WPDesigner.com

First off, no, I didn’t die, nor were I sick or in a freak accident. For the past five days, I lost the drive to update and work on Wpdesigner. Although there’s much to be done, I didn’t know which direction I wanted to take Wpdesigner. I’m not going to tell you what I’ll be doing and where Wpdesigner is going. I think we’re all tired of my empty suggestions and promises. I’ll try to just deliver from now on.

What I’ve been up to:

Not much as you can see from the photos above. I grew my hair out and that’s it. Personally, that’s the most significant thing that happened in the last several days. I’ve been bored out of my mind.

Second, I wanted to switch all themes to GPL in the previous post, but that’s easier said than done. Although I’m moving in the right direction by switching license, I need to do this right and make sure that I don’t violate other people’s licenses. I’m talking about the photographers and icon creators of the photos and icons that some of my themes use. Bottom line is don’t assume all of my themes have been re-released under GPL, at least not yet. Only some of them have been re-released. For the rest, I need to track down the photographers and icon authors to get their permissions. Thanks to SunBurntKamel for pointing out about photo and icon licenses.

Third, no, I don’t accept sponsored theme submissions and will not feature any sponsored theme on Wpdesigner. Sorry, I don’t care what your reason is. There are other blogs that would be willing to feature your sponsored theme.

Fourth, I’m reconsidering whether to continue with the development of Supreme. I went over the features of Supreme over and over again. I just don’t see how I can pack all the styles and features into one theme without clutter. Also, a theme like that might be easy for an experienced user to modify, but definitely not for beginners, not even with extensive documentation. When things get cluttered, people get discouraged. But then, Supreme is supposed to be features-packed and solve clutter at the same time…sigh.

I’ll be switching all of my themes from the Creative Commons ShareALike Attribution license to the GPL license. Under GPL, you can basically do whatever you want with my themes; it’s almost like a free for all deal. Mainly, GPL means removing the link-back requirement.

Why am I switching?

Despite that I’m just ONE theme designer and despite that I don’t contribute directly the WordPress codes, I believe that switching to GPL is a step in the direction to support the WordPress team and to help the WordPress theme community grow (positively). And, I’d like to encourage other theme designers to make the same decision, or at least sit down and consider switching to GPL.

Why didn’t I release my themes under GPL in the first place?

Actually, I did. Early Wpdesigner.com themes like Neo-Sapien was released under the GPL license. Later on, I started using Creative Commons ShareALike Attribution and required a link-back because I was friggin’ tired of rip-off designers. Some people actually ripped-off my themes, repackaged them, and put them up for downloading on their own sites.

Creative Commons and requiring a link-back was a way for me to discourage rip-offs, trying to get exposure on places like the Theme Viewer and WebBlogToolsCollection. I’m not going to name names, not because I’m taking the high road, but because they truly don’t deserve a plug on this site.

If you go through the archives, there is no post from August to October because I was so frustrated with people ripping my themes, that I took a break from it all. The last theme before I took the break is Annoyed. Can you guest what I was feeling then?

So why the switch now?

I didn’t consider switching until I had a chat with Matt Mullenweg. He wanted to know why I release my themes under CC and I explained to him the whole deal about rip-offs and blah blah blah. Afterwards, I didn’t give that part of the conversation much thought; I went to sleep.

The day after the chat, I reconsidered the conversation, the part about theme licensing, and how I would feel if I HAD TO link back to the theme designer because link-back was a requirement. In conclusion, I decided that CC and requiring a link back, just to protect myself from rip-off designers, isn’t the way to solve things. And whatever I do to discourage rip-offs should NOT affect the rest of my theme users.

Bottom line

I will be switching all of my themes throughout the next several days to GPL. Thank you to those that continue to link back to Wpdesigner.com.

P.S. – I’m sorry to those that came across my emails or messages requesting you to restore the link to wpdesigner.com. I had to do it. Otherwise, there’d be no point in requiring a link-back. You can use my themes without linking back from now on.

How many times have you installed a plugin, integrated it with your theme, decide to uninstall it, but then forget to remove its function within the theme?

Once you’ve un-installed a plugin, you have to go back to your WordPress theme to remove any trace of it, or else your blog would return “function doesn’t exist” errors.

In case you forget to remove all traces of a certain un-installed plugin, this is a quick tip to error-proof your future un-installation so your readers wouldn’t have to run across “function doesn’t exist” errors.

