In a move that’s sure to shake up the way “premium” themes are licensed, Brian Gardner and Jason Schuller will be converting to open source licensing, and the GPL license. Combined, these two designers have grown to be some of the most acclaimed premium theme designers, both starting within the past year.
If you previously purchased any of the themes from either designer, you’ll continue to receive free support, as well as [potential] updates and new theme releases under the separate off-shoot of the current businesses.
At this point, I can’t say whether the reaction from the community is wholeheartedly for the new model, but in a month’s time, we’ll have to see what is brought to the table. Most likely, the model will be based off Ian Stewart’s and Justin Tadlock’s sites, starting with a main/parent (free) theme, and any support, upgrades, or add-on services will not be free. From this, more people will be introduced to their work, and more will likely feel inclined to purchase support/additional “child” themes. After all, the entire businesses of these two designers resides on the sales of their work.
To preserve the entire premise of premium themes, I’d hope that the free themes were just starter themes, rather than something that contains the full feature set, such as the backend customization options that many have. From this, the whole “magazine” look could be accomplished by plugging into a child theme; including all the add-on features. It would also mean that themes are much more easily customized, by people who are able to build upon the themes to use them to their full potential.
What do you think of this drastic shift in the licensing models of the two designers?
Links:
- Brian Gardner’s Announcement Post
- Jason Schuller’s Announcement Post
- Additional Commentary from Thord Daniel Hedengren, from The Blog Herald.
Notice: All themes that were in queue to be “released” have been published. I have placed notices at the top of each, stating that the theme will not be available after November 1, 2008, and that support will be provided for anyone who has/will purchase the themes up until the final date. If you like any of the themes currently available, now would be the time to buy them. According to Brian Gardner, you’ll be able to use single-use licenses on multiple sites from here on out.
Need premium video and multimedia themes for your website or your clients’ blogs? Now is the perfect time - you can purchase four of the premium themes that are offered - VideoFlick, VideoElements, TV.Elements, and On Demand for just $295 (original price of $850).
The offer only runs for five days, which started on September 17th.
Under the license of the theme package, you can use the themes on an unlimited number of websites, remove all footer/credit information, as well as on any website.
Check out the promotion at WPElements.com or go to Press75 to purchase the themes.
[Image via promotion page].
Over the past week, a number of interesting - both informative and useful posts were published throughout the blogosphere, which aim to help you create a better blog theme and website in general.
Check out these links below and feel free to share your thoughts or suggest others through the comments area.
- [How to] Create a Magazine-Style WordPress Theme - A rather basic, yet simple guide on how to properly create a magazine styled theme WordPress, creating a professional front page, with a first post followed by an unordered list of the archived posts.
- How to: Displaying Your Most Commented Posts - Code and instructions on how to add a “most commented” posts list within your sidebar, although it requires editing the theme code.
- Discussion on Premium WordPress Themes and Open Source Ethics - An ongoing discussion of the struggles of theme designers/users and clients over the use of a free, open-source blog system and the coding and distribution of premium themes.
- Using Blogger’s New Followers Feature - Instructions on how to properly use the rather new social tool on Google’s Blogger service, from Blogger Buster.
- WordPress Plugin Competition 2.5 Winners - WP Comment Remix, Manageable, and WP Easy Uploader were the top three winners of the competition, winning the top prize of $2000, production of a professionally recorded song, dedicated server for one year from iWeb, and a copy of the OIO Publisher Plugin.
- [Potentially] Big News from Brian Gardner and Jason Schuller - Sometime next (this) week, a new design/theme or entire concept will be released by this duo, who are considered top theme designers in the WordPress community.
- Easier Theme Development with the Sample Post Collection(s) [WP Candy] and [Self Conclusion]- Two designers have come out with collections of tags, posts, pages, categories, links, comments, and lists, as well as HTML elements for people that work with WordPress and potentially other blog platforms. You simply need to upload the XML files, and all Lorem Ipsum text is included.
- 75 (Really) Useful JavaScript Techniques - Techniques that both developers and designers can use in their modern web designs. Samples include hyphenation in web, Textboxlist Auto-Completion, Social History, and addSizes (checks the size of MP3 and PDF files on your page; from Smashing Magazine.
- Using WordPress as a CMS with Thematic [Series] - Step-by-step guide to using WordPress as a CMS using the Thematic theme framework - includes coding, best practices, plugins, and other tips to maximize the flexibility of your website/blog.
- 45 Beautiful and Creative WordPress Designs - Although there are literally hundreds of posts highlighting the best websites, this post contains clean, effective, and beautiful designs that you should be modeling your next site’s redesign after. {Posted on September 1}.
