There are a few things that have been the realm of premium themes and some rare free themes: post thumbnails, and easy video embedding(that doesn’t suck). Press75 just released two simple yet powerful and incredibly useful plugins: Simple Post Thumbnails and Simple Video Embedder. Go check them out, and let Jason know how awesome they are.

The interface has gotten a huge and much needed update. The layout is still simple and clean but now is more polished and modern. Customizing the CSS and the look of theme is even better, the entire site was coded with the end user customizing the site in mind.

Download Checkmate 2.0

• View the Demo Site
• Checkmate 2.0 (3718)

Theme Options

There has been a total redesign of the theme options page, and also new theme options to make customizing Checkmate even easier. Checkmate 2.0 has the ability to automatically detect uploads for CSS, logos, and backgrounds, which can easily be changed via the theme options page.

Layout Options

I mentioned the layout has been updated, well now it is also more flexible. Several users wanted a true 3 column layout(columns on each side of the content), now this is possible along with a single right column, a split right column, or a combo right column. All this is controlled using theme options and widget areas, no code editing!

Ad Management

Ad management remains in Checkmate 2.0 unchanged. It is the same simple and flexible widget and theme options combination which gives you a quick and easy way to get ads on your theme.

Support

Support for Checkmate has always been a strong point and something I’ve strove to provide the best support a free theme offers. Alas WordPress comments and email aren’t the best solution, so all support will now be handled via Tender. Where you can ask questions, read documentation, and contribute to discussions.

Features

Checkmate already had a big feature list, now it is even bigger:

• Optional background header images controlled by theme options and uploads are automatically detected
• User defined style sheets, easily changed and uploads are automatically detected
• Auto detected logo controlled through theme options
• Optional featured categories
• Feedburner integration
• Drop down Page menu, with theme options to control which Pages show in the menu
• Optional footer widget areas
• Option to use Checkmate’s previous rounded corner look
• Ability to insert code or content into the header, after a post, or footer, without editing theme files
• Ad management
• Checkmate comes with 4 color themes for you to build on: grey, brown, cake, and dark.
• Custom widgets built for Checkmate.
• Tabbed Content Box – widget enabled
• Two, Three, or Split Column Design
• Feedburner Integration
• Optional Widget enabled footer
• Custom Icons
• Gravatar support for authors and comments(WordPress 2.5)
• Custom author, archive, tag, category, and search pages.
• Widget Enabled Sidebars

Updates

• Version 2.0.1
• Updated for WordPress 2.7
• Threaded Comments Enabled
• Utilizes post_class()
• Automatically Checks for Updates
• Version 2.0.2
• Trackbacks/pingbacks style change, automatically hidden
• Comments navigation for 2.7 fixed
• Upgraded theme to use jQuery 1.3
• disabled auto check for update for now due to server load
• Version 2.0.3
• Added Localization
• Changed title structure for single post pages
• Version 2.0.4
• Converted widgets to 2.8 API
• Fixed bugs in widgets

License

Checkmate is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license. All I ask is that you link back to my website somewhere in your site.

• Checkmate 2.0 (3718)

Really Like It?

If you really like this theme and would like updates, more features, and new styles, why not grease the wheel and make a donation?
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I’ve been promising this for awhile and finally got the time to spend a few days making changes, fixes, and redesigning. I still don’t have a release date planned, but testing should begin pretty soon. I’m happy to say the new version of Checkmate is going to well surpass the first one while still keeping things simple for tweaking.

Checkmate 2.0 has gotten a fresher look, new menu, new icons, cleaner and more usable all around. Some of the changes are minor and some are a huge slap in the face. Checkmate 2.0 also addresses some issues people had like pagination, image floats, etc.

The theme options page has been completely re-done with new options available. Checkmate 2.0 will be even easier to customize than it’s predecessor. There are some new widgets and almost all of the old widgets have been updated.

There is a little taste. This may be the last chance you have to request features or submit bugs to be fixed, so comment away.

Every mad scientist needs his Frankenstein. Mine just happens to be a website. Grunt Labs is my ongoing experiment, a place to play, test, and generally ignore browsers lagging behind. Grunt Labs is also a sign of things to come for the blog and Grunt, but more on that later.

So what is it really?

Grunt Labs is a repository for all my downloads(at least the good ones), projects, ideas, and general nuttiness I can come up with. Ever since I launched Checkmate I wanted a separate site where people could go get downloads and support. Grunt Labs will be integrated with Lighthouse in the future enabling issue tracking and all the goodness Lighthouse has to offer.

Playtime!

Grunt Labs is also a playground for me to stretch out my code and try out new things. It uses CSS3 and jQuery extensively and it is important to note this is an ongoing project. As I learn new things, better ways to code, and browsers evolve, the site will change and evolve into what I hope is ridiculously impressive.

The Design

The design is very basic and sparse. This is partly because of the crazy javascript going on and partly because the site is meant to change for each project. At this point the project pages don’t change much besides the background. That will change and vary from project to project.

