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.

Playing with the new (WP 2.3) Tag functionality (not tag as in template-tag-PHP-function but tag as in ‘mini-category’). Using the new-to-2.3 the_tags() function like this:

With the 2 arguments supplied to the_tags() being the leading text/title and then the separator. Checking existence may seem overkill but without it, if WP is downgraded, it will explode. Or something like that.

Also trying the new Tag Cloud widget that comes with WP 2.3, although using:

pretty much achieves the same thing if you wanted to just add it to sidebar.php (or elsewhere).

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.

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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…

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