With the StudioPress WordPress themes you can really take your blog to a higher level!

So thrilled to announce yet a new quality freebie here on Blogsessive. Meet Typominima, a free typography based, gorgeous, minimal WordPress theme fit for the writer inside you.

If you’re looking for a free theme to help you put the content in spotlight, without worrying about it being suffocated by advertising space and unnecessary design blign, than Typominima is the perfect free WordPress theme for you.

The purpose of this theme is to enable writers and publisher to express themselves online in a clean and beautiful environment. You can check out the theme features and also a series of posts containing sample styling for the most common elements you’ll need on your blog before you download Typominima.

Typominima Preview & Download

Head over to the Typominima DEMO site to view it in action and learn more about its features.

And of course, you can download it for free here: Download Typominima (v1.0)

Note: Please do not link directly to the file if you wish to promote this theme. Link to this post instead. Thank you!

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Have you read "How To Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer" yet?

The latest major release of our favorite blogging platform – WordPress 3.0 – has brought quite a few new features to the table. Among them, the custom navigation menus and the post thumbnails (featured image), the latter being available since version 2.9 came out. This started a whole new trend between theme developers, most of them rushing to announce WordPress 3.0 ready themes.

In all this rush, some of the themes released suffered from one big problem: backward compatibility. Why is that important and how can we give some backward compatibility to our WordPress 3.0 ready themes?

Importance of backward compatibility

While I feel that generally offering some sort of backward compatibility is just a common sense policy, in this case it’s more than that. Let me explain why.

Not everyone uses the latest WordPress release, and that is for various reasons:

• Failed to update, or waiting to make sure it’s “stable”;
• Doesn’t really get the importance of an up to date software;
• Certain plugins they use are not yet 3.0/3.0.1 compatible.

This doesn’t mean they don’t want to try and use your beautiful 3.0 ready WordPress theme, or that they shouldn’t. But you see, the biggest trick resides right here, in this terminology: “3.0 ready”. The actual meaning of this is that the theme is compatible with the 3.0 version, not that it requires 3.0 or higher to function properly, and this leads a lot of people into a trap that will cause their blogs and websites to break.

So, the common sense thing to do would be to take the time and apply certain checks and fallback solutions to our themes. Lets see how we can do that.

Adding WordPress 3.0 features with fallback support

Both of the above mentioned features – custom menus and post thumbnails – are based on a WordPress function added once 2.9 was released: add theme support();

Adding post thumbnails support

In order to add post thumbnail support to your theme, you’d write this in your functions.php file:

// Adds support for post thumbnails
add_theme_support('post-thumbnails');

Simple adding this will cause any WordPress installation prior to 2.9 to break, as the add_theme_support() function was not part of the WordPress core back then. The fix? As easy as this:

/* Checks if the installation has the function defined.
If true, continues to add the support for post thumbnails. */
if(function_exists(add_theme_support)) :
	add_theme_support('post-thumbnails');
endif;

Adding custom menus support

In order to also add support for the custom menus feature, you’d normally write this:

// Add theme support for custom menus
add_theme_support( 'menus' );

// Register a custom menu name/location
register_nav_menus(array(
	'custom-menu' => __( 'My Custom Menu' ),
));

In this case, we obviously need to check for core support of both functions: add_theme_support() and register_nav_menus(). Let see how we can do that, also including in this check the post thumbnails:

if(function_exists(add_theme_support)) {
	add_theme_support('post-thumbnails'); // Support for post thumbnails

	if(function_exists(add_theme_support)) {
		add_theme_support( 'menus' ); // Support for custom menus
		register_nav_menus(array(
			'custom-menu' => __( 'My Custom Menu' ),
		));
	}
}

In case you wonder why I chose to add support for menus only after checking if register_nav_menus() is defined, it’s simply because there’s no point in adding support for a feature that you won’t be able to use. Remember, add_theme_support() was added in 2.9, while register_nav_menus() became available only in 3.0.

But how about adding compatibility in the front-end of your theme?

When using post thumbnails, never call them without checking if the function exists first:

// Performs a check to see if the function is available and there's also a thumbnail attached
if (function_exists(the_post_thumbnail) AND has_post_thumbnail()) {
	the_post_thumbnail();
}

For the custom menus, the thing is just a tad trickier, but simple as well. I’m usually using a function that I wrote to specifically check for custom menus support, and even though the wp_nav_menu() function provides a fallback solution, defaulted to wp_page_menu(), this fallback will only activate for 3.0 installations without any menus created and allocated to the reserved space. The fallback won’t set off if you’re using a version prior to 3.0.

Due to my preference of wp_list_pages() over wp_page_menu() – for more customization options – the following function will apply a compatibility fallback to wp_list_pages:

function my_nav_menu() {
	// Check if installation has wp_nav_menu() defined.
	// If true, generate the menu, but don't print it yet;
	if(function_exists(wp_nav_menu)) {
		$my_nav_menu = wp_nav_menu(array('menu' => 'Top Menu', 'container' => '', 'fallback_cb' => 'wp_list_pages', 'depth' => 2, 'echo' => false));
	}
	// If false, generate the menu using wp_list_pages, but don't print it yet;
	else {
		$my_nav_menu = '<ul class="menu">'.wp_list_pages('sort_column=menu_order&title_li=&echo=0&depth=2').'</ul>';
	}
	// Prints out the menu;
	echo $my_nav_menu;
}

Now, in the front end. instead of calling your menu with wp_nav_menu() you’ll now use my_nav_menu() to display a backward compatible version.