Let’s say you want to use the Author Highlight plugin, which adds a class to your comments, to style comments made by you. It wants you to add <?php author_highlight(); ?> to somewhere in the comments.php file. Instead of doing just that, here’s what you should add:

<?php if(function_exists(“author_highlight”)) author_highlight(); ?>

Don’t copy and paste the codes above, it will not work. Type it out.

First, I admit that only geeky WordPress designers like myself would find this amusing. It’s a small error in the WordPress default theme, Kubrick.

Here it is…

The paragraph tag is not closed correctly. If you have the Kubrick theme activated, on your password-protected post, the comments area will say, “This post is password protected. Enter the password to view comments.”

You can find that message in the Kubrick comments.php file as:

<p class=”nocomments”>This post is password protected. Enter the password to view comments.<p>

To close it correctly, it should be:

<p class=”nocomments”> </p>

I spotted this a long time ago while learning how to customize the comments template and thought that the WordPress people would fix it soon. Looks like they haven’t touched the comments.php file for a while, not even after WordPress had to update Kubrick for the 2.1 series.

I’m posting it now to reiterate the first rule in my WordPress tutorial series, which is close everything in the order that you open them.

While developing your own WordPress theme, you should validate all versions and templates of your theme, which should include the password-protected message. For a list of pages and template versions to validate, go to lesson number 16 of the tutorial series.

I’m currently working on a new WordPress theme that focuses on search engine optimization, multiple plugin support, flexibility, fluid width, monetization, and many other features. To me, it’s sort of like a super theme, hence, the name Supreme. Below is an unorganized outline of Supreme’s features:

• Easy to skin (change to a completely different look without touching the core files) , modify, add to, and / or take away from.
• Comes with extensive internal and external documentation.
• Style codes are coded and organized in a way that’s easy to understand and modify.

The goal of this theme is to allow its users to never touch the core files and never change to a different theme ever again. Once you’ve gotten tired of its design, all you have to do is look for a new skin on Wpdesigner and replace the style.css file.

My vision is to build a truthfully complete theme that is not boring, skinnable, and also covers all you’ll ever need, regardless of what features, ads, and plugins your blog might require; a theme that’s easy for other designers to understand; a theme that will get adopted community wide.

And in the future, it doesn’t matter which theme author you ask for support from, that author will understand what you’re asking about and be able to point out exactly what you should do or able to do with Supreme without directing you back to Wpdesigner. The only thing that will vary is the support from Supreme’s skin authors.

I’ve learned my lessons from the last interview.

• Don’t give too many short answers.
• Regardless of how much information you can pack into two sentences, short answers make you look bad.
• Posting a new blog entry and answering interview questions are pretty much the same. You should focus on providing value. Take the time to put some honest effort into answering your interview questions.

This time, I’m interviewed by Adii. Check it out. I had to answer some questions that were very similar to the ones in the last interview, but it gets more interesting as this interview progress.

Specifically, I broke down how Technorati’s Popular Top 100 blogs aren’t really the top 100 linked-to blogs. Wpdesigner.com ranks in the top 40′s, but you won’t find Wpdesigner.com on the top 100 list. Read the interview to find out why.

If you’d like to ask me some questions for your own interview, contact me. I’ll link to your interview to send some traffic love.

You put a lot of time into your free theme. It’s your baby. I know. Want lots of bloggers to download and use your theme?

Places to submit, post, or upload your theme:

Wpdesigner.com
Yes, yes! I’m finally opening up Wpdesigner to accept theme submissions and to feature your themes. Follow my instructions below to get your themes featured on this blog.

WordPress Themes and Templates
Announce your free theme arrival on the WordPress forums. You won’t get many replies, but people do check out your theme.

WordPress Theme Viewer
Upload your free theme to the WordPress Theme Viewer (a public themes database) to get the most downloads. Note: I heard it’s pretty hard to get a theme author account to start uploading right now. I requested for an account a long time ago, didn’t have to wait long back then. I don’t know how long you have to wait nowadays.

JohnTP.com WP Themes
Submit your theme to John’s list of WordPress themes. Usually, you do this through posting a comment on that page, but the comment form is gone. Bug John to add your theme. *Sorry John*

Emily Robbins Themes List
Submit your theme to her list through the comment form.

