Jan 2 2012

Now available: The Arctica theme for WordPress

Since more than 80 days have passed since I submitted this theme to the official WordPress theme directory queue, and since the theme is marked as being under review since a number of weeks, I decided to make my next theme available on this site and keep it here until it shows up in the official theme directory. This means that you can now download the first version of the Arctica theme and try it out.

Arctica is a basic 2-column blog theme, built upon a HTML5 code base (derived from Toolbox) and enhanced by CSS3 and a custom webfont. It is classical, by some measures to a level getting close to being oldschool. But the feedback has been very positive so far, and it is a theme which I could very well end up using myself if I would launch a personal blog some time in the future.

Give it a try, and let me know what you think about it. Feature suggestions, bug reports and general feedback are always welcome. As always, you can preview the theme on my theme demo site.

To download the Arctica theme directly, use this link: Arctica theme for WordPress (.zip, 179 Kb).

By Andreas Viklund • Build • 0 Tags: , ,

Jan 1 2012

2012 has arrived…

Today is a Sunday, the first day of the new year. I have spent the day tweaking details on the new site design which just went live. If you are a returning visitor, you can notice that andreasviklund.com has got a new look. You will still be able to recognize the layout and find your way around the site, most things can be found where they were before. But many other things have changed, and I will write more about it in future posts.

This new design was built from a theme by Themify, which I used as a starting point to get access to a number of useful backend features that I don't have enough programming skills to build myself. The basic layout was similar to the previous design of andreasviklund.com, so it was kept – although with a number of modifications. Custom styles for presenting the template gallery and theme pages were added, and a lot of code that was not needed was removed.

I would guess that I will end up changing more things along the way, there are still a number of things to optimize and improve. I will also need to find alternatives for a couple of plugins which I have used in the past, which stopped working with the upgrade to WordPress v3.3.

What is different?

The biggest change in terms of the site structure and content is that the frontpage of this site now shows the blog with the five latest posts, instead of three excerpts and links to the latest posts in the different categories. You can find the "Learn", "Build" and "Share" categories in the navigation menu above, by hovering the "Intro" button. Template screenshots are no longer shown on attachment pages, but in a Lightbox-style slideshow. Social media buttons will be moved to the header, translation links are ready to be included in each post instead of in the sidebar. The layout, which is currently fixed, will be made responsive as soon as I can test the fluid CSS on more mobile devices. Several of these changes require plugin updates, which I will do as soon as this post is published. If you find any errors or have any suggestions for improvements, please let me know. General feedback is of course also welcome.

With this, I wish you all the best for year 2012!

By Andreas Viklund • General • 0 Tags:

Dec 12 2011

WordPress v3.3 ("Sonny") is released

After months of beta testing and three release candidates, WordPress version 3.3 has now been released. It has been given the name "Sonny" in honor of jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt, and as always it features a number of new additions and features. It can be installed through the administration area of existing self-hosted WordPress websites, or downloaded from WordPress.org. The WordPress themes from andreasviklund.com have all been tested with the release candidates and should work just fine. If, however, you run into any problem, please let me know and I'll make sure to fix it quickly.

By Andreas Viklund • Build • 5 Tags: ,

Dec 8 2011

WordPress 3.3 to be released soon

New: Helpful popups, pointing out changes and new features in WordPress v3.3 (RC2)

The next release of WordPress, version 3.3, will be released soon. A second release candidate was published a day ago, and I am running it on my theme demo site to make sure that all themes work as intended when the final release goes online.

WordPress 3.3 adds some nice new features including a new admin toolbar, an improved media uploader, support for permanent widgets and as usual, performance improvements. For a more developer-oriented overview, see this post by Andrew Nacin.

By Andreas Viklund • General • 0 Tags: ,

Dec 5 2011

WordPress.org waiting times

Upcoming release: Konstant for WordPress

On October 14th, I submitted a new WordPress theme to the official WordPress theme directory, called "Arctica". Seven weeks later, I am still waiting for the review process to start. As much as I like the theme directory and the way it works once a theme has been approved, I find seven weeks to be a quite long time. In order to speed up future theme releases, I will start publish themes on my WordPress themes page, and host the themes myself until they have been reviewed and approved in the official theme directory – marked as "awaiting approval on WordPress.org" until the themes are published there. This will allow me to fix any bugs that are found, and add new features that are requested once the first versions go online on WordPress.org.

Right now, I am working on a CSS3-enhanced theme based on the Lagom theme called "Konstant". At the moment, it doesn't look OK in older versions of Internet Explorer, so it is not quite ready for release yet. But if anyone would want to try it out, I'd be happy to send it to you. Post a comment or send me an e-mail, and I'll send the theme to you.

By Andreas Viklund • General • 0 Tags: , , ,

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