I’ve been hard at work these past couple of weeks putting together several new WordPress goodies for everyone. I’m pretty excited about some of the results I’m getting with the work I’ve been doing. Here are some things to look forward to this month:

• Unveiling of a new super image script.
• Structure theme update.
• Options theme update.
• Random quotes plugin.
• Project M.

New image script

I wanted to write about this first because it ties into both of my theme updates.

Traditionally, magazine- or CMS-type blog designs require you to enter image URLs through custom fields. Many users find this difficult or time consuming (I don’t personally think it’s too time consuming, but I’ve probably used custom fields a few thousand times for this).

With this new script, you’ll never have to use custom fields for your thumbnails, feature images, and so on. However, it’s fully compatible with the custom field keys you define.

With one line of code in your theme template files, you’ll have this power at your disposal.

Basically, the code checks to see if you have any custom fields with images defined. If not, it pulls the first image from any images attached to the post. There’ll be more about this in the days to come.

I’ll probably write a full post on this sometime soon and offer it for download. Options and Structure theme users will have this packaged in with their theme.

Structure theme update

It’s long overdue, but I’m finally updating this thing. This is still my most popular theme, and quite a few users have been looking forward to an update. So, I’ll have the update ready within the next couple of days. Here’s what you can look forward to:

• Some Options theme “options” and widgets ported over.
• Rethinking of the way we use widgets in WordPress themes.
• Optimized code.
• Plays nicer with other plugins.
• Use of the new image script mentioned earlier in this post.
• Gravatar-ready.
• Fully WordPress 2.5 compatible.
• Print stylesheet.

Structure is still my favorite theme because it was the first time I felt I had created a masterpiece with theme development. I’ve put a lot of love and care into this update.

Options theme update

I’m always working on this theme, almost every day. I’ve been listening to users and seeing how they use the theme. Here’s a list of some new features of the update:

• Theme template files look like “normal” WordPress themes, so you’ll be able to easily edit them.
• Inclusion of the new image script mentioned earlier in this post, which will make uploading images so much sweeter.
• Works a lot nicer with plugins, especially those using JavaScript.
• Using the new WordPress gallery feature, I’ve implemented a Flickr RSS plugin-like stream of your latest gallery post.
• Category cloud (like the tag cloud).
• Author cloud.
• New sidebar tabs options.
• New options for the Recent widget.
• Print stylesheet.
• And more…

You won’t be disappointed with this upate (for WP 2.5+ users). At last count, I’ve cut out approximately 332 lines of code and 24 useless functions, making the theme faster and and easier to use.

Random quotes plugin

I’ve had about 90% of this plugin finished for weeks now. I just haven’t gotten around to completing it because of all the other work I’ve been doing.

It’ll come with some really nice options, such as the ability to customize how each quote is output and show quotes from different categories/topics.

If you feel like contributing quotes, I’ll be happy to add them and add a link back to you as a contributor. Right now, I have 6 categories of quotes, which are literature, film, individual, art, life, and friendship.

If you really want to help out with this, you can send over a text file with the quotes ready for the plugin by wrapping them in this code:

$quotes[] = array("This is a quote.","Author Name");
$quotes[] = array("This is a quote.","Author Name");
$quotes[] = array("This is a quote.","Author Name");

Or, you can just send me any quotes you’d like to see added.

Project M

Some of you may recall in both a January and December post I mentioned Project M.

Originally, the M stood for March. Well, I didn’t quite get around to that. Since it’s still May and there are no other months that begin with M left this year, I’ll have to unveil Project M this month.

Without giving away too many details, here are some things involved with this project.

• More free WordPress themes.

Okay, that’s only one thing, but it sounds good, right?

Basically, it will be my step into monetizing WordPress while giving users the same things I’ve always given with full support.

Don’t ask me how I’ll monetize this thing. However, feel free to make guesses and discuss in the comments. I’ll unveil this project as soon as I finish the aforementioned projects.

