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Jeff Chandler

Review – Wooden Fence By TemplateLite

At A Glance:

Wooden Fence is a three column theme compatible with WordPress 2.7 released by TemplateLite.com on May 6th, 2009. This theme is also free. Also mentioned by the author: Compatible with IE6, IE7, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and W3C XHTML and CSS compliant.

License:

As for the license, Wooden Fence is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported license. So what the heck does that mean? Perhaps the following picture will help you out.

cclicense

However, the theme author stresses that the main thing to keep in mind is that you must keep the footer link and a footer script intact to enjoy free usage. Footer script? Let’s take a look.


		Designed by WordPress Templates Courtesy of Cheap Dedicated Server

Yes, that is a link in the footer to a cheap dedicated server hosting company therefor making this a sponsored theme. All I’ll say about that is if you plan on using this theme, plan on advertising for a cheap dedicated server company as well. If I know anything about the WordPress community, I highly doubt many people will.

Installation:

Installation was as easy as can be. All I had to do was extract the theme folder to my desktop and upload it to the WP-Content/Themes folder.

Configuration:

While most themes now a days have an entire panel of options, this theme doesn’t have one. The reason being, this theme does not have any fancy doo dads built in which need configuring.

However, there are a few things you can edit with this design. TemplateLite.com offers a PSD file that you can edit if you own a copy of Photoshop to change the text in the header. Unfortunately, you’ll need some design skills to change out the images in the photo frames since the photos are not on separate layers.

photoframes

This theme is heavily dependent upon the initial design for it to look and feel the way it does. If you change one of the design elements, chances are good that it will make the entire theme look bad.

Design:

The initial design looks great out of the box but there are quite a few small things which bother me. The first is that the font color for the sidebars does not work well with the background image. You can tell the theme author put in some effort here as each sidebar has a dark or light color part of the background image but in my opinion, it doesn’t work. I think solid colors would work better here. The color of the font in the search box is a little too gray. I think it would look better with the font color used in the right sidebar. Other than that, this theme scores high points from me for creativity.

WoodenFence Theme In Action
WoodenFence Theme In Action

Widgets:

Only two places you can put widgets in this theme, the right and left sidebars.

Support:

As far as I can tell, support for this theme is limited to the comments section on the release post. Not a great way to do support but if you’re just starting out, it’s a great way to measure demand for the theme. If the comments for support reach a certain point, that’s a good time to move things to a forum.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, this is a solid theme. it doesn’t leave much room for customizations due to the dependency on graphics within the design but then this theme wasn’t created to be customized. My favorite aspect about this design is the way posts are displayed. Each one has a paper fold with a thumbtack at the top. I just think that is pretty cool. The sidebars could be improved with solid colors and the footer looks great.

With the lack of an options panel, end users will be up and running in no time when they install this theme. A bit refreshing when you consider the amount of time it takes to configure a theme sometimes.

You can view all of the other themes TemplateLite has created by checking out their WordPress theme Showcase. While you’re there, check out the review they wrote up for WPTavern.com.

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14 responses to “Review – Wooden Fence By TemplateLite”

  1. Or, just use the theme, and remove the footer links.

    I’m not a big fan of image-heavy themes, but this one does look nice.

    What’s the thing above the posts, that looks like a piece of long, thin cardboard tacked to the fence?

    I think one thing he could have done that might have been a nice touch would have been to change the color (or style or whatever) of the thumbtack for “sticky” posts. (All posts have a gold thumbtack “holding” them to the fence background. The “sticky” posts could maybe have a red thumbtack, for example.)

    Also, I like the paper-curl effect, but I would have put it at the top of the post, instead of at the bottom – in order to emulate the behavior of paper that is tacked with only one thumbtack (the top of the paper curls, rather than the bottom).

    I like the post-it note-style pull quotes, too.

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  2. @Chip Bennett – That’s actually a cool idea regarding sticky posts. I was going to mention that if you really wanted to, just remove the link and use the theme but I didn’t put it out there in the open.