Conclusions

Caught in the rush of doing something nice and new, like a child discovering a shiny new toy, we can miss out some of the most basic problems. Most of them are really easy to solve, like the above mentioned and it would be common sense to make use of them.

And remember: if ( function_exists(function_name) ) is your geeky B.F.F.

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December 26 is here, which means today I am going to announce the two winners of the Xmas ReTweet Contest.

Each of the winners will have the possibility of choosing one of the Premium WordPress Themes available in the WordPress category at ThemeForest as their prize.

Complete list of participants

Below you’ll find the complete list of participants (39) that had valid contest entries (followed both steps in order to enter the competition):

1. Bloghita - @bloghita
2. Marius. - @Marius__
3. Radu Panciuc - @panciuc
4. Eugen - @pauneugen
5. Nikolaevi4 - @Nikolaevi14
6. JeremyOLED - @JeremyOLED
7. Aldo - @iFeelanceWeb
8. Kimberly Castleberry - @KimJCastleberry
9. AlexT - @alext_1020
10. Razvan Girmacea - @RazvanGirmacea
11. Cristian VADUVA - @Vaduva
12. Youwei - @Youwei
13. Calítoe.:. - @Calitoe
14. Daniel - @danielpeisar
15. Anand Srinivasan - @knewthis
16. Margaret Ayad - @eracose
17. Nice from Thailand - @SE7ENize
18. Jennifer - @grizzarkhov
19. Dimitry Ekzarkhov - @design_deity
20. Tracy - @mattnem05
21. Dhaunae @Dhaunae
22. Jessica Dooley - @jessicadooley
23. Jason - @jasontromm
24. elmot - @elmot
25. Kat - @simplywp
26. Codrut @ Blog Post Ideas - @CodrutTurcanu
27. Damir - @wisehat79
28. Melvin - @melvinblog
29. Prasanth Chandra - @pcsbox
30. Jacob Yap - @jacobyap
31. Raju - @rajupp
32. naz - @aenaz
33. Suhas - @suhastech
34. Siddanth
35. Slipdisc - @Roadrippersid
36. technbohowl - @technohowl
37. Rich - @fireitup4USA
38. Michael Cannon - @SMARTcutGeek
39. Kushal Chen - @slayershanks

Contest winners

Here are the lucky winners:

2. Marius. – @Marius__ and
23. Jason – @jasontromm

The 2 winners have been selected using the random number generator available at Random.org. See screenshots below for the winner drawing process:

Xmas Contest – Setting up the draw

Xmas Contest – Draw Results

Claiming your prize

Marius & Jason, I will contact you both via the email addresses you have used to place your comments (contest entries) and we’ll set up the prize selection and delivery. Congratulations!

I would also want to thank everyone else who participated in this fun Christmas contest. The number of entries has surpassed my expectations. If it were possible, I’d gladly give a prize to each and every one of you. But fear not, there will be more contests, so stay tuned to Blogsessive through the blog or my twitter account: @Blogsessive

Happy Holidays!

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How long has it been since I’ve held the last contest on Blogsessive? Too long, but since holidays are close, lets have some fun and make two of you folks the owners of a brand new premium WordPress theme from ThemeForest. It is a simple contest and everyone owning a Twitter account is invited to join in!

Xmas Contest Prizes

Two of the contest participants will each win a premium WordPress theme of their choice from ThemeForest. Contest prize selection is restricted to the WordPress category on the previous mentioned website.

The two winners will be randomly picked by me on the day of December 26th. Read the rules below.

Xmas Contest Rules

Do you own a Twitter account? If so, there are two things you need to do in order to enter this contest:

First you will have to retweet an exact copy of the following:

Win a Premium #WordPress theme in @Blogsessive’s Xmas Retweet Contest! http://bit.ly/XmasRT Click to enter!

Second, after you’ve retweeted the above message, come back here and post a link to the Twitter status containing the retweet in this post’s comments section.

Important:

Entries are valid ONLY if both steps have been followed exactly. Participants are allowed one entry per Twitter account!

Xmas Contest Results

The contest results will be made publicly available on December 26th. I will contact the winners via the email addresses they will use to leave comments on this post, so make sure you comment with a real valid email address in order to claim your prize.

Good luck to you all and let the fun begin!

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Have you read "How To Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer" yet?

Loving WordPress is SO easy! You got thousands of great looking blogs, custom themes, free themes, premium themes and designers go beyond that by using WordPress as CMS for their non-blog projects. A while back I showed you 10 non-blog websites powered by WordPress, and now it’s time to take a look at 10 more!

If you have any additions to the list and wish to suggest a website for a future post, do so by adding a comment.

1. ProBar

Visit ProBar

2. Krispy Krush

Visit Krispy Krush

3. The Salon

Visit The Salon

4. Imaginaria Creative

Visit Imaginaria Creative

5. Lyndsey Hamilton Events

Visit Lyndsey Hamilton Events

6. IOKON Media

Visit IOKON Media

7. Loja Birds

Visit Loja Birds

8. Bug Interactive

Visit Bug Interactive

9. Ville de Falaise

Visit Ville de Falaise

10. Cow Says Moo

Visit Cow Says Moo

Yes! WordPress is fun. And easy!

