That is to say, it won’t break under 2.7. However, this latest version of WordPress does add a good many NEW features to themes that, unless properly accounted for, your theme probably won’t be taking advantage of immediately.

For instance, threaded comments. Even if you turn on threaded comments in your new 2.7 Admin settings, unless your theme is using the new wp_list_comments() function in its comments.php file, you won’t see any threaded comments. A minor detail, but it is worth noting.

So, while 2.7 will most likely NOT break your theme, you should also keep in mind that it probably won’t be take advantage of the newest 2.7 theme features — at least not at first. Check back with your theme’s developer to see if they have plan for adding the new features into your theme in the future.

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5. WordCamp Recap, Part 1

I’m convinced the worst feeling in the world is when you know you could have done something, yet you chose to do nothing. Over the last several months, it has become increasingly clear that my self-respect was waning, and an intense desire to do something special was overwhelming me.

You see, I’m grateful for the community that supports free software like WordPress.  It’s that community that has given me the ability to work full-time from home, enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, and make some of the best friends I’ve ever had. WordPress has dominated my life for the better part of two years, which is shocking conisdering WordPress is just blogging software.  The fact that it supports hundreds, if not thousands, of people is shocking as well.

And to that end, I’ve been feeling dissatisfied with ONLY releasing themes that cost money.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m no zealot.  I’m as capitalist as they come. But something has been bothering me lately — it just didn’t seem right that a free program, supported by a team of volunteers, was severely lacking in quality themes that were also available for free.  It seems wrong — you can get a great piece of blogging softare for free, but almost all the good themes cost money.

Introducing My Newest Project

ElevateThemes.com (not live) has been stewing for almost a year now.  I distinctly remember running the unnamed idea by some folks at WordCamp Dallas for feedback.  I purchased the elevatetheme.com domain back in January. I’ve wanted to launch this site for a VERY long time — and now, I’m finally about to do it.

ElevateThemes.com is a major contribution to the WordPress community.  Not only because of the themes that will be available, but because of the ideal that it stands for — quality and free don’t have to be mutually exclusive.  You CAN have both.

An Innovative Business Model

Ever since I first conceived the idea, I’ve wanted to toy with the idea of a “freemium” model theme release site.  I wanted to figure out a way to give away free themes, yet build a sustainable income from the site as well.  In my opinion, unless an idea can indirectly monetize, eventually the project leader will burnout.

Elevate will be monetized in three ways:

1. Premium Membership
2. Theme Sponsorship
3. Community Job Openings

The Premium Membership will cost $97 per year, and will provide you access to theme documentation, tutorials, and support support forum.  This way you, as the user of the theme, will only have to pay for the things you want or need.  If you get stuck during installation, you can become a member and download the theme documentation or watch the video tutorials.  And if that doesn’t help, I (along with others) will be there to help you in the forums.

Theme Sponsorship is much different than the “theme sponsorship” of old.  No more spammy links in the footer.  That’s not cool.

I’m talking about a way for companies to directly target the user of the theme, without exposing the user’s readers to any ads at all. When you, as the user, download and install the theme, you’ll see a sponsor ad when you set up the theme options.  These sponsors are going to help drive the design and development of new themes, and the ads will only be exposed to the administrator of the site when he sets up the theme.

My estimates are that the ad will be exposed to tens of thousands of bloggers through Elevate.  That’s targeted traffic, and would be well worth it for any advertiser that has a product that would be beneficial to bloggers.

Finally, a community Job Board that will allow users of the themes we release at Elevate to find customization help if/when they need it.  Premium Members will have access to post to the Job Board as much as they want, and non-members can purchase Job Board posting access for just $47.00 per year. Yep, an entire year for just $47.

Launch Schedule

I’m currently developing the first two themes for release, and I expect to launch within the next week. If you want to see a sneek-peek at the first theme, check this tweet out.

Are You Leaving iThemes?

Absolutely Not! iThemes is still the place to get some of the best WordPress themes available.  With a team like the one we have at iThemes, there’s no way I’d leave a place like that.  We have some of the best talent together in one company, and we plan on continuing to raise the bar when it comes to WordPress themes, and build a very successful business out of it.

ElevateThemes.com is just my way of contributing back to the community in my spare time by bringing premium-quality themes to the table for people who would otherwise not consider buying a theme.

