I want to thank all of you who left a comment on my post Revolution Magazine Theme – Bring It Back? I was on vacation last week and unfortunately couldn’t reply to them all, but I did read them.
Anyway, I won’t waste any time – I’ve started development of the Magazine theme by StudioPress, and am looking for feedback. Take it for a test drive, and let me know what you think.
Here’s a screenshot of the homepage so far, note that the tabber section is back:
Here’s a screenshot of the theme options page so far:
Looks good Brian!
The back end will surely make things super easy.
@Farrhad
Yep, that’s the intent – for the theme options to help make the theme much easier to work with.
Sweet!
Only suggestion? the pink is a little bright, maybe tone it down abit.
Thanks Debra – I have updated the color, and it’s much darker. Tell me what you think!
Much more readable! Can’t wait to break it—er design on it.
Hi Brian,
I’ve been using your Blue Zinfandel 2.0 for ages now… and I am looking for a new magazine type look… this one looks amazing! I like all the back-end options you can set.
Would it be possible to, in addition to picking categories for the tabber, to also be able to pick from the available widgets (like archive list, category list, page list etc.), so that they can be displayed on the tabs as well?
Regardless, this will be exactly what I am looking for, and can’t wait for it to be released! (I will need a blue-toned version though!)
I really like the use of the header and nav area – lots of useful sutff going on there. Nice to see a classic come back!
Thanks Jeff, it was just an idea, which apparently a lot of folks wanted – so I chose to move forward on it!
Brian,
I love your designs! I already purchased the full package from StudioPress. Have you released the “theme options page” pluggin? That’s awesome!
Keep up the great work!
- Scott
Twitter: @mpspringer
Tabs, dropdowns and gradients oh my! How about expanding your colour palette?
Agreed. When Studiopress is going to introduce some COLOR or some real style into the equation? We get it, Brian likes gray and black. Neat thing is, my monitor supports millions of colors and it’s a shame not to explore that potential. Some people might call it a “signature style” but I think it’s rather unimaginative. Re-hashing an “oldie” with a few tweaks just isn’t that exciting. Sorry. Perhaps you should invite some other designers into the Studiopress circle to create some variety. New functionality is cool, but the same old sad gray designs aren’t. We dig the work, but if you’re going to call your theme’s “premium” you should probably step it up a notch or two.
Gang, let me remind you that this is an update to an existing theme, so for me to go in a totally different design/color direction would basically not be a theme update, rather a new theme.
The great thing about premium themes is their function and flexibility. Just open up Photoshop and the css file and create your dreams.
Brian’s themes are very cleanly coded and easy to adapt to whatever you want.
Good luck.
Good stuff!
Also, congrats on the huge effect your GPL move is having on the Theme industry, amazing to watch.
Thanks Donnacha, and it’s fun to watch all the theme designers mover over to the GPL license. Now if Matt would stop attending WordCamps and work on the premium theme directory, life would be good!
Good design. It would be nice to have a bit more color and/or the option to have another color than pink. More color options could give you broader appeal=more sales.
Brian, this is looking very nice! I was not around when you released the first version, but this looks great! I love all the options you have built in. The options section looks very user friendly, great for client training! I can’t wait to use it on a project.
Thank you,
Steve
Hi Brian,
Just posted a comment in the other thread saying “go for it” and then spotted this one.
May I ask you to take a look at the Mandigo theme? It has two very useful features that I’d like to see incorporated into the Magazine theme.
The first is the ability to exclude pages from the header navigation by checking a box in the options.
The second is a killer “must have” feature for all themes – HTML inserts. This allows you to do things like (but not limited to) quick styling changes to a theme which are stored in the database and are called after styles.css. The advantage to this is when you update the theme, this would normally overwrite your changes to styles.css, but as they’re stored in the database this doesn’t happen.
Using HTML inserts you can also add things like ad blocks and analytics code.
Maybe I haven’t described this very well, but if you spend a few minutes looking at the Mandigo theme, you’ll get it instantly.
Ah one last thing that the theme does is allow you to remove dates from posts in the options panel. That’s sometimes quite useful too.
All the best,
-Frank Haywood
This theme will be a fantastic addition to the Studiopress stable. A couple of ideas to consider would be to allow for four 125×125 ad spots where the current right hand column ad is situated. Another would be to add a slot for a 468 x 60 ad under the Homepage Tabber. Seems that many of us want plenty of room for ads, these additions would be gravy!
