Theme pack upgrade requests
Also, we'll be adding in:
- Image alignment code (so that native WP alignment works on all themes)
- Gallery styling (so native galleries look nice)
- Caption styling (so native image captioning also looks nice)
Help & Support from WPMU Dev members and staff
Woot! The increased attention to theme consistency as of late is making user support a bit easier.
This is fantastic. I'm eagerly looking forward to this update! Thanks guys!
By "Image alignment code", you mean the css fixes, correct?
http://codex.wordpress.org/Wrapping_Text_Around_Images
Add to that:
- Make sure each theme has a wp_footer and wp_head or whatever they're called.
There were a couple of other things as well but I don;t have my notes today.
Is it possible to make a theme pack that is missing the standard footers? So that it doesn't come with any text just the wp_footer hook?
That way we don't have to edit out those lines ourselves.
Thanks!
Gotta admit that I'm torn on that myself. While we remove the WordPress links, we're big on leaving the theme designer's credit link.
We do out "Hosted by..." links via a script though. Randomize it a bit with multiple lines so Google pays a bit of attention to it.
You can keep the credits there as long as it is the same on every theme. Easy to do a find/replace. One theme that has flowers on it breaks when a widget doesn't have a title. And a few are missing wp_footers.
Its probably something you wouldn't consider but the wpsearchmu plugin which seems to work quite well needs a blog switch putting in the got posts loop. Now obviously that only needs to go into the search.php file but a quite a lot of themes don't have a search.php file (and default to using index.php or so I've been told). So are there any plans to create search.php files in the themes where they're missing?
Thanx guys :)
If you can highlight the themes with issues like:
"One theme that has flowers on it breaks when a widget doesn't have a title. And a few are missing wp_footers."
That'd be great!
In terms of footers, much as I see the attraction of being able to control them entirely by the hook, I feel like it just wouldn't be right to remove theme author links.
But we'll make it as easy as possible for you to do so if you wish :)
Cheers, James
You know what would be great? If there was one .po file to translate ALL themes. Most themes have similar lines anyway.
But I guess I know too little to know if it's possible. I don't even know how to translate a theme if there's no .po file in the dir.
@James: I understand what your saying, but whatever you can do would be appreciated.
I would like an en_US language file in every theme so that I can go to it and translate, saving them to my language name. I think it would make them very easy to translate.
I would like this feature for plugins aswell. I now do file edits.
Off topic, but if the language file thing comes true I can submit swedish language files. Maybe someone else can do german etc. That way all plugins and themes can be served in said languages.
Plus an update option for these themes would be great ("There's a new version of this theme" thing). When a new package is released, the themes that have been updated in it can have a notify in the admin panel. It's not only good for users but also for you guys since former members might want to sign up again to update.
Hi guys.
As Qlof said: I would like an en_US language file in every theme so that I can go to it and translate, saving them to my language name. I think it would make them very easy to translate. Off topic, but if the language file thing comes true I can submit Spanish language files.
Thanks.
Not sure we'll be able to provide language files with every theme guys - but we'll take a look.
Although we should add in similar tags across all themes:
http://premium.wpmudev.org/forums/topic/suggestion-theme-groupsfolders?replies=2#post-15134
Themes Mandigo, Oceanwide and Vertigo (all have uploadable custom headers)
Adding custom headers to themes pack, or at least half of it, would be great.
Thanks.
Hey, James
I vote for the following:
* One or more highly customizable theme(s) like Thesis - http://diythemes.com/
* One or more drag'n'drop 'layout editors' like Canvas - http://code.google.com/p/canvas-for-wordpress/
* A 'theme constructor' like http://www.easywebtutorials.com/blogging-tutorial/diy/step1.php or http://www.yvoschaap.com/wpthemegen/
Good challenge, huh? ;)
Thanks for teh feedback guys.
I agree, a drag and drop - especially from the front end - theme would be very very cool.
As would a thesis-esque one.
I agree with cbriere. My users are mostly interested in custom header images.
It's a deal, if they can have custom headers (i.e. they have a space for it) then they will have them :)
@James
Thanks!
It's a deal, if they can have custom headers (i.e. they have a space for it) then they will have them :)
Thanks, James. You guys are awesome. :-)
Weren't we also talking about a footer widget space?
edit: I'm actually torn on such an item as it seems like wp-footer is in different places on different themes. Some designers place it within the bottom image of the theme while others realize that the hook is really for javascripts and the like that go right before the closing body tag and therefore will display anything after the bottom image.
A few ideas for theme pack
- There are some absolutely gorgeous "new" themes out there - professionally designed - so perhaps the 100 pack could grow beyond to becoming a150 or 200 pack
- Magazine Themes - for large magazine style websites - perfect for mu
- Portfolio Themes - for displaying portfolios of multiple Artists who have blogs on the mu site, etc.
- Music Themes - I am not sure if this actually exists - but would be awesome for Music muBlogs where multiple Musicians can share their music, band, art / content, etc - edublog style
- Collections - There may be other "Collections / Portfolio" type themes like above for other Niches / Genres - which would be perfect for running a mu setup using edublog type backend.
