Shortly after New Year’s, Nick Haskins caught the eye of WordPress publishers with his open source story telling plugin. The prospect of building feature-rich, interactive stories within WordPress, without having to touch any code, was so promising that the project’s Crowdhoster campaign was fully-funded by the end of January. The buzz around the Aesop plugin…
In an era where many website designs are powered by popular themes, it’s become common for folks passing by to want to snoop under the hood to find out which theme a site is using. If the visitor is not capable of inspecting the code with his browser, he might resort to a service built…
Dazzling is a new free theme that landed in the WordPress Themes Directory last week. It’s based on Bootstrap 3, which makes it responsive and mobile friendly. The theme features an optional full-screen featured slider, which works well for customizing business or creative websites. If you’re a fan of flat design with mint green accent…
After the rush of listing a theme or plugin on WordPress.org, the reality of providing support will soon set in. The best way to stay in touch with your user base is to subscribe to the support forums, since that’s the first place people generally go when looking for answers. Subscription options vary, depending on…
Here’s a handy trick for WordPress theme developers. As of WordPress 3.8, theme authors have the ability to customize defaults when adding custom background support. For example, you can set a default for any of the following CSS background properties: background-color background-image background-repeat background-attachment background-position Oftentimes users want their sites to look similar to the…
Last December, Jeff Chandler and I updated WP Tavern with a new design based on Theme Hybrid’s Stargazer theme. Stargazer takes a new approach to parent/child themes in that it houses the majority of both the design and functionality within the parent theme. The challenge is to make design changes in the child theme, without…
DW Timeline is a beautiful free theme created by the folks at DesignWall. It is based on the Roots framework and features a unique timeline display for posts, inspired by Facebook’s timeline layout. DW Timeline was designed to showcase your blog or portfolio site. Customizable Header The homepage design supports a large customizable header image:…
When WordPress theme shops build typography options into their themes, they almost universally opt for integrating Google Fonts. It’s no wonder, given that Google fonts are free, easy to browse and generally fast-loading. The Theme Foundry is one of the first to step outside the box to integrate commercial fonts into their themes, via a…
The latest trend in WordPress blogging themes is to put post formats on center stage with a colorful palette selected to highlight the variety of content. Hexa is a beautiful new example of this trend in action. The theme launched last week on WordPress.com and hit WordPress.org over the weekend. Named for the geometric shapes…
A child theme is defined in the WordPress codex as a theme that inherits the functionality of another theme, called the parent theme. Child themes allow you to modify, or add to the functionality of that parent theme. A child theme is the safest and easiest way to modify an existing theme, whether you want…
Swedish designer Anders Norén is relatively new to the world of WordPress theme development but his breathtakingly simple themes are a refreshing addition to the ecosystem. Last August, Norén released Lingonberry, a responsive, retina-ready theme with beautiful typography. Delighted by the success of Lingonberry, which has received more than 8,000 downloads from WordPress.org, Norén decided…
Last year Bootstrap joined the flat design craze with its 3.0 release and a new optional theme. The default box model and basic UI components have been greatly improved. Bootstrap 3.1 introduced an official Sass port, further expanding the framework’s toolbox. Awhile back, we featured WordPress themes built using the Foundation front-end framework. Since Bootstrap…
WooThemes has announced they will no longer be offering subscriptions to their theme club, a concept they helped pioneer in 2008. With a monthly subscription, buyers would gain access to all available themes as well as themes released during their subscription period. The theme club has been replaced by a new package called ATP or…
Arcade Basic is new free theme from WordPress theme designer c.bavota, who favors Bootstrap as a front-end framework for his products. The theme features a fullscreen header image, followed by a large call-to-action, widgetized homepage area and a block of posts at the bottom. Arcade Basic packs in a solid set of features under the…
There’s a curious design trend among WordPress themes that shows no signs of stopping. The prominent use of mint green has become designers’ favorite highlight color. The trend started in the greater design community, as recently illustrated by Automattic design engineer Mel Choyce in her tweet commentary: Some interesting color trends appearing on dribbble: https://t.co/JUOl11VFnS…