The Code

The code consists of mostly basic html and CSS and the skeleton of the site was built on top of the Blueprint CSS Framework. Things get interesting when I mix in some CSS3 elements. To see the site in it’s full glory you’ll need Firefox 3 or a Webkit based browser like Safari.

Then comes in jQuery. My favorite javascript framework by far. This was my first push into the world of full page animation, and already I can see different ways of doing it. The page obviously uses some Coda style popups, full page animation, but it also uses some more subtle things. Some elements are dynamically added and removed via javascript. I’ve got plans for much more javascript in the near future, but that has to wait on something being released ;)

I think I’ll save explaining more about the javascript in detail for another post.

I decided to build an identity around a logo I had done, which is pretty much ass backwards from the way most people would do it. The gorilla was originally for a side project but now fronts the GRUNT name which I truly believe is an appropriate name and identity for me(being the megalomaniac I am). Domain inspiration came from my friend Will, which also included several other “colorful” suggestions.

The website is built on what else but WordPress, backed up by jQuery and the usual suspects. The portfolio is still going to get attention(i.e. — I need to find all that stuff), pagination and some separation. But if I didn’t launch it, I would tinker with it for another few years. So expect a few more features and eye candy in the future.

So what about curtishenson.com?

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes. Well just a few. I always thought this current design was a bit busy and crowded, so I’ll be opening things up and creating white space(dark space?). I’m also going to get rid of everything that doesn’t have to do with a blog or me. A reorganization of content is coming which will also probably mean some more regular posting and more RSS feeds so you can tune how high the crap pushed to your RSS reader gets.

There is also going to be a new sub-site which is going to contain all the downloads and side projects I do and maybe even a support forum as the comments are getting a little crowded for Checkmate.

New Projects

Just a quick heads up on some projects. I promise I am going to get started on Checkmate ver. 2.0, which will be light years ahead of the current version, as soon as I get some time. I’ve also started programming a lifestream/tumblelog app in ruby on rails, so look for that in the future.

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!

Here comes Fluid

Fluid is a program(Mac only, see below for windows recommendations) for creating these SSBs. From the Fluid website:

Fluid includes Tabbed Browsing, built-in Userscripting (aka Greasemonkey), URL pattern matching for browsing whitelists and blacklists, bookmarks, auto-software updates via the Sparkle Update framework, custom SSB icons, a JavaScript API for showing Dock badges, Growl notifications, and Dock menu items, and more.

That may sound dry and uninteresting to you at first, but once you see it in action you will start to see the light. Watch the screencast as Todd Ditchendorf walks you through creating twitter and digg SSBs.

Desktop Clients via Fluid from Todd Ditchendorf on Vimeo.

Convinced yet? No? Well you could check out thumbnail browsing or the tabbed browsing demo. This was enough for me to start experimenting and seeing what Fluid could actually do.

My First Impressions

I fired up Fluid and decided to try out Pandora. Creating a SSB is incredibly easy. Enter the address you want, name it, choose an icon. You can use the favicon or check out the flickr group for icons. After the initial setup you have options to customize and make the SSB behave how you like. You can even create a menuextra.

Now I can have Pandora behave more like a program, I can launch it with 2 keystrokes and it doesn’t crash when Firefox will. I used this little app, but it really wasn’t all that amazing to me. My revelation came when I found Grooveshark. This was the perfect site for a SSB. I can launch Grooveshark in a SSB and have an unlimited music library in a very slick iPod like interface.

This is when I realized how useful SSBs are. I quickly jumped online and got Google Reader in its own SSB. Twit live now has its own SSB. And for productivity I added the PayMo service into two SSBs. One SSB is for the web based dashboard and adding things like clients, projects, and tasks. The other is a menuextra I use to start and stop the time tracker. Paymo already has a widget but I don’t like using OS X’s dashboard for anything other than checking weather, so this works out perfect for me.

My Lasting Impression

With so many web apps available the uses for Fluid and SSBs is almost unlimited. I think people like the way “programs” work, and how they interact with a program. Freeing these web applications from the browser separates “internet browsing” from the application which is important to me.

Windows?

Well I know not everyone is part of the Apple cult…yet. So I searched around and found BubblesHQ. Unfortunately this looks much more limited when compared to Fluid so your mileage may vary. If anyone knows a good substitute for windows leave the link in the comments, until then google for “Site Specific Browsers” and you will get plenty of sites to check out.

Whats Next?

If you want to know more about Fluid, I reccomend checking out the website, blog, and feature list. There is also a community around Fluid developing some really nifty scripts. Fluid also supports many advanced features, scripting, and more which I plan on going over in another post.

The Design

I liked some things about the previous design like the color scheme(for now). But I didn’t like the background much, and it left me limited in what I could do. This time around I wanted a “cleaner” look, but not too clean. This proved to be harder than I thought, but eventually I combined two other designs into what you see now. I set out to freshen everything up and give it a good scrubbing and I’m happy with results(for now). I did sacrifice whitespace, almost all of it. I think I may need to address that in the future because I think the site looks somewhat “busy”(What do you think?).

