I have been meaning to post a note about some of the recent changes here, but have been busier then a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs (been dying to use that phrase for some time ;’)…

I’ve adopted a new theme called nobus, designed by Dezzain Studio. The UI is not too simple, not too complex, not too dark. The header is a bit tall, but I want to live with it a bit before attempting changes (the height did allow me to pretty much cut-and-paste some of my code/hacks into the header to retain functionality I desired (translation service, RSS icon w/out scrolling down, my logo and some quotes). There is a big difference in typography, not just style, but size and spacing. Feedback is desired/welcome about these (and any other) changes.

Some minor changes in functionality, testing new plugins (not just new to me, but new to WP 2.3 and/or the ‘world’), carefully applying some AJAX (less then 2% of my visitors have JavaScript turned off, but I do keep an eye on this and try to use JS that will degrade/fall-back to HTML behavior/appearance.

Posted here about using Zazz Post ticker. I have been keeping an eye out for something with this functionality over the last year or so, and everything I researched/tried was either too clunky/ugly or required more time to integrate then I was willing to devote. This one dropped right in without a struggle and styled up quite easily with a few CSS additions.

Some other new plugin additions:

• DoFollow Using no-follow as a rule just doesn’t make sense any more, it should be the exception.
• Enforce www. Preference I dropped the www NOTE: This plugin is now redundant with 2.3.
• HeadSpace2 Experimenting with this meta-generator-on-steroids
• Link Indication If we are going to put the control/decision about how links/new-windows are handled into the users hands, let them make an informed decision?
• Nofollow reciprocity If I’m going to turn off no-follow, I expect you to, as well
• Shutter Reloaded With all the different javascript libraries and resultant conflicts my lightbox/slimbox scripts started acting whacky. Just dropped this in and I’m ok for now ;’)
• WP-Footnotes Because some of my posts just need footnotes.
• Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form Fianlly broke down and decided to try/test a plugin form solution

Some folks email me now and then about the quotes in my header, so just as an FYI: I use Quality Quotes, and the thing I love the most about this ‘yet-another-random-quote’ plugin is that it goes out and gets 10 quotes each day and then cycles randomly through them on each page refresh. So instead of hitting/depending-on some outside resource every time a page is refreshed on my site it’s cached locally. Fast, lightweight and independent.

Closing with one of my favorite recent quotes:

We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
- Wernher von Braun

Just released the new version (0.94) of the missunderstood theme. Some major changes, lots of clean-up, added functionality:

• Built-in Optimal Title (for SEO)
• Built-in slimbox (faster, lighter Lightbox effect)
• Separate lists for comments and trackbacks
• Fancier blockquotes
• Built-in pullquotes
• Prettier search box
• Code-block style with numbers and zebra striping

A lot of generous people have brought my attention to problems with the earlier releases of missunderstood, and I’ve tried to go through everything with a fine-tooth comb. I tested this version in FireFox, Internet Explorer 6 and 7 as well as Opera. It is valid XHTML strict when used in a modern browser (read: anything other then Internet Explorer and that’s only because M$ couldn’t give a damn ).

Original post with more info is here. See a live demo here. Missunderstood has a Support Forum, and it can be downloaded from the original post or directly from here.

Feedback always appreciated…

Version .95 is out now, with a lot of tweaks done over several months…

Incorporated some plugins into functions.php for convenience:

• Optimal Title
• Hot Dates
• removed ‘sociable’
• Slimbox

Added the Top Post functionality (for a full-width ‘featured’ post). Top Post takes the latest post in a category (category set in the themes options under Presentation), displays it at the top (full-width) and makes sure it is not repeated in either column below.

This theme comes with Slimbox, a lightweight/fast image display system like lightbox. It’s built into Corporate Slave, so there shouldn’t be any need for configuration. It’s automagical, works with any thumbnail-with-link-to-fullimage.

See it in action here.

Original post with much more information. Download there or directly from here: Corporate Slave Theme v0.95

Support Forum for the Corporate Slave Theme is here.

This is the release of the missunderstood theme, originally designed by Will Rossiter. This is a dark theme, with a slightly girlish touch (that’s not pink!). See a live demo here.

The sidebar is fixed (static), but the header and content-area are fluid to accommodate different sized screens/browsers. I included the WordPress Theme Toolkit by Ozh for user-friendliness. For style and functionality I have included some plugins: jspullquotes by Viper007Bond (for the cute magazine-style pullquotes), Sociable by Peter Harkins (adds Social Bookmarking links to the end of each post), Live Comment Preview by Jeff Minard and Iacovos Constantinou, Optimal Title by Aaron Schaefer (reverses order of post-title/blog-title for SEO/Search friendliness) and Related Posts by By Alexander Malov & Mike Lu (lists related posts at the end of each post).

Comments and trackbacks are separated now.