I agree, adding many new themes would be a great plus!
Making sure any fields or textareas go through the kses filter would also be a plus.
I really like the edu-clean theme for the page where people sign up for their blog. However I would really like to see something like http://blogs.mu/
More themes like the DIXI, TRIDEN and NELO for customers which are all highly customizable.
And as 'amirbq' mentions Magazine, Portofolio and Music themes.
You guys provide a great service!
Well completely off the top of my head, a user in our network was using the Tarski theme and was noticing that any user who was placing a comment was finding that the comment was appearing under the wrong blog post.
We managed to put this down to the recent posts plugin believe it or not - but obviously is a bug of some sorts.
Perhaps we just had an old version of the theme....i dunno!
Known issue for eons:
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/tarski-theme-has-lost-my-comments
I remembered that one from eons ago that I had forgotten. Make sure the individual Post pages (single.php?) have the Next/Previous Post links in there.
Thanks very much fella - Iwhy has it never been fixed if it's been an issue since 2006 that's what I wanna know!!
It showed up on edublogs a few days ago as well.
Can we get all the divs to be the same name between the different themes? Like all of the left sidebars be named the same, the main body area, etc.
Well you asked. ;)
Can we get all the divs to be the same name between the different themes? Like all of the left sidebars be named the same, the main body area, etc.
Another vote!
Kind of joking when I said that. Would make dealing with those who switch between themes while using the css editor a lot happier.
I would also appreciate that... but the amount of work needed to do it... scary thoughts.
OMG, that would be a lot of work :) Maybe in the release after the next one?
If you could do it, whenever you do, it would be a life-saver!
The Farms 100 big pack was updated 2009-8-14 but Mandingo version is outdated, as mandingo is now in 1.41. Could you look for the most recent versions of all packages?
Looks like 1.3.9 works fine for mu:
http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/topic/10208/page/2#post-62289
Do remember Retos, that if it;s a wordpress theme, it may or may not work on wordpress multiuser. There's a couple of wp.com themes that are years ago because the designer added in features that either don't work on wpmu or would be security risks on this platform.
We're using the edublogs Cutline variation default theme (with some minor default widget text edits) as our default theme for the Tripawds Blogs community. A member just pointed out, and we confirmed that when you click the "view" link in the WP Media Library, the following error occurs ...
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /home/tripawds/public_html/wp-content/themes/default/attachment.php on line 33
So, testing further with another blog and theme (Garland 1.0) clicking the same Media Library view link generates a blank white page with no error.
If these issues are theme related, fixes would be just dandy in the upcoming release. If not, I'll gladly start a new topic seeking feedback. But images viewed just fine with a few other themes, so methinks it has to do with these themes.
And oh yeah, if Mandigo could be updated to render a clean looking wp-signup page, well that would be just grand as well.
Many thanks for all the hard work!
No worries, we'll be cleaning everything up, upgrading all themes and generally looking lively :)
"There are some absolutely gorgeous "new" themes out there - professionally designed - so perhaps the 100 pack could grow beyond to becoming a150 or 200 pack"
This is probably my biggest request as well. I think many of the themes in the 100 pack are pretty far outdated in terms of look and design when compared to what is out there today.
I would love to see 25 or 50(or more) new themes added which are more in line with what is currently being released.
With the current themes there are very few which I use.
Cant wait for the new pack!
It would be awesome to have a theme that has a lot of customization options built in, such as Vigilance. http://themes.jestro.com/vigilance/download/
It would need a few modifications, such as being able to upload the custom header through the dashboard such as with Cutline.
I think a theme like Vigilance that the users are able to change the color scheme, add a logo, add rotating/custom header, and other options would be awesome.
3-5 customizable themes such as that would be better than 50 standard themes IMO.
They might be not that delighted if we re-released it as it's a premium theme - do unto others as you would etc.
But I agree, highly customizable themes are up there on the list.
Yeah, probably not James lol. They have a free version but probably stilll not the best idea. Something similar to it would be awesome though.
OK, here's a taster, we've still got a long way to go but there will be 33 new themes added to the pack :)
Also we'll literally be improving all these themes so that they have custom headers, threaded comments, internationalization and other cool bits which they don't originally have.
So it *will* still be some time but I figured I'd give you an update.
Sounds good James.
When you upgrade, do you think you can list the new themes? I don't know about everybody else but I only use a part of the themes (mainly because I have to translate all of them myself) and if there are new I'd like to look at them and not go through all themes.
Please make sure the 2.8 specific code is in there. ie the Switch around the comments code.
Reference: http://edublogs.org/forums/topic.php?id=8155
Description Tagging the themes if not done so already would be a plus.
Can I also second the comments of jcnjr
And also, for what it's worth, we're currently getting this W3C error from a guy of ours using the Cutline theme (it's causing the post not to display):
end tag for "div" omitted
I realise this isn't necessarily a place for bugs but thought it was worth raising it for when you do re-release the theme pack
Cheers
Thanks for noting that, we'll look into it as part of the work.
