A Revolution Coming to Your City
Here I am once again, asking for some feedback - I sincerely value the thoughts and ideas that you all have, and want to continue to provide themes that people want.
Without further adieu, I’m now soliciting for feedback on the upcoming Revolution City theme - a concept that has been requested from me by many people wishing to build “city portal” websites. This can also be a great theme for real estate agents who are looking to build a website for their community as well.
With the Revolution City theme, I’ve tried to incorporate the most popular concepts from other themes, while also trying to step outside my design box and come up with a “colorful” offering. Don’t fret, as the color scheme you see probably won’t be the only one, as I’ll be hoping to include at least one or two more stylesheets with this one!
So feel free to leave some feedback on the theme - be nice, as this isn’t fully developed. The sidebars should be styled a lot better by the time this theme is released, I just wanted to get something out there for critiquing.
Like it a lot. Smooth and crisp.
Do you have any templates for a possible niche farming sites for real estate?
Please make it where the “Posts page” (blog syle page) is an option, not the front page, but where within the admin you can set “blog” to a page titled news/blog/etc and it work.
Then you set your “front page” to something “static”, and that page has a page_template that makes it into the page you are showing.
If you implement that standard it will make the Revolution brand even stronger, because it gives more options, and less work if one wants to have one of your great front pages, but also wants a “blog style page” somewhere on the site.
Looks great to me. Love the way you’re exploring color with this one - I wonder if we’ll see color scheme stylesheets with future releases of other Revolution themes, too?
oh, forgot to add I will go with it when it becomes available for my city
Hi Brian,
I think it is pretty good. Clean, and fresh.
I would have liked it if the “featured” spots would slowly rotate thru the 6 different ones automatically.
Also, The “hand icon” on the blogroll and cat links are a little too big and clunky imo.
Would be nice if the small thumbnail images were clickable also to the specific page.
Other than those few things, I think it’s great.
Brian,
Here’s what jumps out at me.
On the ‘tabber’ section in the main content well, will those titles..Featured 1..Featured 2… pull from the categories, the title of the post itself, or somewhere else?
It’d be nice to have the ability to define what those will say rather than have it be some broad-category title. i.e. rather than ‘restaurants’ I’d like to be able, maybe through the excerpt field be able to label it a specific restaurant, club, activity. It might make it more appealing to the reader and continually freshen up the page.
‘Cantina Grill’ up there as opposed to ‘Restaurant’ would be more likely to draw in readers.
I like it, it’s very stylish.
But when you mentioned people’s requests, I wish you could design ( sometime in future) something simpler. For instance, when I want to break news, I don’t have time to choose picture I want to use as thumbnail, or when I want write some small announcement.
All these themes looks great, they really do but I wish you could design one for daily usage, most of these look like themes for some companies or whatsoever. I’m sure that there are more people who would like to buy simple premium themes. You have done a great job with DailyBlogTips’s - it’s still my favorite
Jason
Thanks for the feedback - although I have to say that I’m sorry I don’t have any for that particular niche.
John
My bad, I forgot to add that page to the demo site, I now have a “blog” page, as indicated in the navbar.
Joel
The hope is for me to go back and offer some more stylesheets for past themes at some point soon.
Brian
I know what you are referring to with the scrolling - problem with that is that concept uses scripts that might be a bit clunky, and hard to use - this just allows the capability for people to use the tabs to check out what’s featured. As for the hand icon in the sidebar, that’s more or less a placer image until I can find something appropriate.
Grant
Yes, all of those title areas can be changed - I did the tabber the way I did because unlike other themes, I’ve coded this one to pull from one category in the tabber, and have the most recent 6 posts showing. That can also be changed so that each tabber tab shows it’s own category. Lots of flexibility.
Brian,
Looks crisp and clean - layout draws the eye to the various sections.
As someone has already asked - the tabbed Feature section - can it draw tab titles from anywhere else or will it be Feature #1, 2, 3 etc..
For the sections under the Featured section can those headings be linked to the category page - at the moment u just show 2 posts, but no link to main category
Will there be a typical blog page option?