If you’re looking to have a site built on WordPress, I can help you through my WordPress focused design studio.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Have you read "How To Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer" yet?

There’s a huge hype these days around WordPress and the (infamous?) GPL license. Out of the “big guys”, first Brian Gardner of StudioPress (ex-Revolution) decided to distribute his themes as GPL. Later, iThemes followed, and now it’s time for WooThemes to adopt the license.

The discussion around this always seems to evolve into “open source” versus “author protection”. As Alex King pointed out in one of his posts, theme authors should be aware of what the GPL license exposes them too, while it provides freedom for basically everyone else.

I’m not by any means against freedom and open source. I’ve been preaching about the power of WordPress and the wonder that it is, but what I love more is to see a protection system for those authors that make a living out of releasing quality themes and plugins for WordPress. Somewhere along the way, in our quest for “freedom” we forgot how hard it is to earn our living, how hard it is to learn the things we now use to feed our families.

With all the respect I have for Brian, Adii and Alex who have been more than an inspiration for so many people and their contributions to the world of WordPress changed our lives, I fail to see how this sudden change of heart (or maybe “dictated” by Matt Mullenweg’s recent reactions) will help other developers.

The problem does not reside in the GPL license, but rather in the fact that by using WordPress you have to also release your “products” under this license. In theory the GPL license is an amazing thing that allows people to improve and build upon other people’s work, and thus contributing to the development of a bigger, better product, free or paid.

The problem comes when commercial work can be distributed for free, once you get your hands on it. Brian and Alex both agree on the fact that most times, people come back to get support after getting pirated or unsupported versions of their work. Is this a good business model? Yes, if you are Brian, or Alex, or Adii. For those thriving in this poor economical moment the GPL license and its enforcing is like a hammer in the head.

While I totally agree with the ability of being able to contribute and improve software, I can’t stop thinking about those who will try and benefit for the work of developers, and not in a GPL-ish open source friendly way. Some developers don’t have the brand and support of thousands of bloggers that Alex, Brian or Adii have to fight these entitled-to-be pirates.

Can’t get the reality of this comment Alex received on his blog out of my mind:

But me, being an unknow guy from Mexico who is trying hard to make a living and if I released my work under GPL and you, The Alex King, repost my work for free, nobody will care who I am or if I’m having difficulties paying the rent.

Sure: “GPL ftw!” “Yay freedom” “That’s the spirit of the opensource” that is all b*****it if somebody use that freedom to take away food from my table.

I like opensource, but I prefer my three meals a day.

I’ve already release 2 of my works for free, the Simple Balance theme and the Latest Posts by Category plugin, plan to release another one pretty soon and I for one believe in helping as much as I can the others. But that’s the whole point: AS MUCH AS I CAN or AFFORD TO.

Developers are “forced” to find different business models: donations, updates, support. Again, all works well when you’re on top, otherwise the donation/support model is worth nothing. I’ve never expected huge donations for Simple Balance and I was right. 15.000 downloads later (with no promotion through the WordPress.org directory) the amount of donations is… $75. I can celebrate by renting a 3* room in a hotel in my city. At the same time I’ve lost count of the support requests, some of them starting like this: “This is URGENT, you must help me do X”. No, I don’t, especially if your communication skills are well below ZERO.

The only feasible business model under GPL is making a name for yourself. Don’t doubt it. As long as people will have the possibility of getting something for free. WordPress has to come up with a way to support ALL honest developers, not just the big names and those looking to make a quick buck. Even if that means an additional commercial license for WordPress, for those looking to be able to sell their products without the “limitations” of GPL. May it be a single-usage license or percent of the sale, this could be a good alternative and if I’d ever decide (which should be my decision) to release a commercial product, I’d gladly share my profits with this amazing platform that is WordPress.

Until then, some will only see the joys of GPL while others will see their own failure to make an honest living with the skills they’ve trained so hard and for so long. Unfortunately, there’s no middle way, at least for the masses, but I’m definitely looking forward for what Matt is preparing for those who embrace the GPL license.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

With the StudioPress WordPress themes you can really take your blog to a higher level!

For a long while the option panels where something that people could only find in premium (commercial) themes, and for a good reason. The pricing of their licenses allowed the premium theme developers to invest more time in giving theme users the ways to do through these panels what they could not do through coding.

With the buzz created around these themes, regular users became aware of what could really be achieved, and thus, those that could not afford the license of a premium theme, became more selective with the free ones. A good-looking theme was not enough anymore, and WordPress developers realized it.

A good premium theme would bring its developer not only a good amount of money, but also recognition in the community, and this is where the free theme developers scored their biggest points. Now that their “turf” was endangered they had to react, and they did. For premium themes like Thesis or WP Unlimited, users have now alternatives like Thematic, Hybrid, Carrington, WP Framework or my own (even if not a framework) Simple Balance.

Why should free theme developers consider adding an options page?