Looks cool
I can’t wait to try it out!
Shouldn’t be too long hopefully!
my first thought (just looking at the two screenshots) is that going with the ability to control through sidebar widgets is more appealing to me then the current path (like the corporate theme does). I’ve not thought through the technical yet, but yeah.
My second comment – for the thumbnail images – please make the custom field key be articleimg (same as featured content gallery) — Being able to use one custom field for all aspects of your site is so much nicer. You might throw that option into the theme menus – just to give people some more flexibility to work with already developed sites.
I’ll look at playing with the demo some later.
Thoughts and ideas:
::: Taber section :::
You might want to insert an if then statement that shoves a 1 px wide image in if there is not an image to show in the post.
Why? – causes the size of the box to not change when you go to a tab without an image.
::: Home page category areas :::
the 4 boxes … you might make the title of the box be a link to the category page.
Why? It’s just another place people might click to get more info, as opposed to having to find the link at the end.
Speaking of links at the end, you could make that dynamic so instead of them all saying “Read More Posts From This Category »” It might say “Read More Music Posts »”
I think that is all I got … (these things and my earlier comment) … looks good. Ironically, I think I would not use it because I value the Featured Content box more now a days.
Boring. All of your themes have the same feel. Try to spice things up a bit.
Nice comment, and glad to see you using a fake email address. Keep in mind this is an update to a theme that already existed, it wasn’t intended to be something totally unique.
Don’t take the comment the wrong way. I think you make great themes, very clean and organized looking. I just want to see you take a chance on something new and different than your normal style. You need something a little extra to make your themes stand out from the thousands of other themes out there.
Thanks Matt – and I apologize if I came off as defensive… don’t worry, I’m working on the new wireframe theme which will have colors, and the styling should be a lot different than the current themes.
when will this design be release for public?
I look forward to seeing this one ready. I have a site I could use it on now.
Hello!
great to see your earlier work back hope next project will be the news one
We’ll see how many of the previous themes end up being restyled, et all….
Please bring it back, it looks awesome!
It’s coming – no worries!
Solid, good look & nice. The theme suggest objectivity (header and navbar) and came with tabber. That’s all right.
Patiently waiting
Looks great!!!
Hopefully won’t be too long!
Love the theme options page!
Me too, I keep finding new ways to use the options page to accomplish things that folks have requested.
Hi Brian
Many thanks to you and your colleagues for developing another great theme.
As many of the moderators would agree ( although they are too polite to tell me) I am a bit thick with the whole back end. How easy will it be to upgrade from our old Rev Mag (Wordpress 2.7.1 version) to the updated (Rev Mag 2.8 friendly version). Will you be preparing a set of simple step by step instructions fro the upgrade so that idiots like me will be able to understand it – so that we don’t end up flooing the Support Board with our daft questions?
Once again many thanks to you, your colleagues for designing a great theme and to the people here on this site who have take the time to test drive the demo and make good constructive suggestions.
Kind Regards
pat
Pat, this theme is completely re-coded, and will be optimized by Joost as well as localized. That being said, there won’t be an upgrade path, as all of the theme files have been completely rewritten.
Brian,
As always this looks really good. One of the reasons I really love your themes is that you don’t waste a lot of space on the header height. With many WP themes the header height takes up half of the “above the fold” page real estate. This theme is the shortest header I’ve seen so far. I love it the idea of getting down to business and into the content.
My only thought is that it might actually be too short. What if I have a logo with a tag line? Will it fit in that space, still be big enough to be legible and have enough negative space around it to not look cramped?
I don’t know? Maybe add 35-50 more pixels to the height. Or, make the navigation bar and tabs a little shorter.?.
Just some thoughts. You’re the master.
Barry O.
I totally agree with you on the logo – needs to have some more vertical space, I just haven’t spent too much time in the header yet with the theme.
Looking good! And can’t wait to see this WireFrame theme
Working on that one as we speak…
Hello Brian, nice job again but…
i think the “home” is better to go down not so top,
then black on black is not so nice, blue is better on black
( i speak about the navigation bar).
Also in categories and search pages there is option to have thumbs with the experts?
Without thumbs is not so cool.
I need your new theme as soon as possible because i modified your old good revolution magazine
and i have some problems with the wp 2.8 !
WOW! This is fantastic and perfect timing I already have a client in mind!!!!!!!
