Weblog Tools Collection

Thanks for visiting! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. This blog posts regular Wordpress news, updates of themes, plugins, ideas, hacks, quick fixes and everything about blogging, especially about Wordpress. Go ahead, subscribe to our feed! You can also receive updates from this blog via email.

One Column Themes

Elegance

A simple 1 column theme featuring light gold and plum colors. Valid XHTML and CSS. Two headers included, one with text and one blank.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Two Column Themes

Ferrari

A theme for Ferrari lovers who love to drive those machines or atleast dream about it. This is fixed width, 2 column widget ready theme.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Three Column Themes

Simple Theme One

Simple Theme One is a simple three column theme with content in the center and one sidebar on each of the sides. The theme is widget ready.

Demo | Release Page | Download

CorpTheme

Corptheme is a minimalistic theme which comes in four flavors - CorpBlue, CorpRed, CorpGreen & CorpBlack. The theme includes drop down for pages and sub pages.

Demo | Release Page / Download

For most of you, WeblogToolsCollection.com has become your number one source for new WordPress theme releases. Since Keith introduced the small thumbnail previews and demo links, theme posts seem to be better liked by our audience. I appreciate Keith’s attention to detail and look forward to his regular theme and plugin posts.

Smashing Magazine has published an article which highlights at least 20 free WordPress themes to choose from. Some of these themes look as if they could almost be considered premium but they are still free. My personal favorite is 5ThirtyOne while Probama comes in second. Although I’m a little bummed that the article didn’t feature Justin Tadlocks Options theme. I feel that it would have been a nice addition to the post.

At any rate, make sure you read each themes license agreement as they can vary from theme to theme. This is especially true when it comes to using the theme in a commercial environment.

One Column Themes

Rainbow Feather

Rainbow Feather is widget-ready fluid one-column three-segment theme with vivid colors. The theme is available in 6 different languages.

Demo | Release page | Download

Two Column Themes

Flower Grunge

Flower Grunge is a widget ready two column theme with valid xhtml and css. The theme is made up of variants of the brown color.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Three Column Themes

WP Wedding

WP Wedding is a three column widget ready theme based on marriage. The header of the theme pictures a newly married couple. Quite useful if you want to advertise your marriage to your friends.

Demo | Release Page | Download

33Module

3 Column theme with the sidebars placed to the right and left side of the content. The theme also has a large footer area.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Two Column Themes

Triology Next

This is a two column themes with 4 different variations. The theme comes inbuilt with a lot of customizations and inbuilt plugins.

Demo / Release Page / Download

Three Column Themes

Black and Red

Black and Red is a simple three column theme. The theme is aesthetic to look at and also comes in Black and Blue colors.

Release Page | Download

Aperio Prototype

This is a theme specifically created for image heavy sites: photographers, illustrators, designers. It is built on Sandbox for power and flexibility.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Over the weekend, I caught a glimpse of what was supposedly a new design for the WordPress Themes Repository. As was explained by Steven Hodson, the screen shots were taken from his browser when he visited the theme repository. The screen shots showcase a carousel view for browsing through themes, icons for navigating and downloading themes, a single page view which displays detailed information regarding the theme ect. No matter how hard I and many others tried, we couldn’t get the theme repository to display in the same way that it did for Steve.

Lloyd Budd stopped by my blog post and left this as the comment:

Hi Jeff, those screen shots are fake. I’m 100% certain. I just checked and there isn’t any code, nor has there been, to produce that type of experience.

I’ve been subscribed to Steve’s blog for quite some time and he is not one to post fake images or fake content. I believe that one of two things happened. The first is that, this is quite possibly a fluke. I don’t know how I would explain it, except that it’s wrong. The second thing is that this could be a theme repository setup on a website to mimic the current repository albeit with a different way of browsing themes. After browsing the web for quite some time looking for themes, I have come across numerous sites which have a theme showcase which is nothing more than a different setup for the theme repository.

Then, a fellow WordPress blogger Mike sent me an article that was written by 5thirtyone which reminds users that you have to be careful where you download your WordPress themes from. I must of missed the boat back when this event took place, but there was an incident where themes that were hosted on the official theme repository were being hosted on 3rd-party theme galleries such as WP Sphere. These themes were the same with the exception that the themes that were being hosted on the 3rd-party theme gallery websites were riddled with malicious code/malware.