- The Renaissance Blog Designer - With the return of Vinh Le (from Blog Design Blog), he suggests that designers should also focus on improving themselves and their skills, including in PHP, MySQL, JavaScript and AJAX.
- Where to Position Ads in Your RSS Feed - From ProBlogger, this article discusses the best method (more from the design perspective) on how to monetize your RSS feed using Google AdSense or other advertising methods.
- 250+ Shiny and Free RSS Feed Icons - An immense collection of RSS icons for use on your blog or for design work.
- WordPress Logos and Graphics - I believe that the WordPress logos were updated, with additional images reflecting new changes in the design of the wordPress pages.
- WooThemes [The Showcase] - Take a look at the creative examples of sites that have been created using themes purchased from WooThemes.
You can take advantage of a fairly steep discount on all Theme Spinner purchases now through the end of October (October 30, 2008) using the discount code super102. Simply copy this code when you checkout to receive the 15% (previously 10%) discount.
Many of the Theme Spinner themes are vibrant, attractive, and ready for magazine-styled blogs, with advanced features that few other themes have.
Two of the premium themes designed by Theme Spinner are available on the Neko Standard and Shade Pro pages.
Theme Spinner Themes
Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to save between $4 and $19 on themes from Theme Spinner.
A new resource for WordPress theme fans has been created - WP Themes News, by Richard Cloutier. Similar to WP Source and several other sites, it showcases latest post links from sites, and upon hovering over the link, a short post excerpt will appear. However, much like the title, it focuses on sites that release free and premium themes, including WooThemes, Revolution Themes, Press75, FlyThemes, and others — keeping you in the know without requiring you to subscribe to each site.
Overall, the site is clean and well designed, with no advertisements displayed above the fold, plus little navigation in the main area of the site (a plus for feed aggregators - links to FAQ, About, and Contact pages are placed in bottom footer). You can also have your theme reviewed or purchase advertising for placement on the site.
Check out WPThemesNews today for the latest in developments from popular WordPress designers!
Earlier today, iThemes announced a new themes club, which includes all themes that have been previously available on the site, including some new ones (should the terms permit). Themes sold at iThemes normally cost between $29.95 to $199.95, however you can snag more than 16 of them in a special deal for just $399.95 — more than $900 in savings!
This package, which used to be referred to as the “Developer’s Package,” comes with several advantages over other similarly priced WordPress/other CMS themes clubs.
Themes Included in Package
Themes Included in the Package
All themes that have been previously been released and any new themes released through December 31, 2008 will become accessible through the purchase of this “ultimate” themes package/club.
- Blogging Success (Regularly $49.95) - With four different color schemes/variations, this is the perfect theme for people who want to jump start their new blog to success. Additional features include multiple page templates, a quick links section, video/featured content area, and search engine optimized code.
- Brochure (Regularly $29.95) - A clean and simple website-look, with seven pre-built color styles. It is ideal for personal consultants, coaches, and independent representatives.
- Business Card (Regularly $29.95) - The Business Card theme features a simple, three-column website look, along with seven pre-defined colors. It is the perfect theme for personal consultants, coaches, and independent representatives.
- Colonial Real Estate (Regularly $199.95) - A clean and organized theme built for real estate agents/clients. Includes drop-down navigation support, widget-ready areas, plus additional customization options.
- Corporate (Regularly $39.95) - A great theme for web 2.0 companies, consultants, coaches, and independent professionals alike, this theme provides a glossy web 2.0 look, home page featured areas, and six pre-built color styles for creating a successful business website.
- Deep Order (Regularly $199.95) - Ideal for web 2.0 businesses, software and technology companies, web hosts, and auto dealers. Features include a glossy web 2.0 look, drop-down menu navigation, multiple page layouts, and four different color schemes.
- Digital Gallery (Regularly $49.95) - A digital gallery theme for placing photographs and designs that you have created. It includes various options, such as automatic image resizing, a web 2.0 glossy look, two pre-built color styles, and four widget-ready areas for editing your sidebars.
- Ecommerce (Regularly $199.00) - The Ecommerce WordPress theme includes a featured product area, product thumbnails, and six color styles. It is ideal for anyone wanting to showcase and sell products on their own website.
- Essence (Regularly $199.95) - A feature-rich theme, ideal for small businesses, real estate agents, and churches. Is elegant and redefined, with drop-down menu navigation, multiple page layouts, and six color options.
- Grunge (Regularly $99.95) - A “grungy/dirty” contemporary look with three bottom featured areas, four pre-built color schemes; ideal for bands, musicians, and anyone looking for a dirty, yet modern theme.