    I’m not sure what that spot is for above the posts. I thought it was for the blog title or something but that stuff is in the header image. So I don’t know. But if you have graphics skills, you could put something there on top of the image.

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  5. I generally like the theme for its overall look and feel (from the preview at least). I agree the sidebar font colors should be a bit darker for easier reading.

    I’m not a fan of the footer scripting, for a number of reasons, my biggest concern would be if they were having issues with their site would it create issues with mine?!

    Removing the footer script would be against the license terms, and therefore make the theme virtually unusable for myself … it’s also the reason I did not use another theme of theirs that I really liked.

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  6. I’m a big fan of heavy graphic themes, I just wish he would have taken his time and thought this through. Now my opinions are mainly on the graphics.

    Things I don’t like:
    The wood fence is too clean, it should be a little dirty or grungy.
    I would not put plastic push pins on the fence, have you ever tried to put a plastic push pin into a fence? I would use staples, maybe even rusty ones.
    I agree with Chip the paper should be curled at the top.
    I would also make the paper grungy or torn or creased in some fashion.
    The papers have shadows all the way around them, light only comes from one direction.
    The papers have too clean of lines, I would have skewed them just a bit.
    He has a shadow in the upper left hand corner of the papers, which works on all papers except for the first one.
    The sidebars extend all the way to the bottom of the fence, this takes away from the fence. He has nice clean lines at the top of the sidebars, why not stop them after the last item on the sidebar?
    The supposed 3 pics that you can replace (which there are no layers on the psd file) are not even inside of the clothes pins, they are behind the clothes pins, wonder what’s keeping them up in the air.
    I don’t know what the cardboard thing is at the top, but I can’t believe one little tiny push pin is holding it up there straight.
    I like his post-its for the quotes, but I would have used tape instead of push pins…can you tell I’m not a big fan of push pins. lol
    I like his search, but once again, there’s that post-it with a push pin, I would have used a staple.
    I would have used a rich brown for the font on the sidebars and I would have used rusty bullets.
    Too much dead space at the bottom of the page.
    Issue with IE7, when I click on the first post I get a line that extends off of the paper at the top of the post header and/or happens when you click back.
    It would have been nice if he would have included the font and the psd file in the theme instead of having seperate downloads. Of course it would have been nice if he would have put the 3 pics in layers as well, because he notes on his site you can change the 3 pics and tells you to upload them.

    Things I like:
    For the most part I like the vine work, I can only find one place where it doesn’t look right.
    I like the uneven pickets on the fence.

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  7. @Chip Bennett, @Jeffro
    I am the author of the theme. Both of you think that you can just use the theme and remove the footer links. It is actually against the CC license. I stated clearly that to enjoy free usage, you MUST keep the footer link and script.

    For all of you, thanks for giving all the comments for my theme. I really appreciate it!

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  8. @Brian:

    Even if it were against the CC license (it’s not, as I’ll explain below), but it is an unenforceable restriction.

    Even for someone with as restrictive of a view of theme GPL applicability as me, I would concede that the part of the theme in question (the footer) is clearly a WordPress-derivative work; therefore, the copyright in question belongs to WordPress and the controlling license is the GPL.

    Also, the CC license’s attribution clause only applies to re-distribution of the work.

    Further, I don’t think that the Creative Commons “Attribution” clause applies to requiring users of a work to include a mandatory, third-party script call. In fact, here is the actual wording of the license, regarding attribution (added emphasis, mine):

    If You Distribute, or Publicly Perform the Work or any Adaptations or Collections, You must, unless a request has been made pursuant to Section 4(a), keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g., a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution (“Attribution Parties”) in Licensor’s copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means, the name of such party or parties; (ii) the title of the Work if supplied; (iii) to the extent reasonably practicable, the URI, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work; and, (iv) consistent with Section 3(b), in the case of an Adaptation, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Adaptation (e.g., “French translation of the Work by Original Author,” or “Screenplay based on original Work by Original Author”). The credit required by this Section 4(c) may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Adaptation or Collection, at a minimum such credit will appear, if a credit for all contributing authors of the Adaptation or Collection appears, then as part of these credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors. For the avoidance of doubt, You may only use the credit required by this Section for the purpose of attribution in the manner set out above and, by exercising Your rights under this License, You may not implicitly or explicitly assert or imply any connection with, sponsorship or endorsement by the Original Author, Licensor and/or Attribution Parties, as appropriate, of You or Your use of the Work, without the separate, express prior written permission of the Original Author, Licensor and/or Attribution Parties.