That’s a lot of stuff

Yes, I’ve been quite busy, which is why you haven’t seen a lot of new WordPress themes lately. They’ll be coming very soon.

Feel free to comment on any of the projects and share your ideas.

There are also idea threads running in the forums for the Options theme and Structure theme. So, if you have ideas, now’s the time to let me know.

We’ve learned how to spruce up our comments sections a bit with the first part of this series. Now, we’ll cover an about the author section for single posts.

I think this will mostly be useful for blogs and sites with multiple authors because you might want to tell more about who is writing the post.

The “About the Author” section is generally a short blurb about the author of the post that you’ll see at the end of posts of multi-author blogs. This is a way to show a little bit of the personality of the writer and connect with readers more.

Of course, I’m assuming that you either have a gravatar or know what one is.

Here’s what we’ll cover

First, I’ll show you how to put together a very basic “About the Author” section on your single posts using some of the same techniques from the first tutorial.

Then, I’ll show you some extra things you can do for personal gravatars that are unique to your site.

Writing your about section

The first thing you need to do (aside from getting a gravatar) is writing your about section.

In your WordPress dashboard, click on the link that says “Users.” You’ll see a list of all the users for your blog. You can either click “Your Profile” at the top or find a specific user from the list that you want to edit. On the next screen, scroll down the page and look for a section titled “Biographical Info.” This is where you’ll write your short blurb.

Once that’s done, click “Update Profile.”

The basic “About the Author” section

Now, you need to open the file single.php in your current theme folder. All themes are a bit different, so I can’t tell you exactly where to put it, but it should be after your post content and before comments_template();

Here’s the easiest code possible you could put in that area:

<div id="author-box" class="section">
	<h3 class="section-header"><?php _e('About the author'); ?></h3>
<?php
	$author_email = get_the_author_email();
	echo get_avatar($author_email, '80', 'wavatar');
?>
	<h4><?php the_author_posts_link(); ?></h4>
	<?php the_author_description(); ?>
</div>

You can change the word “wavatar” to default, identicon, or monsterid. See the gravatar blog post to read about these options. I just like wavatars the best.

Now, if the author of the blog post has a gravatar, then their personal gravatar will appear. If not, they’ll get a funny looking character.

Special avatars for authors without gravatars

Maybe you don’t want to show any of the default gravatar icons for authors without gravatars. So, we’ll just give them personal avatars for your site.

You’d need to upload an image with the author’s user login name to a folder called “images” in your theme. For example, if you had a user with a login name of “mohawk,” you’d give him an image of mohawk.jpg. Of course, you could alter these things to suit your needs.

This only requires a couple extra lines of code and a small change:

<div id="author-box" class="section">
	<h3 class="section-header"><?php _e('About the author'); ?></h3>
<?php
	$author_email = get_the_author_email();
	$author_login = get_the_author_login();
	$avatar = get_bloginfo(stylesheet_directory) . '/images/' . $author_login . '.jpg';
	echo get_avatar($author_email, '80', $avatar);
?>
	<h4><?php the_author_posts_link(); ?></h4>
	<?php the_author_description(); ?>
</div>

If this doesn’t seem to work correctly, try using get_the_author_id(); instead of get_the_author_login();. Then, you’d need to change the names of the images to the IDs of your authors.

Giving everyone personal avatars

Let’s presuppose that you don’t want to use the Gravatar service for this at all. You might still want to add user avatars for your site and host your own images. Using the techique from the last section, placing individual images for each author in the “images” folder, here’s how you’d do that.

<div id="author-box" class="section">
	<h3 class="section-header"><?php _e('About the author'); ?></h3>
<?php
	$author_login = get_the_author_login();
	$avatar = get_bloginfo(stylesheet_directory) . '/images/' . $author_login . '.jpg';
?>
	<img src="<?php echo $avatar; ?>" alt="<?php echo $author_login; ?>" class="avatar" />
	<h4><?php the_author_posts_link(); ?></h4>
	<?php the_author_description(); ?>
</div>

Styling this thing

As with any theme, there’ll be major differences in how things are displayed. I’ve given you an ID of “author-box” to work with. Here’s how one might style it. You’ll have to adjust these values to for your theme.

