Here is a handy snippet that will allow you to create your own preformatted custom styles within the Wordpress text editor. The new styles are selected by a drop down field titled Formats. 

The following adds a bunch of usefull social media links to the wordpress user profiles - and also allows simple HTML within the user bio. Add this code to the theme functions.php file.

/*===================================================================================
 * Add Author Links
 * =================================================================================*/
function add_to_author_profile( $contactmethods ) {

    $contactmethods['rss_url'] = 'RSS URL';
    $contactmethods['google_profile'] = 'Google Profile URL';
    $contactmethods['twitter_profile'] = 'Twitter Profile URL';
    $contactmethods['facebook_profile'] = 'Facebook Profile URL';
    $contactmethods['instagram_profile'] = 'Instagram Profile URL';
    $contactmethods['linkedin_profile'] = 'Linkedin Profile URL';

    return $contactmethods;
}
add_filter( 'user_contactmethods', 'add_to_author_profile', 10, 1);
//disable WordPress sanitization to allow more than just $allowedtags from /wp-includes/kses.php
remove_filter('pre_user_description', 'wp_filter_kses');
//add sanitization for WordPress posts
add_filter( 'pre_user_description', 'wp_filter_post_kses');

Now dial it all up within the author.php file of your theme with the following code:

<div id="description" class="node"><?php the_author_meta('description'); ?></div>


<ul class="icons">
    <?php
    $site = get_the_author_meta( 'user_url' );
    if ( $site && $site != '' ) {
        echo '<li class="site"><a target="_blank" href="' . esc_url($site) . '">Website</a></li>';
    }


    $rss_url = get_the_author_meta( 'rss_url' );
    if ( $rss_url && $rss_url != '' ) {
        echo '<li class="rss"><a target="_blank" href="' . esc_url($rss_url) . '">RSS</a></li>';
    }

    $google_profile = get_the_author_meta( 'google_profile' );
    if ( $google_profile && $google_profile != '' ) {
        echo '<li class="google"><a target="_blank" href="' . esc_url($google_profile) . '" rel="author">Google+</a></li>';
    }

    $twitter_profile = get_the_author_meta( 'twitter_profile' );
    if ( $twitter_profile && $twitter_profile != '' ) {
        echo '<li class="twitter"><a target="_blank" href="' . esc_url($twitter_profile) . '">Twitter</a></li>';
    }

    $facebook_profile = get_the_author_meta( 'facebook_profile' );
    if ( $facebook_profile && $facebook_profile != '' ) {
        echo '<li class="facebook"><a target="_blank" href="' . esc_url($facebook_profile) . '">Facebook</a></li>';
    }

    $linkedin_profile = get_the_author_meta( 'linkedin_profile' );
    if ( $linkedin_profile && $linkedin_profile != '' ) {
        echo '<li class="linkedin"><a target="_blank" href="' . esc_url($linkedin_profile) . '">Linkedin</a></li>';
    }

    $instagram_profile = get_the_author_meta( 'instagram_profile' );
    if ( $instagram_profile && $instagram_profile != '' ) {
        echo '<li class="Instagram"><a target="_blank" href="' . esc_url($instagram_profile) . '">Instagram</a></li>';
    }
    ?>
</ul>

Here's a very handy snippet to create a PHP conditional if statement based on a specific K2 item ID:

<?php
$itemid    = JRequest::getInt('Itemid');

if( $itemid == 123 ) {
   echo 'do something';
} else {
   echo 'these are not the droids you are looking for';
}
?>

<?php
$itemid    = JRequest::getInt('Itemid');

if( $itemid == 123 ) {
   echo 'do something';
} else {
   echo 'these are not the droids you are looking for';
}
?>

The code above can be altered using the following hooks from the page URL:

$option = JRequest::getCmd('option');
$view  = JRequest::getCmd('view');
$layout = JRequest::getCmd('layout');
$page  = JRequest::getCmd('page');
$task  = JRequest::getCmd('task');
$id    = JRequest::getInt('id');

Here's a handy little snippet that determines if an entry is a post or page within a loop. I found this usefull for determining the entry type within search results, where I wanted to style the results differently depending on what type of result it was.

<?php
$pagetype = get_post_type( $post_id );

echo $pagetype;

if ($pagetype == "post") {
    // do something
 }
?>

The following creates a loop of custom post types. This example creates a testimomnials block. 