Any idea on release date and cost?
Great work
Matej
I understand what you are saying, but keep in mind the Revolution themes are for people who want their sites to look like a website, and not a blog. My answer to a “daily” theme can be found here.
Brian
Gotcha - I’ll add a link to a category page under each section. Good suggestion!
Brian
re the tabber picking from the categories instead of say just Featured - would this section then have the option to show > 1 post (expand the section down the page) or would it be restricted to 1 post per tab
Brian
The way it’s coded now, is that the first tab is the most recent post in Featured category, the second tab is the second most recent post, the third tab is the third most recent post, etc. This is done by offsetting in the code. If someone wanted to show the last post from six categories, that can easily be changed in the tabber file.
Looks fresh, great to see the Revolution family continue to grow.
Very clean. The blues aren’t as vibrant as a city might want them to be, though. I was thinking about this as a possible theme for I Choose Indy. It has all of the layout features (do more categories keep building more sections automatically?) but I think it lacks the life a city would want to portray through a blog.
I like the blue colour theme a lot. I agree with one of the previous comments that the featured thumbnails should also link to the post. A scrolling featured area would be great but isn’t essential. Nice job.
Donnacha
Thanks, always here to make people happy!
Doug
I guess with this theme I tried keeping the blues a bit on the soft side to go along with the “South Beach” theme - but hopefully I can offer a few stylesheets that might work for other cities. Keep in mind, this theme isn’t really meant to be on a site like LosAngeles.com, rather smaller, local communities that don’t have any web presence at this time.
PJ
Great suggestion, I just enabled the thumbnails to link to the post as well.
This is going to be the perfect theme for us as we were just getting ready to modify the Revolution Magazine theme for several state portal websites. The general layout is great with the featured posts at top and additional categories below.
Would be awesome if you could randomize the display order of the top 6 featured posts and randomize the display of the posts within the categories below.
Auto rotation of the top 6 featured posts would be cool as well. Something that would allow the developer to set a time between rotation. Have seen this type of thing done with jQuery and Mootools.
Will we be able to have more than 4 categories on front? I find that 6 - 8 general categories will usually cover most business listings. Accommodations, Activities, Business Services, Entertainment, Finance & real Estate, Food and Dining, Shopping & Gifts, Transportation.
When you click a link and show an individual business listing how about using WP custom fields to display typical business info like address, city, state, zip, phone, email and website. Also consider integrating google maps somehow into the mix.
Can the large graphic be linked in the top featured section like you did the thumbnails?
When I click on a link like “Dancin’ at the Boom Boom Room”
Why does the breadcrumbs include the word “blog” in them?
Browse > Home / Blog, Restaurants & Nightclubs / Dancin’ at the Boom Boom Room
Would be nice if it simply said: Home / Restaurants & Nightclubs / Dancin’ at the Boom Boom Room. Drop the “browse” and “blog”
I would like to have an incorporation of sub-sub-pages in the dropdowns. I second the cool rotation of the 6 different featured areas, maybe including a gliding action when hitting a tab. Could there be a stylesheet with the categories as a subnav?
Thanks so much for all the incredible designs!
Sweet! I like it!
I’D really like to see you however spend some time and build some proper documentation for the themes and expand on tutorials.
The forums are filling up with questions.
Brian,
This is incredible timing. I’ve been investing in some GEO domains and have been trying to figure out what sort of theme to use. It looks incredible!
I’ve been visiting a few good geo websites to see compare to your theme and you’ve pretty much got it covered.
Brad
More good suggestions, thanks for taking the time to write all of that out. Points noted.
Klemens
Thanks for your continued support - I’ll think about the subnav deal, but more than likely it might get added back in.
Noah
I’m planning on redoing all of my tutorials very soon, so that people can see using the new WP 2.5 dashboard - as for the forums, keep in mind that a majority of the posts there are people asking for theme customizations and not all people with “bugs”. But yes, better documentation might help with that.
Kyle
I like great timing - seems like a number of people are considering the geo-blog type setup, so this theme should work well for those!
Brian
lol, I have more but didn’t want to make my wish list too long!