#author-box {
	width: 568px;
	padding: 10px;
	background: #f7f7f7;
	border: 1px solid #eee;
	}
#author-box .avatar {
	float: left;
	width: 80px;
	height: 80px;
	}

More to come!

Now, we have two different techniques that we can use our gravatars for. Is there more we can do? Yes, there is. I’ve got at least two, possibly three, more tutorials in mind for this series.

So, stay tuned. There’s more to come.

If you need help with this and need to post large blocks of code, try to use the forums as it’s much easier to post and read code there.

I have the day off since it’s Children’s day out here in Korea. It was nice to just get up and take a walk this morning though. Here’s a few pictures from the area I live in.

You can view the larger images by clicking on the thumbnails. You can go to the image’s page by clicking the caption, even leaving a comment on individual images.

I might make this gallery thing a more permanent feature here on the blog. I haven’t decided whether to make it a post or static page thing yet. Mostly, I need to start sharing some pictures with the family.

Let me know what you think.

I’ve been playing around quite a bit with the gravatar feature for WordPress since it now comes built in. I’ve learned a few things, so I figured I’d share them with you.

From this point forward, I will assume you know what a gravatar is. WordPress 2.5 comes with built-in gravatar support. If you’re using an earlier version of WordPress, you’ll need to modify the code in this tutorial and use the gravatar plugin.

For the first part of this series I’ll go through some techniques you could use to spruce up your comments section. Some of you may notice that there are four distinct types of avatars used in my comments section:

1. My avatar: My personal avatar I can change from my site.
2. Gravatars: User gravatars if a user has one set up.
3. Wavatars / Indenticons / MonsterIDs: A gravatar that is used if a commenter doesn’t have a gravatar.
4. Trackback / Pingback avatar: The avatar I use for trackbacks and pingbacks, which help separate them from normal comments.

Setting up our comments section

The first thing you want to do is find your normal comment section in your theme’s comments.php file, which should begin something like this:

<?php
echo '<ol class="commentlist">';

// Alternate comment classes (bg colors)
	$odd_comment = 'alt';

foreach ($comments as $comment) :

For the next section, we need to set up a few variables that we’ll use later, which are the comment author’s URL, the type of comment (comment, trackback, or pingback), and include a funny-looking default avatar, which I’ve set to “wavatar.”

According to the Gravatar blog, there are four settings you can change your default gravatar to, which are default, identicon, monsterid, and wavatar. I’ve chosen wavatars because I think they’re a bit more fun.

// Set some variables that we'll use
	$commenter_url = $comment->comment_author_url;
	$comment_type = get_comment_type();
	$avatar = 'wavatar';

Now, we need to show those comments.

// Comments
	echo "<li class='$odd_comment'>";
	// Open commenter link if it exists
		if($commenter_url == true) {
			echo '<a href="'.$commenter_url.'" rel="nofollow" title="'; comment_author(); echo '">';
		}

Here’s the part where we get a little crazy with our gravatars.

We want to set up a default avatar just for ourselves that we can change on our on site. This allows us to use our own avatar on our sites but our gravatar on other people’s sites. Assuming you don’t separate trackbacks and pingbacks from the normal flow of comments, you can also give them a special avatar to distinguish them from the crowd. If the comment is not from you, a trackback, or a pingback, then it displays normal gravatars.

You’ll need to change the email address and image paths in this part of the code to suit your needs.

	// Personal avatar
		if($comment->comment_author_email == "averagejoe@mysite.com") :
			echo "<img src='"; echo "/wp-content/uploads/avatar.jpg' alt='Your Name' class='avatar' />";
	// Trackback / pingback avatar
		elseif($comment_type == 'trackback' || $comment_type == 'pingback') :
			echo "<img src='/wp-content/uploads/trackback.jpg' alt='Trackback/Pingback' class='avatar' />";
	// Everyone else's gravatar
		elseif($comment_type == 'comment') :
			echo get_avatar($comment->comment_author_email, '80', $avatar);
		endif;

Now, we just need to close off the open link that wraps around the gravatar and show the rest of the normal comment section.