Also PSYCHED to see the tabber resurrected! I always loved that function and its great to see that the comments RE: last magazine thread actually got folded in so fast to this project!
One question – how hard would it be for me to modify the functions if I wanted to have the tabber show different posts instead of different categories (this is how I am using the tabber now)?
Not crazy about the pink (prefer orange) but you can’t please anyone – anyway that should be easy to change later for anyone with an extra 15 min on their hands.
Can’t believe you got on this so fast – again, WOW!
Thanks Alex, and I was happy to bring the tabber back – I think I got stuck too much lately on the FCG plugin. I chose pink because it kind represents the niche that the Magazine theme is after. Easy to change in the css.
BTW “you can’t please anyone” -> “can’t please everyone”, LOL
RE: CSS yeah my original magazine is so heavily modded now its practically unrecognizable – that’s part of the fun
What’s the link to your site – would love to see it?
Your themes are predictable. That’s not meant to be a criticism as much as a fact.
elegantthemes step it up in the design area. I think we could all benefit if you could move into some new areas of design Brian. This current framework has been hashed over to death.
Ha, I understand – this one looks like the rest – well mainly because it’s supposed to. I’m going to do my best to change direction on themes, but honestly that is VERY hard for me to do.
Your code is solid. Sub out some design work.
That’s the plan moving forward, I came to a realization this afternoon about that.
It’s awesome Brian.
Is there a chance that the footer could be widgetized too?
Great work. Thanks so much;
Vida
Not sure if I’ll end up widgetizing the footer – it worked on Streamline b/c the homepage wasn’t so busy, but with the Magazine theme, I think that might be a little too much.
Nice update. One thing I’d like, and that might be beyond the scope of an update, would be a bit more information hierarchy. Specifically, I’d like to see a section between the Tabber and Homepage quadrant (“top right” “top left” etc) that runs the width of the tabber (ie- two grid columns) and lets me display 3-5 posts with thumbnail, hede, etc. It would be great if these posts could be from any category.
And a “most popular or important posts” box in the right grid column under the “Recent posts” box would be nice, too.
But at some point, this all becomes another theme…
Hope you’re having fun with all this.
Jim
Awesome Theme Brian,
Wish i saw this before I spent a whole lot of money
on a Celebrity Theme that doesn’t even come close
to what you have created here.
I’m definitely getting my hands on this when you
release it.
Love the clean look and the user friendliness
of the theme.
Two Thumbs up Bri.
Hey Lyndon – thanks man, and sorry you dropped the cash on another theme before you saw this one. Hopefully this pans out for you and your site!
I am a big fan of your work and this theme will be perfect for a new project I have in mind.
It’s impossible to please everyone in life.
Keep up the great work.
Yeah, I know it’s impossible, and i do my best to please!
my thoughts: make it free
Jenny, this will be a GPL licensed theme, as are all of the StudioPress themes.
Hi Brian, it looks great!
However, I found a “little little” bug, perhaps?
• Try to pass the mouse… at the right of the “magazine” word on the header… you will note the link continuous all arround the ground black space. In same places yes… In other ones no?
Regards, good week,
Richy
Ah, will have to look into that one.
Looking forward to using the theme for all of my sites, of course. Will there be domain/server support available?
Brian, the theme looks great!! Can you add a function to the themes whereby we can easily increase the height of the header, upload a full width banner and have an option to remove the adsense block in the header? Sorry if this is off topic.
Very nice theme and amazing options! Really great.
I hope you don’t mind me asking but I came here looking for some help with the Blue Zinfandel theme but I don’t see it listed. Is there anyway I can get a few questions answered about this theme?
Thank you
Hi Brian
Thank you for your previous reply.
I would be very grateful if you would please clarify the following points :
1) Will this new Magazine theme be free of charge to people who already own the original theme?
2) Will we be able to import all our posts, pages, categories, tags (in short everything) from old Magazine theme into new Magazine theme?
3) For idiots like myself – how easy is it to change the Pink text to Black or Blue text (in the Test version the Headings, Leave A Comment, Read More etc., are in Pink) because these issues seem to clog up the Support Forums?
4) Again for idiots like myself how easy is it to change colour of Feedburner icon from Pink to regular Orange?
5) Will there be more vertical space for the logo?
6) Any idea when the new Magazine theme will be ready for release?
Once again many thanks for your help with these questions.
