The first customization for Standard Theme 2 has been released! Take a look at Mosaic:
Mosaic consists of a single CSS file along with one background image. It’s lightweight, leverages a couple of CSS3 features, and was created by one of the community members Adam Neely.
You can grab your copy over in the forums!
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…
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.
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.
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.
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
We’ve just published Simple Standard to the Community Forums. Check it out:
You can see it in action here.
This particular customization a child theme that ships with the custom styles, image, and even an installation and setup guide.
Enjoy it!
Although it’s been available in the forums for Support Licensees for a few days, we’ve just publicly released Standard Theme v1.1.1!
This is primarily a bug-fix release in that it addresses a few compatibility issues with WordPress 3.0 and some minor issues with page titles and search-engine-optimization.
If you’ve already purchased Standard Theme and the Support License, then you upgrade is waiting in the forums. If you’ve purchased a copy of the Standard License, please contact me; otherwise, grab a copy and join the community!
Once you’ve got a copy of the theme, follow the usual procedure for installing a WordPress theme by navigating to the Themes control panel in the WordPress administration area. From there, click on the “Install Themes” tab followed by the “Upgrade” link.
Note that this will not overwrite your existing Standard Installation so you can roll back if you’d like. Once it’s installed, you may want to copy your custom.css file from the first version of the theme in order to maintain your changes. Other than that, you should be good to go.
Thanks for choosing Standard – See you in the forums!
One of the nice things about the community forums is that there is a wide array of users bringing their own level of experience to the boards. Some offer great CSS tips, others offer help with PHP or HTML, and others suggest anything from JavaScript to how to get up and running with the theme.
But there are a couple of users that consistently go above the usual answer and offer solid tutorials (complete with pictures, no less) for how to achieve certain things within Standard.
Lately, Michael Novotny has been absolutely killing it in the forums.
In the last two weeks, he’s provide a step-by-step guide for how to install jQuery plug-ins so that they’ll not only play nicely with Standard but they’ll make a transition whenever you upgrade the theme. He’s also provided a short, yet incredibly useful guide for those who are new to WordPress on how to install Standard Theme.
In the future, we’ll be looking to highlight other users that are consistently rocking the forums.
See you guys there,
Tom
We’ve just published our latest Standard Theme customization in the forums. Checkout Monochrome:
This customization is a minimalistic, clean design that leverages a few minor features of CSS3 (although it still looks fine in browsers that do not support the features).
For all Support Licensees, you can grab a copy of this month’s customization, The Wiseman Theme, over in the community forums.
Special thanks to Jordan Wiseman for creating and contributing his work to Standard!
We’re proud to announce the release of Standard Theme v1.1. We’ve introduced a number of fixes as well as several new features. Check out some of the highlights in the following screencast:
Check out the full rundown of everything that’s bundled into this release after the jump!
If you’ve already purchased Standard Theme and the Support License, then you upgrade is waiting in the forums. If you’ve purchased a copy of the Standard License, please contact me; otherwise, grab a copy and join the community!
Once you’ve got a copy of the theme, follow the usual procedure for installing a WordPress theme by navigating to the Themes control panel in the WordPress administration area. From there, click on Add New and then opt to upload the theme.
Note that this will not overwrite your existing Standard Installation so you can roll back if you’d like. Once it’s installed, you may want to copy your custom.css file from the first version of the theme in order to maintain your changes. Other than that, you should be good to go.
Thanks to everyone that’s been using Standard, giving us feedback, and helping us to continue making this the best coded WordPress theme ever.
One of the goals that we had in mind when creating the Standard Theme was not only to provide the most SEO-friendly, solid codebase possible, but also to make it incredibly easy to customize the theme.
Obviously, the default theme is simple. This is by design. Sure, you can make minor customizations by incorporating your own header, your relevant social icons, and your own sidebar widgets, but the power of Standard lies in the custom stylesheet.
When it comes to making Standard your own, this is where it happens. You’ve got total control on how you can style the theme. Many people have already taken advantage of it. Additionally, future releases of Standard Theme won’t overrwite your existing custom stylesheet so you don’t have to worry about your modifications being lost.
If you’ve got a sweet customization, share ‘em in the forums, share it in the comments, or tweet us. We’d love to add a few more to the showcase!
Over the last few weeks, we’ve had an enormous amount of feedback about Standard and we appreciate all of it. In order to help answer a few of the most common questions that we’ve seen, check out the new FAQ.
Remember that if you have any questions prior to purchasing the theme that aren’t mentioned in the FAQ, contact us!
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