I think now would be a good time to remind current users, especially new ones of WordPress to only download themes from the author’s website or from the official WordPress Themes Repository. Please note that not every site hosting a WordPress theme is bad. However, downloading a theme that is outside of the authors website or the repository is a risk that may not be worth taking.

Two Column Themes

CoolWater

CoolWater is a two column widget ready theme which is largely made up of green and blue colors. Overall the theme looks aesthetic.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Squared

Squared is a two column theme based on sandbox and is customizable through the admin panel. The theme is available in English and Italian.

Release Page | Download

Three Column Themes

Chronicles

Chronicles is a three column widget ready theme made up of brown color. The content area is large enough to hold medium sized images.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Anumati

Anumati is a theme based on World of Warcraft. The theme is largely made of purple colors and its content area can be used to show of smaller images.

Demo | Release Page | Download

One Column Themes

WP-Photogenic

As the name suggests this theme is specifically made for photo blogs who update their content using pictures. The theme is single column and does not feature any sidebars.

Demo / Release Page | Download

Two Column Themes

Monochrome Gallery

A two column magazine based theme with a AJAX based post slideshow on the home page. The home page also displays category post with thumbnails. You can also find a extended sidebar in the footer. Only for WordPress 2.3 and above.

Demo | Release Page | Download

FreshMedia

FreshMedia uses some fresh and lively colors and provides with a widgetized sidebar and footer area, though the huge header steals some screen real estate in the first scroll.

Demo | Release Page | Download

BoxTube

This is a two column theme with vibrant colors and some nice graphics. The theme also sports a extended sidebar in the footer area. Overall a nice looking theme with some handy options for advertising.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Three Column Themes

Deep Fear

Deep Fear is a three column theme which makes use of dark colors. Again the huge header steals screen real estate in the first scroll.

Demo / Release Page | Download

Two Column Themes

In The Blue

In the blue is a simplistic theme with a real life photograph in the header. The theme is simple and in the blue.

Demo | Release Page | Download

YG Mag

A two column theme with a eye catching header and a suitable sidebar with tabbed content. Content area is good enough to post wide width images.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Three Column Themes

Magadine

This theme comes with a four column home page with its inner pages consisting of three columns. The theme home page is based on magazine style.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Hot Pink

Ever wondered how pink could be hot, well this theme uses variants of pink that makes it look hot pink.

Demo| Download

ThemeShaper has published an article titled, The Future Of WordPress themes which highlights comments from a number of movers and shakers that exist within the WordPress theming community. A number of individuals contributed to the article such as myself, Brian Gardner, Justin Tadlock, Cal Coleman and more. The basis of the article was to try and get a glimpse as to what the future of WordPress themes might be. What better way to find out than to ask those that set the tone for WordPress themes in their current state.

I enjoyed reading a number of the responses and it was interesting to see the differences amongst the crew as to where we see themes in general heading. I hope that ThemeShaper does the same article a year from now to see if any of us actually gave a correct prediction.

Now the question is asked of you. What and where do you think the future of WordPress themes is headed?

WPThemerKit.com is a new way to create WordPress themes. The system works similarly to the way cssZenGarden works in that, you have an HTML file and a CSS file. Once you are finished with the design, you copy the CSS file along with the images folder to the corresponding WordPress blank theme and all of a sudden, you have a full blown WordPress Theme. I managed to get a hold of the creator behind WPThemerKit and asked him a few questions regarding his project.

Jeff - First off Cal, please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Cal - I am a web developer and entrepreneur. I don’t really specialize in any one area, but would consider CSS one of my stronger areas. I’ve been developing websites since around 2003 and really enjoy using content management systems like WordPress. Most of my time is spent playing with PHP scripts or content management systems and trying to come up with ideas for websites that sound like fun.

Jeff - What inspired you to create the WP Theme Kit?
Cal - In a word, frustration. I’ve tried making themes for Joomla, e107, MODx and WordPress. WordPress was by far the easiest but there was still a learning curve. In the beginning I was going to create the kit only for myself. I had just started making WordPress themes and wanted to speed up the process. After a few realizations I concluded that one long HTML file with all the components of a WordPress theme could be substituted for the actual theme. At first I thought I could just use FireFox and “View Source” the HTML and copy/paste into Dreamweaver. It turned out to be a little more difficult than that but I got it worked out eventually.