    Your only control over attribution is your right to have:

    The license remain intact
    Your name, in the manner you specify, appear in the copyright notice
    The title of the work, in the manner you specify, appear in the copyright notice
    A URI (which must reference the copyright information for the work) appear in the copyright notice
    (In the case of an adaptation) credit of your original work remain in the copyright notice

    Technically speaking, one could put all this information in the style.css header information, and be fully compliant with the license – with or without inclusion of/modification to the footer.

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  11. @Brian:

    I’m not sure I understand how the amended license terms change anything. If you release a work under a given license, you can’t impose further restrictions than the terms of the license itself. In the case of your license, see clause 8b:

    This License constitutes the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the Work licensed here.

    Now, certainly, that doesn’t preclude you from offering additional permissions – but you can’t impose further restrictions.

    Unfortunately, that’s still what you’re trying to do, with your footer links/script requirements.

    Even using a CC attribution-only license, you can’t stop someone using your theme from modifying it – at least, not by anything in the license itself, anyway.

    I’m not trying to torpedo your business plan, or anything. To the contrary, a cursory glance through your library of themes would seem to indicate that you put out quality work (although, as a matter of choice, I don’t like image-heavy themes – they still look good, though), and i wish you every success.

    Rather, my point is that, by releasing the theme under a CC license, you’re taking away any legal right to enforce what you want to enforce. You just can’t get around clause 8b above. (And I’m pretty sure that clause is in all CC licenses.)

    Of course, even if you released the themes only under your own Terms Of Service, you would still be in an untenable situation. Since the footer is part of a PHP file, and that PHP file is by all rights, clearly a derivative work of WordPress, that PHP file inherits the WordPress GPL. And the GPL also imposes no use restrictions on GPL’d works.

    Now, I’m of the opinion that anything in a theme that isn’t a derivative of WordPress (e.g. image files, CSS, layout/design) doesn’t inherit the WordPress GPL, and so can be licensed however the developer chooses, it appears that I am in the minority in such opinion. Most in the community are of the opinion that the theme as a whole inherits the WordPress GPL.

    (Sure, a lot of the “big players” in the premium theme community release non-GPL themes; they’re swimming in the same murky waters, and would have equal legal difficulty trying to enforce their non-GPL restrictions.)

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  12. @Chip Bennett

    I have to disagree with you on the amendment. This additional term is generated right from the CC website at http://creativecommons.org/license/

    It allows us to enter a “More permissions URL” and part of the code generated is as follows:
    Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.templatelite.com/terms-of-use/

    The debate over the WordPress license will be around for sometime unless the developers and founder of WordPress demonstrate a clear stance about this issue.

    Btw, what do you think of the idea of releasing the themes under GPL license but charge users for the use of the themes like what Studiopress.com is doing?

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  13. @Brian:

    I think there is a significant, critical difference between “more permissions” and “more restrictions”.

    In fact, the CC license generator describes the “More permissions URL” as:

    A URL where a user can obtain information about clearing rights that are not pre-cleared by your CC license.

    So, I don’t think the license intends for such a link to be used for adding restrictions, but rather for indicating how to add further permissions/rights.

    As for Brian Gardner’s approach: I think it’s just fine – at least, with respect to adherence to GPL. I’m curious to see how it pans out, long term, as a viable business model, though. If it indeed works, then I’m happy for him!

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  14. @Chip Bennett

    I’ll look into the license issue again. Thanks for all your opinions. I appreciate it!

    I am worried about Brian Gardner’s decision to make all his themes GPL because anyone who purchases the themes can distribute freely and even resell it somewhere without his permission. Hope he made a right choice in an effort to comply with WordPress open source spirit.

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