If you feel comfortable playing a bit with your theme’s code, this method is for you: it will allow to have much more power over the display and the features of the twitter button on your blog.

Read the article on Nicolas’ Blog >>

(via digwp.com)

But what if you do not want of a standard twitter button, but rather of a new and easy way for your readers to contact you via twitter? Luckily, Twitter @anywhere is here for you, and in that tutorial, we will see how to easily integrate at twitter box to any part of your blog, thanks to this service and the WordPress shortcodes! This can be done in a few easy step, and the result will look as below:

You will be able to customize the width and height of the form, as well as the message appearing by default in the box. Of course, as we will integrate this box with a shortcode, you will be able to integrate this tweetbox everywhere on your WordPress blog.

Here are the few steps to follow:

Create a new Twitter @Anywhere app

Go to http://dev.twitter.com/anywhere/apps/new, and create a new app with Read and Write access. The callback URL should be address of your blog.

Integrate the twitter API code in the header of your theme

In your theme’s  functions.php, integrate the call the twitter thanks to wp_enqueue_script, and then integrate the necessary script to integrate a twitter box into the head:

$api_key = "Add your twitter app API key here";
wp_enqueue_script("twitter-anywhere",
	"http://platform.twitter.com/anywhere.js?id={$api_key}&v=1");
add_action("wp_head", "twitter_box");

function twitter_box()
{
	echo '<script type="text/javascript">';
	echo 'twttr.anywhere(function (T) {T("#tbox").tweetBox({height: 100,width: 400,defaultContent: "<YOUR DEFAULT TWEETBOX CONTENT HERE>"});});';
	echo '</script>';
}

Thus you do not have to modify and clutter header.php with new lines of code, you can do it all through your functions.php file.

Create the shortcode

Again in functions.php, add the following lines:

function twitterbox_shortcode () {
	return '<div id="tbox"></div>';
}
add_shortcode("twitterbox", "twitterbox_shortcode");

And you’re done ! You can now use the shortcode [ twitterbox ] everywhere in your post content, in your theme widgets, and thus display a twitter box for your readers to contact you very easily via Twitter !

Any questions, or remarks? Do not hesitate to comment!

And of course, you can follow me on twitter too!

WordPress community

• 10 Most Influential WordPress Twitter-ers — Nathan Rice
  wefollow.com is an online directory for twitterers. It allows you to register and add keywords defining yourself. Nathan Rice made a summary of the top 10 twitterers to follow if you want to know everything about WordPress.
  You will not be surprised to see familiar names on that list. These people are indeed the “rockstars” in the WordPress community!

• PremiumThemes.net is going GPL | PremiumThemes.net
  From today, all current and future products at PremiumThemes.net will be embracing GPL. That’s another Premium theme marketplace turning to GPL!

• WooThemes |  We Love Boobs
  It’s undeniable that all of us have important women in our lives, without whom life just wouldn’t be as awesomeDuring the month of October, woothemes will be donating a percentage of their proceeds to a local South African breast cancer charity.:
  - 20% of total sales of any of our Business themes;
  - 100% of the sales of two new themes (to be released in October) which have been designed by top female designers – Veerle Pieters & Sarah Parmenter.

• All wordpress.com themes are here! – automattic.com
  All wordpress.com themes can be downloaded from automattic. If you like one of them in particular, head to that page!

Discussion about future of Free WordPress themes

• Are Free WordPress Themes Dead? | Theme Lab
  Alex Denning over at WPShout brings up an interesting point in his post titled Free WordPress Themes? Forget it. It’s Over. Basically, he argues that free WordPress themes aren’t getting the love and attention they used to, mostly due to commercial themes taking all the spotlight.And you, what do you think? Go give your opinion!

And a great article listing all 33 WordPress plugins you could use to enhancing commenting functions on your blog!

• 33 WordPress Plugins To Power Up Your Comment Section | Graphic and Web Design Blog -Resources And Tutorials
  33 WordPress plugins, which can be used effectively to power up and evolve comment form possibilities and security

• Free Portfolio WordPress Theme: Creative by Nature
  Smashing Magazine releases a new WordPress theme, once again great-looking! Go have a look at it!
• 25 High Quality WordPress Themes Released in June-July 2009 – WPZOOM
  A selection of the best themes released in June and July