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 […]

WordPress 2.5 Delayed a Week: According to this milestone in the WordPress Trac, 2.5 is delayed by a week or even more. There is a lot of work being done on styling, bug fixes and open tickets and even though the milestone is delayed to 3/17/08, a well polished release will be more appreciated and will be better for the community than a rush to release. In the meantime, Lorelle is tapping her feet waiting for the new release and Six Apart is trying to make waves in the wake of WordPress 2.5. Ozh is happy to have the chance to fix some more plugins, Tadd provides some sage advice to people complaining about the wait. I am very excited about this release and what it brings to the table and will be upgrading as soon as I can. While we are on the subject, in reading through the comments […]

With WordPress 2.5 due to be released today (Hooray!) now would be a good time to go through a series of upgrade checks to see if your blog is ready for 2.5. Lorelle Van Fossen has written up an excellent article on the BlogHerald in regards to the pre upgrade checks you should perform. These include disabling and or removing old plugins, updating themes and plugins, validation, and checking for compatibilities. Going through this series of pre-flight checks as some would say, will help you prepare for a smooth upgrade process. I know I’ll be one of the first to upgrade my blog when I have the chance. When will you upgrade yours? *Note* WordPress 2.5 was TENTATIVELY  scheduled to be release on March 10th, 2008. However, it looks like it’s not ready for production treatment and thus, has not been released.

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

With all of the recent discussion regarding trackbacks and pingbacks on Weblog Tools Collection, I thought I’d mention several ways one can deal with trackbacks and pingbacks in the context of a WordPress theme. The topics I will be covering in this article are on separating trackbacks/pingbacks from regular comments, and also how to remove trackbacks and pingbacks from a WordPress theme completely. Separating Trackbacks/Pingbacks From Comments I know what you’re thinking: numerous posts have already been written on how to separate trackbacks from comments. But what I present here is an actual separation using the “functions.php” feature for WordPress themes along with the regular “comments.php“. Both should be located in your theme directory. Figure 1: Theme Directory Setup Modifying the functions.php File The “functions.php” file is a lifesaver for any theme developer or tinkerer wishing to add custom code or functions to themes. The code in the “functions.php” file […]

Stats Helper Functions And Widgets It helps you retrieve data from wordpress.com stats and puts it on your blog. Release Page | Download SEO Image This plugin will optimize images in all your posts for SEO which will positively affect your image search results resulting in more traffic to your blog. Release Page | Download LocalCurrency Shows currency values to readers in their local currency (in brackets after the original value). For example: If the site’s currency is Chinese yuan and the post contains 10 yuan, a user from Australia will see 10 yuan (AUD$1.53), while a user from US will see 10 yuan (USD$1.39). Release Page | Download Organize Series Plugin 2.0 OrgSeries 2.0 takes the “organize” in Organize Series to a whole new level. Release Page | Download Devowelizer The Devowelizer plugin for WordPress replaces the vowels in most “bad language” within your own content and within comments […]

Who Comments on Blogs, and Why?: I realize there is a selection problem here: anyone who responds to my question about why commenters comment is, alas, a commenter. Which means that regular commenters will be overrepresented in the comments — unless, of course, a whole bunch of you who never comment decide to go ahead and log in and, in the comments section, tell us why you never comment. Or why other people do. I love the topic of this post on Freakonomics at the New York Times Blog. There is a lot of food for thought. There are many reasons to leave a comment on a blog and the ability of readers to leave comments on a blog and the instant interaction and conversation that develops, is what attracted me to b2 and consequently WordPress. I tend to not comment on blogs where the comment form is hard to […]

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 […]