A New P2
The New P2
For those of you who haven’t yet tried it, P2 is an awesome micro blogging theme with quick front end posting, live ajax updating, and inline threaded comments. It already packs a big punch.
P2 Options Page
So how can an already great theme be taken to the next level? That was the task of Team 34 at this year’s Automattic retreat.
One of the first areas we thought could be improved was the ease of customization. Most people like to add their own personal touch to a theme, currently P2 is hard to customize beyond the standard design. We’ve added new options to allow you to hide the sidebar and even set a unique header image. All these options allow you to personalize your own P2 to match your tastes.
Post Types
We’ve also introduced post types into P2. Now you can post different types of content and have them formatted and displayed in a way that fits the content beautifully. There are settings for standard posts, single images and galleries, as well as links and quotes. Selecting which post type to use is as simple as clicking the correct tab above the post box.
P2 Single Column View
We also decided to go a step further and rework P2 so that it could easily be used as a parent theme and extended with child themes. This will allow theme designers to create awesome new theme designs without having to duplicate all of the existing P2 features. We’ve streamlined the HTML of the theme so that it is much more flexible for creating new designs using CSS. We’ve also added a large number of template based hooks that will allow plugin developers to hook into the theme and output extended functionality.
The new P2 theme is now live on WordPress.com, and also available for download from the WordPress.org theme repository. However for .org users, P2 requires WordPress 2.9 beta or greater.
New Theme: DePo Square
Today we’re bringing you yet another theme designed by Derek Powazek: DePo Square.
This theme looks great! Minimal, simple, yet unique. But, it doesn’t stop with great design. This theme comes with a seriously cool feature: post types.
Map your categories to one of five pre-defined post types — Post (default), Status, Quote, Link, or Photo — and your content will be displayed in a format special to those types.
Just select your category mappings by visiting the “Current Theme Options” under “Appearance.” No CSS or other formatting is necessary. However, if you have the CSS Upgrade you can definitely tweak those styles to your heart’s content.
You can set your widgets at the top of your blog, including special widgets just for your statuses and Flickr stream. The DePo Square Flickr Widget is formatted just right for this design.
A "Link" Post Type
Mapping Categories
Imaginative CSS
I’m constantly finding sites on WordPress.com that leave me happily surprised. I ran across Wir sprechen Online a few weeks ago and just kept coming back to it. For both the content and the design.
Wir sprechen Online is a P2 powered blog written in both German and English with content ranging from tech tid-bits to personal posts. Aside from the great content, I love how the site has taken advantage of the CSS Upgrade. The customized header, tweaked colors, and other nice little edits have really given the page a face of its own. It never fails to impress me what a little CSS can do – a little goes a long way.
Custom CSS Revisions
Customizing your theme just got easier! The Custom CSS Upgrade now provides the ability to save revisions of your code and uses the same engine that WordPress uses for post revisions.
If you currently have the CSS upgrade, you can see this in action by logging in to your WordPress admin and going to Appearance->Edit CSS. Click the “Save Stylesheet” button. You should now see the Post Revisions box below the preview and save buttons. Note: the revisions box will appear on the CSS editing screen only after you have saved at least one revision of the CSS.
If you click on one of the links in the CSS Revisions box, you will be able to visually compare different versions of your CSS.
If you’ve ever considered the CSS upgrade, now’s a great time to take the leap. With this new CSS revisions feature, you’ll be able to make changes to the look of your theme without worrying about losing earlier versions, and can see how CSS changes will affect your blog’s appearance. To get the upgrade and start editing your theme’s CSS today, just log in to your WordPress.com Dashboard and click on Upgrades in the upper left menu.
*Not sure what we’re talking about? Here’s a short description of what you can and can’t do with CSS on WordPress.com.
Update:
Custom CSS will now save your preview revisions while in free trial mode. Now you can see the revisions in action before purchasing the upgrade.
Custom CSS Revisions
Customizing your theme just got easier! The Custom CSS Upgrade now provides the ability to save revisions of your code and uses the same engine that WordPress uses for post revisions.
If you currently have the CSS upgrade, you can see this in action by logging in to your WordPress admin and going to Appearance->Edit CSS. Click the “Save Stylesheet” button. You should now see the Post Revisions box below the preview and save buttons. Note: the revisions box will appear on the CSS editing screen only after you have saved at least one revision of the CSS.
If you click on one of the links in the CSS Revisions box, you will be able to visually compare different versions of your CSS.
If you’ve ever considered the CSS upgrade, now’s a great time to take the leap. With this new CSS revisions feature, you’ll be able to make changes to the look of your theme without worrying about losing earlier versions, and can see how CSS changes will affect your blog’s appearance. To get the upgrade and start editing your theme’s CSS today, just log in to your WordPress.com Dashboard and click on Upgrades in the upper left menu.
*Not sure what we’re talking about? Here’s a short description of what you can and can’t do with CSS on WordPress.com.