Because being “cool” is just not enough anymore. Theme developers need to learn how to be useful. Free stuff can be either useless and ignored or useful and praised. I’m yet to see the developer offering a free theme without gaining something from it, be it awareness, expertise, backlinks, donation money, you name it! But none of these are achieved through an uncompetitive – even if free – product.

5 Most looked for options in a WordPress theme

“Stand out from the crowd!” If I had a penny for every time I read this I’d laugh at Shoemoney’s AdSense check image sipping a chilled cocktail somewhere on a tropical island, but you know what? This saying is so true that it cannot be repeated enough, and users KNOW IT! Theme users want to be able to have their own identity online. They need to be able to customize their themes and make them express who they are and what they believe in. And this is where options pages come into play. What are the most looked for options? Let’s see…

1. Logo and / or header image update / replacement

It doesn’t matter if it’s a professionally designed logo or a simple Windows Paint play. If it gives the blogger satisfaction and he wants to display it, let him do so. Add either a file upload box or an input box where the user could enter the full URL to the logo image to use. Same goes for the header images.

2. Layout structure

If you’re developing a 2 column theme, give the user the option to choose to display the sidebar either on the left, or on the right. With 3 column themes, you can give them even more options, like having the content centered, between the sidebars, or having both sidebars on the same side (right or left) of the content. If only takes a couple of PHP conditions and some “visionary” CSS coding.

3. Custom navigation menus

Don’t expect users to want every page that they publish to show up in their blog’s main navigation area. Give them the option to select which pages should show up there, and why not, add their own links, even if external.

4. Custom RSS URLs and email subscription forms

Implementing a FeedBurner email subscription form is fairly easy for any developer, and I’m pretty sure that any dveloper knows how to customize such a script. The fact that it functions mostly based on a simple user ID should make the customization even easier through a theme options page.

5. Advertising management

Not everyone uses services like BuySellAds, or is affiliated with an advertising network. Some users actually prefer to take care of the advertising themselves. So, why not give them the possibility to do so by adding a few more field to the options page. Let them select the number of banners they need displayed, do-follow option, position of banners and so on. It takes a bit to develop, but the user response to it is amazing.

Additional options you could consider implementing

While the 5 options above are the most looked for, some users might also find the following options useful:

• Overall switch between serif and sans-serif typography;
• Theme color adjustments. Here are a couple of web-based color picker scripts you could use: one, two, three and four;
• Alternatively, you can offer a built in color schemes system;
• Custom “featured” areas;
• Additional, customizable widget areas;
• Twitter updates area;
• And the list could go on and on…

The limits are set by your knowledge and enthusiasm

While the enthusiasm is not something you train, but rather have it or not, knowledge can be trained. Remember that the WordPress Codex is your best friend, and the support forums can be of tremendous help. Additionally, Stefan Vervoort of DivitoDesign and WPToy has put together a very useful PDF called the “WordPress Theme Development Checklist“. Do take a look (and use it!).

So, the next time you think of releasing a free theme, ask yourself this: Is you theme competitive enough? If it’s not, it will not stand a chance when the alternatives are so smart!

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In the months past I’ve received a lot of messages, comments and emails, each asking something about Simple Balance. To some I have answered, to others I couldn’t, due to various reasons (mostly time).

Please understand that the simple fact that I released this theme for free is a “support” action itself, and most times, my daily activities do not allow me to help everybody in their quest to customize this theme the way they want to. That would mean to cut time from my clients’ projects to offer support for this free theme. I am sure that you can understand this situation.

That’s why, for a limited period of time, I’ll check out this post daily and try to answer any question you might have, be it design or source code related, as long as it is about Simple Balance. If you have previously asked the same thing on another topic, or sent a mail and did not get an answer, please ask again here so that I can answer your questions.

So… fire away!

PS: Some questions could already be answered in these posts:

• Simple Balance – Right Sidebar Alignment Bug Fix
• How to Add Your Logo to Simple Balance
• FeedBurner Email Subscription in Simple Balance 2.0

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

With the StudioPress WordPress themes you can really take your blog to a higher level!

Let me start off by saying that I’m not easily impressed by the huge number of “premium WordPress themes” out there. Sure, some of them are really good looking, but in terms of customization, most lack that something that would make me say: “OK, this one I can easily adjust to my needs!”

It seems that almost every premium theme out there focuses to much on delivering a top-notch design, that would make it hard to non design-savvy people to tweak to their own liking. This is where the new Thesis 1.5 theme makes a huge difference.

Options galore

With the huge amount of work I have to deal with daily, designing one of my non-profit blogs would take too much time that I could invest in client work or in Blogsessive. So, I’ve decided to give Thesis a spin for this future blog and I instantly fell in love with the options panel.

Those of you that have tested my Simple Balance theme know that I have a thing for easy layout customization and enough options to cover basically every need people might have.

Well, for the $87 personal license or $164 developer license, Thesis takes this customization to a whole new realm with:

• SEO settings;
• Layout settings: number of columns, position of columns, width of columns;
• Layout styles: Classic blog layout, magazine style layout;
• Typography settings: You can easily adjust the fonts used by almost every important element on your blog;
• Expert, clean written HTML, CSS, PHP code;
• And many more amazingly useful options.

Check out this 12 minute video by its creator – Chris Pearson – and see for yourself what awaits you inside the administration panel.