<?php $loop = new WP_Query( array( 'post_type' => 'testimonial',
        'posts_per_page' => 4 )
); ?>
<?php while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post(); ?>

    <?php
    $clientname = (types_render_field( "client-name", array( 'raw' => true) ));
    $quote = (types_render_field( "quote", array( 'raw' => true) ));
    ?>

   <p><?php echo $quote; ?>&nbsp;<span><?php echo $clientname; ?></span></p>

<?php endwhile; wp_reset_query(); ?>

Check this article for more information

Put the following in the themes functions.php file:

function is_blog () {
    global  $post;
    $posttype = get_post_type($post );
    return ( ((is_archive()) || (is_author()) || (is_category()) || (is_home()) || (is_single()) || (is_tag())) && ( $posttype == 'post')  ) ? true : false ;
}

Test it using the following conditional within your theme:

<?php if (is_blog()) { echo 'You are on a blog page'; } else { echo 'no blog'; } ?>

Take a look in the themes comments.php file and you will see a line where the comments area is called in using:

<?php comment_form(); ?>

In some cases I found it was contained within a conditional like this:

if ( comments_open() ) comment_form();

You can replace it with the following code, injecting in any modifications to the fields as you need:

if ( comments_open() ) { ?>

    <?php $comment_args = array( 'title_reply'=>'Leave a reply',

        'fields' => apply_filters( 'comment_form_default_fields', array(

                'author' =>
                    '<div class="row">
                        <div class="large-4 columns comment-form-author">' .
                            '<input id="author" 
name="author" type="text" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['comment_author'] ) .
                    '" size="30"' . $aria_req . ' placeholder="Name*" />
                        </div>',

                'email' =>
                      '<div class="large-4 columns comment-form-email">' .
                            '<input id="email" name="email" type="text" 
value="' . esc_attr(  $commenter['comment_author_email'] ) .
                    '" size="30"' . $aria_req . ' placeholder="Email*" />
                      </div>',

                'url' =>
                    '<div 
class="large-4 columns comment-form-url">' .
                            '<input id="url" name="url" type="text" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['comment_author_url'] ) .
                    '" size="30" 
placeholder="Website" />
                    </div>
                </div>', )
        ),

        'comment_field' => '<div>' .

            '<textarea id="comment" name="comment" cols="45" rows="8" aria-required="true" placeholder="Comment*" 
></textarea>' .

            '</div>',

        'comment_notes_after' => '',

    );

    comment_form($comment_args); ?>


<?php } ?>

This function tells WordPress to remove the default more which looks like this: […], and replace it with a link.

Open your functions.php file, and paste the following code inside the php tags:

// Changing excerpt more
function new_excerpt_more($more) {
    global $post;
    return '… <a href="'. get_permalink($post->ID) . '">' . 'Read More &raquo;' . '</a>';
}
add_filter('excerpt_more', 'new_excerpt_more');

In the following example I will be doing an override to the Category blog layout. If you want to do overrides to the article layouts use the same method but make modifications as required.

The layout changes that I'm going to make are changes to the article feature image and article heading

1. Move the files from components/com_content/views/category/tmpl into templates/<your_template>/html/com_content/category
2. rename the name of each file with a unique identifying name. For instance, my new layout is called etsy, so I have renamed the file blog_item.php to etsy_item.php
3. In the Joomla backend, navigate to the category and assign your new alternative layout. Once this is done, the category should now be successfully using the new layout.
   
   
4. Let's make some changes to the article heading. Joomla uses a series of building blocks for each part of the layout. You can find them in the layouts directory. For instance, the file generating the article heading can be found in layouts/joomla/content/blog_style_default_item_title.php - Copy this file into your own templates html directory templates/<your_template>/html/layouts
5. Open up the file generating the article layout from your html directory. Mine can be found in templates/<your_template>/html/com_content/category/etsy_item
6. Find the line that generates the heading:
   

   
   <?php echo JLayoutHelper::render('joomla.content.blog_style_default_item_title', $this->item); ?>
   
   

   Notice how the path name (after the word render) is typed using a series of dots rather than slashes to indicate each directory that the file can be found in.
7. Modify this line to call up your new layout override. In my case the line becomes the following:
   

   
   <?php echo JLayoutHelper::render('blog_style_default_item_title_etsy', $this->item); ?>
   
   

   
   Notice that I have removed the path (after the word render) so that it no longer looks for this file within Joomlas core files. Now it will go straight to my new layout stored in the templates html/layouts directory
8. Make any modifications to the new layout file as needed. Remember my one is found in templates/<your_template>/html/layouts/blog_style_default_item_title_etsy.php

The following code inserted into your child themes functions.php file will create two new widget areas called banner and dropmenu:

/**
 * Register our sidebars and widgetized areas.
 *
 */
function arphabet_widgets_init() {

    register_sidebar( array(
        'name'          => 'banner',
        'id'            => 'banner',
        'before_widget' => '<div>',
        'after_widget'  => '</div>',
        'before_title'  => '<h2 class="rounded">',
        'after_title'   => '</h2>',
    ) );



    register_sidebar( array(
        'name'          => 'dropmenu',
        'id'            => 'dropmenu',
        'before_widget' => '<div>',
        'after_widget'  => '</div>',
        'before_title'  => '<h2 class="rounded">',
        'after_title'   => '</h2>',
    ) );

}

add_action( 'widgets_init', 'arphabet_widgets_init' );

Create a hook in your theme by using the following: 

<?php dynamic_sidebar( 'dropmenu' ); ?>