Hot on the heals of the initial release of my Grayplicity Wordpress theme, I’m presenting you with v1.1. I wanted to get this one out quickly to address a couple small issues, and improve the usability of the theme. 1.2 will be a little further out probably, as I’d like to do some more AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) work with it, which will take more time to build in (commenting, integrated ThickBox, search, etc).
Full details and a download link can be found on the Grayplicity project page. You can find it by clicking that link, or by hitting the button at the top of the sidebar, or by going through the Projects page link in the header. Some of the changes for this version include:
If you are using 1.0, I recommend upgrading to this version. You shouldn’t notice any breakage, and will find several things have been improved. If you have questions related to this release, feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me (though comments can benefit everyone and are encouraged). Also, I will try to answer questions regarding the theme as they come in. If something looks out of whack, or you want to know why something won’t display properly, I will attempt to help. Some tweaks were made for 1.1 based on these kinds of questions.
Okay, the time has come. I am ready to release the first version of Grayplicity out into the wild. I even managed to release it right on time when I said I would, too! Grayplicity is the public release version of the theme that I am using on my blog here. I decided that I wanted to try my hand at making it into something everyone could use, if so inclined. This theme should have no problem working between Wordpress 2.3.3 and 2.5.
Feel free to leave me comments and feedback on it. Also please point out bugs. I will use all the feedback to improve and build a better theme. I’m sure a lot of you will be trying things I won’t have even thought of. I plan on adding support for a lot more of the more popular plugins, as well as building in some neat new features.
Also, if you download it and decide that it is something you’ll stick with, let me know. I’m curious how people will put it to use, and I’ll be sure to showcase the best ones on the theme’s page. You can get to it by clicking that big button on top of my sidebar or by going through the “Projects” page.
If you want to test it out, you might like to give it a run with my Wordpress Content Framework, which is designed to serve as a test bed for theme and site development. You can also use the WPCF when designing your own themes.
With the debut of my new theme, I have decided that I will go ahead and make it available as a downloadable theme for Wordpress 2.5. This will take some time, as obviously I want to make sure everything works, and take out all the stuff that makes it specific to me. This also raised the question of what about people who do things that I don’t? Building a theme custom to one’s needs is one thing, but making something that is flexible to everyone’s is another.
To address this, the answer was simple. Development Sandbox. Easy enough. But the kicker was content. I needed a good base of different content, formatting elements, comments, categories, etc. On the Wordpress Theme Viewer, they have just such a site set up. When you test themes, a bunch of test data is displayed in the theme so that you can see how different elements interact with it. But, to my surprise, there was no where that you could download this data at to load into your own site. No demo site database, no Wordpress eXtended RSS (WXR) file floating around, and no one seemed to have an idea of where you could get it.
Some suggested copying my current site. Others just said to toss some junk in. Quasi-reasonable, both answers, but that’s not a good solution. I want something consistent that I can use over and over. Using my own site content isn’t a good idea, because I doubtlessly do things that others don’t, and don’t do things they do. Random content isn’t thought out enough, and might miss some elements that need to be tested. My solution was to create my own site, complete with seeded content to test formatting and display. It comes with pages and sub-pages, categories and sub-categories. There are comments, there are formatting elements. In short, most everything to make sure that you get all your formatting elements covered when designing a Wordpress theme.
I also want to make this available to everyone, and will endeavor to keep it up and make it better as needs grow. Please, feel free to make comments or suggestions, and I’ll incorporate new things into it as they are made. I will also entertain the idea of creating an entire SQL file of a site, for those wishing to go that route rather than importing WXR files. WXR files are limited in what they can contain, so it won’t bring in things like blog names, descriptions, links, link categories, and other such things.
This is version 1.0 of the SuperSatellite WordPress Content Framework (WPCF for short). It is being made available as a Wordpress eXtended RSS file, which you can import into your empty Wordpress install through the Import page under Manage in Wordpress 2.5. I created and tested this in 2.5, though it may work in other versions. If you try it with others, let me know if it does or does not work.
Changelog
Hey look, the theme is done! At least, done enough that I’m ready to start taking feedback. Use the comment form below for that. Even if it’s just to say “neat colors” or “I h8 u kthxdie.” But really, feel free to let me know what does and doesn’t work for you. I’ve tried keeping things simple, but engaging enough to make it worth looking at. I’ll also consider making it into a downloadable theme, if people are interested anyway. But I am very interested in what you think of it. I’m not really a designer at heart, but I do think this is a big improvement over the last layout. I have one more change slated for the main frontpage, but I’m battling a vicious, nasty little bug, and I’m not gonna hold up the theme because of it, so that part’ll get done when it gets done.