	// Close commenter link if it is open
		if($commenter_url == true) echo '</a>';

	// Meta data
		echo "\n<div class='comment-meta-data'>\n<span class='comment-author'>";
			comment_author_link();
		echo '</span> on ';
		if($comment->comment_approved == '0') :
			echo "<em>Your comment is awaiting moderation.</em>";
		endif;
		echo "<span class='time'>
			<a href='#comment-"; comment_ID(); echo "' title=''>"; comment_date('M jS, Y'); echo "</a>";
			echo " at "; comment_time();
		echo "</span>"; edit_comment_link('Edit',' <span class="edit">','</span> ');
		echo "\n</div>";
	// Comment text
		echo "\n<div class='comment-text'>\n";
			comment_text();
		echo "\n</div>\n";
	echo "</li>\n";

// Change comment class
	if('alt' == $odd_comment) $odd_comment = 'odd';
	else $odd_comment = 'alt';

// End comment list
endforeach;
echo "</ol>\n";
?>

Styling your comments section

I can’t write a one-size-fits all tutorial on this because everyone’s comment sections are styled differently. This should get you started though. Gravatars are given a class of avatar.

#comments-template .avatar {
	float: left;
	width: 40px;
	height: 40px;
	margin: 0 15px 10px 10px;
	padding: 2px;
	background: #fff;
	border: 1px solid #ccc;
	}

If you noticed above that I set the default avatar to 80px in the earlier code, that’s so that I have a lot of styling options left open later with CSS. You can change the width and height from your stylesheet, which makes much more sense.

Do more with this

On my blog, I’m also using author comment highlighting, which is bit beyond the scope of this tutorial, but you can do the same. You can also separate trackbacks and pingbacks entirely or some other crazy thing that we don’t know about yet.

The whole point is to have fun with gravatars. Let your readers show off a bit of themselves on your blog. Get to know them a little better.

The code above is modified version of what I’m using on this blog, so if there are any typos, feel free to let me know. I’ll update them ASAP.

Stay tuned for the rest of this tutorial series. We’re not going to stop at the comments section.

If you need help setting this up please stop by the forums here at my site. It is much easier to post and read code there than in the comments section of the blog.

It took me a few days and several complete redos of the entire design, but I think I’m finally content with this new theme. I call it Retro-fitted because the colors are a kind of throwback to some past that I certainly didn’t live in.

Giving credit where credit is due

My original design for this was largely based off WordPress with its new design and the Movable Type Blog (Yes, I realize we’re at constant war with the other blogging system). I got my blue colors from the Movable type design and the reddish color from the WordPress design.

I had originally planned to go very open with the theme because I’m a big fan of Theme Shaper’s current theme. I like Ian’s my-design-won’t-get-in-your-way layout. I ultimately decided against the open layout and enclosed the content area. However, I still kept the front page’s fairly big post title font size, which puts a lot more focus on content.

Last — not anywhere near least — Smashing Magazine. Their recent article on the celebration of vintage and retro design made me completely rethink what I wanted to do with the theme. And to think I almost missed this article because I was working on the redesign. Luckily, I took a break and read through some posts from my feed reader and happened to catch the article.

More thoughts about the design

Gravatars
I don’t know how I ever lived without them. After a day or so of using them, then looking at my own blog, I just didn’t want to comment. It wasn’t any fun.

Author highlighting
You’ll also notice that I’ve added author highlighting to the comment section, so you’ll always be able to pick out my comments quickly because they’ll look a little different.

Sidebar
I’m not sure whether I’m happy with the sidebar just yet. I could probably work on it a few more days and get something more suitable. But, I might work on it a few more days and get nowhere.

Internet Explorer still sucks
Especially IE6. Really, the only problem I had with IE6 was PNG transparency issues. If only everybody would get off that browser, I wouldn’t have to support it with my designs.