Oh, here's something that I've just found out today
Using the global footer content plugin, I've inserted our logo into the footer of every blog. However, I've noticed that on some themes within the pack (Garland for example), the image doesn't display in the footer at all - at least it doesn't appear at the foot of the page.
It may well technically "in the footer" but it actually displays at the bottom of the right hand sidebar. Unfortunately I can't give you a URL as an example because it's behind log in at the minute, but it would be exaceptionally handy if the new pack corrected this issue and anything placed within the footer actually appeared at the footer of the page
Cheers :)
that depends on the theme.
the footer is displayed where the get_footer() function is called.
check a theme where its not displayed properly, open footer.php and check where the get_footer(0 function is placed. try changing its location.
In ref to another of my comments, about the Cutline theme, it seems like that may have been a plugin issue. What one, I'm not sure - if I find out, I'll get back to you!
I have to admit, it is annoying when the footer is (like with Garland, and Fjords and others) essentially in the sidebar, we'll see if we can create some new 'bottoms' for them.
FYI: Just discovered another theme with an annoying floating footer...
> Theme: Sweet Blossoms by TalkXHTML.
No reply necessary.
Customizable header.
Ok to run adsharing and similar plugins on.
Maybe some premium themes that are more customizable than others. Hey, alot of us run the supporter plugin ;).
The greatest feature ever would be to have all themes look in the same .po(.mo file. That way those common words would be translated once instead of 100 times by us international users. Right now I select the best themes and translate them, and I basically get every theme that already has a swedish translation.
I'm not sure how hard this update would be to do. The language files would have to be in wp-content/themes and the textdomain would have to be the same on all of them. Not sure if you can load a themes textdomain not located in the themes dir... BUT just doing this would cause all those 100 "Home" translation lines to be 100 different lines. So yeah... I don't think it's even possible.
Customizable header.
Actually I believe most of the themes that can have the changeable header already have it.
Except for Kubrick of course.
Internationalization with a textdomain is important to me. I dont seem to be able to add it myself with the textdomain script like I do with plugins. Therefor I can't use any themes that doesn't have textdomain.
+1 for Internationalization, that's a function that every future release should have, sure mit textdomain :)
Oui, je souhaite que l'internationalisation. :)
Here's another thought... Confirming that no themes have direct calls to wp-signup.php will help those of us battling splogs by renaming that file.
Forgive me if this has already been suggested.
Having the displayed author's name be what they selected and not the choice of the theme developer.
Found the old todo list in case you um misplaced it, James:
FYI: It appears that Borderline Chaos (1.9) does not recognize users as logged in and requires name, email, and url to be entered for comments, even from logged in users.
Here's another thought... some of the most popular search queries we – and I'm sure most MU sites – receive is, "Powered by WordPress MU" usually along with words like weight loss or insurance. And this is found in most theme footers. So what about re-wording that to something less known by sploggers? Say, "Driven by WPMU" or something?
We strip all of that out. :)
Amazes me folks leave in the default wp.com blogroll links.
Any update on this? Can't wait to have some new and more current themes to use with my sites I am about to launch.
I know you dont give specific release dates, but can you say if we are looking at weeks until the release or will it still be months?
Anyway we could get an update on this please?
Just to throw this out, a check to see if comment author links are in fact nofollowed. If one wishes them to be dofollowed, that should be done via a plugin. The choice should be up to the blog admin though.
hey drmike, i'm copy the features request here so i can better
track it on sticky:)
this edits will be added to 100 Farms pack and new 33 themes.
==General==
* Remove any hardcoding of datetime stamp
* Add support wp_link_pages
* Add load text domain __('hello', 'unique-ide')
* Replace deprecated function
==SearchForm==
* remove and replace PHP_SELF
== Header ==
* Remove mention of wordpress from meta lines
* Custom header image (Add to list in faqs)
== CSS ==
* Check descriptions in the css file
* Add tags
== Sidebar ==
* Remove wordpress links from Meta section
* Add links to main site and support forums in meta section
* Support for widgets
== Comments ==
* Avatar support
* Add support for threaded comments
== Pages ==
* Multiple Page Support
* Page template for List of Articles
* Page template for Months with links to day pages
* Page template for Authors
* Page template for Most Read Posts
* Author Page support
== Screencap ==
* Turn screencap into a *.jpg file
* Make into a 300 × 225 sized image
== WP-Footer ==
* Add links to main site
* Query count
thanks, any further suggestion want to added to the list, just write it down ok..
I know you guys dont do ETAs, but whats the status of the new theme pack? I asked a couple times (i know, i try not to bug you lol) but I've gotta know! Can't wait to have some updated and more modern looking themes.
I would like to know too when then new therem are gonna be released. :)
We're literally working on it now :) I'll let Richard give you a non-binding ETA ;)
Thanks James! A non binding ETA would be awesome.
I think the answer is 'asap' - we're working FT on this now FYI and I'm unsticking this topic in anticipation of a new thread when its released.
Awesome! Im gettin ready to launch my site, FightLogs.com, and can't wait for this to be released.
Let's say mid Feb (roughly)
I can't wait!