For those of you that follow my personal blog, you may know that I’m in the process of leaving Korea and moving back to the U.S., which has taken up quite a bit of my time lately.
I’ve been hard at work on this new child theme for Options. I could probably release it before I left later this week, but I want to make sure everything is working great across multiple browsers — I’m kind of picky like that. I’d rather wait a few days to get everything down perfectly than give you a mediocre release.
I wanted to give you a quick preview to possibly wet a few of your appetites and to let you all know what’s going on. Also note that there’s a nicer-looking header image that’s not shown in the preview image.
This will be a red version of Options, which is something I haven’t seen a whole lot of. And, to top off the new style, I’m including a new page template for you exclusive members with this theme that I think a few of you might make some good use of.
Future WordPress themes
The red theme (sorry, no official title yet) will be a part of September’s releases, so I have plans for at least two more child themes in October. One of those child themes will definitely be for Visionary.
Plus, for those of you not beta testing the Hybrid theme, you should have a brand new parent theme to work with within a couple of weeks. The Hybrid theme will be a true WordPress theme framework. It’s the framework behind this site and the showcase blog.
Also, pretty soon, we’ll have a new forum for the extend section of the site that will deal directly with child themes. Feel free to make guesses as to what this will be — some of you should already know.
I hope this gives you a little something to look forward to.
Now that looks cool…Can’t wait to get my hands on it.
When you create a new theme like this one, how much of the basic Options code are you changing (to add/improve features) and how much of this is purely a child theme?
davek
Thanks. It should be out next week.
jmac
Each child theme will be different in terms of style and functionality. Options isn’t a theme that will have a huge amount of child themes because most of them would be purely style changes.
This theme has an additional template that adds features to it, which I will talk about on the release post.
If you’re looking for a lot of extra features, this won’t happen with Options because it’s pretty much ran its course. There’s not a whole lot I could do to extend it through the core parent theme or a child theme because of the way it was initially built.
Of course, I have an ideas forum where users are encouraged to share ideas that they think should be added. Of course, some of the stuff isn’t feasible with Options, but might be with other themes.
The real deal will come when I release the Hybrid theme. It’ll allow me to do loads of stuff that extend the functionality of the theme straight from the child theme. I’ve been building it for three months, and it’s much more powerful than anything we’ve seen thus far. Most child themes will be built for it because it’s being developed as a theme framework to do just about anything.
[...] just in case you missed it, check out some upcoming features for the Theme Hybrid [...]
Hey justin… bon voyage…
The options theme as such si a killer… if one learns the docs fully and get editing it, it can be turned in any kind of website from minimalistic to mag style…
And you stating the new hybrid theme gonna add more functionality…. Frankly i thought options was the limit… Now i cant wait to get my hands on it…. wow… that gonna be really nice… really..
regards
thinkjayant
Thanks. Hybrid won’t be anything like Options out of the box, but will allow for all kinds of different things that aren’t possible with the way Options was built. On the outside, it won’t look like as good of a theme, but underneath, it’s one of the most standards-compliant, SEO-optimized, theme frameworks you’ll find, especially considering there are very few frameworks.
I had two motives in asking about the depth of changes in the various themes.
First, I’m always evaluating new things just to learn, so it looks like I might want to keep up with your new themes. Also, as I’ve modified my Options child theme, I’ve added formatting that wasn’t in your original, but I notice is in one of the later themes (Blue Danube).
Second, I was wondering if there was any value in developing new child theme variations and making them available through your site.
@jmac: i guess the concept of releasing child theme is to give the non proficient web developers easy ground to start with the options theme. Justin provides beautiful default child themes….
so its better new child themes are released by justi and other forum members…
although i am waiting for whats in store for the hybrid theme…. can’t wait…
regards
thinkjayant
That looks really promising Justin, looks like I’m going to have to upgrade my membership
i tried to revamp my site http://www.smartblogtips.com after inspired from this red theme… its a little different and not as sleek as yours but i liked it. This is my first go at a red background theme. The website content is work in progress.
when are you going to spill the beans for hybrid theme… just assist us with the amazing documentation as you provided for options theme.
regards
thinkjayant
Hi Justin, just wondering if you have a planned release date for this child theme yet? no pressure, just looking forward to trying it out…
jmac
Sorry it took me a few days to get back to you. I’ve been moving from one country to another.
I suppose the only real benefit to making child themes available through this site if you make any would be extra traffic back to your site. Currently, I’m working on some new features that’ll let you all do stuff like this. I’m all for promoting community involvement and showing off what users can do.
thinkjayant
Very cool modifications. I like the red you chose.
As far as Hybrid goes, I’m tweaking it and re-tweaking it. I can’t decide if I want a full-blown framework or a solid starter theme. I’m leaning toward the full-blown framework because it’ll have a lot more features.
Supertyke
Thanks. Feel free to upgrade anytime.
davek
It should be out sometime this weekend. I just got settled in at my sister’s house in Atlanta, and I’ll be staying here a while. It’ll give me some time to work on everything.
thanks justin…
i always thought red as a bold color and stayed away from it. But after this theme mod, i think bold colors like red can be used effectively. This is my first red colored site ever. Currently finalizing the contents for this revamped blog.
regards
thinkjayant
[...] gave you a small preview of the Spartan WordPress theme just over a week ago. Well, it’s finally [...]
Really nice themes, perfect l might use with my next project soon.
Thanks
thinkjayant
It’s looking good. The only thing I found that looked a little off is the background color of the tabs. Maybe they could be brighter or a slightly different color.
Ali Baba
Cool. I hope you find one that suits your needs.
Nice theme !
I like red colour.
How to download this theme ?
please help me !
Thanks for sharing !