Archive for tag 'site news'

Apr 3 2012

Moving into the world of Creative Commons

Starting today, all future free HTML/CSS templates (both new designs and updates of previous releases) will be released under a Creative Commons CC-BY license. It will not mean any difference in terms of how the templates can be used, modified and redistributed, as the templates will remain free to download, free to use for both commercial and non-commercial purposes and free to modify and redistribute. The only difference in practice will be that attribution must be given when the templates are used or redistributed. By using an established license, there will be no more confusion about copyrights, limitations and the legal status of the designs.

To learn more about Creative Commons, I suggest watching this video presentation.

(Note: The WordPress themes will still be GPL)

By Andreas • General • 2 Tags: , ,

Mar 15 2012

Pinning images from this site on Pinterest

Screenshot of Pinterest.com

The online pinboard service Pinterest is a fast-growing site for pinning and sharing images and links of various kinds. In terms of popularity, it is a huge phenomenon that is used and appreciated by a large number of people worldwide. But Pinterest has also got a lot of criticism as the concept of pinning images can violate copyrights. This can make the seemingly innocent act of sharing a photo into a crime, as explained in this blog post from the Wall Street Journal. Since site owners have different views on copyright and pinning, I want to clarify my view regarding pinning images from andreasviklund.com:

Pinning content from andreasviklund.com on Pinterest is perfectly OK. I encourage it, and appreciate it as it helps others find my work. If you are inspired by the templates and themes that you find here, do not let scary blog posts like the one above stop you from using Pinterest – atleast not for images you find on this website.

I have added a “Pin it” button to the sidebar, and I am working on updating the layout of the template gallery and the single template pages to make it easier to share screenshots for those who want to. I will also be around myself, with a pinboard dedicated to design inspiration. More about that in future posts…

By Andreas • General • 2 Tags: , ,

Jan 15 2012

Sharing buttons and commenting using your Facebook, Twitter or Google account

I have spent this weekend on adding two new features for the site. Here is a short rundown:

Share buttons for pages and posts

Buttons for Google +1, Facebook Like and Tweet this have been added to all pages and all blog posts – as well as to the front page. If you click on one of the buttons (for example the “Facebook like” button) on any page or blog post, you will “like” that specific page or post (rather than the main URL, andreasviklund.com, which was shared on the previous version of the site). The sharing buttons now display the number of +1′s, likes and tweets for each page, which is also a new feature.

Comment using your Facebook, Twitter or Google account

Comments can now be posted using your Facebook account, Google account or Twitter account, as well as by manually filling in the name and e-mail address like before. If you post a comment by connecting your Facebook account, your comment will also be posted on your Facebook wall along with a link to the post you are commenting on. I don’t know if this will be useful to anyone, but I thought that it could be worth trying it out.

More features will be added during the next couple of weeks, as the site is in constant development now. If there is any specific feature that you would want to see, feel free to post your suggestions and requests here.

By Andreas • Share • 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 • General • 2 Tags:

Nov 9 2011

Forum and contest updates

The andreasviklund.com forum has been updated to the latest version of the Simple Machines Forum system. Some visitors have had problems with registering, and I have not been able to identify the reason since all tests I have ran have worked well. Hopefully this update will make it work better.

The design contest deadline has passed, and the entries are being reviewed and ranked now. I got fewer entries than I had expected and hoped for, but I am happy to say that several of the entries were very well-written. Results will be published and the winners will be contacted soon!

By Andreas • General • 1 Tags: , ,

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