The Layout

This new design uses almost the same grid as the previous designs, but now it actually sticks to it throughout the site. I’ve got some plans for the future and I wanted(needed) a strong grid and to actually stick to it this time. The homepage is now something I’m happy with, it meets all my goals, and I will be able to update the top with my latest projects. The site in whole is much more structured and hopefully easier to navigate now.

The Portfolio

This site used to be my portfolio, but when I started blogging a trashed it. Since then it felt like this site had a bit of an identity crisis. It wasn’t a really just a blog, but wasn’t a portfolio either. I feel I’ve integrated by business and the blog much nicer now. I wanted a flashy portfolio, but simple and effective at the same time. I decided to use some AJAX for it, mainly because I wanted to experiment. The result is a cool portfolio…that barely works at the moment. I’m still working on the kinks and usability issues(like bookmarking) so if you spot any errors(or better ways of doing it) please let me know. It is also pretty sparse over there as I haven’t really uploaded much to it yet.

Cleanup

I still haven’t done my ritual of going through the code and cleaning it all up and making it pretty so the backend is not optimized at this time. In fact the code for this website looks like a monkey grabbed my keyboard. But it works, which is the most important part, unless you are a one of those people that reads the code to see how un-semantic sites are. If you are one of those people(I read web-pages in pure HTML), you might have a heart attack looking at the code right now(give me a week, for your health’s sake). The javascript also will need some attention at some point, but that will likely happen when jQuery 1.5 is released.

Plan It Out

Bimmerfest, ah how I love thee. Tons of nice BMWs and even more traffic, a lot more traffic. Bimmerfest has been going on a few years now, and there is always a traffic jam. I can excuse the traffic outside the event but it is inside the event that gets my panties in a bunch. Whats this got to do with web design? Not a whole lot but I’ll try to relate it.

With some planning the traffic inside the event could be kept mostly flowing. There is a lot of bottlenecks when people are trying to leave and enter at the same time. This can also happen in design. There can be bottlenecks or choke points in navigation, places were clicking stops being intuitive and grinds to a halt, this can lead to visitors getting frustrated and leaving.

Planning out navigation(or directing traffic) will not only prevent choke points but also help you better plan out your website. Visitors will be happy, you’ll be happy, and I’ll get a good parking place at the car show.

Make It Obvious

The next stop on my trip was the Red Bull Air Race, which I highly recommend seeing in person…once. My first problem was when I bought tickets I assumed they were seats, they weren’t, so I had to push through the 54,000 people to get to where I could see. Oh well for me, but if you mislead visitors on your website(especially in sales) they will not be so understanding.

My second problem was finding the place. No directions on the website(which with all the map API’s is inexcusable) and no signs pointing the way in downtown San Diego. I ended up walking 15 minutes to the island because even people from San Diego couldn’t figure out where to go.

So make things painfully obvious! Don’t assume because you know where South Embarcadero Island is that everyone else does. In design this would be akin to mystery meat navigation or links with no visual cues. People would rather have their hand held and treated like a 3 year old than to not be able to find the information at all. So put out your hand, spit shine their cheek, smile, and take them to where they can give you money.

Leave a Backdoor

One thing about Bimmerfest is if you know Santa Barbara and the entrances, you can get in without waiting very long. Like experienced or returning visitors, I know my way around, and can go through the backdoor.

Depending on your type of site, you may also be able to leave navigation aimed at returning users. This way more mature users can bypass the hand holding and get straight to what they want. Keyboard shortcuts are a great way to do this, experienced users will know they are there, but it won’t get in the way of new users.

Sum it up

Plan out traffic whether it be foot, car, boat, or packets on the inter tubes. Make sure you have a plan to handle all the people.

Tell people where to go. Like a sheep herding dog, bark until everyone goes in the right direction. This can be a map, signs, ropes, web addresses, whatever just make sure it is plastered EVERYWHERE.

Template for Sale

I have a WordPress Template for sell on DigitalPoint right now, if you are in the market for a unique design this could be a great way to get a website from me for CHEAP. Check it out now!

Template for Free

You are probably more interested in this one. I am releasing another free WordPress template! It’s name? …CHECKMATE! Yes the theme that was going to charge you for is now going to be free, sorta. By sorta I mean the blog portion of Checkmate is going to be free. It is jam packed with features and customizing options, this is one you will want to “check” out. Look for the release very soon.

Freelancing

I am concentrating more of my efforts into freelancing. This will mean some changes to the site, but probably not much. I also don’t foresee a change in the direction this blog is currently heading content wise.

If you want to hire me drop me an email, leave a comment, or use the form on the about page!

Side Projects!

Can’t tell you much about this, but I am working on a new side project that is sure to make you laugh…or cry…we’ll see about that later! Just thought I’d throw that teaser out there.