Jeff - Can you explain in the simplest form possible on how the themer kit works?
Cal - The HTML file (which I call the HTML blank) is like the entire WordPress theme. It has the comment form, comments, tags, a header menu, the whole 9 yards. So all you have to do is edit the CSS stylesheet in your favorite editor. The HTML file is just there so you can preview it in your browser and see the changes. Once you’re finished modifying the CSS file, you simply copy it and the images folder to the corresponding WordPress blank. The WordPress blank is basically just a WordPress theme without any CSS stylesheet, it has all the necessary PHP files, but no style.

Jeff - What sort of ways are you looking to expand upon the original Theme Kit?
Cal - In the beginning I’m just looking for feedback and ways to improve the kit. Eventually though I’d like to see kits available for software like BBPress. The neat part is that you can use the same CSS framework across different software. This will allow you to create a WordPress theme with the themer kit, then move the CSS file to a blank BBPress theme (prepped like the WP blanks) and be 80% done, only left to style a few areas. What all this does is speed up creation time and allows theme developers more time for those extras that everybody likes.

Jeff - Does your theme kit implement widgetized sidebars?
Cal - Yep, the themer kit makes themes for WordPress 2.2.x and 2.3.x and implements tags and widgetized sidebars.

Jeff - I noticed you wrote these primarily as templates in Dreamweaver. Can other editors be used to edit these files without breaking them?
Cal - All the kit requires is a CSS editor and a browser.

Jeff - Can you explain in a little more detail as to what you mean by Flavors? Also, can you elaborate on the various licensing structure for the various aspects of the themer kit.
Cal - Flavors are something we’re planning on creating and they’re basically just modified themer kits. So for example you could create a flavor that would utilize advertisements in different areas of the theme or a flavor that had a submenu for child pages in the header, the sky is the limit.

The licensing is meant to be as open as possible for theme creators. If you make a theme with the themer kit you can release it under any license you want, just like making a theme normally. We also have exceptions to our HTML blank licensing so you can release the HTML file with your theme and not worry about licensing issues. Releasing your HTML file with your theme will give theme users an easy way to modify the theme to suit their needs. If you want the specifics on licensing it’s best to visit the website and view the license page.

Jeff - What are your future plans with themer kit?
Cal - My plans are to make the theme creation process as easy as possible. Users should be able to have a blog and a forum that utilize the same basic theme and web designers should be able to create those themes as easily as a static page.

I want to extend a thank you to Cal for taking the time to answer my questions in regards to his project. Be sure to check out his website and give his theme kit a try. I’d especially be interested to see what you guys come up with in regards to using his kit as a framework for your themes.

One Column Themes

WhitePaper

WhitePaper is a one column theme which makes use of the black and white colors. The theme has a extended sidebar in the footer made up of two columns.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Two Column Themes

Options

This is certainly one of the best themes I have seen since quite some time, the theme definitely provides website owners with lot of options with a magazine style home page customizable tabs. This theme definitely packs in quite a punch with quite a lot of features.

Demo | Release Page | Download
[EDIT] Temporarily removed for copyright violation complaints.

[EDIT] Resolved. Thanks to Brian and Justin.

StudioPress

This is a two column AdSense ready theme which comes built in with ad units in the posts and the sidebar. The theme provides you with comment styling and is optimized for search engines.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Nature’s Highlight

This is a two column widget ready theme with integrated plugins such as wp-email, wp-print and wp-pagenavi. The theme also provides with an advanced posting option where you can post site updates in the header.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Blue Green Harmony

The theme is a two column widget ready theme which makes use of the blue and green colors. The theme is fixed width and provides with tabbed content making use of the idTabs javascript library.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Two Column Themes

Dayvan

Dayvan is a two column theme which makes use of the brown color for its links. The theme is simple yet quite aesthetic. It comes pre-packaged with plugins such as meta image, SRG clean archives and ultimate tag warrior.

Demo | Release Page | Download

HipHop

The theme is based on the popular genre of music and includes multiple colors and a cool logo in the header. The content area is small though and cannot fit in big images.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Photoshopfox

Photoshopfox is a two column AdSense ready theme which makes use of bright colors. The sidebar looks attractive and can hold different types of advertisements including 125 x 125 banners.

