UPDATE 2:
The Theme Viewer and the Theme Park have been merged.
UPDATE:
it appears i did not have the full story. read shadow’s response here
The undersigned » Blog Archive » WordPress theme park
there are a ton of wordpress theme directories out there. blogflux has one, deviantart has a bunch, and then there are the ‘official’ ones, like themes.wordpress.net, and alex king’s wordpress 1.5 theme competition.
As a theme author, my personal favorite is the WordPress Theme Park. here’s why:
- I don’t have to email somebody and wait for them to post it.
- There’s a permalink structure, so i can link back to my theme.
- The themes are host by webdesigbook, so i don’t have to pay for the bandwidth.
- It automatically creates a demo site. right away i got to see my theme running on wordpress 2.0 (even when i couldn’t run it myself)
there are some trade offs, for sure. my author link has an extra <br /> that makes it go 404, and the feed icon doesn’t work on disconnected, even though it works on every other site i’ve seen.
hearing the creator of themes.wordpress.net bitching about the theme park continues to rub me the wrong way. his site continues to be top-down, not community driven, and he has no permanent structure. as a personal annoyance, he seems to have removed disconnected (why, i don’t know, it’s not like he contacted me).
and his objection to ads is completely non-sensical. the only sites that don’t have ads are his and alex king’s theme browser. emily robbins has them, blogflux has them, deviantart has a shitload, johnntp has a column-full, AS WELL THEY SHOULD. they’re providing a service to the community.
and here’s the thing. mr. high and mighty is failing to note that this is an open-source community. people will modify your work to suit their needs. or re-write it. the wordpress theme park is far and away better than the wordpress theme viewer. if he needs to recoup some of that expense, so be it. what he’s providing is better for the community.
10 comments
26 Apr 2006 at 4:07
The undersigned
Thanks a lot for your great comments
26 Apr 2006 at 4:16
sunburntkamel
np, i’m happy to endorse things like this, that i value.
27 Apr 2006 at 1:39
Scott
I totally agree with both of you. I like the fact that I just upload my theme and be done with it. Would be nice if there were a way for us to update/over-write one of our themes we’ve previously posted, but that’s not a big turn off for me.
27 Apr 2006 at 1:41
sunburntkamel
in my experience, the undersigned is _very_ prompt about updating your theme if you email him nicely.
28 Apr 2006 at 12:37
Scott
No, no, you’re totally right. I’ve never had any problems with the WP Theme Park. The undersigned is very prompt indeed. And maybe this way is the best way. Otherwise, I’d be updating my themes on his server every couple days. And we can’t have that.
I do look forward to the mutant child of the WP Theme Park and themes.wordpress.net. Should be pretty slick, as these guys have both put together very good (i.e., useful) sites.
29 Apr 2006 at 10:40
The undersigned
Problems with being able to update yourself is that everyone could do that – I made it this way to ensure that no-one would misuse such a service
But now the theme park is being closed, and im joining the themes.wordpress.net team, me and shadow will work closely together making the best possible gallery indeed
29 Apr 2006 at 10:42
sunburntkamel
yeah, i was going to guess that was the problem. it would mean everybody would have to have a login, so they could be sure no one would monkey with their themes. a la deviantart.
25 May 2006 at 3:14
sunburntkamel » Blog Archive » The Aftermath
[...] what's especially messed up is that after shadow asked for help, AFAIK, the only people to volunteer were myself and scott. and after just a couple hours of prepping themes, i understand a lot better shadows' frustrations. and why he removed my theme for my lack of politeness with the updating. although a well written FAQ in a prominent place would be much better. (the codex deals with how to make a theme work, but not how to put it into the blaw goes fear.) it looks like the back-ported features and the addition of theundersigned from the theme park should make shadows' workload a bit lighter. [...]
31 Jul 2006 at 4:23
dj
Hey all — was hoping that someone could clue me in on a total n00b CSS issue:
I’m trying to customize the Random Image Theme for WordPress, and I’m running into a small — but *incredibly annoying* — problem.
I’m trying to make the background of the content area white. The background of navigation column that runs down the right side is not plain white (FFFFFF). Rather Photoshop’s color picker claims that it’s F9F9F9 — but this isn’t anywhere in the style.css file. There is a .alt that has a background set at F8F8F8, but when I change that to FFFFFF, it doesn’t help.
Where is that shading coming from?
many thanks…
31 Jul 2006 at 4:21
adam
it’s burned into the background image