Working the magic

It’s no wonder that famous bloggers chose Thesis for their main or side projects. Here are some samples of what can be achieved with Thesis:

• Brian Clark’s Copyblogger
• Darren Rowse’s TwitTip
• Chris Brogan’s blog
• and one of my favorites, Blogussion’s recent Thesis redesign by Alex Fraiser.

I for one can’t wait to find that bit of free time to setup Thesis on my side blog. I feel like a kid getting a brand new shiny toy!

So, if you need a really premium WordPress theme that is guaranteed to do the job, you’d better get Thesis version 1.5. Worth every penny!

Disclaimer:This is not a sponsored post. The above post contains affiliate links. I would never use affiliate links or recommend products or services that I do not believe in, so rest assured that the above is my true opinion about Thesis.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

With the StudioPress WordPress themes you can really take your blog to a higher level!

My friend Adrian Diaconescu has released a new free WordPress theme called Empty Canvas. Those familiar with his previous theme, Corporate Sandbox will observe the similarities between these two themes, but as Adrian says: “[...] don’t download this theme and expect the Mona Lisa. It’s only a simple theme, that does wonders for me.“

I’ll tell you what to expect. Expect a clean design, an update of his old theme, ready to be adjusted as you see fit for your future project and mostly for corporate blogs. The name says it all. This is a clean, empty canvas waiting for your creativity spark!

Empty Canvas

Empty Canvas is a two column widget ready WordPress theme, compatible with WordPress 2.7+, cross-browser tested and valid. It does not feature support for threaded comments by author’s decision (probably to preserve the comment styling). As the author says, the theme is “following a ‘want more stuff? add it yourself!’ philosophy“.

Preview here
Download here

Looking for more free corporate WordPress themes?

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Looking for really affordable premium WordPress themes?

The time when WordPress was used strictly as a blog platform is long gone. WordPress has evolved into a mature CMS that gives designers and developers the right tools to create amazing non-blog websites for their clients. As proof for that stand these 10 beautiful websites powered by WordPress.

FernWoodCoffee.com

Visit website

Herout-Caves.com

Visit website

SearchInsideVideo.com

Visit website

Discounted.ro

Visit website

Healogix.com

Visit website

Emploi-Manche.fr

Visit website

HotelParadiso.it

Visit website

Typechart.com

Visit website

P41Studios.com

Visit website

EnrouteFilm.com

Visit website

Do you know more?

If you have more samples of beautiful non-blog WordPress websites, feel free to leave a comment linking to them, and I’ll create a follow-up to this post to include them.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Have you read "How To Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer" yet?

Today I’ve exchanged a few emails with one of Simple Balance’s users which made me think about several things that users could do to help out WordPress themes and plugins developers.

This article is written purely for the purpose of giving you an idea on how to give back to those that invest time and knowledge to give your free quality WordPress resources.

So, here are a few things you can do to help them out:

Offer to test out their themes and plugins

If their project is still in Beta stage, ask to join the testing group or register we’re this is permitted. Test out the product in whatever environment you have available and report bugs and unusual behavior to the designer / developer. They are only humans and most of the time work on too many project and might miss out things, being so closely involved in the project. An outsider could observe things that they can not.

You can also test the projects after the official release. Help is welcome anytime.

Advice: Before reporting a bug, make sure that it is a bug and not something that you’re doing the wrong way. Read the documentation and be sure of what you’re doing, otherwise, the so-called bug could turn into a time-loss for the developer, instead of a helping hand.

Give feedback, ideas and solutions for improvement

Do you think that a theme or a plugin could benefit from a feature that has not yet been introduced? Talk to the developer. Present them your ideas and argument them. If you also have a solution in mind, present it to them. Feedback and the collaboration between developers and users has always been the backbone of open-source and freeware.

Spread the word

It takes a few minutes to write a short post about the resource you enjoy. Do a quick tweet about it or submit it to your favorite social media websites. Help the resource and the developer gain exposure. The more help and feedback he receives, the better the chances for the resource to become even better with future releases.

Financial support

Most of the times, the developers of free WordPress themes and plugins don’t count on any financial income from their work. In most of these cases, they only rely on backlinks from their branded themes or announcement posts on others blog.

To some (those that don’t make a living out of this) that might be enough, but for others it’s not. I know that the economy is not great this times and I know that many don’t have the possibility to make a donation with PayPal or in any other way that the developer could accept.

But from where I stand I also know one thing. If I come across a resource that improves the way I blog, that makes me more efficient, that resource deserves my donation. You choose the amount, as long as it keeps you financially safe and the developer financially happy.

Final considerations

None of the above are mandatory, and each one of you could do all, one, or none of them. What I can guarantee you is that doing them will get you in return the developers respect, and in most cases, even better support than you would receive from premium developers.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Do you need quality design resources? Graphic River has them. Tons! And cheap...

It has been brought to my attention that the Simple Balance theme has a display bug which causes the right sidebar to drop below the content on single post pages.

After looking into this problem I’ve seen that this only happens when users are required to be logged-in in order to post a comment.

The bug is fairly easy to fix and a fix has already been included in the Simple Balance 2.2 download package.

In order to apply the fix, you only need to download the package and replace the “comments.php” file in your theme’s folder with the one inside the package.

