Congratulations goes out to Luke McDonald as one of the themes produced by Press75.com has been selected to be part of the WordPress.com commercial theme store. The theme is priced at $50.00 and is called Debut. It’s mobile ready right out of the box along with having post format support. Speaking of post formats, Debut is especially interesting because when users select the Audio post format, it expands into a multi-track playlist. You can see the theme in action via the WordPress.com theme showcase.
Press75 Joins The WordPress.com Commercial Theme Family
Theme Review Team Could Use Some More Reviewers
The Theme Review Team tried something new this past weekend. Members of the review team that could make it, spent all day in IRC to review themes stuck in the Priority 2 queue which lists themes that have been stuck in the review process for more than two weeks. While the goal was to clear the queue, the last time I checked the number of themes was around 81. Some of the themes have been in the review process for over 6 weeks. Browsing through the queue, I even noticed two themes submitted by Automattic. One was called Duotone which has been in the queue for 5 weeks with Bouquet coming in at 6 weeks. Just goes to show that Automattic doesn’t receive preferential treatment when it comes to the review process.
If you would like to see themes get through the review process faster, please consider joining the theme review team. As a theme author, you can also help make the review process go faster by ensuring that your theme meets the following guidelines.
What Do You Need In A Starter Theme?
Ian Stewart of Themeshaper.com wants to know, what do you really need in a WordPress starter theme? It’s an interesting question to ask these days because of the wide assortment of not only starter themes, but theme frameworks that are available. Two years ago, theme developers were using themes that they created themselves. While that still occurs today, many are using themes such as Genesis to build out websites. ∞
Good Guide On Avoiding Theme/Plugin Lock-In
WordPress consultant, Konstantin Kovshenin has published an excellent guide describing what theme/plugin lock-in is and how to avoid it. This is a topic I’ve been thinking about for a long time but have never been able to put into words for a post. The biggest culprit in my opinion when it comes to lock-ins are themes, especially commercial ones. These themes not only come with features that make it unique, those features sometimes store or alter data in a way that makes it very difficult to switch themes or even upgrade WordPress. The first comment on that post by Diane illustrates my point exactly.
This problem is even more pervasive than articulated here. The theme options of many commercial themes create functionality unique to that theme and then if you want to make a change, boy are you screwed. We see this problem with clients all the time.
Looking back at my history of using WordPress, choosing the right theme based on looks, options, and functionality was one of the toughest decisions I would have to make. I think I’ve only switched themes five times or less for both my personal site and WPTavern.com. Quite frankly, switching themes is a giant pain in the ass. Widgets become messed up, the layout is screwed up and although I like themes with options, I have to read the manual to figure out how to get the layout I like or at least, witnessed on the demo theme. Once I have a theme configured both functionally and aesthetically, I try not to do anything to disturb it. I get sick of the layout sometimes but the thought of switching themes and how much work that entails always settles me down into sticking with the current implementation.
Definitely read the comments at the end of the article as Mike Schinkel carries on an interesting conversation on ways or methods on which this entire situation could be improved.
Matt Mullenweg To Be In Charge Of The 2012 Default Theme
It was announced yesterday that Matt Mullenweg will be the one to oversee the development of Twenty Twelve, the new default theme for WordPress 3.4. Here is a list of things that the WordPress core team would like to see make it into Twenty Twelve:
- single post/permalink view with post formats is needed
- variable height header image
- mobile version
- default to static front page (will need a function in core to auto-choose)
- editor styles the same as front end.
- avoid clever things that aren’t super-useful (like ephemera widget)
- start with 2011 as base for code (or 2010, which has gotten more updates and had more eyes on it)
- no featured image in header
- by default – no header image
If anything, it looks like Twenty Twelve will be simpler than Twenty Eleven. I wonder if the theme will be blue with rounded corners, just for old times sake?
Chip Bennett Working On New Template Hierarchy Diagram
Chip Bennett is currently in the middle of creating an updated version of the template hierarchy diagram which shows the structure of how a page is displayed. The new diagram is a bit more detailed than the old one. These diagrams are an excellent way to learn about Template Tags in WordPress as well as visually see the process for determining which page is displayed.
Old Template Diagram
New Template Diagram
Chip Bennett is looking for feedback on his version of the template diagram. You can either comment on this article with your feedback or give him a shout out on twitter via @Chip_Bennett.
A Theme With 70 Different Widget Spots
I stumbled across this theme the other day called Tachyon by RocketTheme and noticed that is has 70 widget positions. That is insane. I can’t imagine how much of a burden or a nightmare it would be to manage something like that from the back-end of WordPress as just having 15 or so widgets can become cumbersome. This link will show you all of the various widget spots complete with there variations. Check out the following image which shows a blueprint of where all of the widget spots are located.
Checklist Of Things To Do Before Switching Themes
Great checklist created by WPBeginner of things to do before switching to a different theme. Out of everything they presented, number three hit home for me. After using a new theme for a few months, I decided to look at my Google Analytics and discovered that no stats were being saved from the date I switched my theme to the present. I obviously forgot to add the tracking code to the new theme. OOPS. ∞
Prevent Skype Overwriting Phone Numbers In WordPress Themes
I didn’t know this was an actual problem until I read the advice on WPBeginner.com. Apparently, some WordPress themes can break when Skype changes a phone number into a number you can dial with Skype. The fix is a simple one liner that you add to the HEAD section of the theme. Personally, I don’t use Skype to call out and change my options to prevent the over riding phone numbers in the first place. ∞
Tribute To Steve Jobs Via Retro MacOS WordPress Theme
With the passing of Steve Jobs, memorials and tributes are showing up all over the web. While BoingBoing.net seems to be one of the more popular tributes, I’m happy to inform you that if you’re using WordPress, you too can join in with the same tribute of making your site look like the Mac OS via a freely available WordPress theme called Retro MacOS.
Tribute Based On Retro MacOS WordPress Theme
According to the release post, this was Stuart Browns first WordPress theme which was created during the days of WordPress 2.1.2. However, it appears to work fine for the latest version of WordPress if BoingBoing.net is anything to go by.
I wonder if via this theme, WordPress users can celebrate a new holiday called Steve Jobs day by having our site look like the retro MacOS every year on October 5th. I think it would be pretty interesting to browse some of the largest sites using WordPress when they use this theme just to see how it looks. At the very least, this is one way WordPress users can pay tribute to a great man.