I have not yet upgraded my blog to the famed Wordpress 2.5. No, instead, I am taking the cautious route for a change, which is a little unusual for me since I normally am not afraid of being bleeding edge. The thing is, I am dependent on a couple plugins I’d rather not lose. And having just finished this theme, I want to make sure all the hooks and functions I call aren’t being deprecated. I did help a buddy get going in 2.5 last week though, and it looks okay. I just wish they’d done more with care towards backwards compatibility. In the end, once I upgrade, you actually shouldn’t notice. So, you probably don’t really care. Sorry to waste your time on this paragraph. I love you for it though.
On that note, am I the only one that doesn’t like the WordPress site? It always feels like content is out of date/sync with other parts, and the support areas are painful to navigate and find what you need. I feel like I get led in circles a lot. And the forums always come across very hostile, even those users marked as “moderators.” That might just be me, but it always seems like for every question with a good answer, there is one with a snarky one and one with no anwsers. But, at least the wiki has good information, which is all I normally need. But if you want my advice, avoid their forums like the plague, and if you can’t, don’t even dare asking a remotely vague-ish question.
I am continuing to try to stick with an active social web presence. My attempt to live mostly through my NetVibes page didn’t go so great though, but I can say it’s sped things up in a couple places at least. It’s just that there’s too frequently not enough info in the feeds I’m reading, so I find myself visiting the sites about as much as always. I did do a new thing in the sidebar for my blog though, with the integration of Profilactic. Which is nothing like what you might think. It has nothing to do with sex that I have discovered (so far), and trust me, I’m looking. It’s a site designed for lifestreaming. That is, coordinating feeds from all your various social web stomping grounds. You can also use it like I did at the right to make a nice link list that can be styled up so people can see you in other areas. Then it adds pretty icons and all that jazz without you needing to screw with it (well, technically you do have to screw with it if you don’t like their default styling, which I didn’t, but it’s classed well and can be changed with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) easily). At the site, it then creates a mash up of all the sites’ RSS feeds that you can send to people who want to keep with you on various fronts, but at one source. One feed to rule them all, one feed to bind them. Stupid hobbitses.
So I am nearing a crossroads I believe. I want to toss some stuff out, and have you all hit it back at me. This is all about getting feedback from you, because that will ultimately shape the decision I make.
I’ve been using MySpace for what is quickly approaching a year. It’s been an okay time. But I’m becoming a little restless with its blogging feature. Mostly I just get paranoid. What happens if they crash? If they start charging? If some unforeseen nuclear disaster takes out my blog? I am pretty protective of my writing, so far to the point that I have actually begun printing off hard copies “just in case.” Plus, who hasn’t gotten fed up with the constant down times, errors, and server problems MySpace experiences? The big draw of MySpace to me is the blogging, which I rather enjoy, and now that I am far more comfortable with it, and my readership has grown, I feel like I owe it to you and myself to produce the best product I can.
So, in answer to this problem I am considering hosting my own blog, with my own domain and all. It would allow me to also combine some other stuff I have scattered around, like my photo gallery. I have been trying to weigh pros and cons, look at alternatives, etc etc. A big concern though is whether or not you, my steady readers, would follow me. If I went off-site, would I still be able to maintain (and possibly increase) my readership. Odds are I would step the quality of my writing up to try and offset things, but naturally MySpace provides a very nice connection to you all. And since they lack support for subscribing to RSS feeds, you couldn’t just point to my feed to keep up to date (I think LiveJournal and Xanga does though, can anyone confirm that?) if I moved.
The other alternative is to move to a truly hosted solution, like Blogger or Wordpress. They host it, sorta like MySpace, but since they specialize in blogging, it’s more powerful, reliable, and feature rich. But it doesn’t leave the data in my hands, and I like the idea of knowing that if something happened to my stuff, if would be my fault, rather than theirs. On the other hand, I’m linked right to their community, similar to here.
Naturally I would keep my MySpace page, and probably mirror the blog content for at least a short transition phase, all the while trying to drive traffic to the new place. It comes down to the three S’s: selfhost, stay, or switch? It’s a damn hard question to answer really. I am inclined to start doing things myself. I installed WordPress on my server at home to play with, that will probably shape my choice too depending on how much I like it. I hate tossing around buzz words like Web 2.0, but I guess that’s what I’m reaching for.
So let me know what you think, it’s important to me!
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