Brian - the colors are breezy and inviting, perfect for a city portal template. Navigation is clear and content is just where the eye lands. Another winner for the Revolution family.
Hey Brian,
I didnt say bugs I did say questions
Is this available yet? I actually have immediate use for this theme!
Brian,
This is another really nice theme. My wife actually runs a site like this for family-friendly events and businesses in our area. It’s called http://www.FreckleTown.com
I built it in Joomla and it’s kind of pain to maintain in some ways. I’ve thought about converting it to WordPress. A template like this may allow me to do that easily.
A place for an events calendar would be cool.
Also, I think it needs about 2 or 3 places for ads. 1 468×60 somewhere and maybe a skyscraper ad and a 300×250.
Just a thought.
Barry O.
I really like this one. It’s very nice as is and could do well as a newspaper style theme too. The colors are a good choice too. Maybe you could include 2 or 3 additional color options in the theme. I like it, like it, like it.
Please consider adding the ability to load multiple YouTube videos in the side column. Look at a competitors “fresh news theme” to see what I mean. That would be a nice addition. Perhaps a plugin already does this?
Fantastic design Brian. Keep up the good work.
Looks like another winner, Brian. The only, only thing I would like to see in your themes isn’t with the look and feel, it’s within the code. I’d love to see a bit more commenting. For instance
There’s sometimes so many elements, just one instance of a missing tag can cause all kinds of “wonkiness” and for some of the newer folks it can cause hours of pain, suffering, headaches, swearing and alcohol consumption.
Take care, my friend. Looks great.
The city theme is phenomenal! The Colors are breath taking, organization is very simple and placement of the information is very inviting. The pictures you chose to demo the site help the colors pop.
The categories are the perfect size just enough to catch the eye and invite the reader to explore further into what is available. I like the shadow effect of the border it adds just enough contrast to the page.
I see this being really big for a lot of resorts, hotels, coastal towns and facilities that want to attract people to what they have to offer.
Brad
Feel free to keep ‘em coming!
Ed
Appreciate the words!
Noah
I know, just wanted to clarify… no, it’s not available yet, but should be this week.
Barry
Yes, I do plan on adding a few places for ads, just a matter of getting feedback on the initial concept and then I’ll finish it up.
M
I’ll do my best to provide color options, shouldn’t be too tough to make a 2nd and 3rd stylesheet!
Brad (again)
I’ll see what I can - I’m trying to balance good design and easy to use, which is sometimes difficult to do!
Michael
Thanks for the comments!
Chris
I’ve been trying more and more to add comments to make things easier, and with my wife out of town today, I am planning on doing a lot of updated video tutorials!
Tillman
That’s refreshing to hear so many positive comments - thanks so much! And the folks at Men With Pens are doing a fantastic job so far with customizing the Magazine theme!
Nice timing. I like it. I’ve just been tasked with assembling a website for my town, and that kind of template would make an awesome start.
I really like it, and additional colour schemes would definitely be a bonus
I like the idea but what happened to the Revolution Video Theme?
The last I read, we were asked for comments and I’ve been waiting to see (and purchase) the final product.
Personally, I would like to see the Revoluation Video Theme wrapped-up before different one (City Theme) is rolled-out.
Not for L.A.? Too bad … I’ll be using it for LA Like a Local (.com) real soon. We have an ocean out here too! I’m also looking at it as a solution for an aquarium shop site I’m doing.
One thing that’s bugged me about the Revolution designs is the pinball machine effect you get from all of the stacked thumbnails, all the same size and presentation.
In this design, for example, what about making the top left module (restaurants) and bottom right module one-item boxes with a horizontal image wall to wall. Or one horiz. and the other with a vertical image. The others with the thumbnails. Might look too busy, dunno.
Like to see something like that as an alternative design, anyway. You just don’t see that kind of design off web sites.
Yes, please update the videos for 2.5, that cost me hours.
Outstanding work, Brian, your drive to offer us more and better is much appreciated.
Brian:
The new theme is fantastic!
You know, feedback is really important but often when everyone’s idea is incorporated, you end up with a product that is not so special anymore.
