Available features include the following:

• Categorized Access to WordPress Help pages (WordPress Codex)
• Search for highlighted text strings on websites
• One-Click-switch to a website’s WordPress backend
• Update Notification on new WordPress versions
• Website Profiles
• Custom Shortcuts
• Various preference settings

There has been active development on this extension since April of this year with good documentation of progress and the author is taking suggestions from users for future uses/features of the extension. Although many of these actions can be performed with shortcuts or other tools within Firefox, this extension puts it all into one place at easy reach of the Firefox user. The original developers’ page is in German but the linked page should be the English version.

[EDIT] Sorry, link fixed. Thanks for the heads up.

There are some caveats to this process which are outlined in the requirements:

There are many ways of embedding slideshows to your website. This tutorial is based on a WordPress 2.5 installation (with some files customized and of course all files updated that were critical in WP2.5 concerning security issues!). Moreover you need to BUY a plugin that was originally developed for “Joomla!”, which is an open source Content Management System (CMS). The plugin is called “frontpage slideshow version 1.6? (FPSS) and it was transformed by its creators into a so called “static version” that fits into ALL websites that are PHP-based.

After going through the tutorial, you’ll notice that you need to change the slideshow file manually in order to update the content the links within the slideshow point to. This seems like a mundane approach. I believe this can be done via custom fields but I’d like to know what other ways this effect can be accomplished without having to purchase anything and without having to manually update the slideshow?

*NOTE* Tobi of the perfectsurf website left a note in the comments regarding this post:

No need to buy the FPSS anymore. I made a new plugin out of Jason Schuller’s FCG plugin, I called it FCS (Featured Category Slideshow) You find everythin at perfectsurf.de/category/fcs (by now, take the first post)

There have been more than a few themes/designs built on the Sandbox and released—and for good reason. Its highly semantic, dynamic structure make it immensely easy to design for, not to mention all the features built into its markup, like Microformats.

So I thought it was a good time for a new theme competition—or rather a “designs” competition. It has been around two years since the last successful WordPress theme competition (participants of the competitions in 2006 will roll their eyes and would include me). We’ve seen the launch of an official theme viewer, two major WordPress releases (2.1 and 2.2), two plugin competitions, and so on. So I think it’s time.

Now you probably have a thousand questions running through your brains. Let me try and answer at least a few of them.

Question: Why have a theme competition? The last two failed. Don’t you know anything?
Answer: Well, this isn’t really a “theme” competition. It’s a designs competition, similar to Alex King’s WordPress CSS Styles held back in February of 2004, that is only for style sheets (and images, of course). Folks won’t be competing to show off PHP know-how, or scripting abilities, etc., but how well they can design, use CSS, be creative, and so on.

Question: Uh, that’s boring. Every design will be pretty much the same, won’t they?
Answer: Not in the slightest. See, the Sandbox is special. It has these dynamic class-generating functions that sprinkle neat semantic classes throughout the markup, which means each page is the same, but it is also a little different. Using combinations of these classes means that style sheets can easily go beyond just arranging content into layouts by making the design relate to the content. There are so many classes that almost any layout, any design, etc., is achievable. For example, you could style posts by categories, .category-asides{…} vs. .category-important-news{…}, uniquely.

Question: Okay, that’s pretty slick. But why should I spend my time in this competition?
Answer: First, you could win more than a handful of cash. From the day one we have US$500 in cash to distribute to first, second, and third place winners (there will be a runner-up who will receive an honorarium). We’re getting sponsors to help us increase the total cash pot to US$1000. So the first-place winner will hopefully walk away US$500 richer (but at least US$250 richer). Secondly, you could be crowned a top blog designer in our little blogosphere. Not a bad title to parade around. And thirdly, you can solidify your designer creds just by participating and getting your bio tossed up on the website.

