WordPress themes updated
All my WordPress themes have been updated to make sure that the excellent WordPress.com stats plugin can be used with the themes. There are also a number of other updates, mostly minor changes. Bigger updates will follow soon, when the new theme gallery of this site will launch on this page.
The most notable update for today is that there are no links to other external sites in the themes any more, only the credit links to my website and to my WordPress theme page. My WordPress themes contain no sponsored links, and that should be clear to everyone now.
Go get them from the official WordPress Theme Viewer:
Introducing: Daleri
Coming up next will be the theme you see on my sandbox site Daleri.com! "Daleri" has been the silly working name for the new template/theme series that I have been working with for quite some time now, but I haven't found any better name so I'd better not waste any more time on chasing a good name and just release the code instead. Will it work? Or does it mean something really ugly on some language? Let me know what you think, and feel free to try the theme for yourself.
Unlike the andreasXX series, Daleri will be a bit more focused on artwork and a structure that encourage users to be a bit experimental and playful. The templates may not be very easy to use for CSS beginners, and the themes may not be the best "activate and go!" choice for non-technical WordPress bloggers. But if you take the time to learn the idea behind the designs and customize them to fit your own style, the result will hopefully be a bit more stylish than the average template or theme. Atleast, that is the idea behind the entire concept. I will follow it up with the add-on material and separate template pages that I have mentioned in a previous post, and additional material is something you will see a lot of on this site in the future. And it will of course be free to download, just like the templates. It is a wild idea, but I think it can work! More about that later…
For now I'm interested in comments and opinions about the first preview of the first release in the series: Daleri Launch. If you want to try it yourself, let me know and I'll send it over. Here is a screenshot:
Comments
Comment from pan
Time: May 22, 2007, 10:24 am
Andreas thanks for update of new design template.
I made my professional-personal blog with the wordpress template. I would like to thank you for the excellent work done! Please, go on designing such beatifull templates.
Comment from Alberto
Time: May 22, 2007, 11:08 am
The colors are very well combined. Anyway it's impossible to consider the effects like hover etc. just looking at the screenshot. Will you also publish a three columns-edition?
Comment from Henning
Time: May 22, 2007, 11:22 am
Fantastic design! I predict: This will soon become the most used theme for artistic and photoblogs all around the world ;-) The grey background is fine, making the colors of the photos appear more lively.
Few nitpicks (I know it's not done yet):
* The frame of the images starts 4px above the text paragraph surrounding it
* In the MS Internet Exploiter the calendar is too close to its heading
Comment from CoolGoose
Time: May 22, 2007, 12:31 pm
Well i think that it's great :). A nice evolution from the andreas series :)
Comment from Andreas Viklund
Time: May 22, 2007, 4:34 pm
Thanks for the comments! And the bug reports as well, I'll look into that immediately. For this project (which is a bit more artistic than anything else I have done in the world of website templates), you will be able to follow the development on the Daleri website. If you want to take part of it and contribute with testing content, let me know and I'll activate membership registrations for the blog…
There will be alternate versions. 3 columns, a version with light background, colorschemes… And lots of different headers and backgrounds, of course. It all depends on how you people explore your ideas with the theme. Rather than drawing up limitations for the use, I'm hoping to see the inspiration give the theme a life and development of its own. I have no idea if it will work, but it will be fun trying to find that out.
Comment from Pavel Descoteaux
Time: May 23, 2007, 12:20 am
Well done! Excellent colour strategy and great use of page real-estate
Comment from Alberto
Time: May 23, 2007, 11:00 am
I'd love to take part to the development of Daleri with testings, translations, modifications and so on.