You are the designer, the creative mind - most of your readers probably aren’t designers. Include what makes sense, but don’t compromise your style in an attempt to please everybody!
Your themes are wonderful because you create them.
Steve
I like this theme. Very good. We are using the Revolution Tech Theme. This “Featured #1 to #6″ with the picture looks very good. Is there any chance to use this with Revolution Tech Theme?
cool~
Brian,
Like the new skyscaper banner addition. With the added height of the home page, it looks like you could add 2 additional categories below Real Estate & Sports cats to balance it out. I think people are used to scrolling now-a-days. Or, you could have 3 posts with the existing categories.
Looks like you also added Recent Posts and recent Comments on unless I missed that before.
Looking good, are you needing any beta testers?
I really like this concept! Will it have a section page? And could you please send it over to me when you release it.
Hi Brian,
Nice theme…some elements look familiar. Some feedback since you are turning it into a theme…
1. Allow for sub navigation after you click page (ex. restaurants). Then you can drill down by cuisine and ultimately to the individual business
2. Buddypress…city folks like to find friends. On this note, need forum integration and one registration to rule them all. When is buddypress going to come out!
3. Under videos, allow for link to ‘all videos’ page
4. 125×125 banner ads on the right side of page like on techcrunch.com
5. Allow for featured listings/businesses on the homepage or any page that shows a list (ex. hotels, restaurants, realtors, etc.)
Again, congrats on the progress.
Brian,
Looks great! I would think a big part of any city portal is an events calendar(it also would be nice to have readers be able to contribute to the calendar via a form). This is really the only thing I see missing from your design from a function standpoint. Keep up the great work.
This is fabulous. is it available yet? Perfect timing for my city portal sites that im setting up! im so excited!!
Brian, I love this theme. Can you incorporate a Calendar, Local Business Directory, Weather, Classified and Article Directory? Do you have a launch date for this theme?
Great work, as usual.
George
Just added a Gray color scheme, which can be seen by clicking on the Theme Colors tab in the navigation.
David
The Video theme seemed like it was going to require a lot of working on, as the general consensus of the the feedback indicated it wasn’t what it should be. So I decided to move forward on a theme I also had in the works at the time, with the intent on going back to the video theme at some point.
Glenn
Thanks for the feedback - to be honest, sometimes it’s difficult to appeal to all people when creating a theme. In which case, I do my best to setup a theme that’s easy for people to modify to suit their own needs. And yes, you can use this theme for an LA website!
Steve
Thanks for your words - I realize that I am the designer, but I have a tendancy to get tunnel vision and create a theme that I like, and isn’t always something that end-users find easy to work with. So I use my creative mind to get the basics down, then ask to see if I’ve missed anything and what I can include that others might want!
Brad
Very insightful, as I’ve added the things you’ve noticed!
Marco
Not sure about the section page, people can basically take the homepage and make that a section page itself!
Steve
You’ve read my mind in terms of trying to make this a community site by somehow incorporating the BuddyPress and/or bbPress functionality - just waiting for the guys are Automattic to develop things more before I hopefully can add that to this theme.
Joe
The calendar concept is something that I am going to leave out, mainly because there are many options that can be used to accomplish this, and users can implement their own solution to the site.
Nicky
Not yet, but I’m hoping to roll this out in the next few days!
Paulette
I think I’ve answered your comments above!
Amazing stuff. I have several successful blogs but never made the leap to buying a template. Should have done that long ago!
I purchased my first one on Monday and had it running by Tuesday. (Still testing the model of this site…www.mancrud.com). Mostly just to play with the theme.
I will be picking up a developer package and re-building my other sites!
Thanks!
Beautiful work, as always. Just fyi, I really liked the blue nav, it looked kinda art deco sobe. The wide photo at the top looks awesome too. Keep up the great work dude.
Mark
Brian - I love it, it’s P-E-R-F-E-C-T!! Exactly what I was looking for! I bought it and most likely upgrade. Now to figure out why I am getting an error message when I upload it through SmartFTP..any ideas?