Manual bug fix

Alternatively, you can apply the fix manually by opening the “comments.php” file in a text editor and scroll down to the end of the file where you should see this code snippet:

</form>
</div>

<?php endif; // If registration required and not logged in ?>

<?php endif; // if you delete this the sky will fall on your head ?>
</div>

All you need to do is to replace the above lines of code with the ones below:

</form>

<?php endif; // If registration required and not logged in ?>
</div>

<?php endif; // if you delete this the sky will fall on your head ?>
</div>

The closing tag of the comments section should have been placed outside the conditional loop that checks if the user is logged in. Since it was not, the sidebar was considered to be part of the comments area and displayed below.

Sorry for the inconvenience if you have had trouble because of this bug. Now it should be alright.

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Thanks to the amazing involvement of Florian from Floeschen.ch, the Simple Balance theme has been translated to German, from front-end to the extensive control panel.

As Florian and I have agreed, the translated version will only be available from his blog and is to be considered the only official German release. Otherwise we could not guarantee for the safety of the scripts.

All future updates of Simple Balance will also be translated by Florian and released by him on the same page that the current version is available from.

Here’s the link: Simple Balance WP Theme auf Deutsch

Thank you Florian for the hard work!

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Although not a day goes by without someone putting out there another WordPress theme, days like this one, when I see one theme that truly impresses me, don’t come that often. On January 26th, Performancing.com, in collaboration with Sophia Lucero, launched the “Too Newsy” free WordPress theme, and this is one theme you should definitely check out.

Too Newsy

Too Newsy is a very clean 3 column WordPress theme that does excellent use of space, colors an typography. I’ll say it again: I love the typography of this theme. The two sidebars are widget-ready and the theme has built-in support for gravatars and threaded comments. The download files are available in two versions, one for WordPress 2.7 and the other for WordPress versions prior to 2.7.

Preview here
Download here

Looking for more free 3 column WordPress themes?

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Have you read "How To Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer" yet?

Simple Balance 2.2 is now available for free downloading. Although it was previously working with the recently released WordPress 2.7, now, the theme has built-in support for threaded comments (you can reply to people’s comments with a maximum depth of 3 steps) which is a new functionality added by the latest WordPress release.

If you’re running a WordPress version prior to 2.7, fear not! The comments section has backwards compatibility.

Another cool feature has been added to the options panel and it refers to the 125×125 right sidebar banners. Now, you can also add Google AdSense code, individually, for each of your banners.

And that’s not all! Christmas is around the corner, and so’s the New Year.

New color scheme: Xmas Edition

Why not give your Simple Balance themed blog a cool new color scheme to match the Holiday spirit? A new color scheme – Xmas Edition – has been added, raising the total number of schemes to 10!

Here’s a quick preview:

Upgrading from prior versions

If you’re upgrading from 1.0 or 2.0/2.1, all you have to do is to copy the new files over the old ones, overwriting those that already exist (if you haven’t done changes to the theme) and adding the new ones.

Once you’ve uploaded the files, by simply entering the theme’s options panel (Design/Appearance > Simple Balance 2.2 CP) the new options will automatically be installed.

Happy Holidays!

It’s time to give you blog a nice present!

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With the StudioPress WordPress themes you can really take your blog to a higher level!

By popular demand, I decided to publish a short tutorial on how to add your own logo to the Simple Balance WordPress theme.

So, in order to achieve this we’ll walk through the following steps:

1. The logo image guidelines and instructions;
2. Files to update;
3. Code explanation.

The logo requirements

In order to achieve the best implementation quality of your logo, you should consider saving you logo with a transparent background. A .gif file will work well, and if you’re using a software like Adobe Photoshop to edit your images, when saving the image (File > Save for Web & Devices…), setting the Matte to white would be good. This will ensure that the margins of your transparent background logo will look good on Simple Balance’s light background color.

As you can see on the live demo, I’ve used a .gif image for logo, and basically, this is what you are about to achieve with your own blog too.

Once you’ve saved your image, upload it to the “img” folder inside the Simple Balance theme folder (wp-content/themes/simplebalance/img). From here, we’ll link to it later.

Quick tips

1. Save your logo with transparent background;
2. Save it with a white matte;
3. Keep the width below 200 pixels, as that’s the maximum space reserved for the logo;
4. Write down the size of the image (width and height), as we’ll use them later.

Adding the logo in your CSS stylesheet

Now that you have uploaded the logo on your FTP, it’s time to add it to the design. There’s only one file you’ll need to update, and that is style.css, which is located in the root folder of the theme.

Open the file with a text editor (a basic Notepad should suffice) and look for this lines of code:

.topLogo h1 a, .topLogo h2 a {
	text-decoration: none;
	color: #d90202;
}

Select the whole block and replace it with the following code:

.topLogo h1 a, .topLogo h2 a {
	text-decoration: none;
	color: #d90202;
	display: block;
	width: 156px;
	height: 42px;
	background: url(img/name-of-your-logo-file.gif) no-repeat;
	text-indent: -9999px;
}

Be careful

… and don’t forget to replace the values in this new block of code with the real values of your image, as follows:

width: 156px;

The ’156′ value should be the actual width of your image. ’156′ is only a width I used as an example. Do not delete the ‘px’ text as it defines our measuring unit.

height: 42px;

The ’42′ value should be the actual height of your image. ’42′ is only a width I used as an example. Again, be careful with the ‘px’.

background: url(img/name-of-your-logo-file.gif) no-repeat;

Replace ‘name-of-your-logo-file.gif’ with the actual name of your logo file.