Kind Regards
Pat
Yes, yes, and OH, YES.
Music for the eyes and the imagination.
I have a client using a customized version of Magazine 3.0 We were just talking about your “plans” yesterday during a discussion about threaded comments. Where you’re at right combines a lot of good things from various sources. Looks quite flexible, layout-wise, as well.
The look is very nice, good work. I like the compact header, but perhaps it’s a tad too compact. I too would like an expanded header option for additional logo space and/or to include the tag line (I like it for branding). Then, an additional ad banner could slide in up top on the right. side (for those that want to enable it).
It’s the bottom bar in the header that seems out of place with the rest of the design. The topics drop-down seems redundant and takes away from the feel of the design. Perhaps it would be better placed in the sidebar? Also, do you really need the subscription options just above the RSS/email box? But then, all you are left with is the search box, which looks good integrated with the header color scheme… Does anyone else have thoughts on this?
Hey Brian, The Mag redesign looks great so far, love the tabs (much better than the slide show). Could be a nice upgrade to the Shades of Blue theme I am using on my website now. Really love your work and can’t wait to see your “new stuff” soon. – Fred
Thanks Fred – and yes, it is a heavily modified version of the Shades theme!
When will it be released?
I am not crazy about the small square thumbnails. Why not rectangle ones above the post or at least the option for both. Otherwise, looks great!
Take a look at it now, I’ve added a full width feature area with bigger thumbnail photos.
HI! As a paid owner of the original Magazine theme, I think the update looks great. I have only one request. – Could you please allow the two color option like the Streamline Theme? I would really want to keep a blue color to the theme. It can even be the same shade as the original or the shade as in the Streamline Theme. Thanks, Jocelyn
Jocelyn, I think right now I’m only going to have the color you see, but possibly make it available with pink and blue links/rss icons, etc.
Hey Brian
Really liking the look the restyled magazie theme, I was on the verge of buying the streamline theme to relaunch my RC magazine site but am thinking this will suit me better.
Like the other comments, will you be able to increase the header depth a bit, I’d like to be able to get a 468×60 banner in there.
Looking forward to this being completed and trying to get my head round managing a WP site!
I don’t know that I’ll be putting a 468 banner in the header, since there are links there. It is something that should easily be added if you want…
Brian,
This theme is super hot. I definitely vote to revive it and bring it on!
Thanks, it’s going to be optimized early this week, hopefully for a release towards the end of the week!
Any updates on an estimated release date??
I want to buy it right now. In my opinion, you’ve just created the best WP Mag theme on the market.
Thanks Michael – appreciate that one. We’ll get it done as soon as we can!
reaaly god job.. i liked so much.. iwish use this.. thanks
cant wait for it to come out
Drop it like it’s hot! As always, the Magazine theme looks great (just like all of your themes
).
Love this theme! Would like to see just a little more heighth available for a logo in the header. Can’t wait for this to be available. My site needs an update.
Brian,
This is awesome! I am getting my website off the ground using your Shades of Blue theme, but I am thinking about using this because I am a freelance writer……great stuff!
Keep up the great work! You have a great talent for this!
-Nathan
Looks absolutley fantastic! I’ll buy it for a new site of mine as soon as it’s possible.
I especially like the little touch of pink, that makes the whole theme looking quite trendy and glamorous.
Greetings,
Florian
Luv it! When will it be available?? We need to upgrade. =)
Looks great! Can’t wait.
Any chance of giving the option to use the original color scheme? I love the re-styling, but want to stick with the black and blue of the original. It would be a nice touch anyway!
any idea on release date?
Hi Brain,
Couple of thoughts, the first thing is what about the people who dont have any thumbnails…or is it possible to disable the thumbnails, and is it also possible to get an add banner on the header like other studio press themes… (what to do…ctr is high in the header
) ….. and the next question of mine may be a big module, but please do consider it for a future realease… having cusotom colors for header and page backgrounds and having custom fonts for page headings,and the text font…. but they would add lot of value ….
Sriram
Brian, please add me to the list that informs everyone that the new Mag theme is available. Extremely excited about your rise to stardom. Keep excelling!
Also, I was thinking…I would like to include more video in the mag theme website. Will it be possible to insert a video in place of a photo along with an article? If not, it might be something to consider.
