Announcing the Notes Blog Theme for WordPress 2.7
You might think this is a little premature, since WordPress 2.7 isn’t due out until in November this year, but I just couldn’t wait any longer. I’ve mentioned my Notes Blog WordPress theme previously, and I’ve promised to make it available for free.
And you know what, I intend to keep that promise!
My goal is to have the Notes Blog theme available for download by the time WordPress 2.7 is launched, with a possible beta version before that. Again, we’re talking November here, no sooner. And no, there won’t be support for previous versions of WordPress, although the theme might very well work in them anyway. Most likely, actually, but don’t come whining to me if it doesn’t.
So what’s the fuzz about, why WordPress 2.7 and why not now?
Child Theming in WordPress 2.7
It is simple. From 2.7, there’s better support for child themes, which is the concept on which the Notes Blog theme is built upon. You can have child themes today as well, but they’ll only let you alter (as in: overwrite parts of) the style.css file, and do magical things with functions.php. My problem is, I don’t like the excessive use of functions.php, it gets unnecessary hard for me as a developer to work with, especially when I’m used to do most stuff in the template files in the first place. You see, if I want to truly change something in my theme, and not just switching sides of the sidebar, swap colors, or even change logos, I’m forced to call functions.php. And let’s say I want to make a core theme and add child themes to that one, for further control. Well, that would mean I’d have to run a great many things through the functions.php file to make it truly versatile and flexible, at least to the extent that I’d want it to be.
Child themes will be able to overwrite template files as well
But that is all changing in WordPress 2.7! Child themes will be able to overwrite template files as well, which means that if I want a totally different style, I can always add template files for this. Maybe I need a truly custom archive solution, or a portal-like front page? Just add archives.php and home.php to the child theme, and do it right!
This is great news for theme developers, something others have talked about during the last few months, and I’ve been following it closely myself. You can do a great many things with child themes already, just look at Ian Stewart’s Thematic, but this truly makes them useful to me. And honestly, to a lot of theme hackers out there as well, it’ll be easier for everybody to customize themes to fit your needs, and that can only be a good thing.
The Notes Blog Concept
The Notes Blog concept is built on the premises of one, easily customizable core theme, which I’ll offer for free, no charge, hack away and make it look the way you want, for both personal and commercial use. It’ll be a clean theme, fully functional on its own.
On top of this, I’ll offer child themes that adds functionality, changes the design, and gives it bling. I’m doing this because I want something solid to stand on when I’m building websites myself, no matter if they are client gigs or my own projects. By maintaining a core theme, the actual Notes Blog theme, I won’t have to update in so many places, and that’ll save time.
Expect more on this as we’re closing in on the WordPress 2.7 launch, and also, I’ll show you how it is shaping up. I’m revising the code base now, and playing around with it to find something that fits for a first alpha version, and I’m also considering various default styles to make the theme attractive on its own, without bloating it.
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