Let me know what you think

Do you like it? Hate it?

Overall, I’m happy with it because I needed something fresh. Blogging can sometimes get boring, so we need to spruce up our sites once in a while. I wanted to go with something lighter and a bit more fun. I think I at least accomplished that.

I haven’t ported the theme over to the forums yet. Look for that in the next few days. Once that’s done, you all can look for some more of your regularly scheduled WordPress stuff.

WordPress theme developers. Pay attention.

Ian Stewart just created the “we need to kill the sidebar bandwagon,” and it’s about time you all hopped on.

The basic idea is that with all the things we can do with widgets, it makes no sense to call these widgetized sections sidebars at all. Why would we call a footer or a header widget area “Footer Sidebar” or “Header Sidebar”? You can even vote on this idea.

Since a few of you requested it, I’ll give you a tutorial on how to take full advantage of WordPress 2.5’s new widget interface.

The setup

This is totally new code straight from the development versions of my old and new themes.

The first thing you need to decide is what you want to widgetize. For the sake of this tutorial and the No Sidebar Bandwagon, let’s pretend our theme has no sidebars at all. I’ll try to avoid using the term “sidebar” as much as possible.

I’m going to keep this real simple. Here’s what our page layout will look like:

• Header
• Content Area
• Footer

Each of these sections is widgetized. Take a look at what the setup of the basic page and widget panel will look like (click images for larger view):

Adding widgets to the widget panel

Now, we need to put together a bunch of widgetized areas for our widget panel in the WordPress dashboard. Typically, we’ll put these in the functions.php file of the theme we’re using.

I’ve found the best way to do this, which is a lot less coding, is to create an array of all the sidebars we want to use. Plus, it’s much cooler.

Note: This tutorial uses text strings that are ready for localization.

<?php
/*****************************************************
Pimp out this page with an endless amount of widget sections.
*****************************************************/
if(function_exists('register_sidebar')) {

// Create widget names and put them in array
	$my_widget_name = array(
		__('Home Header'),
		__('Home Content'),
		__('Home Footer'),
		__('Single Header'),
		__('Single Content'),
		__('Single Footer'),
		__('Archive Header'),
		__('Archive Content'),
		__('Archive Footer'),
	);

// Define how we want our widgets to display
// Replace ridiculous list items with custom style
	foreach($my_widget_name as $my_widget) :
		register_sidebar(array(
			'name' => $my_widget,
			'before_widget' => '<div class="section">',
			'after_widget' => '</div>',
			'before_title' => '<h2 class="section-header">',
			'after_title' => '</h2>', ));
	endforeach;
} ?>

If that seemed a bit complicated, let me break the process down a bit. We’re first creating an array of all our widgetized sections. The reason we’re doing this is because we don’t want to have to write the second part of the code over and over and over. So, for the second part, we just loop through each widget section and register it.

Displaying your widgets on your blog

I’ll show you how to display this for your header section. It will be basically same for each of our sections.

<?php
/*****************************************************
Creating our pimped out widgetized section.
*****************************************************/

// If on the home page
// Need to use is_home() for WP versions older than 2.5
	if(is_front_page())
		$my_widget_id = __('Home Header');
// Single posts
	elseif(is_single())
		$my_widget_id = __('Single Header');
// Archives
	elseif(is_archive())
		$my_widget_id = __('Archive Header');
// Default to Home widget section
	else
		$my_widget_id = __('Home Header');

// Display the widgetized area
	echo "<div id='header-widget-section'>";
		if(function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar($my_widget_id)) :
		else :
		// Default to Home widget area if nothing is set in the widget panel
			if(function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar(__('Home Header'))) :
			else : _e('Add content to your widget section through the widget control panel.');
			endif;
		endif;
		echo '</div>';
?>

Widgetize your site!

Now, you have the basic tools to widgtize your site in any way you want. You could create widgets for any section of any page you’d like. You could build a three-column all widget theme if you wanted. The only limit here is your preconceptions of what widgets are and what they can do.

