Tag Archives: Themes

Catching Up – Themes

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Rather than a series of posts, I’m going to simply do a wrap up post covering any links I’ve saved over the past month theme related, and then return to my normal posting methods.

First up is Grid Lock, a magazine style theme, which was recently updated. If you aren’t familiar with it, as I said it has a magazine style approach to the home page content. This means a featured category gets top billing, and sub categories have smaller sections below. There’s an options page to configure the categories. While looking at that, check out Gridlock-K2, a K2 style based on the original.

Next up, a very stylish 2 column theme from Justin Shattuck, Salmon. Beautifully designed with a darker, modern feel, a great example of a quality theme.

AboutMyDot.Net has several nice looking themes. Unfortunately, the previews aren’t working, so can only go by the screenshots, but the theme, A Nice Touch seems particularly well done.

And to wrap up, Smashing Magazine has done it again, rounding up 10, Fresh, Elegant and Clean WordPress Themes.

Theme Viewer Down

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The “official” WordPress theme viewer appears to be suffering some server issues.

Undersigned comments on the site

The server times out due to excessive traffic and poor connections. We are still working on it. I was told some needed changes will be made within the next few days. Thanks for your patience.

With the recent healthy discussions about the state of the theme viewer, hopefully this is a blessing in disguise, and the issues will be resolved, as well as a decision on how to proceed with sharing of themes that are solely released with the intention of selling sponsorships.

Chipin for a New Theme

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imtjk
Pressed for free time, TJK is soliciting donations (and suggestions for the new theme) for creating a new public theme. Granted, there are numerous themes being released, but very few rate as well as the ones already released by JTK.

I have no problems with such an endeavor, and completely understand the author’s point. Personally, I’d rather see 50 people donate $5 to theme authors, than have themes with links to buying flowers online with caveats that the link shouldn’t be removed. So, if you are looking for a new theme, and want to have some input on a quality release, here’s your chance.

BloggingPro Theme

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WordPress Theme Viewer
Fans of BloggingPro can now have their blog with a similar look, as this 3 column theme has been released for public use. Nice use of white space, a pale blue 2 column right hand sidebar, with a darker blue 3 column footer all contribute to this stylish theme. A few plugins are required for the theme to work out of the box, specifically for the footer sections with recent comments, posts, etc.

ShinRa House Blue

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ShinRa House
A stylish, single column theme, with lots of drop shadow effects and gradients. As the name implies, a blue theme, with an abstract header image (though the demo link seemed to open a different theme, so I couldn’t tell exactly what it was).

The theme also employs a AJAXy drop down shelf, a search box that is also some AJAX type effect (though the cross hair icon may not suggest to everyone that it means search), as well as an interesting Accessibility icon that converts the page to a non graphic, non javascript mode. Well thought out for such a design to include.

Well worth the look if you are after a more “web 2.0″ modern feel.

Speaking of Plugins…

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while on the topic of plugins particularly, I’d like to take a minute to suggest to users to really think about making donations to authors who provide the ability to do so. Though WP can be downloaded for free, and almost all plugins are freely available, it would hurt to if everyone who downloaded a plugin once donated a dollar, it would make a significant difference to the authors, and I’m sure would spurn quicker development, or user suggested features incorporated at a quicker rate. If not for every download, at least for ones that you’ve consistently relied on. (Especially spam plugins).

And this is not relegate to just plugin authors. Theme authors should be thought about as well. A lot of time and energy is spent on some of the themes, so giving back some of that in the form of a donation would be nice.

This particularly could be said about blogs that create revenue. Andy Beardrecently solicited suggestions for who to make donations to, as he is pledging to donate 50% of all revenue from doing paid reviews. More of this should be happening. Well done Andy.

So the next time you download a killer plugin, consider sending a paypal donation. Any amount will be appreciated, and know that it is one more way to keep the WordPress community strong.

For the record, I have donated to several plugin authors, and as this is will be the first month that WP Station has earned any amount of revenue outside of covering hosting costs, I will explore some of the other plugins I use on this and other sites I maintain.

Marki

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ikram_zidane
This theme will probably prove to be quite popular, as it has a modern, grungy feel. A hybrid, 3 column theme, it features the most recent post in the left most column, with a list of previous entries below that. The right portion of the theme is split into 2 more columns, one with categories, and another for archives (though this can be modified with one caveat – the headings for those two columns are images, so unless you are proficient with Photoshop or Gimp, you will not have the same type headings). Below those two columns is an “about” section that spans the width of the above 2 columns. A search box rounds out the page.

As mentioned, it has that “distressed” feel, with a grayish header, dark background for the bulk of the design, and a contrasting blue footer, all which use images, so again, customization may be limited. I would say the navigation in the header is lacking, however as this was designed for as specific site, then made available, the nav bar may have been originally customized. I’d still like to see a little more prominence or style however. Also worth note is that it’s fixed width, however not with 800px or lower monitors in mind. All in all though, it’s definitely a notch above of the cookie cutter themes that seem to be released on daily basis these day.

Blank Theme v2

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Miklb’s Mindless Ramblings
A semi shameless plug, but I’m in the process of upgrading my quasi-popular blank theme. Basically it’s a set of templates and a CSS sheet, without the style. A great (I hope) way of creating your own theme, or just a way to get under the hood. The difference between this version and the first is that this one is attempting to be based solely on my own attempts at a bit more simple, semantic code. Thus the beta, as I’m quite open to suggestions, critics, and feedback.

Keep in mind, it was released in the spirit of sharing, and the fact that the original is still the single most sought after search item on my site. Collaboration is not out of the question, to say the least.

Cleaker 2.0

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pomomusings
Well, I tried this post once, and for some reason it didn’t go through (if anyone is having an issue with WP 2.1.2 and getting a “are you sure you want to edit this post” page coming up when posting a new post, let me know).

Cleaker is one of the better WP themes I’ve seen in some time. It is a three column design, fixed width, with a two column sidebar to the right of content. Subtle blues and tans, it also includes as download of the header file in Photoshop format, as well as the author offers a download of the main graphics in the same .psd format.

I can not stress enough how “fresh” this theme is in comparison to the kubrick like factory that seems to flood the theme repository at themes.wordpress.net