So Who’s Going to Wordcamp?

Many of you know that our favorite blog publishing platform has been known to throw weekend parties from time to time. Sadly I wasn’t able to attend the last big shin-dig in Dallas this past March, because I was coerced into taking a cruise to the Caribbean the same weekend they had it.

However, next month WordPress is hosting WordCamp San Francisco, right in their very backyard, and I plan to be there. Along with some other friends of mine that I’m looking forward to hanging out with.

Primarily this guy and this guy.

But I know that hundreds of people will be there, and I wanted to know if any of my readers or Revolutioners were planning on attending. I love meeting new people and would love to meet you if you’re going to be in that neck of the woods!

So leave me a comment if you plan to be there and I’ll try to hunt you down!

Turning Back the Clock

I am very happy to announce that I have made my way back to the theme that got this all started. I am nearly finished with updating the original Revolution theme, and will soon be releasing it. Before I do that, I wanted to get a little feedback, and to have people test it out across various browsers. Please let me know if you see any bugs or if it looks ok – and let me know what browser you viewed in.

A few things that are different, is the backend to the homepage. Originally, all of the content on the homepage needed to be modified within the theme files, but all of that is now accessible through the Theme Options page. (very important in my opinion for those wanting an easy solution for a CMS!)

Another difference is that this theme will come in two flavors – the original color scheme, as well as a new black one. View the original theme or the black theme. (you can also toggle when viewing the demo by clicking on the Theme Colors drop down in the navbar.)

Here’s what the original theme will look like:

Here’s what the black theme will look like:

Sleeping With the Enemy

Many of you have heard of a guy named Chris Pearson, probably most known for his Cutline theme for WordPress. After allowing SplashPress Media to take over the theme, Chris spent some time away from the blogging world until he released his Neo-Classical theme towards the end of last year, and even jumped into the premium theme pool with the released of his Thesis theme.

I must admit that when I started working with WordPress a few years ago, I thought of him the same way aspiring actors view people like George Clooney in Hollywood. Starstruck. Wow, that’s Chris Pearson, the WordPress guy. I suppose we all have people we look up to in our lives, and Chris and his accomplishments were something that drove me – I wanted to “be like Mike” as they say, and finally decided to contact him.

So I shot him a note through Twitter, and it was great to finally get in touch with him. In fact, Chris and I have had a number of conversations of late – mainly about the direction of WordPress and where themes are going, and we’ve shared strategies, etc. He and I view the blogging world and it’s potential in the same way, so even though we are “competitors” with our themes (thus the post title) we’re on the exact same page with our mentalities.

In a world where there is a lot of competition, it’s sad when you see things like this happen. I’d much prefer the route that Aaron Brazell went, which was to take Chris and I to a steel cage match, and let our themes bash it out. (fun stuff – thanks for that post Aaron!)

My point with this post is to befriend those who are in the same business as you, taking the high road and make communities like WordPress a better place. It’s easy to want to knock people down – but what good does that do? It’s been fun getting to know Chris, and to call him a friend (and not an enemy like my post title insinuates) is very much so a pleasure!

Having said that, Chris and I have some ideas on where we plan to take WordPress – although we probably won’t do them “officially” together, you can be assured that what Chris and I bring forward will have been thought out and brainstormed late at night on IM by the two of us!

* Special Disclaimer *
Although the post title is Sleeping With the Enemy, I do not consider Chris an enemy at all – we actually had a chuckle together last night when I told him I was going to make a post with this title. Thought you all would find it fun.

How to Use the Revolution City Theme

A little over a week ago I released the Revolution City theme – something that I was very happy about, since I had been asked numerous times to release a geo-type theme.

Well so far the feedback has been really positive, but I initially thought that developers would feel limited to using it ONLY for city or community type websites.

Then I received an email from a friend of mine named Rebecca – who incidentally is using the original Revolution theme for her own site. She contacted me to ask that the site she recently designed be included in the Revolution showcase.

From her email:

Woohoo…City theme up and running at Ginny Owens’ website – and she is so happy with it! Thanks for another great theme to work with

Then I clicked the link to Ginny Owens’ website, and nearly fell out of my chair. I could not believe what Rebecca had done with the City theme – she totally molded it into a beautiful piece of art!

So from now on, I won’t ever limit my thinking on what Revolution can do. I am continually amazed at the quality of sites that use Revolution as a base, and look forward to seeing many more to come!

Well done Rebecca!

Free Time + Revolution = bbPress

Over the past few months I have been asked about creating forum templates that match the Revolution themes – so I released some phpBB3 forum templates which can be downloaded for free.

With the development of BuddyPress kicking into gear, I realized how important it is that I start working within the framework of Automattic’s infratructure, and decided to start playing around with bbPress.

I began by checking out the theme that Matt Mullenweg coded, to understand how bbPress works – only to realize how simple the code and software actually is.

After a few late nights, I’m pretty happy to announce that it looks like Revolution bbPress themes will be released – one by one. Right now I’m in the middle of coding the Revolution Magazine bbPress theme, it should be released relatively soon.

Go ahead and take a look and let me know what you think – please understand that the Magazine forum theme isn’t done yet, as I’m working to include a few more functions!