Themes

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Roots – WordPress Starter Theme

    Roots is a starter theme for WordPress based on HTML5 Boilerplate, Blueprint CSS or 960.gs and Starkers. One of the cool features of this starter theme is the implementation of CodeMirror into the HTML post editor which spruces things up. While not extensive, their gallery shows a couple of nice looking sites built on Roots.

  • TwentyTen Extended

    TwentyTen Extended – add Color to the Default WordPress Theme – TwentyTen child theme that makes it easy to change the colors of various elements without editing or writing code.

  • So Many Commercial Themes – So Many Theme Sorters

    I’m not sure if you noticed as much as I have but there seems to be a commercial theme sorter popping up on every corner. At least, that’s the impression I get as I’ve routinely been receiving emails lately from people letting me know about the launch of their theme sorter. The newest one to…

  • My Thoughts On The Atlas Theme Framework

    A few days ago, Donal MacArthur of Cranes And Skyhooks reached out to let me know about a new framework he’s developed called Atlas. After playing around with the theme for about an hour, I have a couple of suggestions for Donal. Out of the gate, Atlas and it’s first child theme Elegance are clean…

  • jQuery And The Theme Review Process

    There is an interesting discussion taking place on the Make WordPress Themes site which is the home to the theme review team regarding jQuery and themes. There are three points that are being discussed: The first point for discussion is that Themes should always use the current version of jQuery as bundled with WordPress, so…

  • Need Post Format Support Added To WPTavern

    Is anyone out there interested in adding Post Format support to the WPTavern theme including the necessary styles to go with them? I’m willing to pay $20.00 to have this done as I’m currently working on some other things and don’t have time to add the support let alone the stylesheet additions. If you’re interested…

  • Interview With Paul Mycroft On The Erosion Of His Web Design Business

    During an email conversation one day, Paul Mycroft who operates his own web design firm told me something that I thought was interesting. In fact, he’s been the first one to say such a thing and that is that the commercial themes being produced in the WordPress community are eroding his web design business. When…

  • ThemeForest And The Theme Repository

    Earlier this week, Jason Pelker wrote an excellent post for WPCandy.com entitled, How did ThemeForest become the red headed stepchild of the WordPress community? Jason takes a look at the various reasons for how this could have happened. However, the conversation turns pretty interesting in the comments when the discussion of quality control at ThemeForest…