Comment from Tomek
Time: May 23, 2007, 2:49 pm
About Your new project Daleri I will write only what i I don't like so: the Quick links menu - for me it's not a good place to put it. For me it's better to put it under the Archive - menu - better ergonomy (i use 15.4 monitor). Next think the "Search" menu for me it's will be better to put the search menu under the top, before the "Pages" menu. Also i don't like the "Entries" and "Comments" on the right (top). For me it will be better on the down of the template next to "© 2007 Daleri.com". About the colours - it's one of the best templates, I really like the "dark" templates when You create update I will use it on my new blog. So that's for now from me I will check the new comment's maybe someone write somethink i forget. Greetings
Comment from Andreas Viklund
Time: May 23, 2007, 3:41 pm
Thanks Tomek! The quick links and the presentation texts are regular widgets. They are intentionally placed on "the wrong places", where they should not be. By providing opportunities that are not very common, I hope to see a lot of smart ideas result from the project. I am not intentionally building an ugly and strange theme, but I hope that the Daleri series will create inspiration and maybe trick people into adding those little extra details that turns a regular theme into something really good. If there is some detail you don't like, then improve it! :)
I will upload the first testing version really soon, and if everything works well I'll move on and release it officially in a few days.
Comment from Robbie
Time: May 23, 2007, 9:41 pm
Love the theme (Daleri) - Looks great, keep up the great work.
Comment from KabelbW
Time: May 24, 2007, 1:54 am
I like the Design of the Daleri Theme. Only one thing: the white text under the "Welcome" heading is difficult to read. Maybe it could be a other color?
Anyway thanks for your great work.
Comment from emil
Time: May 24, 2007, 6:58 am
you did it again :), nice template ! just wondering, what object is in the header image?
Comment from Andreas Viklund
Time: May 24, 2007, 1:02 pm
emil: It is two limited-size WordPress widget fields. For the screenshot, I have placed a RSS widget in the left widget area and a regular text widget in the right area. But since it is widgets, anything can be placed there - as long as there is a widget for it. This is a bit experimental, it is an "expert feature" that you need to use with care - and you can also choose not to use it and just have a regular image header.
Comment from Dave
Time: May 24, 2007, 9:58 pm
Andreas, I was looking for a new theme and I found the new theme on your site. With the Daleri theme I actually thought that having the quick links up top in the header was interesting. I'm guessing the header image could be changed? One minor thing would be having the website address (in the top left) slightly larger.
Comment from LobsterMan
Time: May 25, 2007, 12:40 am
We're still waiting for you to upload the rest of your designs to opendesigns.org ;)
Comment from Andreas Viklund
Time: May 25, 2007, 1:20 am
Lobsterman: I will. :) I needed a break from the template adventure, it takes up a whole lot of energy sometimes. And I haven't had the needed inspiration to get everything done in a good way. But that will hopefully change:
The new theme for andreasviklund.com is ready now, several other WP-themes are ready, new templates are ready. And with the risk of shocking you all, it looks like you will actually see real releases today! With downloadable files and all…
Including new templates? Oh, I won't tell. Just hope for the best!
Comment from Magnus
Time: May 25, 2007, 4:21 pm
Looks really nice!
Comment from Bill Farrell
Time: May 26, 2007, 4:55 am
Daleri is gorgeous and rock-solid so far. I was able to change the header image, and I'm a total amateur. Keep up the great work! (Donation is on its way.)
Comment from panschi
Time: May 26, 2007, 11:26 am
I totally love your style and Daleri seams to be another little masterpiece. thx a lot for your work.
Comment from jim
Time: May 28, 2007, 11:38 am
I am not a big fan of dark-black wordpress templates but I must admit this one looks good. I believe the orange is the key element of this template and I like orange a lot.
Also the white font on the black background makes it very readable.
Already waiting for your next template.
Bye
Comment from Thomas
Time: May 29, 2007, 4:18 pm
Wow. Great design. I tried something similar although simpler and you might want to have a look. I tested it for WP 2.2 already. My theme (which I call a template) works with widgets and without. Greetings, Th
Comment from Design
Time: May 22, 2007, 9:40 am
Excellent theme, but it is heavy to me to read the text among a grey background.
Send me please a theme on e-mail.