As I write this, my Checkmate Theme has 800 downloads and so far the feedback I’ve gotten on it has been great. The theme is and has been used on large sites and been successful and for the most part error free.
I think Checkmate is a great theme and I want to build on its frame and use what I’ve learned to improve it. I want to update the look of Checkmate and add some more functionality to the theme. This is where all you users come in.
I want to know what the people that are interested in Checkmate want out of the theme’s next version. What do you want to be able to customize? More custom widgets? More theme options? Let me know what features you would like to see Checkmate have!
As Checkmate approaches 300 downloads I started thinking about updates. Checkmate has already received 4 bug fixes and I would like to be able to do a major update in the future. But I also thought about those people that had not subscribed to the thread or the comments. I’m not sure if these people check back often for updates but I would say most people don’t.
So I thought about having themes “call home” and check for updates periodically and inform the user, much like how WordPress 2.5 informs users of updates. But for a free theme this seemed a bit invasive to me. A simpler and effective way I thought up is to pull a RSS feed into an admin page where users could check for update notices. I know you can do this manually on the dashboard, but most theme users won’t do that.
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Site specific browsers(SSBs) are my new favorite thing. If you haven’t heard of SSBs yet, this will change the way you use the web, and your life will change for the better forever and ever. SSBs are just what they sound like: a browser specifically for one website. Sounds ridiculous and useless doesn’t it? Why would I want a bunch of browsers when I can have tabs in Firefox? Well I’m going to show you.
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News of Google Ajax Libraries API is spreading fast, and I for one welcome it. Anything I can do to speed up websites and offload files is something I’ll likely take advantage of.
They’ve recently added jQuery, and I’ve started using it with this new design. So far it is working great, but will it last? Anyone who uses Google Analytics knows that at times it can slow your page down. Although Google says this is a faster alternative to using your own server, I think the chance for slow response time is still there.
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It’s alive! And almost error free. I was never happy with the previous designs of this site, they seemed pasted together like a bad 80’s collage. So I set on the adventure to re-design my own site, something I hate doing because I always want to go in a thousand different directions.
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