Been a couple of weeks since an update. In that time we’ve done a fair amount of support on the forum, and it’s taught us a lot about what people want and how people use the theme. We’re going to be updating the faq to reflect the problems people have had.
Yesterday I made the stupid mistake of upgrading this blog to Wordpress 2.5 without making any backups, and something went wrong so the blog stopped working for 20 minutes. Thankfully it was simple to fix (reupload the files) but there were a few minutes of mild panic.
Mimbo Pro Updates
This weekend we spent some time working on the next Mimbo Pro update. It’s our intention to keep the updates few and far between but obviously if important things crop up we’re going to fix them.
This update includes one minor html change, some improvements and bug fixes for the recently open sourced TimThumb, and some changes to the admin to fix Wordpress 2.5 display bugs.
In order to send out Mimbo Pro updates we have set up a Google Group. We did this because the Plimus email system is less than stella, so we are now asking all users to sign up. Hopefully Google will send you all an invite soon, but the invites have to go through a verification process to make sure we’re not spamming people. The group is invite only so have your order number to hand so we can verify it’s you signing up.
We plan to release the Mimbo Pro 1.2 update within the next 24 hours so I would suggest signing up to the group soon as the information for getting the update will be announced there.
More Payments Options
One of the things we’ve been asked for is more payment options. Specifically an upgrade option, and a price for charities. We now support both charities and upgrade. Simply submit a help ticket asking about them and we will send you the necessary information.
When you’re working on your website it is often best to test locally and then upload to your website. Either that or you should have a test site of some sort. Working on your website whilst it’s live is just asking for problems (as I’ve found out a number of times… I’ll learn eventually).
To test on your local computer requires a few things.
- A copy of Wordpress - easy, grab one here
- A decent text editor - I like PsPad but you can use whatever you prefer
- A local webserver - this is the most complicated bit but is worth doing so read on to find out how.
Local Webserver (EasyPHP)
I should probably also point out that this post is a guide for getting set up to develop themes on a pc - sorry Mac and Linux users.
Download a webserver package. You want one that includes a server (normally Apache), and installers for both MySQL and PHP. There are many of these packages around but my fave is EasyPHP (although it hasn’t been updated in a while). Click here to download EasyPHP. If you have one you prefer then please do let me know in the comments.
As the name suggests it’s very easy to use EasyPHP. Just run as you would any other installer and it’s there. Now run the app (start->EasyPHP etc) and yourlocal copies of Apache and MySQL will be started up. You can now browse your brand new local webserver from the wonderfully titled url - http://localhost/
Note - you may find that you can’t start Apache if Skype (or some other network based software) is running. Just turn off Skype then start EasyPHP. You can restart Skype afterwards with no problems.
Once you have the package downloaded and installed you need to get Wordpress up and running so open up your previously downloaded version and extract it to your new local directory (most likely c:\program files\easyphp\www\ ).
Before setting up Wordpress we need to create a database. To do this open up the EasyPHP window and administration. This will take you to the admin panel on your localhost (probably - http://localhost/home/) from there click “mysql manager”, and you will be taken to a copy of phpMyAdmin which has rather nicely been installed for you. From the phpMyAdmin splash page create a new database making sure to remember the db name/
Now you can set up Wordpress using the fabled 5 minute install. Browse to the new Wordpress folder - http://localhost/wordpress/ and follow the instructions. EasyPHPs database defaults are host: localhost, username: root, and the password is blank. You can also enter the name of the database you just created.
If you were currently setting up a proper website then you should create proper mysql users and use nice strong passwords. Since this is for testing locally I don’t think it’s worth the time and effort.
Once complete you are good to go. Just treat the wordpress folder as if it were a remote website folder. You can install plugins, and themes, through windows explorer and start work on your local development. There are however some more changes you can make that will make the whole process even better still…
Permalinks
To make the most of your blog, you really should enable permalinks, which means enabling mod_rewrite on the server. Most web hosts have this turned on, but it’s something you will need to do yourself with your new local server. To do this run EasyPHP and click the “E” on the control panel. Select configuration -> Apache. This will open the httpd.conf file. Now search for and uncomment (uncomment means remove the #) the following two lines.
- LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
- AddModule mod_rewrite.c
Restart Apache, rewrite your permalinks (from the wordpress admin) and you’re all set.
Let me know how you get on in the comments.
Lot’s of people have created Wordpress themes, thousands of people in fact. However only some of them have become popular themes and I believe this is for two reasons.
- Bad promotion
- Bad design
Bad Promotion
How do you get people to download and use your theme? Promoting a theme, especially at the moment since there are so many to choose from, is a challenge.
How do you get people to keep using your theme after they’ve downloaded it? There are so many free themes around that it’s very easy to switch from one to another s the mood takes you.
Making the theme free is clearly an easy option for getting people to download the thing, but if you want people to use it you still have to make it good (see Bad Design) - however getting them to your site, in order to download it is the hard part.
If you do make you theme free then add a link to your own website in the footer so that new users can find you. You can also try submitting your theme to theme galleries and emailing popular Wordpress based sites.
If it’s a premium theme you are releasing then give away free copies for review and hold theme based competitions to try and draw new users in. Anything that will get new visitors to see your theme is good.
Submit your theme to as many theme galleries and Wordpress websites as possible. Basically get as many people talking about it as you can.
Bad Design
Bad design is very much a subjective thing. Different people like different things, and different websites require different types of design. However there are certain things, not necessarily visual, that you can do to take your theme to the next level, and increase adoption rates.
- Make sure you include as many of the Wordpress built in features as possible (widgets etc) and include hooks for popular plugins. Wordpress users love to customise the themes so making this as easy for them to do as possible is always a bonus.
- Keep the theme code clean and as simple as possible. Again, people like customising things. The code doesn’t have to validate, but it’s a good idea if it does, if only for future maintenance.
- Keep colours relatively neutral. If you go for bold colours or schemes appropriate for a narrow audience (your football teams colours for example) then your potential downloads will shrink. Also don’t go crazy with the colours, stick to a single main colour with 1 or 2 spot colours for highlights. Make these colours easy to find in the css so people can customise the theme quickly and easily.
- Test theme with as many different html tags as possible. There will always be people who want to style their code and blockquotes (and even use <b> and <i> even though they shouldn’t) so take care to make their styles look good.