Are You Just Copying Revolution

Abslutely not! I want to be very clear about this … Elevate was conceptualized long before Brian announced Revolution’s move to the GPL.  And while I applaude his move, it was in no way whatsoever the inspiration for Elevate.  Also, although his business model has yet to be completely uncovered, it seems that our models are both different in concept and execution.

I believe that our two projects will prove to be complimentary rather than competitive.

Stay Updated

The best way to stay updated with the progress and launch schedule is to follow @elevatethemes on twitter.  I’ll be releasing screenshots of themes, and maybe even posing pre-launch download links for some themes.

Click Here to follow @elevatethemes on twitter

Finally

I’m waiting on the comps to come back from the designer for the new look for NathanRice.net.  After I launch ElevateThemes.com, this blog is the next thing on my list for giving a facelift.  And once this blog is a lot prettier than she is now, you’re going to see a whole slew of new posts, news, and more of those awesome WordPress tutorials that everybody here loves so much!!!

So I hope you’re ready for an action-packed month.  It’s going to be quite a ride, so you’ll definitely want to hold on tight!

To stay updated on all my projects, you’re going to want to Subscribe to my feed, follow @nathanrice on twitter, and follow @elevatethemes on twitter.

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However, this morning, I noticed that several of the people I follow on twitter (@nathanrice) were linking to this image over at Donncha’s Flickr:

Taking a closer look, and knowing that Matt Thomas is the designer from the Automattic team, I figured out the URL being displayed in that browser window and discovered the full-res version of the comp for the new 2.7 dashboard interface:

And just minutes ago, I noticed that Jane from Automattic posted the new images and details over at the WordPress development blog. Head on over there to see all the juicy details and drool over the beautiful new admin interfaces. I don’t know about you, but I personally can’t wait until 2.7 is ready to ship. As soon as it hits beta, I’ll be upgrading this blog. :-)

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Proximity News Theme Overview from Nathan Rice on Vimeo.

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But the reason I wanted to post a recap of the weekend was to highlight all the cool stuff that was showcased at WordCamp this year.

2.5 and Beyond, Matt Mullenweg

Although he was still recovering from his recent wisdom teeth removal, Matt did a great job explaining the new features of WordPress 2.5 (released minutes before his session).

My favorite part of this session was the showcase of the new Photo Gallery feature. They’ve updated the image upload tool so that you can upload multiple images while the tool creates both a thumbnail, and a mid-size version of the image, then insert the gallery into a post with a simple, bbcode-like tag. Check out a live demonstration at Matt’s site.

Also, the automatic plugin upgrade is a welcomed addition to the new version. I’ve tried it on several of my out-of-date plugins, and it worked flawlessly.

You can check out the notes from Matt’s session, as well as video, here.

Unfortunately, I had to miss the 2nd session with John Pozadzides due to a lunch meeting. Perhaps the video will show up soon so you (and I) can check it out.

Stopping Content Theft, Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan, who is best known in the WordPress Community as the co-host of the WordPress Podcast, obviously loves the topic of combatting plagiarism and content theft, and for bloggers who are having problems with this should definitely check out the notes and video from Jonathan’s session.

The duo from GeekBrief.TV

This was definitely one of the more entertaining sessions from WordCamp, as well as informative. Neal and Cali from GeekBrief.TV took us through the history of their Podcast, including how they started monetizing it, and how they use WordPress to power their online presence.

They’ll aslo be using WordPress to power the blog that will document their newest project, BigTrip.TV, which is a all-50-states tour of the USA.

To be honest, before this conference, I hadn’t watched GeekBrief. I had known of it, but never checked it out. I think they may have just won a new fan :-)

Their session can be viewed here.

Influence and Interaction, Liz Strauss

Very few people know more about encouraging community and conversation than Liz, and she brought some great tips our way in her session. If you’re looking to encourage more comments on your blog, you have to check out her session video, when it becomes available.

One thing that really stuck out to me was her advice to be sure to not say everything in your posts. Leave room for tips and additions by your readers!

Blogging Power Tips, Lorelle

First of all, I got to meet and talk with Lorelle the previous night at the WordCamp Meetup at Dave and Buster’s, and she is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. She’s every bit as smart and sweet in real life as she is on her blogs.