WordPress’ built-in conditional tags are your friends. Use them.

If you’re using my Options theme, then I have a special tutorial for making many sidebars.

I encourage you all to start thinking about what more we can do with this.

• Description: This plugin replaces the default gallery feature in WordPress 2.5 with a valid XHTML solution and offers support for multiple Lightbox-type image scripts.
• Version: Updated to version 0.3.2!
• Support: Support forums

• Download version 0.3.2 Tested with WP 2.5.1 (819 downloads)
• Download version 0.2.3 Tested with WP 2.5

Why I made this plugin

So you upgraded your WordPress blog to the nifty new 2.5 only to use the gallery feature that Matt Mullenweg has been raving about.

Now, you upload that first set of pictures to only find that there are a lot of problems:

• The gallery shortcode outputs invalid XHTML.
• It injects style rules in the middle of the page.
• Even when you specify to use the thumbnail, it only resizes your image, which causes some problems with page load times. (Fixed in WP 2.5.1)
• You’re happy that you have the new feature but are still a bit unsatisfied.

What does this plugin do?

Here’s a list.

• Creates valid XHTML, which I know you all care about.
• Uses the image that you specify. It doesn’t just resize your very large images.
• Let’s you control the display of your images through CSS.
• Supports Lightbox.
• Supports Slimbox.
• Supports Thickbox.
• Supports Lytebox.
• Supports Lightview.
• Supports GreyBox.
• Supports jQuery Lightbox Plugin (balupton edition).
• Supports jQuery Lightbox.
• Supports Shutter Reloaded

You want to see this in action, right?

Since I knew this thing would be very different across multiple themes, I decided to test it out on a few. Actually, I only have a few themes that aren’t mine, so I decided to use a few of those. You’ll see examples from:

• A very popular K2.
• My favorite Small Potato theme, Peaceful Rush.
• One of my more recent favorites from Ian Stewart, Theseus.
• And, a theme I designed for my sister called Colorful Notes.

(Click images for a larger view. Click on the captions to go to the attachment page. The examples are from the alpha version but work nonetheless.)

I think the biggest problem one could run into here is if they’re using a lot of padding or margin on their images. You might have to go into your CSS file and change that if needed.

Instructional stuff

Just unzip the cleaner-gallery.zip folder and upload the cleaner-gallery folder to your /wp-content/plugins folder just like any other plugin. Make sure to activate it.

Basically, this plugin just overwrites the gallery code that the WP team gave us. There’s documentation on using the gallery shortcode available.

The gallery comes ready to use Lightbox or Slimbox “out of the box.” It doesn’t actually come packaged with either. I assume that you’ll figure out how to use them. You can easily configure the plugin to use which Lightbox-type JavaScript you’re running. The section is marked off like this in cleaner-gallery.php:

/************************************************
Begin user-defined variables
************************************************/
// Lightbox or Slimbox?
// jQuery Lightbox plugin(s)?
	$a_rel = "lightbox[cleaner-gallery-$post->ID]";
	$a_class = "lightbox";

// Shutter?
	// $a_rel = "lightbox[cleaner-gallery-$post->ID]";
	// $a_class = "shutterset_cleaner-gallery-$post->ID";

// Lytebox?
	// $a_rel = "lytebox[cleaner-gallery-$post->ID]";
	// $a_class = "lytebox";

// Greybox?
	// $a_rel = "gb_imageset[cleaner-gallery-$post->ID]";
	// $a_class = "greybox";

// Thickbox?
	// $a_rel = "clean-gallery-$post->ID";
	// $a_class = "thickbox";

// Lightview?
	// $a_rel = "gallery[cleaner-gallery-$post->ID]";
	// $a_class = "lightview";

// Show caption link?
	$cap_link = true;

// Always show captions (use title if caption isn't defined)?
	$cap_always = false;
/************************************************
End user-defined variables
************************************************/

You can comment out or uncomment any of the variables to suit your needs. Just stop by the forums if you need help setting any of this up.

