Justin Tadlock has published ThemeHybrid 3.0. The site has been rebuilt from the ground up and sports a new coat of paint. Amongst the changes, one of the most notable if the restructuring of the documentation area. Previously, Justin was using around 150 different pages whereas now, he’s implemented custom post types. As an aside, congratulations to Justin for developing and releasing Retro-Fitted, a theme for WordPress.com.
Which Theme Framework To Use?
Although Paul Cunningham wanted to hear experiences by those who have used the Genesis theme framework, he ended up starting a conversation that discussed the other frameworks as well. One of the common threads within the conversation is that Justin Tadlock has done a great job with Hybrid as the code is clean with excellent inline documentation. Now that Headway has gone split licensed, I think it’s only a matter of time before it’s included in the list of recommendations from some of the notable consultants within the community. At any rate, check out the discussion if you’re currently in the middle of choosing a theme framework for your next project.
A Theme I Can Be Critical About
Justin Tadlock has released a new child theme for the Hybrid Framework called Critical. This theme encompasses the use of custom taxonomies that are now built within WordPress. However, Justin doesn’t like releasing his personal designs so he has released the theme as a blank slate allowing you to easily add your personal touch to the theme. The theme heavily uses his Get The Image script while also integrating well with the WP Post Ratings plugin by Lester Chen.
You can view a demo of the theme here. In order to use it, you’ll need to be running the latest version of the Hybrid Theme Framework with WordPress 2.8 or higher.
Justin Tadlock Releases Hybrid 0.6
Justin Tadlock announced on the ThemeHybrid blog earlier this morning that version 0.6 of the Hybrid Theme Framework was released to the public. This is a big release for Justin as the new framework has been coded from the ground up with modularity in mind. One of the most important things to take notice from this release is that 0.6 is NOT compatible with versions of WordPress earlier than version 2.8.
Unfortunately, with so many new features in WordPress 2.8, I couldn’t make the theme backwards compatible. It’s something I wanted to do, but it wasn’t a viable option.
Along with bug fixes, leaner code and removing unnecessary files, this version also contains an assortment of new page templates. This puts the total number of templates inbetween 55 and 60. But, Justin has a valid reason for providing all of these:
I want things to be easier to overwrite with custom modifications. I want people to be able to take my ideas and branch from these ideas with new, cooler things. Most of these deal with different types of archives and may not be used by everyone. But, I wanted them available for those people that do need to use them.
As most of you know, WPTavern is using a child theme of the Hybrid Framework called Hybrid News. Once I get a few kinks straightened out, I’ll be upgrading to the latest and greatest version of Hybrid.
Justin Tadlock Releases Hybrid News Theme
Just Tadlock (community member greenshady) has released a new child theme based on his theme framework ‘ThemeHybrid‘. If we were playing a drinking game which would be acceptable considering this is a tavern, you folks ought to be drunk by now. With that said, the Hybrid News theme features much of what you would expect a newsy type theme to have with a bit of Justin’s magic thrown in.
Hybrid News Theme In Action
- Featured post block which is animated
- Post thumbnails for articles on the front page
- Four widget areas in the footer
- Two right handed skinny sidebars
- Featured video block
- Four-level drop-down menu
- A Tabber that features Hot Tags, Random Posts, and your Archives
- Fully compliant with WordPress 2.7
Giving the theme a good look over from the demo which is located here, looks like Hybrid News could easily fit the bill for many of you still looking for a free, news layout type of theme. One thing I noticed which is really nice is that, the post thumbnails as well as the featured posts appear to take the first image which shows up in the post content and uses that as the thumbnail, scaling down or up in size automatically. This is a huge time saver, especially compared to the way in which I currently have to apply an image URL to a post_thumbnail custom field for it to work properly in the theme WPTavern is using.