The results have been in for days. So what’s the verdict if you haven’t seen the poll? Over one third (36%) of you wouldn’t pay over $100 for an exclusive WordPress theme. For nonexclusive (pay-per-download theme), it’s $20 for each download, which sounds about right.

Reality Check

From a web designer point of view, the top voted price for an exclusive theme is beyond comprehension. Let me paint a better picture:

In general web design, a five-page website costs you typically $300 – $500 among the average freelancers; that includes design, coding, and content integration (filling the site with text and images). A ten-page site will yield an $800 to a $1000 quote.

Those numbers are ballpark prices among average freelancers. Contracting a company or highly distinguished web developer to handle your site would for sure cost upwards of $1000.

Why such a big difference?

I’ll go over three outstanding reasons.

Low-level Freelancers – Although you do get what you pay for, however, I’m not talking skill-wise here. The problem is there are many freelancers willing to work for a lower price range just so they can get the job. Although this also applies to general web development, I have to mention this reason because it’s even worse within the WordPress theme circle.

Consider the Client – WordPress theme clients are different from general web design clients. I believe WordPress theme clients are more knowledgeable. Some are interested in modifying the final product rather being happy with receiving a well-designed theme.

Ease of Use and Management – A part of the problem is how easy it is to set up a WordPress blog, add content, manage it, and find free themes for it. What you end up having to deal with is knowledgeable and more experienced clients that simply want custom modifications to look unique instead of a completely unique/exclusive theme.

Here’s a list of WordPress and CSS resources that helped me get to where I am today in WordPress themes development. The following links are listed in no pariticular order.

• Faux Columns (by Dan Cederholm)
  Your main column and sidebar column backgrounds aren’t even? Faux Columns is the answer.
• Max Design CSS Tutorials
  Styling WordPress is mostly styling lists. Max Design tutorials are the best place to start.
• Sliding Door (by Douglas Bowman)
  For an advance horizontal menu, learn the sliding door technique. Wpdesigner’s current top menu bar is the result of Sliding Door.
• Dynamic Menu Highlighting
  After learning the Sliding Door technique, take it a step further. Learn how to highlight your menu tabs.
• Tizag PHP Tutorials
  Creating a WordPress theme doesn’t involve just XHTML and CSS. You need a bit of PHP knowledge. I like Tizag.com’s detailed tutorial on the If / Else statement the most.
• WordPress Lessons
  Read my tutorials? Ready to move on? At the end of the day, there’s no better guides than the lessons from WordPress.org showing you the ins and outs of a WordPress theme.
• Lorelle.WordPress.com
  To learn even more about WordPress, design, and development, visit Lorelle on wordpress.com.
• Designing Themes for Public Release
  Want to create and release your own free WordPress theme? Read Designing Themes for Public Release first.

The last and ultimate resource is curiosity. I keep learning in order to improve my methods and techniques so I can create better WordPress themes at a faster rate.

April Fools!

I know. I know. It’s soooo predictable and you’ve seen this coming from a mile away. Unlike John Chow and GeekWhat, I’m not keeping this up for the whole day. And no, I didn’t copy them. This idea of leaving your site on April 1st isn’t that original. In most cases, it’s just an excuse for the blogger to take a break for a day.

I celebrate April Fools’ Day because it’s a personal reminder to not take life so seriously.

Anyway, I’m far from leaving; too-bad-so-sad to Wpd readers that don’t like me. In fact, I’m gearing up to release new WordPress themes.

Created in May 2006, I started Wpdesigner.com to host my own free, crappy WordPress themes; themes that I thought had to exist to fill in a gap in the WordPress theme community. To this day, Wpdesigner.com exists for that same reason, to make crappy themes available to the WordPress community.

However, its creator (me) is exhausted and has lost all tastes for WordPress; I’m also tired of typing and reading the name WordPress. All the themes and all the tutorial lessons, I think I’ve given all I could give.

Thank You’s

• Thank you to all the great spamesigners. You showed me that leaching on a public database of an open source software can be a profitable way to make a living.
• Thank you to all the rip-off designers. I’ll never forget your motto… “As long as it’s legal… and even when it isn’t.”
• Thank you to all bloggers that asked for theme support when they didn’t even have the decency to follow my license and link back to my site to credit me for the crappy theme that I didn’t rip off in order to spam the WordPress public database. I answered your questions anyway…

Now, I’m ready to move on… so thank you for the comments, support, and encouragements. Goodbye my fellow small potatoes.