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SixApart OK with Moveable’s Premium Theme

In a stark contrast to WordPress.org action against WordPress’s premium theme, SixApart is fully supporting of the idea of MoveableType’s premium theme.

Whether this is just another disagreement on this matter between WordPress/Automattic VS MoveableType/SixApart or competing to win the ‘heart’ of theme designer is out of my interpretation.

But anyway, it is interesting to know what their stance is and detail explanation behind it.

Has anyone seen it?

twitter sixapart SixApart OK with Moveables Premium Theme

via WP-Premiums. Thanks for catching this.

Admin 19 December 2008 Wordpress , , , , , 1 Comment

WordPress.org say no to premium, non-GPL complient theme

If your wordpress theme uploaded into WordPress.org theme directory without fulfilling key rules, among other GPL compatible and no spammy links, it could had been possibly removed without prior notice.

First got to know this via ProBlogNews , 200 themes that not comply with these rules were removed by WordPress on Dec 12. There are further discussion by Justin, spectacu, alistercameron.

I’m not a theme coder (tried once but not impressed with the outcome), but this action can be interpreted by many as ‘punishing without giving chance to defend’ . It needs little bit more tolerant to allow them to comply with the new rules, and Matt & WordPress won’t get unnecessary bad publicity publicly.

Like everybody else (who are not good in theme design), I love theme, especially ‘premium‘ theme that not only looks great, but some of them is extremely customizable and feature rich.

Those persons above has got a great articles about the issue, and you’re recommend to read it especially if you’re theme coder. I’m summarizing what I

Back Link

There are 2 type of links that if available on theme, the theme will not be accepted.

The first type obviously spammy links. I don’t agree with the way of certain theme coder putting a links on the theme that linking back to non-author website  as SEO purpose. I just feels that it is unethical and opportunistic which taking advantage of WordPress’s popularity.

The second type is the links on the theme that linking back to commercial site that selling themes. Can this be interpreted that WordPress doesn’t like those that selling theme especially that branded as Premium theme??

GNU

Another crucial part here is how WordPress enforcing the usage of GPL. Again, I’m quite new to this term although have heard of it many times before.

You have probably came across about it before where certain themes are free to be use but restricted for any modification without prior permission. This is against the spirit of  GPL which clearly stating,

  • the freedom to use the software for any purpose,
  • the freedom to change the software to suit your needs,
  • the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors, and
  • the freedom to share the changes you make.

    • When a program offers users all of these freedoms, we call it free software.

You’re probably safe if avoiding  these stuff and. Spend some time to read the theme’s about page before uploding any theme.

Admin 17 December 2008 Wordpress , , 2 Comments

New version, new theme

Finally, I’ve been ‘forced’ to replace blogjer’s theme with a new one. Thanks to WordPress 2.6.0 upgrade couple of weeks ago, which had ‘slightly’ broken my previous theme, blogjer has now a new ‘face’.

Broken

Before that, what has been broken? It is the comment section, where the new post is picking up comments from the past posts. Even though the index page is showing 0 comment for a new post, but apparently when the post is being opened (on the single.php file), there are comments at the bottom of it, comments from past posts.

Well, initially I thought it was the database that’s messed up, but I was wrong. And then I suspected is it due to the comment related plugins, such as ‘Brian Threaded Comment’ or ‘Better Comment manager’ plugin? Disabled them and the problem is still there. What else could be wrong? I finally found the solution to the problem, when I switched the theme to the Kubrick theme. So the culprit lies on the theme. I changed couple of things including the comments.php (using the original one) and other lite modifications to the single.php with no luck. Sigh…

I don’t want to get stucked with this error any longer (been spending 2 days try fixing it), furthermore this theme has served blogjer for almost 1.5 year, and has shown some slow speed intermittently. Time to change..

It doesn’t take too long to figure out this theme (thanks Smashing Magazine), it’s like love at first sight; after playing around few minutes with it, i know that this is what I’m looking at, and the rest is history..

Choosing the theme

Honestly, I’ve no idea what I’m looking at. But basically it must be simple, eye-catching, clean, straightforward (in term of coding, no K2 la, aside la) since I need to do some quick modification on it. And it has to be fast-loading theme!!

Apart from that, make sure it didn’t break on the latest wordpress version and compatible on all browsers, or at least on IE and Firefox where most users are.

1 column, 2 columns or 3 columns?

I opted for 3 columns layout with 1/2 sidebars on the right side. Initially, I was thinking of getting similar layout as before, but decided to go with this due to its simplicity. Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with the outcome.

If you’re new here, this is how blogjer looks like before. And happy reading.

blogjer old New version, new theme

old blogjer design

Admin 30 October 2008 Wordpress , 8 Comments
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