The ‘display’ and ‘text-indent’ properties are meant to ensure the correct display of your logo, so you should not worry about those, but keep them. They are important.

Once you finish the editing, save the file and reupload it to your server. Et voila, the logo should be there the next time you check you blog.

A good idea…

…would be to go to the Simple Balance Control Panel (WP administration > Design > Simple Balance 2.1/2.0 CP) and uncheck the box that displays the blog description. Of course, only if you think it affect the design, or the new logo in a bad way.

If you have any questions, i’ll be happy to answer in the comments section of this post.

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One month and 2000 downloads later, the new version of the Simple Balance Free WordPress theme is released.

New options have been added – along with the options of Simple Balance 2.0 – to the theme’s control panel, including:

1. Easy to set up featured post (does not use categories);
2. Google AdSense alternative for both the top and right sidebar ad space;
3. Easy to set up email subscription form; *
4. Page selection for the top menu (only selected parent pages will be displayed);
5. Two brand new color schemes: Blue Bubble and Curly Green

* Works only with Google’s version of FeedBurner. For other versions, code editing is required.

Upgrading from prior versions

If you’re upgrading from 1.0 or 2.0, all you have to do is to copy the new files over the old ones, overwriting those that already exist (if you haven’t done changes to the theme) and adding the new ones.

Once you’ve uploaded the files, by simply entering the theme’s options panel (Design > Simple Balance 2.1 CP) the new options will automatically be installed.

Everything is under control…

… and now it’s time to OWN you WordPress blog!

Have a look!

See the goodies that await you with Simple Balance 2.1.

Get your copy now for FREE and expect more beautiful updates and color schemes every month!

Special thanks go to Shantanu Goel (@shantanugoel)for providing essential help and feedback, and to Ronald Huereca for writing an excellent guide on WordPress custom queries.

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Since its launch, over 1800 people downloaded the Simple Balance 2.0 WordPress theme. For that, I thank each and every one of you!

The idea behind this theme was to keep it as simple as possible, yet effective. Simplicity in administration is one of the keywords behind its creation. But some things need a bit of coding knowledge to tweak.

One of them is the email subscription form, which, once you install the theme, serves only as a design template that does not work unless proper code has been added to it.

I’ve been asked via comments and email what’s wrong with it, or how can it be made functional and this made me write the following step-by-step tutorial on how to integrate the FeedBurner email subscription form in Simple Balance 2.0.

Getting the FeedBurner Email Form Code

Here’s a quick screenshot that illustrates the required steps:

Step 1: Click the Publicize tab;

Step 2: Look for the Email Subscription item in the left side menu and click it;

Step 3: Copy the form code and paste it in a .TXT file for later use.

Once you’ve pasted the code in a .TXT file, you’ll see that it looks a bit blocky, not being properly formatted using new lines and TAB’s.

Below is a sample of my code (do not copy it unless you want your readers to subscribe to my feed). Try to come to a similar formatting by breaking the line in the same places I did it.

<form style="border:1px solid #ccc;padding:3px;text-align:center;" action="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify" method="post" target="popupwindow" onsubmit="window.open('http://feedburner.google.com/
fb/a/mailverify?uri=Blogsessive', 'popupwindow', 'scrollbars=yes,width=550,height=520');return true">
	<p>Enter your email address:</p>
	<p><input type="text" style="width:140px" name="email"/></p>
	<input type="hidden" value="Blogsessive" name="uri"/>
	<input type="hidden" name="loc" value="en_US"/>
	<input type="submit" value="Subscribe" />
	<p>Delivered by <a href="http://feedburner.google.com"
	target="_blank">FeedBurner</a></p>
</form>

Unless you want to display the link back to FeedBurner, you can delete right from the start the following line:

<p>Delivered by <a href="http://feedburner.google.com" target="_blank">FeedBurner</a></p>

Editing the Simple Balance 2.0 Email Subscription Form

Now that you have the FeedBurner form code, all you need to do is to integrate it with Simple Balance’s custom designed form.

No need to panic, as it’s a much easier job than it seems. First, you need to locate the theme’s files and open the file called lsidebar.php with your preferred HTML (or simply Notepad) editor.

Next, you need to locate the following chunk of code (normally starts of line 22):

<h2>Subscribe by Email</h2>
<ul>
	<li class="rssForm">
		<form action="">
			<input type="text" class="rssEmail" />
			<input type="submit" class="rssSubmit" value="Subscribe" />
		</form>
		<small>We take privacy seriously.<br />
		Your email address will <strong>not</strong> be shared.</small>
	</li>
</ul>

Now, go to the FeedBurner form code and copy the one part that is similar to mine as shown below:

<form style="border:1px solid #ccc;padding:3px;text-align:center;" action="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify" method="post" target="popupwindow" onsubmit="window.open('http://feedburner.google.com/
fb/a/mailverify?uri=Blogsessive', 'popupwindow', 'scrollbars=yes,width=550,height=520');return true">

The only difference is that instead of ‘uri=Blogsessive’ it will have your blog’s name.