- iCompany (Regularly $59.95) - One of the best themes for small businesses and corporations, this theme features a web 2.0 look, a wide layout for lots of content, drop-down navigation menus, and multiple page layouts.
- Industrial (Regularly $99.95) - The perfect theme for traditional businesses and technology firms, it includes a traditional business website appearance, drop-down menu navigation, multiple page layouts, and six pre-built color styles.
- iNews (Regularly $79.95) - iNews is a new release from iThemes, featuring a premium news layout, giving you maximum room to place your content and become exposed on the web. It allows you to highlight your content, post quick notes and links through built-in “asides,” upload a new logo through the backend, and also includes search engine optimized code.
- iReal Estate (Regularly $59.95) - A customizable and clean theme for building your real estate business or portfolio. Theme includes several widget-ready areas, drop-down navigation menus and more.
- Photo Gallery (Regularly $29.95 each; $49.95 for five-in-one package) - The photo gallery series (regularly $49.95 for five different styles) includes designs suited for creative works with clean lines and two different color styles with each theme variation. One of the best themes available as a portfolio for photographers, web designers, artists, graphic designers, or anyone else that wants to showcase their creative work online.
- Proximity News (Regularly $119.95) - Feature-packed, the Proximity News Theme, designed by Nathan Rice, is one of the most advanced themes available. It is in collaboration with iThemes and Nathan Rice, and can also be purchased along with the iNews Theme (if not included in this all-inclusive package).
- Viz | Biz Portfolio (Regularly ($199.95) - The Viz | Biz Portfolio theme is another theme that allows you to showcase your work in a creative manner, with automatic image resizing, integrated blog area, four featured content boxes, a graphical/customizable header, and provides an easy way for prospective clients to contact you.
Features and Bonuses Included
Many of these features/bonuses would normally add fees onto your purchase price, however you can get them for free when you purchase the all-inclusive themes package.
- More than 16 Themes: This themes collection includes all themes released to date, including additional ones that may be released in the future. More than $900 in savings when you purchase them all together!
- Lifetime Theme Upgrades: With each theme update/upgrade, you will be delivered a download to update your theme, as long as it is offered on the site.
- Multiple-Use Licenses: You can use the themes on an unlimited number of websites/blogs - for personal and client use. However, you may not resell or redistribute the themes for profit, only as part of a site’s design/content.
- Themes for Every Purpose and Need: iThemes has created a strong brand, with themes that fill multiple niches, from personal to corporate to multimedia (photography) sites and beyond. They truly have nearly every niche covered with themes that will blow your visitors away!
- Complimentary Support Included: Support is included to help you install and customize your theme to suit the needs of your website, through email, chat, or forum support.
- Free Unbranded Tutorial Videos for Clients: If your clients who are going to start using WordPress need help setting up their blog/site, you are provided these complimentary tutorial videos. In the series, you are provided videos on:
- How to Login to the WordPress Dashboard
- How to Write a Post
- How to Write a Page
- How to Edit Posts/Pages
- How Widgets Work
- How to Moderate Comments
- WordPress Settings Overview
- How to Upgrade WordPress using the Automatic Upgrade Plugin
- How to Add New Users/Members
- How to Change/Activate Different Themes
Terms and Additional Notes
License Details: All themes released from January 1 to December 31, 2008 will be included in the package. You may use each theme on multiple websites, but you may not resell the themes as templates.
Upgrade Details: If you purchased themes prior to the themes club release, you may “upgrade” to the themes club for the difference between your original purchases and this themes club. For example, if you purchased the Viz | Biz Portfolio Theme ($199.95), you will only need to pay $200 to access unlimited themes and future releases. You must have proof of payment (PayPal) in order to be able to access the “cash-back” deal.
Themes: All themes sold by iThemes are high end, feature rich, widget-ready, and user friendly.
Payments: Payments are completed through PayPal or Google Checkout, which both make it easy to pay securely using credit cards.
Check out the iThemes Themes Club today to take advantage of this great opportunity!
The WordPress blog platform is one of the most questioned “content management system.” While it does require plugins to be considered a full-fledged content system, more and more people are trying to help promote the system as a true system for multi-purpose websites.
Recently, the team over at iThemes created a new site titled “Showcasing WordPress as a Content Management System”, found here.
The website’s main purpose is to help their clients, and anyone, for that matter, discover the WordPress blogging platform and use it for more than just blogging. After all, it is now being used in many of the world’s most popular websites. It has proven to be flexible and robust enough to manage some of the world’s most content-rich websites and portals.
