees who had to write the name “Leavenworth” many times a day.

The banner logo is Little Annapurna Peak, in the Upper Enchantment Lakes Basin, Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area, at sundown.

Powered by WordPress.

Leavenworth Welcome Sign

A little explanation is in order here. I’ve embraced use of the open-source WordPress blog script to power this website, as well as others. Notice I use the term website rather than blog. Although blog functions remain intact (check out the Articles page, for example), content management, or use as a Content Management System (CMS) in my opinion is where WordPress really excels.

What does it mean when I say WordPress “powers” this website? WordPress is a dynamic, server-side PHP script that takes user-supplied site content (articles, information, images, documents, and so forth) and outputs it in the form of web pages for a website through the site theme.

Anyone with permission (be it a site owner, an organization member, or other assigned person) can log in and add page or article content and images through an administration interface.

Custom Theme Creation

The 11worth Theme code is what makes this site different and unique.

A theme supplements WordPress’ engine to determine a site’s overall layout and navigation structure, and how elements and key features are integrated. A theme’s page template (or templates), as dictated by one or more Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), determines where colors, fonts, images, and backgrounds are used, how they flow together, and where text is displayed.

Developing a theme with the output in mind is very much like the process used to create a standard, non-WordPress website. A theme must be selected before inserting site content.

I prefer developing and adapting my own themes, rather than using the default WordPress theme, or those developed by others. This lets me “get under the hood”, so to speak, to modify the theme output as necessary. I hand-code using XHTML and CSS, which gives me complete control of the final result. If something breaks, I can easily fix it.

Foundation for Future Development

WordPress has a vast array of available open-source plugins, widgets, add-ons, and theme variants that can be altered or modified as needed. 11worth Design’s WordPress mods commonly have dynamic site map submission and search engine optimization (SEO), an event calendar, and an image gallery. The possibilities are endless!

An Ideal Blog Platform

And yes, WordPress is an excellent blog platform, and a WordPress blog can be set up using the above criteria. Who says a blog has to look like a blog?