Her session was fantastic. It never ceased to amaze me how she would take direct shots at specific features of WordPress, even with Matt sitting right there. This lady has guts :-)

One of my favorite parts of the session was Lorelle’s tips on using Greasemonkey scripts to enhance the WordPress.com Admin. I had honestly never thought of that, but her showcase of some of the things she uses was out of this world. I’m not a user of WordPress.com, but since you can’t install plugins for your blog on WordPress.com, I can imagine how frustrating it must be when you want to extend the functionality. Her tip was simple and elegant.

And if you’re a blogger with many articles to write per week, then you’ll definitely want to check out her session. She highlighted many different tools that can be used to make your experience so much better.

And that was it for day one. I’m hungry and haven’t had lunch yet :-) If you were present at WordCamp Dallas, day one, then let me know what part you enjoyed the most! I didn’t take very good notes, so if I missed something, let us know!

Tags: wordcampdallas2008

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I’m sure it doesn’t hurt to have links from the likes of Small Potato, Brian Gardner, Cory Miller, Blog Herald, and of course my friend Lorelle (who happens to be one of the nicest people in the whole wide world!).

Times are good, and they keep getting better …  can’t wait for what’s next!

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All you have to do is email me through my contact form letting me know that you purchased the theme before midnight, December 31st 2007 and you will receive free installation by yours truly. All I need from you is the ability to access your server.

So, head over to the purchase page and get your copy of NewsPixel, and we’ll remove any beginner’s barriers. If you’d like more details on the installation service, I’d be happy to answer any questions via email.

Get your copy today!!!

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As I mentioned a few weeks ago, sometimes money can make you forget about innovation. I think it also makes you forget that WordPress is, at its core, a community program … driven by the community … supported by the community … and sustained by the community.

So how is it that we sometimes forget to give back to the community?

There are Exceptions

There are many designers out there who really are 100% altruistic in their involvement in the WordPress community. For instance, with the exception of his Showcase theme, Small Potato has released every one of his themes free of charge. Not only that, but he’s all but guaranteed his readers that he won’t release any more premium themes for a price. They’ll all be free.

Likewise, Chris Pearson recently release a new theme, and instead of placing a link back to his site, he gave that link away to a good cause. Cool huh?

We can’t be completely selfless

Now, I’m not suggesting everyone take this position. In fact, most WordPress theme designers have families that require much more time than they can afford to give to releasing a slew of free WordPress themes.

But as time progresses, and more money is being thrown around, I think it’s good to reflect on the community that is making you all that money, and give a little back to them.

In my case, that means free WordPress themes.

Releasing Free Themes

I actually believe that in order to be considered a true “star” in the WordPress community, you HAVE to give back … no charge and no strings. Just giving for the sake of giving. Running around the blogosphere attributing notoriety to yourself doesn’t impress me much … and I don’t think it impresses very many other people either.

What impresses me is the quality and quantity of your free themes. Are you giving back? Are you throwing scraps, or are you giving your best?

So what am I going to do?

I believe in this principle with all my heart. If that means staying up half the night to work on free themes, then so be it.

And that’s what I did last night. I’ve been mulling over a concept for a minimalistic theme for the last 3 weeks or so, and last night I began work on the theme itself. I really like what I have so far! Here is a list of planned features…

• An almost monochromatic color scheme. I want this to be really simple!
• Obligatory Feedburner integration via theme options.
• A really cool Title/Meta combination, inspired in part by Hemingway.
• A nice header/title/menu combination, inspired by BryanCulver.com
• 3 Sidebars at the bottom, fully widgetized.
• Comment styles that mirror the same style as the post title/meta.
• The theme is tentatively named “Stripped” :-)

I may also do something that I haven’t tried before. I may offer multiple color schemes via the theme options available in a $5-10 upgrade pack. We’ll see. I think that by doing this, I can both give a quality, top-notch product to the public, while at the same time offering a low-cost “customization” service. It also helps me make a little more holiday spending money.

Conclusion

I really want to encourage the WordPress designers out there to release more free themes … especially those of you who are in the “top level” of the design community. The community is lacking quality themes of late, and I think we can all help solve that problem.

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5. The Problem With “Theme Options”

Every once in a while, I check out the sites that use my themes, both the ones I’ve released here, and the ones I did at RockinThemes.com.

I recently updated one of my most popular themes, RockinBizRed and I released it here at NathanRice.net. I then updated all the links at RockinThemes to reflect this new version.

However, to this day, I continue to see new incoming links from the older version, the buggy version, from RockinBizRed on the WordPress Theme Viewer, the official site for WordPress Themes, a site which continues to be closed to WordPress Theme authors and designers for updating their designs.

