Thesis appears to be the most customizable theme available, with many new features rumoured for the upcoming version 2.0. Full support is included in the price of admission.
I immediately notice the improved typography, spacing and friendly layout. Though I haven’t exploited many of the design options, you’ll notice I have carried over the VeloWeb look, colour theme, etc. All this is accomplished simply from the Thesis dashboard.
Besides simple editing options, a horizontal nav bar was also a must. All that remains is to make navigation between the two areas more user-friendly, and for that — there’s just no getting away from it — I need to learn a few more WordPress/Thesis tricks.
Something I did explore last night is the use of “hooks” which Thesis uses for customization. With a bit of code inserted into custom_functions.php, I added a custom footer to the blog.
I made another change late yesterday by abandoning the Echo comment plugin on the blog. As I use Echo on the main site, I had hoped to keep things uniform between VeloWeb and VeloWebLog, but all the issues that I’d worked through on VeloWeb pages arose anew, along with more technical glitches. For instance, comments coming from manually placed Echo widgets (on VeloWeb) apparently conflict with those from the WordPress Echo plugin and bugger up synchronization. Subsequently, blog comments don’t show in page notifications and the “recent comments” widget. The uninstall cost me a couple of comments that didn’t carry over but saved me more headaches.
Though the Echo idea — real time integration of content between social networking sites and profile/account binding — is powerful, it is in my experience not ready for prime time. Because it tries to do a lot, it is plagued with bugs. After using it for six months, I also notice that visitors tend not to use the networking features. I’ll leave it in place on VeloWeb pages for now, but unless Echo developers solve problems and simplify use, it doesn’t work for me on VeloWebLog.
In the meantime, I’m enjoying tinkering with WP and incorporating some of the ideas gleaned from the recent WordCamp Victoria conference. If you have any opinions on the new design or recommendations for this WordPress neophyte, please feel free to comment below.
Thesis Hooks | Thesis Tutor | Echo | WordPress.org | WordCamp Central
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