Remove the styling contained in this line by taking out this chunk of code:”

style="border:1px solid #ccc;padding:3px;text-align:center;"

and copy the remaining code (similar to the one below):

<form action="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify" method="post" target="popupwindow" onsubmit="window.open('http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=Blogsessive', 'popupwindow', 'scrollbars=yes,width=550,
height=520');return true">

Ok, did you copy the code? Now, let’s head back to the lsidebar.php file, to our previously selected chunk of code.

Locate this code:

<form action="">

and replace it with what you’ve copied from the FeedBurner code.

While we’re here, locate this line of code:

<input type="text" class="rssEmail" />

and replace it with this one:

<input type="text" class="rssEmail" name="email" />

Now, we head back to the FeedBurner code to copy the two lines similar to these:

<input type="hidden" value="Blogsessive" name="uri"/>
<input type="hidden" name="loc" value="en_US"/>

Again, instead of value=”Blogsessive” you’ll have your blog’s feed name. After you copy the two line, go back to lsidebar.php and add them below the previously edited line:

<input type="text" class="rssEmail" name="email" />

and above this line:

<input type="submit" class="rssSubmit" value="Subscribe" />

Ok, we’re half way there. No, I’m joking. That’s all. You’ve implemented the form and it should be fully functional and looking pretty much like the one I’ve used to exemplify this tutorial.

Save the lsidebar.php file and upload it to your FTP server.

The End Result

Your code should look similar to mine (except for the feed name mentioned in two places):

<h2>Subscribe by Email</h2>
<ul>
	<li class="rssForm">
		<form style="border:1px solid #ccc;padding:3px;text-align:center;"
		action="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify" method="post"
		target="popupwindow" onsubmit="window.open('http://feedburner.google.com/
		fb/a/mailverify?uri=Blogsessive', 'popupwindow', 'scrollbars=yes,width=550,
		height=520');return true">
			<input type="text" class="rssEmail" name="email" />
			<input type="submit" class="rssSubmit" value="Subscribe" />
			<input type="hidden" value="Blogsessive" name="uri"/>
			<input type="hidden" name="loc" value="en_US"/>
		</form>
		<small>We take privacy seriously.<br />
		Your email address will <strong>not</strong> be shared.</small>
	</li>
</ul>

Now, you’ll be able to provide your readers with a functional email subscription based on FeedBurner’s code, but looking like the one designed for your free WordPress theme of choice: Simple Balance 2.0.

Any questions on this tutorial? I’d be happy to answer you in the comments section.

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Here it is folks, Simple Balance 2.0 – a free, simple WordPress theme with enough options to make it “premium-like”.

After launching the first version (1.0) in July, I’ve decided that the next release should not be an intermediary version, but rather a real, meaningful update. And that’s how Simple Balance 2.0 was born.

Simple Balance 2.0 is launched under a new slogan: “More Power. More Style. Your Style!” Why? Because that’s what it has to offer! More control over it’s options, advertising space, layout and color, and with each future update you’ll be able to tweak it more and more to your own style!

Let’s take a look at what Simple Balance 2.0 has to offer

Many new options have been added, most of which you can adjust through the theme’s brand new “Control Panel”.

• An extensive and inclusive theme control panel;
• Widget-ready sidebars;
• Top advertising space (468×60 pixels);
• Sidebar advertising space: Up to 8 small square banners (125×125 pixels);
• Individual settings for each banner you add:
  1. Custom banner URL;
  2. Do Follow / No Follow witch;
  3. Title and alternate text;
  4. Open in a new window or same window
• Master switch (on/off) for every Ad Zone;
• Variable layout structure:
  1. Centered content;
  2. Right-aligned content;
• 5 new additional color schemes (more released monthly);
• Option to display the default left sidebar image, use a custom one or hide it;
• Custom feed URL;
• Valid cross-browser tested XHTML and CSS;
• SEO smart coding;
• Works with WordPress 2.6.2 (tested starting with WordPress 2.5);
• Any many more options that I’ll let you discover.

Downloads, Preview and Updates

The Simple Balance 2.0 Control Panel

To adjust the settings closer to your needs, Simple Balance 2.0 comes with a clean, informative control panel that becomes available under the “Design” tab as soon as you activate the theme. Here’s a screenshot of the control panel:

Introducing “Color Schemes” and “Layout Positioning”

Different people have different design tastes, so, with Simple Balance 2.0 you have more control over the design, by being able to switch the content area position and to use either the default color scheme or one of the five new additional color themes:

• Silver Red – For a corporate look;
• Olive Green – For a more sober, yet colorful look;
• Red Orange – For the fresh people;
• Lucky Star – For your teenage girl diary;
• Green Life – For followers of the “Green Way of Life”.

Here’s a small preview of each of the above color schemes:

A free, premium-like WordPress Theme

That’s Simple Balance 2.0! That’s my gift to Blogsessive’s loyal readers, followers and friends with a kind thanks for all we’ve been through, together in these wonderful 7 months that have passed since Blogsessive was born!

Remember to sign up for free to Blogsessive’s RSS feed to find out about new updates, as soon as they become available!

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