Question: Sweet, but didn’t I just read something about a plugin competition? And didn’t I read that right here on this blog?
Answer: Indeed you did. I was actually in the process of smoothing out the details for this competition, getting everything in order, when Mark announced the plugins competition 2.0. I emailed him immediately, somewhat frantically. But I feel like these two competitions differ from one another in all the right ways. Plugin developers are primarily concerned with PHP and scripting. This competition, as mentioned before, is purely about CSS and design. Put them together and you have everything that makes WordPress lovely.

Question: Word. But I blog on WordPress.com. Am I going to be left on the margins of the community yet again?
Answer: Not at all. The new version of the Sandbox will be available to blogs there soon (details to come). Furthermore, unless you like punching yourself in the face, you’ll probably want to install WordPress locally to do your designing. When the competition finishes and all the designs are available, you can rejoice in knowing you’ll be able to use the designs immediately (you’ll need the custom CSS upgrade, though).

Question: Good news indeed. Sign me up!
Answer: Sign yourself up, but not quite yet. All the details you could possibly wish for will be posted on www.plaintxt.org tomorrow, June 1, 2007. So go there tomorrow and you’ll find a lovely little post waiting to direct you to the competition blog.

Question: Well, I’m not going to submit a design, so perhaps there is something else I can do?
Answer: Indeed. If you have a design background or another appropriate qualification, you could possibly serve as a judge. Or you can simply purchase a sponsorship to show your support.

Question: Wait right there—purchase something? Uh, we’re talking about WordPress, right? So why would I do that?
Answer: First of all, you can support and encourage participation by helping raise the cash prize pot. If you’re active in the WordPress community or use WordPress, these designs can be of real benefit to you. Support our designers. Anyhow, there will be different levels of sponsorships, different prices, but basically you’ll be getting your link and/or image up on the competition blog for everyone to see. People will love and respect you.

Question: I could use some love and respect.
Answer: We all could, my friend. We all could.

So all the details will be posted tomorrow on www.plaintxt.org. Participants will have about two months create their designs and submit them. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Details, terms, etc., will all be available very soon. Until then. ;-D

I personally prefer one column themes with a minimal second column. Most information that is put on my sidebar(s) is extraneous and could be placed elsewhere. I have also found that some of that information deters from the original content of the blog. The landing page concept is nice for search engine traffic where extra links and information on the content might help you draw in the user to explore some more. However, the face of the blog is cleaner and chock full of good stuff to read with lesser distractions.

That being said, I have seen and read some really good blogs/sites that have made appropriate use of sidebar content including the venerable Slickdeals and the WordPress Development blog.

Do you like one, two or three (or more) column themes and why?

To put it simply, whitespace on a page is everything that isn’t the content. By content I mean text, images and other design elements.
Micro whitespace is the space between lines, characters and smaller elements on your page. Macro whitespace is between major elements, like blocks of content etc.
Micro whitespace plays the role in ensuring legibility and macro whitespace gives you the feeling of breathing room and cleanliness.

Before the popularity of CSS, most of the styling was with font, bold and italic tags. Most sites had standard font sizes (usually 12pt) and standard whitespacing.

Once CSS became popular, almost all design elements could be styled. Spacing between characters could be easily changed, as well as line spacing. Cross-browser and cross-platform incompatibility resulted in pages looking good in some browsers and extremely pathetic in others. Reduced line-height and font-spacing resulted in cramped text. Text became illegible and even good articles became a real pain to read.

Mark’s article brings to focus how whitespace can actually make a differnce. He cites two examples; one of Erik Spiekermann‘s redesign of The Economist and the second of brand positioning while designing graphics.
He then goes on to explain the use of active and passive whitespace in a simple article with pictures and examples.

I think the article is a must read for both theme and graphic designers. I plan on implementing some of his suggestions in my designs as well as my websites.

Let me quote his closing paragraph:

Once you know how to design and manipulate the space outside, inside, and around your content, you’ll be able to give your readers a head start, position products more precisely, and perhaps even begin to see your own content in a new light.

The article »