In 0.94 I have added slimbox. It is built-in and should not need any configuration.

This theme is Widget-ready and tested in WordPress 2.0.x and 2.1alpha-3 through 2.2.2. It is valid XHTML and CSS.

Instructions for installation and configuration:

1. Download the latest version from the link below.
2. Open up the .zip file.
3. Drop/copy the plugins folder and themes folder to your site�s wp-content/ directory.
4. Activate and configure the newly installed plugins (check Related Posts, it needs a script run).
5. Go into your sites Admin area, go to Presentation:Themes and select missunderstood.
6. Click on the Store Options button and you should be set!

If you don’t want bullets to show up on your list of Related Posts, got to the Related Posts Options screen and add <li style=”list-style-type:none;”> to the “before” box (and </li> to the “after” box). For adjusting general font styles and sizes go to the Presentation:missunderstood Options in the admin area.

Code and Code-blocks:
One of the things that I found attractive about missunderstood was how Will handled code block display, using a background image that helped the code block stand out distinctly as code/script, with pseudo line numbering. Well, here’s an example:

Note that long lines are not wrapped, but scroll off to the right (should help avoid copy/paste issues).

Here is how to put code blocks into your post: Start with a <div class=”code”> (will call the class style properties, background, etc.) immediately followed by a <pre> (‘pre’-formatted, to maintain original structure) so the beginning looks like this:

<div class=”code”> <pre>

Enter your code right after that:

<div class=”code”> <pre>
if $girlfriend(‘hair’) == ‘blonde’ then {
dispose($sharpobjects);
} else {
exit;
}

and then close the div and pre:

<div class=”code”> <pre>
if $girlfriend(‘hair’) == ‘blonde’ then {
dispose($sharpobjects);
} else {
exit;
}
</pre> </div>

And there ya go…

Blockquotes and pullquotes:
For the moment I am using a simple indent-with-bar style, I couldn’t use a fancier method because I found it kept conflicting with the formatting of the pullquotes. If I discover a way to address that, I’ll update the theme with the fix/enhancement. Blockquotes: For modern browsers, you’ll see some large qutation marks decorating your blockquote, IE users will see a simple, fat bar to the left.

For pullquotes, I usually just use a bit of css, but this does mean duplication of the text (once for the post and a second time for the pullquote div). Viper007Bond wrote a simple plugin that uses JavaScript to get around the duplication issues. With his permission I’m including the plugin with this theme.

I’m adding some filler text here do you can see how it wraps around the pullquote. This is a bit silly here, since the pullquote there is an image (hard to mimick here without changing the CSS for this site). The styling is css based so for anyone with some basic css skills it’s pretty simple to modify to your taste. I should note that I do attempt to contact any authors of plugins I include with my theme(s). Although not required (usually) it makes for more World Peace and Harmony. Really, it does.
To use pullquotes in your posts, find the text you wish to ‘pull’ and insert <span class=”pullquote”> before the text, and </span> at the end. Simple as that. I can hear the strings of Harmony falling into place right now… Hear that?

Oh, it’s the frikkin’ neighbor’s radio…

Sidebar:
The sidebar menu is all CSS, so it’s easy to customize. Just edit wp-content/themes/missunderstood/sidebar.php, look for the list of menu items in the <div id=”navlist”> section. They are basically just links, just change the names and link/paths to what you would like…

A note about Get Recent Comments Options:
There are 2 boxes for Before / After (Post Title) : , what works for me (and validates) is Before:

• and After:

.

*Fixed in 0.91: Search button doesn’t work and alignment screwy in IE (imagine that!), thanks shaun! -10/13/06
*Fixed in 0.92: Style problems, widget styling, IE styles. Changed ID of header search element so another should be able to be added (in sidebar or elsewhere). Thanks to Harrison for the push! – 10/30/06
*Fixed in 0.93: Search (again!) Thanks to Interloper – 07/15/07
*Released 0.94: Major functional changes, some small adjustments to appearance – 09/01/07
Download:
Here is the latest version:missunderstood Theme for WordPress, version 0.94.

New! -> Support forum for missunderstood theme

Update to theme, info here.

Here is a newsletter-style 2-column with sidebar theme for WordPress which allows some control over which categories are displayed in each column. I included the WordPress Theme Toolkit by Ozh for user-friendliness. This theme is a modified version of Corporate Slave, by dreamLogic .

For style and functionality I have included some plugins: HotDates by Supriyadi Slamet Widodo, Sociable by Peter Harkins, Get Recent Comments by Krischan Jodies, Live Comment Preview by Jeff Minard and Iacovos Constantinou, Optimal Title by Aaron Schaefer and Related Posts by By Alexander Malov & Mike Lu.

The plugins above need to be installed for this theme to function as intended. If HotDates and/or Live Comment Preview is not installed, the theme should still behave, but without the others something will break…

Continue reading this post…