You can also auto-load Thickbox by uncommenting these lines:

// Auto load Thickbox (included with WP 2.5)?
	// wp_enqueue_script('thickbox');
	// add_action('wp_head', 'thickbox_css');

A work in progress

I think this plugin has a lot of potential. I haven’t tested it with every available theme or every gallery shortcode option available. That’s for you all to do and let me know how it performs.

I haven’t actually tested this with itemtag, icontag, or captiontag yet. Of course, I assume most users won’t bother using those options anyway.

As with all other releases, keep praise and adoration in the comments section and support questions in forums (just opened a new plugins forum).

Let me know what features need to be packaged with it, what works, and what doesn’t work.

Update versions 0.2.2 - 0.3
I fixed the issues with multiple galleries on one page. Each gallery item should now have a unique rel and class. Each gallery also has a unique class. For example, if your post ID is 49, the gallery for that post has a class of gallery-49. So, you could essentially style every individual gallery differently.

Also, tested and added support GreyBox, Lytebox, Lightview, and two jQuery Lightbox plugins.

Thanks to Andrew, Dennis, and Perze for ideas and support.

I want to argue the other side of one of the major complaints I’ve read about — the widgets panel. And, I’m the last person one might expect to defend anything 2.5-related after my recent upgrade hassles.

I’m a huge fan of the new widgets panel and have been asking for something like this since the release of my Structure theme.

If you haven’t downloaded WordPress 2.5 or taken a look at the new widgets section, then you’re in for a surprise — the drag-and-drop ability is gone and has been replaced by something entirely different. You now must choose which sidebar/area you want from a drop-down list and wait for a new page to load.

Why defend something that is obviously less usable?

Simple. One of my forum members and I have been discussing this very matter. She needed 50 sidebars for various bands and such. They all needed to be unique. Since this was something I had in mind already, it was easy to get the project set up.

I want you to imagine being able to widgetize anything easily. Now, imagine 50 different widget blocks in the old widget admin panel. Could get messy, right? The new widgets section gives you a drop-down list of your widgetized areas, which sets no limits on how you use your blog.

Here are a couple of pictures you can compare between a WordPress 2.3 and 2.5 install with numerous widget-enabled sidebars to choose from.

(Click the images for an enlarged view of the different versions.)

You’ll notice that you can’t even see the draggable widgets for the 2.3 install because they’re so far down the page you can’t reach them, making it nearly impossible to actually use the sidebars. In the 2.5 install, you can easily choose which sidebar you want. It’s much cleaner.

Cool things you can do with this

You can make widgets for anything and everything.

Want to widgetize your footer? Done. The Cat Photos category sidebar? Done. About page sidebar? Post attachment sidebar? Done and done.

In the next releases of any of my themes, I’m implementing total widget control, at least for the sidebars. Structure theme users will have some extra special options because the theme was built upon this idea.

Here are just the default sidebars I’m adding:

• Sidebar Home
• Sidebar Single
• Sidebar Page
• Sidebar Category
• Sidebar Archive
• Sidebar Author
• Sidebar Search
• Sidebar Day
• Sidebar Month
• Sidebar Year
• Sidebar Time
• Sidebar Date
• Sidebar 404
• Sidebar Attachment
• Sidebar Search
• Sidebar Paged

On top of all those, users can add additional widget areas for any type of page easily. This is only a small sampling of what can be accomplished. All of this is controlled using WordPress’ built-in conditional tags.

What are your thoughts?

We should start thinking about what we can do with this new functionality before reverting back to 2.3. I’m sure the WP development team heard our cries for more widget control. They’ve delivered. Now, it’s time for us to use the power that’s been handed to us.

Some may think this would be a bit “code heavy,” but the sidebar file I’m working with right now is only 2.09 kb.

If you want to check out how I done this for my Options theme, you can read the full discussion. Or, you can beg (in the comments) for me to write a full-blown tutorial on this.