Within the website, there are resources, basics on what a Content Management System (CMS) is, and themes built upon the system. You can even suggest websites to add to the Showcase page.
In addition to the facts used within the site, there are badges available for placing on your website, licensed under a Creative Commons License.
I like the main idea of the site, as I believe that with each update of WordPress, the entire system is becoming easier and more flexible to build nearly any type of website. We’ve seen a fair share of media sites built for videos, galleries, images, and more. Some sites even use WordPress for “Digg-like” or ecommerce functionality. In this sense, what you can do with WordPress is nearly unlimited, and we’ll continue to see its evolution into what everyone will be able to call a true CMS.
As a mere two weeks have passed since the last release of WordPress, version 2.7 (and possibly bug fixes, in versions 2.6.1 and so on), much like the current version, will include a significant number of key features which set the open source blogging system apart from others.
While all the features listed below won’t be included in the next release, they have been placed under consideration, and if they do not appear in the next release, they will surely end up in a later version.
Features that Will Likely Be Included
- Comments API - This feature would allow developers to create software or applications for managing WordPress users’ comments. Features of the desktop/online application software could include the ability to moderate, edit, reply, delete, spam, and mark comments as not spam.
- Keyboard Shortcuts for Comment Moderation - The addition of keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation would allow users to quickly manage comments - using standard keyboard combinations to mark comments as spam, not spam, approve, or edit all or individual comments.
- Theme Update API - Themes that have recently been updated would receive a notification in the Theme Admin area, so theme developers could quickly have users update their theme based on enhancements and updates to their themes, similar to the way plugin updating currently takes place.
- One-Click Plugin Installs - The One Click Plugin would be integrated into WordPress, which allows you to easily install (possibly uninstall) a plugin.
- WordPress Core Updates - This feature will allow users to easily update their version of WordPress, similar to the Automatic Upgrade plugin.
- Default Sitemaps - Google XML sitemaps would automatically be created, without the need of additional plugins.
- Admin Panel Comment Replies - WordPress blog administrators would be able to reply to comments within the admin panel, similar to several plugins that are currently available. This is another time saving and productivity-boosting enhancement, likely available in the next release of WordPress.
- Comment Threading - Comment threading would allow users to reply to other comments, much like Brian’s Threaded Comments.
- Subscribe to Comments - A checkbox would appear beneath each comment box, allowing you to subscribe to comments. This feature may not make it into version 2.7, however.
- Widgets for Dashboard and Write Box - Users would be able to rearrange the areas of the Write Post page - tags, categories, and so on as well as boxes on the Dashboard page. Widgets could also be integrated into these areas by the blog administrator.
- Batch Editing of Posts - Blog owners could easily edit posts; possibly add, remove, or change tags, categories, post title, and post date similar to the WordPress Admin Xtended plugin (except for batch editing).
Features that May/May Not Be Included
- Removal of Old/Unused Code - This would have optimized the code used in WordPress, possibly speeding up load time of blogs/admin panels.
- Most Popular 10 Shortcodes from WordPress.com - This eliminates the need to include lengthy and “ugly” code in your posts, instead using [audio] to convert an mp3 file to an audio player.
- oEmbed Support, Tied in with Shortcodes - Allows bloggers to embed third party content by simply using a URL of that page. It eliminates the need to use the embed code directly on a site.
- Better UI for post revisions, possibly an optional field to say what has changed in a version - An easier way to travel back to a saved version of a post, without the need to go onto different pages to see what has been modified.
- Frame-Like Method for Moderating Pings/Trackbacks - An additional area (?) would be placed in the comment moderation area, for moderating trackbacks/pings.
- oAuth Support - Support for an open protocol that allows secure API authentication in a simple and standard method from desktop and web applications.
- GeoData for posts, comments, attachments, and more - GeoData would display the originating location of each of the items applied to - comments, attachments, and so on.
- Duplicate Post Tags UI for other taxonomies - Unknown - possibly allows a unique naming structure for posts with duplicate names.
- SWFUploader support for Flash 10 - Image and media uploader would have been upgraded to a more recent version.
- Template tags to do everything the custom gallery on ma.tt does - This feature would allow more flexibility and customization of galleries, including tagging, random images, photo information, and better gallery management.
- Plugin Browser Embedded - This feature would allow users to find new plugins directly from their admin panel, possibly through the use of a search box directly on the Plugin Management page.
- CodePress code highlighting for template editing - Allows you to quickly differentiate between CSS, HTML, PHP, JavaScript, and so on while editing templates.
- PHPXref Hosted on WordPress.org - A developer tool that makes it fast and easy to browse large segments of code documentation and the code itself.
