Experimenting with TypeKit I found the flicker really annoying.
It dose feature loading events that add .wf-loading, .wf-active and .wf-inactive classes to the HTML tag but there still is at least a one second delay before they get appended so you still see the page with the flicker if you want to hide the content based on these classes.
Along with WordPress 3.0 we now have access to the really useful wp_nav_menu functionality. We can now create our own menus without resulting to several plugins or tricks.
Another cool thing we can do with this new menu is build the sitemap. I was in need the other day of a plugin that would generate a sitemap page (something like an archive page). Not an xml sitemap, just a standard page from where the visitors of the site could navigate more easily. The best solution appeared to be an WordPress menu shortcode.
Since I couldn’t find something like this I realized that I could use the wp_nav_menu function and built a shortcode to insert it into my page.
As you all know, WordPress has made the 3.0 transition, which brings the long-awaited merge of MU and WordPress and a lot of new features to the table.
Trying to keep up with the goodies we developed a new version of Smarter, which runs smooth on 3.0 and takes advantage of the new feature list.
A Smart WordPress 3.0 Theme
As mentioned before Smarter theme was designed as a powerful CMS for company websites. It’s a business wordpress theme, with a SEO friendly structure.
This being said, here are some of the new things that Smarter 2.0 has to offer.
The News Items was implemented using the custom post type feature from WP 3.0. Now, adding and editing news is simple and straight forward, leaving no room for confusion.
The custom navigation menu has been set as the theme default menu, so now you will be able to insert and organize things like pages, categories, news or custom links in your theme menu.
Smarter also comes with a big package of different color child themes, giving you the option to choose the right color range for your business.
In case you’re aiming for a multilingual website, Smarter 2.0 has been tested and works great with WPML plugin.
Smarter Theme Options, which let you customize your site looks, comes with a lighter interface which includes all the options from the previous version. So you have options like: selecting between multiple theme layouts, uploading a header image, editing the featured slider page etc.
To find out more about Smarter 2.0 and it’s new features check out the screencast below:
Pricing
For 25$ you can purchase Smarter 2.0, which includes all the functionality of the old version, plus the new features mentioned before. The zip also includes the psd files and the color child themes. Being released under a GPL license, Smarter can be used on an unlimited number of websites.
Support
If you have any suggestions or questions regarding the new version of this theme, please visit our forums (http://cozmoslabs.com/forums/).
Charisma is a free Genesis child theme that will work perfectly for your WordPress personal blog.
When I started designing Charisma I had in mind an elegant, simple, well structured theme which highlights the content and gives the user a pleasurable reading experience.
This tutorial, while providing a good introduction to the concept, hasn’t been updated since it was written.
To this end we’ve written a free plugin that let’s you add all these front-end forms through the easy use of shortcodes: Profile Builder
I’ve been playing a lot lately with the user registration template (I’ve used it as a great starting point) from Justin Tadlock’s ThemeHybrid and extended it to support custom user profiles.
Unfortunately, user management in WordPress isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. You have a lot of functionality for the users in the backend, but if you want to do extend that functionality to the front-end you’re in for a rough time.
There are some really nice tutorials that can help you add custom user profile fields in the backend, but if you try to do it to the frontend through a custom page template you’ll find your self validating a lot of fields and there’s even a twist to the entire process that makes things interesting.
Tabbed widgets for WordPress themes have been around since WordPress it self. They are a perfect way to save on vertical space and add a bit of interaction with the users.
There are two classic ways of implementing the tabbed widgets.
Creating a hard coded widget and using the jQuery Cycle plugin. This means you can’t easily modify the content of the tabs unless you open the widget file.
Using a tabbed widget plugin. While this is ok for some users it just ads a lot extra code that doesn’t justify the end.
Luckily there is a optimized way of doing things. Write a bit of javascript that converts any default thematic widget area into a tabbed widget area. The title of the widgets placed in you widget area will automatically become the widget tabs.
The last two months have been really productive. So I thought I’d share with you two of the works in progress. While still far from ready to be released, they are ready to be shown.
Both will be child themes, but with a twist. This is as much as I can tell you at this point, but I’ll post more details by the end of the month.
Let’s say you have a certain category that you want to be displayed some place other than on your main blog page. No big deal, you just exclude your special category from the main index loop.
Now, you’re probably also want to make some changes to the single post navigation, and make it so that single posts in your special category won’t get posts from any other category in their navigation links. And also, chances are you’ll want to exclude posts from your special category from the navigation links of posts in all other categories.
In other words, in the navigation links of single posts from your special category you’ll only get posts from that category, and in the navigation links of posts from all other categories, you’ll get posts from all categories except your special category. Two separate navigations.
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Detect if javascript is enabled in php and remove the TypeKit flicker
Experimenting with TypeKit I found the flicker really annoying.
It dose feature loading events that add .wf-loading, .wf-active and .wf-inactive classes to the HTML tag but there still is at least a one second delay before they get appended so you still see the page with the flicker if you want to hide the content based on these classes.
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