Demo | Release Page | Download

The Wind Cries Mary

This is a two column theme with a feminine touch. The theme makes use of attractive images in the background and sidebar.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Three Column Themes

ArtFull Magazine

ArtFull is a three column fluid magazine based theme with inbuilt support for a number of plugins including related posts, recent comments, Flickr support, wp tag support, popular posts and more.

Demo | Release Page | Download

One Column Themes

LaunchPad

Many a times you may buy a new domain but may not have the time to launch the new blog immediately. The LaunchPad theme acts as a domain parking theme so that you can show a customized message to readers till you are ready to launch the blog.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Stripped

Stripped is a one column theme with three sidebars in the footer area. The theme is simple and is available in multiple colors such as blue, pink, green, red, orange and purple. The author meta for the post features to the left side of the post.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Two Column Themes

Be Mine

Be Mine is a two column WordPress theme specially made for Valentine’s. The theme is available in one column and two columns in different colors such as pink, blue, purple and green.

Release Page | Preview / Download

Three Column Themes

Uncrufty

Uncrufty is a no-frills three column theme with minimum use of colors. The theme comes with two sidebars and a medium width content area. The colors are used are variants of blue.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Velocity

Velocity is a three column theme with vibrant colors. It has one sidebar on each side of the content area. The colors are made up of different shades of brown. The content area is wide enough to hold medium sized images.

Demo | Release Page | Download

WP Contact Manager: The versatility of WordPress continues to amaze me. Design Canopy has released a theme/set of instructions for WordPress that would allow you to run a WordPress install as a taggable, searchable contact manager that can be made into a Members Only system and display related contacts. Now mind you, it is not a stand alone theme, needs extra plugins to be downloaded and installed and they outline detailed instructions on how to set it up. However, the setup looks relatively easy and the results are definitely pretty cool. I would have liked to see a Prologue like custom posting interface for logged in users but that could be an easy add on or plugin once the thing is set up.

One Column Themes

Stripped

Stripped is a minimalist one column theme with the text made up of red and black color. The theme contains no sidebars and the navigation is at the bottom of the page.

Demo | Release Page| Download

Two Column Themes

Forte Magazine Style

Forte is a two column theme which comes built in with lots of features. It comes with ample amount of space to do banner advertisements and tabbed content in the sidebar.

The theme is widget ready and comes with a extended sidebar in the footer.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Three Column Themes

 Ansi Y

Ansi Y is a theme which makes use of black, gray, brown and white colors. The theme is widget ready and makes use of two sidebars.

The theme looks simple and content area is big enough to allow you addition of medium width images.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Artic

A widget ready theme with one sidebar on each side of the content. The theme makes use of gray gradients given it a look like snow / ice.

The content area is small but you can use medium width images in it.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Two Column Themes

Sonette

Sonette is a two column theme which makes good use of the green color. The sidebar has enough space to add 125 x 125 banners. The date and comments meta information is displayed to the right of the post.

The theme is widget ready.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Gradient Brown Beauty

This is a widget ready two column theme which makes use of a mix of brown colors. There are ample amounts of advertising space and you can easily add 125 x 125 and 300 x 300 banners.

This theme also supports tabbed content in the sidebar. This theme is widget ready.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Hope

Hope is a two column WordPress theme which looks quite simple and uses fluid width. The theme uses a mix of pink and brown colors. The header looks good.

Content area and sidebar uses rounded corners. This theme is widget ready.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Futurosity Eos

This theme is built on Sandbox and has a sidebar, meta column, and a main column. The main content area is a bit small.

It is widget ready and use red color for the links.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Deconstructed WP admin theme: Read about this new admin theme on BloggingPro and had to check it out. Deconstructed is a highly minimalistic simple theme for the WordPress backend that is focussed on responsiveness and cleanliness. The menu highlight is a little bright for my taste (as has been noted by others) but the theme is worth a looksee. Installation is simple via a plugin and the author welcomes changes and modifications to the original theme.

Two Column Themes

Orange and Black

This is a widget ready two column theme with contrasting colors. It makes use of orange and black colors. Content area is quite big allowing to fit in more content, sidebar is to the left of the page.