- Tag intersections; all posts that have tag x and y - (already done)
- Menu Editor - Easily update and customize menus (admin or contained within blog) without the need of additional plugins.
- Separate Large and Full Size Images, related improvements - Improvements to the way images (full, large, small, thumbnail) are created, with the additional formats for larger images.
- Unbalanced Tags Across More and TextPage Tags - Unknown.
- Refresh of the Importers - Updates and changes to the media/plugin importers.
- MPTT for Hierarchies - (Modified Preorder Tree Traversal) for storing hierarchal data in a database.
- Gallery post_type - A separate page for galleries (?), or a template for adding images/galleries.
- Versioning of Template Edits - Allows coders and users alike to see changes to the templates, in the case that errors arise or changes need to be documented.
- Documentation links for functions used in currently edited template - Links back to codex (?) for tags and functions used in the template, making it easier to update and customize the template.
Quick Links and Sources: WordPress 2.7 Demo | WordPress Trac Roadmap | WordPress Codex - Version 2.7 | Weblog Tools Collection (Updates)
Conclusion
Nearly all of the eleven or so features and enhancements that are likely going to make it into the next release of WordPress would eliminate the need for additional plugins that many bloggers are using to simplify everyday steps - updating WordPress, installing plugins, adding sitemaps, and so on. Again, it is a good thing to see these features working their way into the default installation of WordPress, as it continues to involve into a more powerful and feature-rich content management system.
Some of the features that won’t likely make it into this version I was a little disappointed that they are being left out, including the optimization of the old/unused code, shortcodes, and gallery post_type, to name a few.
Since the last roundup, several great articles and new versions of plugins and themes have been released, including a significant release of WordPress, 2.6 (Tyner), nearly a month ahead of schedule. While the upgrade wasn’t completely smooth by many users, the many features appear to be greatly beneficial to people who were anxiously anticipating them for some time, specifically Press This!, Post Revisions, Shift Gears, and Theme Previews.
Matt Mullenweg posted stats (July 24th) on the number of downloads since WordPress 2.6 was released, which are quite astounding.
- There have been around 23 thousand downloads per day. (Of just the English version.)
- According to the update system there are 201 thousand blogs using 2.6 already.
- That’s about 9% of all known WordPress.org blogs in 10 days.
- The video in the announcement post has been viewed 665,080 times.
- There have been over 300 themes submitted to the new Theme directory, which launched just 6 days ago.
- In the same period (10 days) there were 579,871 downloads of 2,527 plugins.
Noupe created a list of 40+ Tutorials, Tips, Demos, and Best Practices, which serves as a dramatic example of ways to effectively use CSS to create a powerful and flexible website (either WordPress or XHTML).
Secondly, they also created a collection of 40+ Extremely Beautiful Fonts Hand-Picked from deviantART. The fonts range from simple to grunge-type formats.
With the WordPress Theme Directory, now at 51 themes and more than 47,000 downloads, Jeff Chandler of Performancing created a Guided Tour of the WordPress Theme Directory. It is an in-depth look at the features and layout of the new theme directory.
Smashing Magazine created a Study of Big Blogs, which simply highlights the most-used elements - number of columns, alignment, type of layout, width of fixed layout, and typography. The findings represent the trends, not what is recommended for your individual site/blog.
Here is a brief look at their findings:
- large blogs require a multi-column layout solution (usually 3 columns suffice) (58%);
- layouts are usually centered (94%),
- layouts usually have a fixed width (px-based) (92%),
- the width of the fixed layout varies between 951 and 1000px (56%),
- 58% of the overall site layout is used to display the main content,
- CSS-layouts are used (90%),
- the background is light, the body text is dark (98%)
The Weblog Tools Collection WordPress Plugin Competition 2.5 has nearly finished, and it is time to vote on the plugins (after you test and use them). Deadline has not yet been set.
In the most recent plugin releases, WineX, a lightweight script will import the listing contents of your CellarTracker (a tool to record your own notes), Hidden Content, able to show or hide text for bots, logged-in users, or all visitors, and the GD Star Rating plugin, for adding a rating system to pages and/or posts. Several other useful plugins are included in the post.
A guest post on Hack WordPress explains, in easy-to-follow steps How To Create an Archive Page for your WorrdPress Blog. This is useful if your theme doesn’t come pre-styled with an archives page template or would like to style one on your own. You can also win one of two licenses to the NewsPro 2.0 Theme, simply by commenting on the post.
Ian Stewart of Theme Shaper released the premium Travailler theme (soon to be reviewed here), which works with the Thematic WordPress Theme Framework, hooks and filters, designed for professional websites as a CMS theme.