I was flipping through your themes trying to decide which one to purchase, and I was wondering if you could enlighten us on the options of the themes before we purchase them? I’ve thoroughly been through the demo site of each theme, and some have the optional page templates, each displayed by an example page. And some of the introductory posts, have a screenshot of the options page – the bar across the studiopress site has a link to theme features in general. But each one? Namely I want to know if the single sidebars are optionally single? Is every widget area illuminated in the test site? Some footer-bars have widgets, some don’t?
Another question, are these themes built on a framework? (Cause I haven’t figured out the whole framework world yet, and I just want a theme with templates/ stylesheets that I can edit without any js knowledge.)
Another perhaps – feature request – is that can there be a blog page that doesn’t require a chosen category? Can it just re-call the main loop and run through in the old days – reverse-chronological- bloggy-style? If the template doesn’t overwrite the native front page option in wp, then we could use a blank page template for our posts’ page?
Without a doubt, your themes are my only choice for ‘commercially supported’ themes.
How’s the progress? I’m sure I’m not the only one chomping at the bit.
Thanks for your hard work and talent.
July 23, 2009
11:05 AM
Brian,
I’m rather new to all of this, although I have been “planning” for the launch event, and “reading” everything I can, since the beginning of the year. Right now, the iron seems to be getting “hot”.
While I like what seems to be the completeness and features of your new “Magazine” theme, I envision using your “Magazine” theme for something other that strictly a “magazine” publication or website. I should have the domain and hosting and other preliminary issues in place by the end of the month, and the launch will occur in August. Now, just a few questions about your “magazine” Theme [DISCLOSURE -- I have virtually no WordPress experience or programming experience, except for what I have read (mostly on-line) -- I do, however, consider myself to be somewhat computer-literate]. Each of the following questions would relate to a “newbie” like me.
[1] How much of a task is it to change the names on the navigation bar(s) at the top and the “categories” elsewhere, as well as other parts of the theme, such as the “Magazine” name? Also, how about enlarging the “header” portion, and including a JPEG image as a background (or partial background), and reversing out the website title – are those difficult tasks?
[2] While I like and would want to keep the “white background”, how much trouble would it be to change the other theme “colors” (e.g., the “black”, where the “header” ["Magazine" and "navigation" bar(s)] appear, and the “grey” where the “search” and “topics” appears, as well as where the “far left” and “far right” borders appear?
[3] I would like to be able to expand the “footer” area of the theme, and be able to use the expanded part of the “footer” area for both content and advertising — would this be a difficult task?
[4] Are your “comments” areas designed to protect against the dreaded “SPAM”? Or will the “Magazine” theme accept the so-called “spam killer” plug-ins? If so, which plug-in(s) do you recommend?
[5] In this first launch, I will be using your theme for a number of things, including the “website”, and a “blog”. In addition, I will need gallery pages (with the ability to “add-on” additional gallery pages). Is a formatted “gallery page” included — if not, how much trouble is it to design/construct and format such a “gallery” page? Can any such “gallery page” be duplicated for different “albums” and/or “categories” of images? Does the “search” function” work with “keyword” embedded in the images? How difficult are these tasks?
[6] How about any SEO optimization that you have designed into your “Magazine” Theme? If more SEO needs to be done, how difficult is that task to to undertake?
With respect to all of the foregoing, when I “sign on” with Brian Gardner by purchasing your “Magazine” theme (or other themes), what kind of technical help and support is available to achieve the foregoing?
Brian, just answering your query and making this “comment” post have got me all “focused” again. Sorry for getting “carried away” and the length of this post. I look forward to your reply.
Thanks for your efforts, and your anticipated response.
Maxx
P.S. In the instructions above, you have “solicited” (well, sort of) a “picture”. Given the help and assistance that I have sought from you, if you would like, and if you give me a few ideas of what you would like to be shown in the subject-matter of a “picture”, in a few days, I will upload one for you and your viewers. Of course, I will need to know size and upload instructions [you may e-mail me at MacDefense@baka.com. Thanks again.
Hi Brian:
Just wondering if this magazine theme is perfected already. I would love to update my older version.
Thanks so much;
Vida
Hi there,
Your Magazine theme (in demo) is among the most attractive and well-thought-out themes I’ve seen for WordPress CMS; I hadn’t seen anything on your site that indicated that it was not currently available, but when I picked it from the ‘purchase’ dropdown, the cart softweare tells me that the product combination is not available.
It may be that you already knew that, but just in case I thought I’d mention it.
Cheerio
GT