Let me know what you think of the new widgets panel and if you’d still prefer the old one after this revelation.

My blog was down for about three days while I was trying to fix things. Another week of trying to get things pieced together would’ve probably made me crawl to some corner and curl up into the fetal position.

To top it all off, I’ve been “deathly ill” for the last week. My throat is so swollen at the moment that I can hardly talk without wincing, which doesn’t help when your day job is a job where you’re talking the entire time (I’m a teacher for those of you that don’t know).

A special thank you

I do want to point out a few users that’ve helped me out tremendously throughout this ordeal. Groovy and Web Lady, you’ve been more than helpful in the last few days, giving me updates on what’s happening on your end. It helped speed up the process quite a bit.

There are other users that have contributed too, especially on the blog. Unfortunately, I lost quite a few comments, especially on some recent test posts (also lost). I can’t remember who you are but thank you nonetheless.

There are still quite a few pieces stranded

Although I’ve got my blog and forums back up and running, some things are still out of place. I won’t bother with the whys and hows of this though. It just is, and it’ll take some time getting things back to normal.

This experience has taught me a very important lesson — don’t get complacent when it comes to upgrading WordPress.

I upgrade my local version at least once a week with the latest version from trunk and try to routinely keep my theme demo sites updated. In short, I was off my upgrade game when it came time to update this site. I wasn’t fully prepared for problems that might’ve arisen.

When upgrading JustinTadlock.com, I should be more than careful and will be from now on, even if I think I would’ve had the same upgrade results.

Losing a part of yourself

When a blog goes down, especially one that has had so much put into it over a long period of time, it feels like you’ve lost a part of yourself, an extension of your very being. For nearly five years, this blog has been a sort of second home for me. I felt like that second home had been taken away from me.

I’ve always felt passionate about blogging, which is why I develop themes and the occasional plugin to help other bloggers achieve their goals. It’s more than just a hobby to me; it’s who I am.

Just losing some comments hurts more than some may ever know. I consider many of you to be friends and have gotten to know a good number of you on a more personal level. I hate to think that some of your comments have been lost forever. On some days when I’m bored and have a lot of extra free time, I like to browse through old posts and read the comments. It helps put things into perspective, letting me see how far I have come in the last few years, how things have changed, the people I’ve interacted with.

A fresh start

I’ve been preparing for a redesign lately. It’s overdue. I suppose this is as good a time as any to put up a new theme for the site, which I hope to have done within a week.

I also got a chance to finally move the contents of my WordPress install to a subdirectory of my main site, which basically just clears up a bunch of room in my site root.

I’ve got a few plugins in the works too. Some of you noticed the Random Quotes plugin in an image I posted about a theme update.

The second of the plugins is a plugin that uses WordPress 2.5’s new gallery feature. Basically, it’s an extension of what the WP team put together. It’s also the reason I’ve upgraded the site — I wanted to show off the plugin and needed to upgrade. So, trust me, this plugin will be released soon and you will love it. I repeat, you will love it. It’s the sole reason my site has been down for three days.

The last thing on my priority list and certainly not least, is putting more emphasis on actually blogging. I’ve been too wrapped up in designing custom themes and developing free themes and plugins these last few months. Even though my subscriber count is continually rising, I’m posting much less than what I want to. I probably have at least 10 post ideas every day but don’t have the time to sit down and write.

With that said, I’m officially closing down my custom design services. Some of you may ask how I’ll be able to support free themes without making money through custom work. Don’t worry. I won’t discontinue free themes in any way.

I want to close down my custom work because I just don’t have the time for three or four designs at once and running things around here. Of course, I have to have a little bit of a life offline — just a little.

To close off this long post

I want to thank you all for being patient because I know that y’all are very patient people, right?

There’s a lot of stuff that needs to be fixed around here. It’s an unfortunate side effect of my site going down. If something’s not working, just drop a note in the comments or join the discussion on this forum post. I’ll put it on my list of things to update.

Now, I’m off to check my feedburner stats to see how many subscribers I’ve lost in the last few days.