Standard Theme 2 Now Available!

For the past couple of months, we have been heads down, hands designing, and fingers coding the next version of The Standard Theme, the ultimate blogging theme for self-hosted WordPress installations.

Today, we’re proud to announce the release of Standard Theme 2!

There are a lot of changes (even some total re-writes and brand new functionality) that have been introduced into our WordPress theme and we can’t wait to show them to you…

The New Stuff

From the ground-up, Standard Theme 2 has been completely overhauled make sure you have the most powerful, SEO-friendly, customizable theme available.

To that end, we’ve completely overhauled the Administration Panel:

All of the features that you’ve become accustomed to using are still available in our WordPress theme along with a plethora of new options.

For example, from within the administration panel you can now update the overall design of your theme by changing the location of the navigation, the sidebar, and the number of available menu options:

Standard Theme 2 also makes it incredibly easy to customize the look and feel of your blog via WordPress 3.0 custom background images and colors along with WordPress 3.0 custom menus.

Arguably one of the most requested features is the ability to import and export theme settings. Standard Theme 2 has it built in. This means that you can configure the theme on one server and import the settings on another without having to specify every one of them all over again:

For those of you that are particular about XHTML and CSS validation, we’ve got you covered. The default theme and stylesheet are 100% validated by the W3C; however, if you’re eager to try out some new CSS3 effects (such as drop shadows, rounded borders, etc), you can easily bring them in using the new framework option.

Finally, we’ve provided a slight refresh of the default theme that ships with Standard Theme:

You can see all of this an more in the Standard Theme 2 promo video.

Custom Plug-ins

Along with the new set of features, we’ve also introduced some new functionality specifically tailored for Standard Theme.

First, we’ve included our own Follower Count plug-in (which we’ll be releasing as a stand-alone soon) which displays the total number of people following you via Twitter and FeedBurner. The default style is included with the initial download but is easily customizable via the custom.css file.

Secondly, Standard Theme 2 is also aware of when it’s time to upgrade. Simply check out the ‘Theme Updates’ option in the administration panel. If you’re in need of an upgrade, Standard Theme will notify you and provide a link for where to grab the latest copy.

See Standard Theme 2 in Action!

Licensing Updates

A long with the new version, there have also been adjustments to our licenses. Specifically, each license is covered via the GPL and offers concurrent domain use.

The Support License continues to offer unlimited support forum access, free monthly stylesheets, and lifetime updates.

A Special Thanks!

We’d like to extend a special thanks to the UpThemes team for their amazing work on the UpThemes Framework. The new administration panel is based largely on their functionality. We’d also like to recognize that, once again, the GPL and the open source community have made it possible to build out our product.

Finally, we absolutely appreciate our users whether or not you’re a fan on Facebook, a member of the community, or just converse with us via Twitter, we couldn’t have included as many features without your feedback and suggestions.

So, purchase (or Upgrade) your license, hang out in the forums, and let us know when you’ve launched your site! We’d love to have some new material in the gallery.

See you around the web,
The Standard Team