Archive for the ‘Site News’ Category

Theme Lab CakeSome of you picked up the hint at the bottom of my last post, but today is Theme Lab’s second birthday! It is exactly two years after the first post, and exactly one year after Theme Lab’s first birthday.

Like last year, I’d like to take this opportunity to review the past year and let you know what’s in the plans for the future of this site. Also like last year, this will be a long and gushy post. If you don’t like long and gushy posts, you should probably stop reading now.

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By: Leland on Jun. 25

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Announcing Themelets

Posted in Child Themes, Site News

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Themelets I registered the domain themelets.com several months ago (way back in August of last year) in the hopes of one day making a WordPress child theme “portal” of sorts. I started working on it off and on for the past few weeks, and earlier today I finally got it ready.

On the site you can find information on the latest WordPress child theme releases, announcements regarding many popular theme frameworks, along with tutorials and other resources.

Yeah, I know the site is pretty much dominated by Thematic child themes at the moment, but in time maybe we’ll see more variety of child themes spanning across different frameworks.

Don’t worry, I’m not jumping ship from Theme Lab to start posting about new child themes all day. Think of it as a sister blog to complement the content here.

So go on and check out Themelets and let me know what you think in the comments.

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By: Leland on May. 4

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We Have Four Contest Winners

Posted in Site News

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I have just selected four winners who entered the first Theme Lab contest. Each of them will receive:

  • One free .com/.net/.org domain registration from Go Daddy
  • One free year’s hosting from Fused Hosting
  • One free Elegant Themes membership

Just a refresher on how the contest was run: each contestant can pick one number between 1-1000. After about a week, the contest is closed, and I pick a number between 1-1000. The closest four people to that number will win.

So, want to see what the winning number was, and more importantly: if you were close enough? Read on…

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By: Leland on Apr. 13

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You might be wondering what these three things have in common: free domains, free web hosting packages, and free premium WordPress theme club memberships. Well, these are all prizes up for grabs in the first Theme Lab contest! Honestly, I’ve never been big on contests, but when Nick Roach of Elegant Themes contacted me a few days ago offering to sponsor a contest/giveaway, I was more than happy to oblige.

But, a WordPress theme really isn’t much use if you don’t have web hosting to use it on. Your own domain name wouldn’t hurt either. This is why I contacted Jack of Fused Hosting and Bill of Available Domain Names to donate to the contest as well.

If you want to know what exactly is up for grabs, more information on the sponsors, and how to enter, read on…

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By: Leland on Apr. 6

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Theme Lab Will Live On

Posted in Site News

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It’s been a long time since I last updated Theme Lab - over five months, so where do I start? First of all, yes, I am still alive. I apologize for just disappearing without a trace like that. That was unacceptable, although I’m not using this post to shower you with excuses. Let’s just say that I had some more important offline endeavors that needed to be focused on for a while.

Second of all, I’d like to thank those of you who stuck around. Strangely, my subscriber numbers steadily increased, eventually breaking the 1k barrier, after I stopped posting. Anyway…

The first part of this post will be a roundup of sorts. I’ll be reviewing some of the recent happenings in the WordPress and theming community while I was gone. The second part will discuss my future plans for this site.

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By: Leland on Mar. 31

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As you all probably know, this site is focused around WordPress, and more specifically, WordPress themes. Believe it or not, but there are a lot of other themeable (is that a word?) CMS and blogging platforms out there besides WordPress out there.

Most of these platforms don’t have nearly the amount of themes available that WordPress has. Here’s a short list of some other pieces of software I had in mind that are lacking in the theme department:

  • Habari - http://www.habariproject.org/
  • Chyrp - http://chyrp.net/
  • Drupal - http://drupal.org/

Do you use any of these systems? Would you be interested in themes being ported over to these systems? Have you even heard of them? Let me know in the comments.

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By: Leland on Sep. 11

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It was announced a few days ago that bbPress would be releasing a series of 1.0 alpha versions. These versions will be compatible with WordPress 2.6 and above, which is good news for me.

I took this opportunity to upgrade my own forums after sitting dormant for nearly a month after upgrading to WordPress 2.6. For all you people itching to ask questions in the forums, but couldn’t sign up or login, feel free to do so now.

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By: Leland on Aug. 13

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Some of you who frequent Theme Lab’s support forums may have noticed you aren’t able to login anymore.

Why is this? WordPress 2.6 - that’s why.

The cookie changes between 2.5.1 and 2.6 are so “radical” they render the WordPress-bbPress integration useless.

When is the bbPress update coming? Apparently, not any time soon.

WordPress-bbPress users are encouraged to stick with WordPress 2.5.1 until a stable bbPress update is released, but don’t hold your breath.

If you’re using a Theme Lab theme and need support, feel free to post a comment on the release post on the blog, and I’ll try my best to get back to you.

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By: Leland on Jul. 24

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Minus one minor problem with an outdated WP-DownloadManager plugin, upgrading to WordPress 2.6 was relatively painless. The aforementioned plugin, which I use for managing the theme downloads here at Theme Lab, was updated by the author - correcting the bug. Here are a couple articles with tips on upgrading your own WordPress install:

You should always be taking regular backups of all your sites, especially in preparation for something like a software upgrade.

I’d like to know how your WordPress upgrade went. Any issues?

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By: Leland on Jul. 15

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To those who don’t read the archives of the “Site News” category, today is exactly one year after Theme Lab was launched.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone and everything who made all of this possible, go over a little Theme Lab history, as well as let you know what is in store for the future.

This post will be very long and gushy, so if you don’t like long and gushy posts - you should probably stop reading now.

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By: Leland on Jun. 25

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Recent Comments

  • Anto: Hello. Thanks, you’ve got my contact details. Get in touch with me if your wanting something in your own...
  • Sonny: Hey Anto, I love this design, good work that I paid for link removal :) Anyways, how can one contact you to do...
  • Leland: @axelk: As in picture uploads? Not sure about that, although you could set up the form to allow users to send...
  • axelk: thank you for the reply. can Contact 7 be used to submit pictures as well?
  • Leland: @axelk: I think that’s what the Contact Form 7 is for. Although if you wanted to allow users to submit...

About The Author

Welcome to Theme Lab. My name is Leland, and I run the place. I write all the tutorials and code all the themes you see here on the site.

For more information about me, feel free to read the about page. If you want to drop me a message, feel free to contact me.

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