Sidebar comes built in with Recent Entries and Recent Comments so you do not have to install those plugins.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Simpleton

Simpleton is a two column theme which makes use of simple colors. The theme comes built in with recent comments and recent themes. The sidebar is big enough to fit in two rows of information.

The theme is widget ready.

Demo | Release Page | Download

UnGrid

UnGrid is a three column theme based on grids which is widget ready. The theme features an integrated banner management and a featured about section.

Font color is a bit light and could do better with a darker shade. Features a extended footer section to display more information. Comes in Greenish / Pink and Blue colors.

Demo | Release Page / Download

Three Column Themes

iPhone Theme

Widget Ready theme with vast use of rounded corners for headers. The main header area is a bit small which makes it hard to have a custom logo. Makes good use of gray color throughout the theme.

Sidebar is divided into two columns with additional space to show off 125 X 125 banners.

Demo | Release Page | Download

MackOne

A fluid theme based on dark colors consisting of red and black. The background and graphics are appealing. Makes use of white text for better visibility on the dark background.

The theme is widget ready and comes built in with related posts, Flickr support, recent comments, WordPress native tags and Socializing options.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Blue Iris

Blue Iris is a fluid three column theme with widget ready sidebars. Colors are mostly made up with variations of blue. The theme has a wide content area making it easier to add wider images.

The header section and sidebars can do with a bit of improvement. Sidebars are fitted in too close together.

Demo | Release Page | Download

Theme Releases

Two Column Themes

GreenTech

GreenTech is a two column theme with pleasant colors. It makes use of a mix of brown and green colors. The background is creme in color. There are plenty of advertisement options available in this theme.

Author comments on the blog are styled differently than the other comments. Overall a good looking theme.

Widget Ready: Yes

Compatibility: There were no issues that I saw with this theme on Firefox 2+, IE6, IE7, Flock. The header section appears broken in Opera.

Validations: Invalid XHTML 1.0 Transitional with 29 errors | Invalid CSS with 1 error

Demo | Release Page | Download

Three Column Themes

My Starcraft 2

My Starcraft 2 is a theme based on Starcraft 2. The theme uses dark and vibrant colors with a mix of black and gray. The links are orange color making it more visible on the darker background.

Overall looks are quite good with ample advertising options. The theme is available in English and German versions

Widget Ready: Yes

Compatibility: There were no issues that I saw with this theme on Firefox 2+, IE6, IE7, Flock and Opera browsers.

Validations: Invalid XHTML 1.0 Transitional with 11 errors | Invalid CSS with 3 errors

Demo / Release Page /Download

Four Column Themes

Techicon

Techicon is a wide 4 column theme with beautiful use of colors. It is simple and classy at the same time. The theme comes with a sub header with 3 columns which can be used to display information such as Latest posts, popular posts etc.

The main content area is quite wide and can easily accommodate large images, the sidebar is huge and is made up of three smaller sidebars. Overall a great theme with ample advertising options.

Widget Ready: Yes

Compatibility: There were no issues that I saw with this theme on Firefox 2+, IE6, IE7, Flock and Opera browsers.

Validations: Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional | Invalid CSS with 3 errors

Demo | Release Page | Download

Plugin Releases

Set Email “From” Address

The default emails that get sent out by WordPress is usually wordpress@yourdomain.com. This plugin allows you to change the from address to any email you want to so that all outgoing emails go out with your personalized email address.

Compatible Versions: WordPress 2.0 and above

Category: Administration

Release page | Download

SmartLinks Widget

This plugin allows you to automatically display content from Amazon, Netflix, Last.fm, IMDB etc. The items have SmartLink rather than links which opens up a small inline window with the best information from around the web without the user have to leave your site. (Disclosure: SmartLinks is an advertiser on this blog)

[EDIT] from the comments:

Smartlinks offers personalized Widgets for Netflix Queue, Amazon Wishlist, and Last.fm playlists. Each contains a SmartLink that allows you to monetize the content in a number of ways.

Compatible Versions: Up To WordPress 2.3.2Category: Widgets

Release Page | Download

Berri Technorati Reactions on Dashboard

WordPress 2.3 and above displays incoming links from Google Blog Search, this plugin displays you the Technorati Reactions of your blog in the Admin Dashboard.

Compatible Versions: WordPress 2.3 and above

Category: Administration

Release Page | Download