WordPress Theme Frameworks

For web designers who may want to use WordPress as a robust content management system, might want to review some of the newer WordPress theme frameworks that are available.

Theme frameworks are not particularily new as the Sandbox theme has been a standard for taking the basics of a WordPress page and then adding theme information (CSS) to the basic structure.

But some recent frameworks are more sophisticated and aimed at making the CMS features of WordPress easier to work with when there is a lot of development to do or a designer is responsible for creating a lot of WordPress sites for customers.

As in other programming and markup environments (JavaScript, CSS, AJax, etc.) a framework is a completely coded theme that can serve as the base for many projects. Often the framework can be added to (as with several WP theme frameworks) with child themes – a way of changing the look and function of the base framework, yet using its many resources. (Justin Tadlock)

Tadlock’s article “Why I created a WordPress theme framework“, provides a good understanding of WordPress theme frameworks. Of the theme frameworks I have reviewed [Thematic, Vanilla, Hybrid, and Carrington] I think there are some creative uses of these products. I particularly like the Carrington framework, even though I have not completed a child theme with it. But if you need to save time, but also have time to learn the framework, these could be valuable assets in creating solid WP based websites.

Links to each of the frameworks mentioned and others are located on the WordPress Theme Frameworks link stated above. By the way, I forgot to mention that these frameworks are free – as in open source. Thematic does offer commercial versions but it freely offers the base framework.

Screencasting and other activities

Leigh Blackall’s “What to Do” provides a group of instructional videos that engage you in activities that will add to your PLE tool chest. I believe that as we experience new digital technologies we gain new potential as designer/developers and here you can pick and choose what is attractive and appropriate for your needs.

If you enjoy the videos and find some useful information, don’t hesitate to comment and thank Leigh for making these tutorials available. It never hurts to add a friend to our blogging network!

Fear, Trembling, & Excitement?

If you are a web developer who makes a living teaching web design, you may experience these emotions as I did this afternoon. Casually gleaning new stuff from my aggregator subscriptions and listservs I selected a link from Stephen Downes informative listserv and was sorta knocked out of my chair with the discovery of a new product that was so unusually rich and challenging that also seemed to take everything I have spent years learning and render it obsolete! Such is the power of new technologies. I can’t remember ever experiencing such contrasting emotions from such a simple act. I felt threatened, yet very excited. Fortunately I was able to share the product with a few faculty and then with one of my classes. We discussed its potential impact and our emotions after previewing the product demonstration and video. I think we will be in dialogue about it for some time to come, but it is comforting to have other professionals to share with about such events and new products.

Fear and trembling comes from the threat to the fabric of one’s daily practice. Excitement comes from the possibilities of a new technology that could dramatically impact global learning. Who knows where the wind blows.

If you are not into creating your own portal such as mygoogle, myyahoo, or netvibes you may get interested after visiting Zude. It is to be released in beta on May 1, so there is a waiting period, but a brief animated demo on the site will give you an idea of what’s to come and the video of the developers and a live demonstration will rock you. There is also an informative article from ZD Net.

Another site that is similar but a few steps back perhaps is yourminis. It creates widgets for your blog, website, and now…desktop! A very powerful rip, mix, & burn tool.

I have been a proponent of self-directed learning in my classes and often have students work on a personal learning environment (PLE). Their job just got easier. Zume allows you to drag and drop any webpage, application (a web-based api), images from other sites, videos, and pretty much anything on the web can be drag/dropped onto a Zude document page. You can also link any of your objects to any other objects creating a new type of rip, mix, burn.

This type of application is referred to as a “platform of personal expression (PPE)” by ZD Net and it further engages the interactive designer into envisioning a web that is a mixture of whatever technologies can deliver the goods the user needs. It changes our way of thinking about design, it stretches our imagination, it challenges us to get very close to all the technologies we can manage to understand and share as a community. It is one more reason why we need to develop a stronger community of practice as a department. We need to be networking to keep up with all that is happening.

Interesting places, tools, and videos

A rich mining session in about an hour this afternoon brought some new resources you may enjoy tinkering with, and learning from.

From Stephen Downes OLDaily listserv is Pipes and Hypercard: Interactive vs Connected Media on Scott Wilsons blog, which introduced me to Yahoo Pipes!, a free online service that “lets you remix popular feed types and create data mashups using a visual editor”. Pipes is an intriguing tool that allows you to do all sorts of things with RSS subscriptions, collecting, mashing, and much more. I think everyone using aggregators and blogs will have fun with all the possibilities!

Scott Wilson also referenced xfruits and reblog, both similar products to Pipes! All of these webapps are free to use of course! I am just getting into these products and they are exciting for the potential to generate new ways of working with rss based content. Another link from Scott’s blog takes you to an article on LinuxWorld about Ten Web 2.0 APIs you can really use. You have heard of Google Maps api and Flickr api but others may be new to you.

And if that isn’t enough to get your techie heads swirling, there is a new database product that may dazzle you, another api, at Dabbledb.com. It is a fee based service, but they offer a 30 day trial to learn about how you can implement it with your web pages, and they offer a free version that is intended for public access projects, which could offer some interesting development opportunities.

By the way, I am writing this post directly from Firefox with the Performancing firefox plugin (link follows) which is a neat tool that allows you to create a blog article while on a site simply by clicking an icon at the bottom of your Firefox page. When the article is complete it posts the article for you after you set up blog accounts you wish to post to and choose one. I have tried several stand-alone weblog editors and none is this simple and foolproof! Give it a try.

powered by performancing firefox