I feel so horrible for those still downloading this popular WordPress Theme, not knowing it’s got some code bugs and security issues. For instance, I saw this site pop up in my incoming links today. Take a look and cringe. The sidebars are seriously screwed up and I’m sure they are blaming me for bad web design when this issue was faced a long time ago.

This really isn’t fair to the user of that theme. It’s not their fault the official WordPress Theme Viewer, a site they trust, delivered them an out of date, buggy theme.

And that goes for the rest of my vulnerable themes that are still sitting out there in the theme viewer, and believe me, there are plenty. I know I’m not the only one with multiple out of date or vulnerable themes sitting on the official WordPress Theme Viewer, because it has been closed since July to theme designers needing to updated their badly out of date themes!

We NEED access to this site in order to update our themes!

The lack of access to the WordPress Theme Viewer not only hurts my own reputation, but it hurts the users too and could potentially be dangerous! Think about it …

1. There are plenty of themes out there with security risks. Without the authors having the ability to upgrade, users are put in danger by using the WordPress Theme Viewer, because users trust WordPress to handle this more than they do any other theme distribution site.
2. Many themes are restricted to WordPress version 2.2 and below. Most people don’t have the ability to upgrade a theme themselves, so they are stuck.
3. There could be a higher rate of theme related questions in the support forum, due to authors not being able to upgrade their themes.
4. Theme authors have to answer the same email and comments over and over about why the theme doesn’t work, because the user can’t upgrade it!
5. Frustrated users may decide to go to alternate download sites to get their themes, some of which are very shady and dangerous!
6. Users are generally unhappy at the quality of the themes on the viewer – think they have a good reason?

I’m not blaming anyone for this. I’m sure it’s no single person’s fault. In the end, the users lose if we don’t open up the WordPress Theme Viewer soon. I certainly hope, for their sake, the Theme Viewer is back up and running soon. Seriously, 5 months … and as far as I’m concerned … that’s long enough.

Please! Open the Theme Viewer back up to designers to update our themes! As long outdated themes remain on the Theme Viewer, everyone loses.

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But I recently discovered a podcast that looks like it has some serious potential to be a hit.

TalkingWordPress.com is host to a great little podcast! I listened to all 3 episodes so far in a single sitting, and I REALLY liked what I heard.

My good friend Brian even got himself a mention in episode 3 :-) His Vertigo theme is also used as the theme for the TalkingWordPress.com site.

The Pros:

• Very little dead air. These guys really like to talk, which makes for a really good podcast.
• No talk of WordPress politics. Although it is sometimes interesting, for the most part, I want to hear people deliver news and commentary when listening to a podcast. But I’m a simple guy — I want to hear about themes, plugins, events, features, etc.
• These guys aren’t experts, per se. They have a down-to-earth attitude, and it is really refreshing.
• They value designers. Entire episodes devoted to themes??? Yeah, that rocks!
• They get the market. Their discussion on Premium themes was very insightful.
• They like the same people and topics that I do.

The Cons:

• The episodes are way too short. I know this is usually a Pro, but 10 minutes is not enough time to really have a good discussion about these things, especially if you have a guest on the program.
• No contact form on the site!!! I looked forever, but the only thing you can do is call or skype them. Not cool! You can’t even comment on the episodes!!!
• Not enough talk of WordPress community buzz. This may just be because the podcast is new, but I get the impression that these guys aren’t as deeply rooted in the WordPress community as some are. One solution would be good guest hosts.
• The intro music could use updating :-) It really needs to pump!

In episode 3, they mentioned guest hosts. I’ve been itching to do a podcast myself for the last couple of months, and I would LOVE to be a guest on this podcast (or on the WordPress Podcast as well), but I couldn’t get in touch with the guys from Talking WordPress because of the lack of a contact form!!! If either of you guys read this post, send me an email! I’d love to talk about maybe contributing in the future.

All in all, this is definitely a podcast I’m subscribing to. It has SO MUCH potential to blow up, and I’m glad I was introduced to this podcast.

Way to go guys!

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As far as I know, aside from the obvious bug fixes, “tagging” will be an included feature in the new version. So if your a WP theme developer, be sure to check out the new template tags and update all your WP themes. I’ll be updating RockinBizRed soon to incorporate tagging, in case you were wondering. But don’t forget to do a function check for backward compatibility! :-)

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